Perception of the pain of nocturnal migraine attacks during dreams

"... my Mother often wakes up after dreaming of a migraine, with a real one. Nasty stuff. I guess the real migraine possibly breaks into her dream, but maybe its the other way around, I dunno."

(Stephen Nicholson a.k.a. The Mighty Ogbo, Newsgroups: alt.dreams, Subject: Re: dream damage, October 9, 1990)

"And also I've 'carried' pain into my dreams -- like when I have a bad migraine, I then have the headache in my dream (and of course I still have it when I wake up)."

(Sandy Santra, Newsgroups: alt.dreams.lucid, April 2, 1994)

"I dream that I'm having a migraine probably almost every night. The best part is that sometimes my brain is nice to me and I dream that someone ELSE is having a migraine!!
In one case I dreamt that we were in a car in the middle of a riot and some poor person was getting his head smashed in, eventually the glass broke and then they started hitting his head against mine and then..... I woke up with a migraine.
Last night, I dreamt of a cute little baby bird who fell out of its perch and hit its head - that's got to be one of the sweetest ways to find out you have a migraine!"

(Fiona Bremner, Newsgroups: alt.support.headaches.migraine, March 31, 1997)

"I too find my dreams influenced by migraines...i usually dream i have a terrible headache then wake up to find it is true."

(Dee, Ronda's Migraine Page, On-Line Journal, January 11, 1999)

"Hi and first let me say Welcome and you are not alone in dreaming that you have a migraine. This happens to me also."

(R. Nelson, Newsgroups: alt.support.headaches.migraine, March 30, 1999)

"This happens to me all the time. I never dream I'm having a migraine if I'm not. Only if I am. Just wish I would dream that I was winning a lottery."

(Starbug, Newsgroups: alt.support.headaches.migraine, March 31, 1999)

"I only dream of having migraines if I really have one. Nights have never been 'safe' for me. (Unfortunately, when I get them at night they are usually more severe. I've always figured it was because I slept through the milder 'warning' phase and got 'behind' the pain.)"

(web worm, Newsgroups: alt.support.headaches.migraine, March 31, 1999)

"... it feels like someone is drilling my head anyway, in fact that is one of my 'migraine dreams' where I wake up to a raging migraine..."

(Tammy Wind, Newsgroups: alt.support.headaches.migraine, July 21, 1999)

"That happened to me this morning. A migraine dream, I mean. yuk."

(Dana Taramina, Newsgroups: alt.support.headaches.migraine, July 22, 1999)

"Last month, during a particularly bad migraine, I dreamt that someone had taken out half my brain with a meat hook, and although I was lying there bleeding I felt much better. "

(acidcat, Newsgroups: alt.support.headaches.migraine, Subject: Propitiating the migrane gods, September 14, 2000)

"Most of my migraines start in the early a.m. (great, huh? Hard to treat!) So if I'm getting a lot of them in a stretch, before I go to sleep I try to give myself the mental message to 'WAKE MYSELF UP' if I perceive pain while I'm sleeping. I do sometimes have a lucid dream where I'm all involved in some adventure and I notice my head hurts. In my dream I find myself telling myself, Uh, oh, this is a dream, and I should wake myself up and treat this headache.
Once in a while, I don't get any 'dream warnings,' however. Wake up with a monster that's too late to completely get rid of. Thank God those don't happen too often (maybe once per month). If I'm having this happen a lot (like in the winter when the big storms back up off the California coast), I have often resorted to setting my alarm clock at some ungodly hour -- like 4:30 a.m. to do a 'Headache check.' At least I can get up and treat it early (I know my headaches happen around that time), recover, and get to work in time so I don't get fired! I hate hearing that alarm go off at 4:30 a.m., but it really is better than waking up with 6:30 with a debilitating one that keeps me from getting to work in time. Damn, the routines we migraineurs go thru!"

(Wildflower, Newsgroups: alt.support.headaches.migraine, August 3, 2002)

Molly Barr, Migraine, 2001. © 2001 Molly Barr (see here)

"For over 30 years I've suffered from chronic migraines, and actually owe my art career to them as I've been forced to retire as a result of the condition worsening to that what is known as a 'chronic daily' disorder. One night as I was awakening from a particular vicious one, I dreamed that I had put my head in a suitcase and was carrying it at my side to keep the pain contained. This image was the result of that dream. It was done in Photoshop."

(Molly Barr, artist's website, August 14, 2002)

"BTW, while we are talking about having migraines and dreams, do any of you dream you are having a migraine. I do and sometimes I wake up with one, other times I awake from the dream and am not hurting at all. Wonder what this means?"

(Lea Jackson, Newsgroups: alt.support.headaches.migraine, Subject: Re: Migraines and Dreams, January 19, 2004)

"On the other hand, I often develop a migraine while sleeping, and feel that pain long before it wakes me. That is no kind of plus at all."

(Tomkitten, Able2Know Forum "Do you dream in color?", January 27, 2004)

"I'm Dreaming Of A...Migraine?! This question is for fellow migraine sufferers. I know it's quite common for migraines to start in the morning while you're still asleep, but only recently have I started to dream about them. In these dreams, whatever I'm doing (setting up a scene for a TV show has to be stopped because, 'I'm getting a migraine'. The dream participants cooperate and I head off to find a dark corner to curl up in. Then I wake up with a killer migraine. (Fortunately, my pain killers are within reach on the nightstand.)

I've had migraines since 1977 but these dreams only started a few weeks ago. Have you, fellow migraineurs had these dreams too? Just curious."

(JinxGarza, Wet Canvas! forum, Subject: I'm Dreaming Of A...Migraine?!, December 25, 2004)

"I have had migraines for the past 32 years. Most of them have an onset somewhere between 4-5:00am. I also dream about them but my 'aura' or warning is that I am horse jumping and each time I go over a jump and land, the pain intensifies! I have trained myself over the years to wake myself up and to go and take my medications. Once I do that and am able to sleep for 1-2 hours, the migraine either goes away completely or is more 'manageable.' I am usually out of commission for 24 hours and then I have a residual headache for another 48 hours. I can usually function at that point."

(JMoonlight Creations, Wet Canvas! forum, Subject: I'm Dreaming Of A...Migraine?!, December 25, 2004)

"Yup I have. I usually dream that I can't find my Imetrex and my migraine is getting worse and worse. Then I find the meds but it doesn't work (in reality it almost always does to varying degrees depending upon how quickly I take it). The I wake up with a killer. So far it only happens when I have a killer. I don't remember having the dream prior to waking up with an average. I guess it's just my brain trying to tell me to WAKE UP before it gets so late that the Imetrex is almost ineffective."

(CharleneN, Wet Canvas! forum, Subject: I'm Dreaming Of A...Migraine?!, December 26, 2004)

"I get them once a month - and I have dreamed about it, too! They always start before I wake up. And the worst part is the last time, in the dream, I thought 'Oh no! I've got a migraine! I have to stop it!'"

(redhotbeads, , Wet Canvas! forum, Subject: I'm Dreaming Of A...Migraine?!, December 26, 2004)

"Dream a little dream of pain - I think I forgot to mention this last time, but the migraine that hit me at a factor 8 the other night started while I was asleep. I woke up around 1 AM after having dreamed that I was having a migraine.
How fun is it to dream you have a migraine, only to wake up and realize that you do have a migraine? Answer: Not fun at all."

(Rob, Xinc's Domain - Migraines, Photography, Technology, other stuff, July 27, 2005)

"Just this morning, I dreamed that I was surrounded by superheroes (complete with capes and outfits), all denouncing current medications for migraine. (One would fly with a bottle of pills and say, 'You must not take a muscle relaxant before bed! You must not take caffeine! You must not take prescribed painkillers!'). I cannot say for certain if I was aware that I was experiencing pain at the time of the dream, but when I awoke I did have severe piercing pain in my left temple, which is typical for me."

(Megan Sara Kingery, Email to Klaus Podoll, August 9, 2005)

"I'm back in florida for christmas. A bunch of us are going to a christmas service. I come home with a migraine (funnily enough, IRL, i went to bed with one... i've noticed this often happens, if i have a migraine in life, i'll often have on in a dream)
I go to bed and wake up in the dream. My head is still pounding, i think about going downstairs to get some more painkillers. I realise i'm dreaming and do a RC, which doesn't work."

(irishcream, Lucid Dreaming Forum, My Dream Journal, August 12, 2005)

"Woke up actually at 5:30 ( not 4 a.m.) from a horrible dream in which I was in Canada for a week and had only one dose of Zomig that I carry in my purse. Couldn't decide whether or not to take it........ when I woke up I had the migraine but I was at home so hotfooted it in to the bathroom and took my Zomig! Its down to about 20% left now I would guess.............hopefully I will be human again by the time I have to wake my kids up............"

(mkc, Newsgroups: alt.support.headache.migraine, Subject: Migraine auras experienced as child, December 12, 2005)

"I've never had auras with my migraines, but I have had dreams where I was suffering from a migraine and woke up to find I really had one. It's like the real migraine had infiltrated the dream world."

(lianeviolet, LiveJournal for Support Group for Migraine Sufferers, Subject: Visual Migraine Auras in Dreams?, March 21, 2006)

Appendix: Perception of heartbeats during migraine dreams?

"Sometimes, when I have an absolutely horrendous migraine or have fallen asleep due to the pills I take for the migraine, I'll dream about sitting near a stream in the dark. I can hear it rushing by slowly.... it's rather soothing actually.... and then I start to hear a drum from somewhere in the distance. I realized that the drum is my heartbeat, and the rush of the stream my blood coursing through my body. Granted, this is an odd migraine dream to have for me - most of them are nightmares of complete pain and distortion."

(Raven Wolf, Newsgroups: alt.dreams, Subject: Re: heartbeats, March 8, 1995)

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