I’ve had a few dreams in which someone shot me with a gun, and it physically hurt about as much as a moderate stubbed toe or something (though the pain was in my abdomen where I got shot, not my toe). But yeah, pain in dreams seems pretty rare for me unless it corresponds to something that’s true in real life, as you mention, like being cold, having an upset stomach, or needing to urinate.
Googling {pain in dreams}, I see a bunch of discussion of this topic. One paper says:
Although some theorists have suggested that pain sensations cannot be part of the dreaming world, research has shown that pain sensations occur in about 1% of the dreams in healthy persons and in about 30% of patients with acute, severe pain.
I’ve had a few dreams in which someone shot me with a gun, and it physically hurt about as much as a moderate stubbed toe or something (though the pain was in my abdomen where I got shot, not my toe). But yeah, pain in dreams seems pretty rare for me unless it corresponds to something that’s true in real life, as you mention, like being cold, having an upset stomach, or needing to urinate.
Googling {pain in dreams}, I see a bunch of discussion of this topic. One paper says: