Hurting Yourself in Dreams

The thought of hurting yourself should not be something that is on your mind. It is not healthy to think of punishing yourself when you feel that you warranted it because you have done something wrong. To visualize hurting yourself in a dream, whether emotionally or physically, suggests you may be too strict and judgmental about yourself. You feel that you have failed to live up to the grandiose expectations others and yourself may have anticipated from you. Dreaming about hurting yourself suggests that you are baffled and frustrated with your current situation. You yearn to escape, for you feel the world is a cold and hostile place.

Hurting Yourself in Dreams

Therefore, you feel by hurting yourself, you are able to punish yourself for failing to become what others want of you. You may be scared to do it physically in your awake self. As a result, you envision hurting yourself in your dream as a form of release of pent up frustration and guilt. Take a minute, sit down, and think. Although others want you to succeed and achieve high goals, you are human and not perfect. There should be nothing in the world that forces you to resort to hurting yourself.

Hurting Yourself in Dreams

Hurting yourself in a dream may symbolize you feel neglected. You want attention from others, and feel that attention will be received if others realize you are hurt. Sure, you may get the attention of others, but is pity and sympathy what you really want?

Hurting Yourself in Dreams

62 thoughts on “Hurting Yourself in Dreams”

  1. I used to cut myself about every other day on my upper thighs, for years. I’ve been SH free for about 8 years now, but having kids has, I’m assuming, imbalanced my hormones and I’ve been incredibly depressed and wanting to SH again. I think about it daily. I just had a dream I cut my leg several times, and one of them was so deep and lengthy the skin was like a mouth , it didn’t bleed and I just saw white tissue. I began freaking out about how it was too deep and my husband was going to be disappointed in me for it.

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  2. In my dream I felt there where dreaming around me surrounding me telling me to punish myself/hurt myself they where in my head in the dream and it was nightmare like dark and white background and I saw it in 3rd person it was myself in this white room hearing these demons in my head telling me to do it and i couldn’t control myself I felt the no sense of control I watched myself grab a pencil and open my mouth it felt as if the demons where holding my mouth open and I took the pencil with no control and stabbed it into the roof of my mouth that wasn’t the end of it I began screaming louder then the dream itself I felt the pain in my own self as I watched myself put myself in pain because of “demons” I shoved the pencil deeper and deeper screaming more intensively as if I was living it the demons screamed louder saying it was almost over and I kept shoving the pencil deeper and deeper eventually I heard a pop and the pain what finally at it’s highest I’m not sure what happened from there something else did happen in that dream but my brain or myself forgot or blocked it out which is unfortunate because I remembered and now I don’t anyhow I woke up spoke to my dad he said maybe your dream is saying push through the pain I kinda agree but I feel a dark safer life like meaning to it as I was abused and yes I’m sick of this cold wicked world and who blamed me…

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  3. I dreamt that I cutting my throat with a knife and as blood was gushing out I was laughing and recording it on my phone.

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  4. I had a dream last night where a bunch of things were happening (rather long dream; won’t go into details), and at one point I was laughing, and my laugh sounded… annoying. Then I began to feel bad about the sound of my laugh. I guess that kinda represents how insecure I can be about little things (my looks, my voice, etc.)

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  5. I dream about in front of a mirror and I have a knife in my hand. Then I sliced my face and my parents suddenly came to a door then I bragged to them that I sliced my face while smiling. My parents did not care they just said “Okay” with no emotion like they did not care. Then I became sad that they did not even care(Sorry for my bad grammar)

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  6. I had a dream that I purposely slammed my right arm upon rusty spikes/ thorns which snapped off and remained in my arm. I then walked to the beach and began to slowly remove them but some were stuck so I filleted my arm open to remove the deeper spikes. Once removed, I cut out my wrist bone and began to eat my own flesh from my arm.

    This dream has really shook me to the core so I’m curious as to what you have to say.

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  7. I usually don’t remember my dreams unless they have some sort of significant meaning. Last night, I had a dream that I was being forced to cut my thighs with a dagger. I was crying and a man was standing over me watching and, of course, forcing me to preform that act upon myself. It was set in a renaissance era. Like I mentioned earlier, I don’t usually remember my dreams, so most times when I do, I can’t remember the specifics.

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  8. Trigger Warning
    I just had this dream last night. I have harmed myself in the past, like over 4 years ago. I vividly remember being at my grandmas, I was outside in the back yard hidden by a peach tree. I was just slicing away at my arms with a small sharp knife. I remember not feeling anything and I was just crying so I started stabbing my arm. The knife broke off and got stuck in my arm. I had another knife and that one got stuck in my other arm. So then I was kinda like laying on the ground and i was able to pull one knife out and then I started crawling towards the porch. Next thing I remember I was walking into the living room trying to hid my arms. I told her “I think I need to go to the hospital.” while I felt the pain of the knife still in my arm. She grabbed my arms and starting crying and freaking out. Asking me why would I do this again. She never knew I’ve harmed myself in the past before so I was freaked out. Then things kinda faded and i woke up with a heavy feeling in my chest.

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  9. In my dream
    I see a building collapsing
    Heavy wind
    Then I see myself locked up in a room, scared. Then I pick up a knife and start cutting myself
    I start crying then I wake up from sleep
    I have this this every 1am everyday for the past 10 years

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  10. I had hurt my self in the past, I stopped after several month, and my left arm full of wound, yesterday I dreamed about all the wounds opening and I holding the tool, I used to cut my self with and start cutting, I can’t remember exactly what happened, but I remember the feel, horror, dizzy, short breath, fast heart beating.

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  11. my dream was my arms I don’t recall actively cutting by my left lower arm, both shoulders, and left middle upper arm. I had bandage and I was wrapping it up deciding what cuts I need to hide and which I do not. My mind during all this was worried about people noticing the bandages when changing in P.E. I woke up after my lower arm was the only thing left that wasn’t wrapped up

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  12. Trigger warning
    I’ve been having recurring dream where I slit my arm open because I wanted to hurt myself. And I freaked out over the amount of blood the started pouring out of my arm. That I called 911 but I can’t remember anything about the call or anything. In some of the dreams the ambulance comes and takes me to the hospital and stitches me up, and I live. And in the others I die of blood loss. I don’t if I’m having these dreams because I’m a ex-self harmer and doing it my dream is a way of relieving the thoughts I have of doing it in real life or not.

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  13. I just had a very strange dream that felt all too real. I had woken up with a penis and immediately tried to cut it off. I felt an all too real pain that lasted the entire dream. After mutilating myself I looked for friends and family that could help comfort me. Each encounter included me crying, being ignored by those I seeked comfort from, and grotesque images of the mangled penis attached to me. I’d like to clarify that I am a born female and continue to identify as one.

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  14. I had a dream about the cuts i inflicted on myself were open and exposed but it was like i actually felt the pain in my dream which caused me to wake up. Never had a dream like this before

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  15. I had a dream that I was using this huge knife to cut my hand into a more ‘perfect shape’, and I was planning to cut the rest of my body into a more preferable shape, and the worst thing was that I had my whole family encouraging me (I have an amazing relationship with my family). The pain I felt in my dream was so real as well, as soon as I had cut off part of my palm, I woke up.

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  16. I have had a few occasions now where I’ve self harmed in my dream. The situation I’m in (in the dream) pushes me to self harm, and it feels really good. Is this because I’m an ex-self harmer? It takes all my strength to it harm myself anymore but these dreams are making it harder because I get jealous of my ‘dream self’ being able to do it, and all I’m left with (when I wake up) is the anger, frustration and hate from the situation, alongside the joy and relief of cutting myself.

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    • I had the same experience, but sometimes in my dream I’m unable to hurt myself to the extent that I would have when I self harmed. For example, in last nights dream, the situation that pushed me over the edge was in public, and I rushed to find a restroom that I could have to myself, and I was just screaming and punching the wall and slamming myself against the wall because I wanted the satisfying feeling of actually cutting myself but I couldn’t get it. I was still hurting myself, but I just woke up wanting more. It took everything in me to not relapse as soon as I woke up because I just wanted it so badly. These dreams have been happening a lot lately for me.

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    • It was abit of a weird and horrible one, If was at a social gathering where I was the host,doing all the cooking prepping and decorating etc I managed to get 3 large thorns in my thumb, around 2 inches through the top of my thumb and straight inside, in order to carry on with the event to keep everyone happy I had to take them out myself, another part was having 3 women trying to flirt etc but me being in a relationship I just remained civil but ended the talking ASAP and got back to the event

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  17. I just had a dream that I started going into one of my panic attacks (I don’t remember why) where I try seriously hurting myself. I was throwing myself at walls, bashing my head into things, punching walls, and forcing myself not to breathe. In my dream, my former crush, who I have a complicated history with but am still very good friends with, tried to help me and called 911 for me. She was trying to calm me down and offered all the help she could give. When I woke up, I felt a mix of sadness and happiness because she is graduating and I won’t see her for a while after she leaves for college. I texted her telling her that I appreciate all that she has done for me.

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  18. Last night I dreamed of falling over on purpose makjng these weird cuts and holes all over me. But its diffrent because someone tried to help me. A whole lot of people tried to help me but I would only listen to one person, and I dont know who they even are.

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  19. i dreamt last night that i was sawing my own leg off with one of those manual hand saws. i couldn’t do it all the way because my dad came in and saw what i was doing and he asked me what was going on and i stopped. then he gave me stitches on my leg but didn’t say anything to me or ask any questions, he just pretended like it didn’t happen. and i remember looking down and seeing my leg and hating myself for doing that to myself and thinking i looked so ugly and deformed and honestly this dream has been bothering me all day i can’t think of what it could mean.

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    • i had a similar dream but more related to typical self harm for some reason where i started manically cutting my wrists for no reason and feeling absolutely nothing and then when i tried to make it apparent to people as i needed help they acted as though nothing had happened when i had gashes of my arm hanging off. i also felt regret afterwards and thought the scars looked disgusting on my arms but at the same time felt indifferent to the whole situation?

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  20. I had a dream that I was in the car, my parents were in the front seat and my sister and I were in the backseat. I started trying to move these bags between us so she couldn’t see what I was doing, and I dug through my moms bag to get some bandaids. Soon as I was hidden and had everything I needed I started cutting right there in the car and no one knew.
    It was weird that I had that dream because I haven’t cut in a long time. But I’m also not on my meds right now so that could have something to do with it.

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  21. I had a dream last night, about me going to the store with my mother to get groceries. She had to use the restroom, so I waited by the bathroom door with our basket. An old lady came by and sat beside me, and started to talk to me. She was very kind to me, but out of no where she began to scream. She pulled my sleeves up and saw my fresh wounds, and continued yelling. But everyone walked by, like they didn’t care. Some looked over at me with a disgusted face. The lady kept screaming at me saying I was an attention whore, edgy, etc. then my mother had came out, to see what was happening, but she didn’t do anything, and walked away, leaving me alone, like I wasn’t her daughter. I woke up crying, and couldn’t go back to sleep.

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  22. I was looking in the mirror and touching my eye but when I took my hand away I had a black eye. when I went downstairs to my family they didn’t notice I was injured even though it was visible.

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  23. I dreamt about my best guy friend showing me cuts all over his arm, then i looked at my own wrist and noticed u hav a big cut down diagonally. It was very open wound, but with no blood. Earlier that day I had thoughts about self harm

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  24. It’s strange because I typically NEVER remember my dreams. But I remember this particular one pretty well. I was banging my head continuously against a wall and I have no idea why.

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  25. Usually I’m rare to have dreams, but lately I’ve been having dreams about stabbing myself in the stomach. It felt awfully heaven and I can’t have enough of it. Obviously because its just a dream I went as far as ripping open my own ribcage and slicing and tearing off my organs little by little, even decapitating my own limbs. I get so addicted to it until I finally woke up and realized what just happened. Got freaked out a little but because its just a dream ofc I brushed it off. The next week I dreamt the same thing again. And so does the next week. The 4th one tho, its kinda different than usual. This time rather than hurting myself I brought a dead corpse of my bff and hugged it the entire time until it gets cold. After that I burnt it and then I woke up again and since then I never had any more dreams ever again. Weird.

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  26. I continually have bad dreams about hurting myself. I can’t sleep. I keep tossing and turning and waking up all through the night. It’s frustrating! Then i wake up in the morning tired and moody! What does those dreams mean!!

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  27. Friday night I had this dream where I was accidentally pricking myself with a red sphere thumb tack. I don’t know why this was happening, and didn’t understand the dream logic of the dream situation. There was some specks of blood (the resembled the color of of a red-ish pink-ish juice) on the coffee table afterwards, and when nobody was looking…I cleaned it away with a corner fabric of a white bathrobe garment. Hiding dust under the rug I suppose

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  28. People have nightmares of getting killed or just dreaming about their worst fear. I dream about being outside of my own body watching myself sleep and when I do I grab and turn myself closer to where I am and I start hurting myself. Like last night I dreamed of choking myself badly and I was forcing my hand inside my own mouth and I was making myself throw up yet I didn’t loosen up I kept trying to choke myself every time a tried to stop myself I did it harder and shoved my finger in deeper causing me to throw up, making me start choking on my own throw up and being choked by my own self….when I have the dreams of myself I can get myself out I wake myself up and the same pose I fell asleep I’m still in it as if nothing happened, I have other dreams of those…but this time when I woke up I was nauseous and dizzy and trying to catch my breath

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  29. I had a dream my family was yelling at me and I felt like I was going insane and started punching myself. I woke up actually punching myself, well I think, what does this mean??

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  30. I have always had bad dreams but i have never had one about hurting myself well not untel now . I had a dream about cuting my arm very deeply and alot of my dream i was trying to hide it from my family and i was wondering why the fuck did i do this to myself . this is weird because i just stoped cuting my arm about 3 months ago because i realised that it was just makeing me even more sad and my family didn’t even know that i was doing it.So does anyone know why did i had this dream?

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    • Hi Nacoshia, i had a very similar dream. It’s very scary bc when I wake up I feel it almost. I don’t know what it means, but I’d like to know as well.

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  31. I awoke from a dream recently where I realized I was doing major damage to myself. Like a knife would cut through my arm or leg like butter and there wasn’t any pain coming from it. I was very worried in the dream what was going to happen when someone saw what happened but I was so caught up in the fact that it felt like nothing, that I continued to do so.

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    • i did the same thing in my dream! i don’t think i had any motive to it i just kept cutting over and over with no feeling to it at all but it was almost addictive as well. i’ve never cut in real life and that was the first time i’ve dreamt of doing it but after a while into the dream i realized i gashed a chunk out of my arm and was suddenly disgusted by what i had done

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  32. Im a female and i dreamt about like me slicing my stomach then my heart but when i looked down no blood but on my heart i saw two red spots and a blue vein but i think its bc in real life i have something going on with my heart

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  33. Hi when I dream they feel so real.
    I dreamed that my partner who I just left was on his phone doing some shit … and I’ve grabbed the phone ran with it .. smashed it up chucked it back at him. Before he had the chance to come for me… I grab a knife and stab myself all over. I then call my mum… can just say ” mum I just stabbed myself”
    Then I woke.

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  34. i saw the same person of me, i mean duplicate..who gave me a slap on my face, what is the meaning can u tell me I’m worried

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  35. Lately I’ve been having a series of violent dreams, mostly of me hurting myself. Woke up from a dream that I am still completely and utterly shook up by. I fell asleep on my bed next to my laptop. I had a dream where I woke up to look at my laptop and there were long, disgusting shreds of something. I looked for a second and come to realize that they were really long shreds of flesh. What is more horrifying is that..they were MINE. At that point in the dream I realized that my breathing was labored and shaky and for some reason I was laughing. Then I looked down and saw several long strips of flesh that I cut out of my own leg. Then. I actually woke up. This is only one of the many horrors that are called dreams that my brain has been displaying for me. I am afraid to sleep again.

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  36. I got off work around one am and started cleaning my house then got something out of cabinet and seen a weird tiny black sprider crowl out of bag I the get tierd and go to bed the dream was with me a a room kinda dark with me putting a bunch of hooks in my skin it was deep and they were all over my body I hurd something knock at the door so I try taking them out my skin was coming off with it when I was going towards my hand my meet and skin came off I kept screaming and crying then I open the door and start walking through a village it was dirty and could not see anything but felt someone there…

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  37. Had a dream of Saving a person, in the dream i was about the Kick the person but ended up kicking my leg against the wall, boy it was so painful that had to get up and apply ICE on my foot :).

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  38. I dreamt that I had barely gotten a car from my parents, and I was driving home from my school. For some reason, my entire family was visiting at this time, and they never really pay much attention to me. I had pressed on the gas, and ran through a red light and ran right into someone’s car, and flew out the windshield. I suffered extensive injuries on my legs, mostly deep cuts. The only motives I can think of for having this dream is that I had given some really bad advice that day, and that my family gives me below average amounts of attention.

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  39. I had a dream when i was younger that i was sitting in my room. I was sitting down on the floor right next to a knife. I stared at it for a second, then took the knife and proceeded to cut off my right arm. there was no blood or anything, but after i finished i just stared into nothing. For some reason i could see my whole body, laying there staring at nothing. It was so creepy when i woke up from the dream! I’ve never forgotten it since! (P.S, i have a lot of grammar issues in this, i apologize, I’m in a hurry!)

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    • What?! I had a dream almost similar to yours.
      I was in bed. I simply closed my eye and the vision appeared. This was what happened.
      I saw myself sitting on the floor of my toilet with a large knife in my hand. My legs against my chest. I then just start to cut from the bottom of my knee all the way down vertically to my feet. There wasn’t much blood but I saw the meat and a little bone. That same scene repeated about three times. I was so calm at the time but my brain was literally shouting the third time it repeated. I have no idea wtf happened but I forced myself to open my eyes because my brain knows its wrong to have that kind of vision.

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  40. Wow what a weird dream. In my dream i did stab my self in a stomach like 10 times. The dream was taking place in some kind of school i have never been in, and i was some kind of tourist. Alot of what i remember was regretting that i did this also wondering how i didnt die and was hoping that the wounds gonna start healing.

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  41. I do not normally have such serious dreams..I dreamt of my mom taking me back to a mental hospital because i wasn’t eating. And for some reason she have a 6 pack of glass beer bottles. So my mom said you either go in there or we go home. So I dropped all of the stuff I was carrying as did she and I grabbed the beer bottle and ran around not letting anyone take it from me. Then hearing “you can’t open a beer bottle” I smashed it and took a piece of glass and ran to the sink to quickly rinse it and by the time that finished, my mom woke me up for real. In my dream I was planning to hurt myself. But I normally do not dream from my perspective. I normally dream like I am watching it; like a movie. This dream felt so real to me..

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  42. I don’t usually have dreams, but when I do I can’t remember them.
    But I had this dream where I was in an abandoned car lot sitting in the back of a truck with a long metal rod sticking out of my leg, I put it there somewhere before I got to the car lot. And there was a bunch of syringes in my pockets (I’m terrified of syringes). And I remember pulling it out of my leg and it seemed to be a good few inches in there, and I didn’t do anything about the blood or the injury. I just let it bleed.
    Then the next night I had another dream where there was a nasty gash in the same leg. But it wasn’t in the same spot as where the metal rod was but this injury was huge, jagged and most likely infected and I still didn’t do anything about it.
    I may be over thinking it but both snippets of the dreams were very vivid.

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  43. I had a dream that I self-harmed, in my dream I was bullied everyday, physically & mentally. So, dream me decided to kill myself by cutting over the vein, In the dream, I don’t remember cutting myself, but I remember waking up and there was a huge gash on both of my arms with stitches and bandages. I remember that the school kids didn’t pay much attention to the fact that I almost died, but my dream parents did a little bit. Why did I have that dream?

    Yeah, I used to self-harm
    yeah, I was bullied sjnce 3rd grade. (I’m in 10th now)

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  44. I had a dream that my stomach was full of tapeworms on the surface of my skin. (So you could visually see the worms and even some parts of the worms were sticking out of the skin) So I took a knife (it was something sharp) and started cutting my skin and taking out the worms. I remember that when I cut it wasn’t a very clean cut ( so you can imagine a really bad cut) It didn’t hurt at all when I cut myself but it was just really disgusting. It was such a vivid dream that when I woke up I wasn’t sure if I had then or not and I had to check my tummy.

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  45. I had a dream that I was chasing around our family pet(which is a hamster) trying to save him from a bunch of different deaths. First he almost drowned, then he almost got eaten by a dog, then he tried to climb down the drain in the bathtub. After he was finally safe I went outside and just walked around all lost, then a white haired old man showed up. I don’t remember what we talked about but it was nothing abnormal. Then I saw a sledgehammer laying on a log beside me and without thinking I just grabbed it and hit myself in the head with it, expecting to die. But I didn’t even though half of my head was caving in, and I was very confused as to why I wasn’t feeling any pain. So since I was so confused I went inside to ask for a ride to the hospital. I was then woken up by the phone. Was this just some strange meaningless dream or does it have some kind of message in it?

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  46. Well i think its that i’m not accepted and no one wants to be friend for sure and every one is leaving me. i cant stop thinking about the dream so i don’t know what the dream means

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  47. It’s not unhealthy to think of hurting yourself. Everyone has those thoughts. It’s a healthy questioning of your human limitations, pushing boundaries. Acting on them however isn’t. It’s a way to, as you said, relieve a mental burden, to release pent up negative feelings. But keeping all that in is not going to end well. Dreams only help so much. The feelings will only get worse. Talk about them, reason it out, find something that makes you happy, or something that takes you away from where you are. Don’t suffer in silence. I decided to stop well…asking for things, or wishing for things. Basically wanting things in general, I numbed myself to not obtaining what I wanted by giving up on wanting all together. It might not be the best thing to do, but you’ll never get disappointed, you’ll only be surprised with things you couldn’t even imagine wanting.

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