Can dying in a dream really cause you to die in real life?

[Klaynos]

15 hours ago, Velocity_Boy said:

Actually...what happens in dreams...or more accurately.. Night terrors..can hurt you and even kill you.

All it takes is for the dream or nightmare to be vivid and lucid enough to cause cardiac arrest.

Given the fact that thousands of people who were illness or disease free die in their sleep ever single day on this planet, dream-spurred cardiac arrest is most likely not even all that uncommon.

One out of five alcoholics experiencing Delirium Tremens also die.

Due to cardiac arrest.

DT s are basically bad dreams brought on by the CNS s over heating due to the abrupt deprivation of a depressant chemical....alcohol in the form of ETOH5..that it has been flooded with for a prolonged and continual period of time.

Hope this helps.

This appears to be hearsay. 

I could equally posit that any dream that raises your heart rate that much would wake you up. 

Is there any evidence supporting your conjecture? Even some anecdotes would be good. 

[dimreepr]

4 minutes ago, Klaynos said:

Even some anecdotes would be good. 

Although unlikely, since they're dead 

 

16 hours ago, Velocity_Boy said:

One out of five alcoholics experiencing Delirium Tremens also die.

Due to cardiac arrest.

DT s are basically bad dreams brought on by the CNS s over heating due to the abrupt deprivation of a depressant chemical....alcohol in the form of ETOH5..that it has been flooded with for a prolonged and continual period of time.

It's not the dream state or more accurately delirious state that kills them, it's because they're alcoholics. 

16 hours ago, Velocity_Boy said:

Actually...what happens in dreams...or more accurately.. Night terrors..can hurt you and even kill you.

Some people who suffer from night terrors are able to move in their sleep; so again, it's not the dream that hurts you, it's the ability to move whilst unconscious.

[John Cuthber]

35 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

It's not the dream state or more accurately delirious state that kills them, it's because they're alcoholics. 

Actually, its alcohol withdrawal that kills them. 

it's because they're alcoholics. without alcohol

[Klaynos]

47 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Although unlikely, since they're dead 

 

If this is so common surely someone has survives the cardiac arrest with intervention.

[dimreepr]

34 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

Actually, its alcohol withdrawal that kills them. 

it's because they're alcoholics. without alcohol

Thanks for the clarification, not that it changes my point. 

 

Also, not all alcoholics, that die, as a result, did so through a lack of alcohol.  

[John Cuthber]

3 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Thanks for the clarification, not that it changes my point. 

 

Also, not all alcoholics, that die, as a result, did so through a lack of alcohol.  

I suspect that more alcoholics die from DTs than from dreams.

We won't ever know.

[Velocity_Boy]

10 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

Actually, its alcohol withdrawal that kills them. 

it's because they're alcoholics. without alcohol

Exactly. Thanks for saving me the time to post that very same fact.

[YaDinghus]

On 5/6/2018 at 9:21 PM, Velocity_Boy said:

dream-spurred cardiac arrest is most likely not even all that uncommon.

One out of five alcoholics experiencing Delirium Tremens also die.

Due to cardiac arrest.

I'd rather wager that the vivid dream is a consequence of the process of dying instead of the cause. Now let us let this thread rest in peace

[John Cuthber]

5 hours ago, YaDinghus said:

I'd rather wager that the vivid dream is a consequence of the process of dying instead of the cause. Now let us let this thread rest in peace

I'm fairly sure that the end of a dream- vivid or otherwise would be a consequence of the death of the dreamer, rather than the other way round.

[YaDinghus]

12 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

5 hours ago, YaDinghus said:

I'd rather wager that the vivid dream is a consequence of the process of dying instead of the cause. Now let us let this thread rest in peace

I'm fairly sure that the end of a dream- vivid or otherwise would be a consequence of the death of the dreamer, rather than the other way round.

Obviously the dream - vivid or otherwise - would be over once death has occurred. I was focusing on the dream not causing death, but being a result of the body shutting down permanently, i.e. dying.

I guess if someone fell asleep in an fMRI machine while it was on and died, we could find out. 

[dimreepr]

6 hours ago, YaDinghus said:

Now let us let this thread rest in peace

 

Not every thread dies because it's been fully explored, sometimes it's better to let it pass away peacefully, without argument/intervention. 

[YaDinghus]

46 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Not every thread dies because it's been fully explored, sometimes it's better to let it pass away peacefully, without argument/intervention

Where's a reaper when you need them?

[dimreepr]

9 minutes ago, YaDinghus said:

Where's a reaper when you need them?

Mostly playing poker...

[HB of CJ]

Nobody knows for sure but probably not.  I for one have recurring nightmares where I die or am killed.  I remember the dying but then usually I wake up covered with sweat.  Not fun let me tell you.  My medical doctor knows.  I dream in living color with smells, tastes and sound effects.  Lots of red.  One learns just to live with it.  Memories of long ago and far away.with the injuries manifesting themselves as pain which gets manifested as nightmares.  But ... no complaints.  Just glad to still be here.  

[Kuma Hontosha]

On 5/6/2018 at 12:21 PM, Velocity_Boy said:

Actually...what happens in dreams...or more accurately.. Night terrors..can hurt you and even kill you.

All it takes is for the dream or nightmare to be vivid and lucid enough to cause cardiac arrest.

Given the fact that thousands of people who were illness or disease free die in their sleep ever single day on this planet, dream-spurred cardiac arrest is most likely not even all that uncommon.

One out of five alcoholics experiencing Delirium Tremens also die.

Due to cardiac arrest.

DT s are basically bad dreams brought on by the CNS s over heating due to the abrupt deprivation of a depressant chemical....alcohol in the form of ETOH5..that it has been flooded with for a prolonged and continual period of time.

Hope this helps.

This isn't the only occurrences where dying in your dreams has lead to real life deaths. There have been a number of cases of somewhat similar but more rare diseases people are born with that have led to a few hundred deaths per year where the body actually has asphyxiated in the REM sleep in someone's sleeping patterns that had the same brain patterns as someone who has died in there sleep. Most people scientifically that have read the data have concluded to this being likely that these people died in their dream. While this is still currently being studied, it has been becoming steadily more common in recent years, and there is still no real treatment to prevent this from claiming more lives.

Edited December 8, 2018 by Kuma Hontosha
Grammatical Fixes