Can Dreams or Thoughts Cause Real Physical Injuries or death?

[LisaL]

If the brain is convinced the body will freeze to death, (for example a dream where a person is stuck in a freezer) it is said the person in real life will become hypothermic and would die, because the brain is convinced of it. (Nocebo effect is well known to scientists and fully accepted) there was a case of a man misdiagnosed with cancer and he died months later of cancer like symptoms. look up 'voodoo death' on Wikipedia. it mentions that case. also a man believed sugar pills were real pills. he overdosed on them trying to kill himself. his blood pressure went very low even though the pills were harmless and needed medical attention (see my link below). This case was mentioned in the Smithsonian Magazine ''Beware the Nocebo effect'' and Smithsonian is a reputable scientific source. There is also the famous story of Nick Sitzman who froze to death in a warm room because he imagined being cold.

The nocebo effect is well known and I know we can't really test for this since dead people cannot tell us their dream but I am curious.

I want to say the nocebo effect is just an old hoax, but it seems it is real - http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-is-the-nocebo-effect-5451823/?no-ist

[LisaL]

I went to Snopes on this one, and Snopes did not call it false;

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/freezer.asp

 

 

Can a person freeze themselves to death by thought?

[pgrmdave]

Can a person freeze themselves to death by thought?

No.

 

On a slightly less pithy note - no. Our thoughts cannot change thermodynamics, especially not in such a way as to lower our local temperature to below that of the ambient temperature. If we could our world would be a very different place (we wouldn't need air conditioning, for one).

[CraigD]

Welcome to hypography, Lisa! :) Please feel free to start a topic in the introductions forum to tell us something about yourself.

 

If the brain is convinced the body will freeze to death, (for example a dream where a person is stuck in a freezer) it is said the person in real life will become hypothermic and would die, because the brain is convinced of it. ... There is also the famous story of Nick Sitzman who froze to death in a warm room because he imagined being cold.

It’s important to note that “it is said” isn’t a citation, and the story of Nick Sitzman is, according to this snopes article, a legend – that is, one of many similar stories that have been passed around as factual, but which no valid citation to a verifiable example exists.

 

Snopes is a pretty well-researched urban legends research resource, so I’m inclined to accept that if its operators haven’t been able to find any evidence that it’s possible for a person who believe they are freezing to death when they are not to freeze to death, I wouldn’t be able to, either.

 

(Nocebo effect is well known to scientists and fully accepted)

The Nocebo effect, and more broadly, the placebo effect, is certainly an accepted medical science term, but it’s important to note that there’s no strong consensus on the many details of the effect, such as how effective placebos are at treating minor and major disorders, how severe adverse reactions to nocebos are, or the now, physiologically, these effects occur.

 

Placebo effect research is technically, ethically and theoretically problematical. Technically, the placebo effect is difficult to design experiments to test, and is usually much weaker than direct drug effects. Treating people with placebos instead of an actual drug is ethically worrisome, because the lack of the actual drug may harm them. Theoretically, I know of no compelling physiological theories that explain how the placebo effect works, in large part because such theories would need to deeply explain how perception works, a hard question.

 

The usual way to overcome problems like these is to perform studies on animals. However, because few nonhuman animals have the language and mentality to experience a sham, this can’t be done well with placebo research.

 

there was a case of a man misdiagnosed with cancer and he died months later of cancer like symptoms.

I believe you’re referring to the case reported by Clifton Meador in his 1992 Southern Medical Journal article “Hex death: voodoo magic or persuasion?”. Though the full paper is unfortunately behind a paywall, from the abstract, it appear you’re mistaken about some important background of the case.

 

The case to which Meador refers (which, from this google hit his 2005 book “”, appears to have been of a patient of his some decades ago), involved a man correctly diagnosed with cancer, but where, after the patient’s death and autopsy, the pathologist found a smaller than expected tumor only in the liver, and was unable to find expected extensive metastases. In short, though autopsy confirmed the patient had cancer, it suggested that the cancer was not yet advanced enough to have caused his death.

 

also a man believed sugar pills were real pills. he overdosed on them trying to kill himself. his blood pressure went very low even though the pills were harmless and needed medical attention

I believe you referring to the case described by Roy Reeves (D.O), Mark Ladner, Roy Hart, and Randy Burke in their 2007 General Hospital Psychiatry paper “Nocebo effects with antidepressant clinical drug trial placebos”.

 

This is an amazing, well-documented case, in which a 26 year old man (“Mr. A”) visited an emergency room believing he had overdosed on an experimental antidepressant drug in which he was participating in a trial. His with a blood pressure and heart rate were 80/40 and 110, which via hydration ER staff could bring only to 100/62 and 106, until a doctor from his trial informed him he had taken an inert placebo. Within 15 min, his BP and pulse were a normal 126/80 and 80. He was admitted and a psychiatric assessment reached several diagnoses, including, unsurprisingly, hypochondria.

 

An amateur physiologist like me (and hopefully other hypographers) feels driven to imagine how Mr. A’s was able to, with apparently purely mental effort, get his BP so low.

 

Most people can be trained, via biofeedback, to voluntarily raise and lower their BP (for example, see Donald Kristt and Bernard Engel 1975 paper "Learned Control of Blood Pressure in Patients with High Blood Pressure" , one of many similar studies), but not lower it so much and for so long as Mr. A. My guess is that Mr. A is both psychologically and physiologically atypical.

 

I’m pretty certain Mr. A would not have died, even had he not visited an ER and eventually been told he’d taken not a dangerous drug overdose but a harmless inert substance. Because they could not tell that he’d taken a placebo, the ER staff had to assume and treat an overdose, which included an effort to keep him awake and alert. Had he not visited the ER, I expect Mr. A would have eventually slept, at which point his vital signs would have returned to normal.

 

The nocebo effect is well known and I know we can't really test for this since dead people cannot tell us their dream but I am curious.

People do dream, and commonly die in their sleep, but because I’ve not heard of people being sickened or injured as a result of dreaming, I’m fairly sure people don’t die because of dreaming.

[HydrogenBond]

The opposite is often true, where the unconscious mind can sense impending injury or danger, and then will attempt to bring this to conscious awareness, so one can help themselves.

 

In psychology and therapy, dreams and fantasies often outline the causes and the effects of emotional and psychological problems. The dreams and fantasies are trying to tell the person something, but most people don't know how to translate and make use of the information. They often need to go to an expert of the mind, so he/she can read the symptoms from the dream.

 

Sometimes the dream is much less fuzzy and more direct, even for the layman, allowing the person to read this by themselves. If I had a dream of an impending heart attack and later that day I have it, the dream was more likely a warning and not the cause of the heart attack. 

 

All cells of the body are wired by nervous tissue, which goes to the spine and then to the brain. The brain sees all, via sensory connections, and can often anticipate disturbances in systems. Sometime it needs the ego to take action with external resources and will give warning with a dream or vision.  

[TaraBradley]

Really?????? Dreams can cause this also?

[pgrmdave]

If I had a dream of an impending heart attack and later that day I have it, the dream was more likely a warning and not the cause of the heart attack. 

And how would you set up a study to see whether this was true or whether this was confirmation bias?  If a thousand people have a dream of a heart attack and one person experiences a heart attack, 999 will forget their dream over the next day or so.

[KuKu]

If my brain convinced I’ll get the Nobel Prize tomorrow, will I get it? lol 

[A-wal]

I believe you referring to the case described by Roy Reeves (D.O), Mark Ladner, Roy Hart, and Randy Burke in their 2007 General Hospital Psychiatry paper “Nocebo effects with antidepressant clinical drug trial placebos”.

 

This is an amazing, well-documented case, in which a 26 year old man (“Mr. A”) visited an emergency room believing he had overdosed on an experimental antidepressant drug in which he was participating in a trial. His with a blood pressure and heart rate were 80/40 and 110, which via hydration ER staff could bring only to 100/62 and 106, until a doctor from his trial informed him he had taken an inert placebo. Within 15 min, his BP and pulse were a normal 126/80 and 80. He was admitted and a psychiatric assessment reached several diagnoses, including, unsurprisingly, hypochondria.

 

An amateur physiologist like me (and hopefully other hypographers) feels driven to imagine how Mr. A’s was able to, with apparently purely mental effort, get his BP so low.

 

Most people can be trained, via biofeedback, to voluntarily raise and lower their BP (for example, see Donald Kristt and Bernard Engel 1975 paper "Learned Control of Blood Pressure in Patients with High Blood Pressure" , one of many similar studies), but not lower it so much and for so long as Mr. A. My guess is that Mr. A is both psychologically and physiologically atypical.

 

I’m pretty certain Mr. A would not have died, even had he not visited an ER and eventually been told he’d taken not a dangerous drug overdose but a harmless inert substance. Because they could not tell that he’d taken a placebo, the ER staff had to assume and treat an overdose, which included an effort to keep him awake and alert. Had he not visited the ER, I expect Mr. A would have eventually slept, at which point his vital signs would have returned to normal.

If he had been on the real drug and had been told that he was on the placebo I wonder if his heart rate and blood pressure would still have returned to normal.

[Speedjohn]

Dreams about death often indicates the symbolic ending of something whether that's a phase, a job or a relationship.it also indicates attempts to resolve anxiety or anger directed towards the self.

[billvon]

If the brain is convinced the body will freeze to death, (for example a dream where a person is stuck in a freezer) it is said the person in real life will become hypothermic and would die, because the brain is convinced of it.

I am sure some people believe that, but people believe all kinds of kooky things.  Your brain has a lot of power over your body, but dreams cannot cause you to "become hypothermic and die."

[exchemist]

I am sure some people believe that, but people believe all kinds of kooky things.  Your brain has a lot of power over your body, but dreams cannot cause you to "become hypothermic and die."

Lisa L is Gaiagirl. 

 

Don't wake the Kraken, or we will have another outbreak of exploding thymus glands .......... :)

[billvon]

Lisa L is Gaiagirl. 

 

Don't wake the Kraken, or we will have another outbreak of exploding thymus glands .......... :)

Good to know!  Thanks.