The Student Room Group

Dreamed I had a brain tumour :S

For about the past year and a half, I've had this small pea shaped lump behind my right ear, and another larger one right at the back of my head. I was a bit worried, because I tend to get a few headahces, so I mentioned it to my doctor while visiting for another reason.

He looked at it, and I'm not even sure whether he touched it at all, but he instantly smiled at me and said: "Just a lymph node".

I was pretty reassured after this, and while it didn't go away, I've heard that swollen lymph nodes can take years to become less enlarged. This was all until last night. I was listening to some music which the type of headphones which cup your ears as such, instead of going into your ears. I think it was in contact with the lump for quite a long time, therefore made it hurt slightly.

I went to bed, not thinking about it that much. But I had a dream that while having a checkup for me teeth (random I know :s-smilie:) my orthodontist told me they had found two brain tumours.. I know that dreams aren't true, but I remember when we were studying dreams for an art project last year, and the dream book said that while dreaming you have a terminal illness isn't necessarily a sign you definitely have one, it has been known in the past to be an early warning.

I would see my doctor, just to rule things out, but last time he seemed so certain. He took one glance at it and instantly decided it was a lymph node, so why would it be otherwise? Aughh, I'm really worried..
Reply 1
Firebird
You're dreaming about it because you're worried. If you had a brain tumour you probably wouldn't be able to feel it - it'd be inside your skull.

I also have a lump behind my right ear, and sometimes behind my left ear. Do you have any ear piercings? Have they been infected recently or have you had them done recently? When I first got my right ear pierced and it was healing, the lump was very big. When my left ear got infected that lump got big. The lymph nodes basically drain away bad stuff and they can get big quite quickly when you've got an infection.


I've never had my ears pierced, but I might have some form of chronic sinusitis, which could cause it to be like that maybe? Because it's an infection over a long period of time I guess.

You probably think I'm crazy (within reason) :p: but it's just kind of..worrying. The dream was so much more vivid than usual, and I remember almost every detail. And I remember reading an article about the man who starred in 13 Going on 30 and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind which said: "One night in 2001 he dreamed that he had a brain tumour, and the dream was so unusual in its atmosphere and clarity that he went to the doctor. It turned out that he did have a brain tumour."- http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,1503913,00.html

This sounded kind of like the dream I had, because normally I'm aware I'm dreaming, and just have mundane dreams, whereas I can remember so much from this dream.
If you had a brain tumour, the symptoms would become very unbearable very quickly, and well within a year. You wouldn't be able to live with these sypmtoms, eg blindness/bad vision, severe vomiting etc. Cancers of the brain are among the rarest forms of cancer, and due to the area in which the are based, the brain, this causes several problems as you'd imagine, as opposed to say, cancer of the breast, whereby you generally have one initial symptom. DON'T WORRY: YOU DO NOT HAVE A BRAIN TUMOUR!! Stop panicking. x
Reply 3
justbrowsing
If you had a brain tumour, the symptoms would become very unbearable very quickly, and well within a year. You wouldn't be able to live with these sypmtoms, eg blindness/bad vision, severe vomiting etc. Cancers of the brain are among the rarest forms of cancer, and due to the area in which the are based, the brain, this causes several problems as you'd imagine, as opposed to say, cancer of the breast, whereby you generally have one initial symptom. DON'T WORRY: YOU DO NOT HAVE A BRAIN TUMOUR!! Stop panicking. x


Thank-you :smile:

I was thinking the symptoms should probably be more severe. Because I get headaches, like I said, but then again this could be due to a number of factors- stress, only wearing glasses for reading..etc and I don't really have any other notable symptoms.
Headaches are from the sinusitis. Pretty damn certain you won't have a tumour, dreams like this can be caused by the anxiety of it, so just chill.

Lumps and bumps can happen for many reasons, for example I have a slightly deformed head, cant see anything wrong with it, but theres a flat patch and a few odd bumps.
Reply 5
Anatomically speaking, a lump on the outside of your skull is not going to be a brain tumour, is it?

No, I doubt you have brain cancer. Dreams don't necessarily mean anything.