Dreaming of Pain

I always find it fascinating how my subconscious interprets physical pains. 

Whenever I go through a flare-up or a painful procedure, you can bet that I will have dreams about pain. 

For instance, when my Crohn's flares up, I usually dream of being stabbed in the abdomen. The sharp pains of intestinal cramping is interpreted, in my mind, as being stabbed with large blades. At least that's how my dreams tend to go. 

When my joints and muscles are especially painful, I have had a wide variety of dreams that range from being stung by thousands of wasps at once to falling on a bed of needles or hot coals. 

This latest one, though, is an entirely new interpretation (to go along with a new procedure). This week I went through my first Radio-Frequency Ablation - done on the nerves in my left SI Joint. My dreams last night were very specific: I was lying face down and someone was taking a chisel to my lower back. The chisel itself was burned at the end in fire and was hammered into my back, one agonizing centimeter at a time, using a rock. 

How do your dreams interpret pain? I would love to hear the strange and fascinating ways the mind represents chronic and physical pains.