Mark Ruffalo reveals how a dream he had helped diagnose brain tumour
Mia Williams
Featured Image Credit: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for BAM/Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images for SBIFF
Mark Ruffalo claimed that a 'crazy dream' warned him about his brain tumour, which was later confirmed by a doctor.
When it comes to superstition about dreams predicting events in the future - this is definitely one for the books.
It's known that a lot of pregnant women who aren't yet aware that they're carrying a child, find out through a dream prior to a positive test.
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Most of the time, what we dream about is purely created from the subconscious part of our brain, but very rarely, they could be trying to tell us something.
During a recent conversation on Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett’s Smartless podcast, Ruffalo gave details of the ordeal that happened 20 years ago.
Describing the dream as unlike 'any other' he had ever had, it wasn't long before his wife Sunrise Coigney was about to give birth to their son, Keen.
He said: "It was just like, ‘You have a brain tumour.’
"It wasn’t even a voice.
"It was just pure knowledge: ‘You have a brain tumour, and you have to deal with it immediately.’"
Ruffalo noted that he had no symptoms other than an ear infection, but it prompted him to visit the doctors anyway.
After having a scan, he recalled: "The nurse calls the doctor out, and I could hear them talking in the other room, and she just comes in, and she’s a zombie.
"And she says, ‘You have a mass behind your left ear the size of a golf ball, and we don’t know what it is. We can’t tell until it’s biopsied.’”
Due to the timing of the situation, he waited to tell his wife the news.
He explained: "She had the birth plan, she did the yoga, she had the doula, we had a hot tub ordered.
"This is like her wedding, you know, man?
"This is like her christening, her quinceañera, and I was just like, ‘I can’t.’”
Fortunately for the family, the star was informed that the tumour was benign.
He told his wife a week after she had given birth to their son, to which she replied: "I always knew you were gonna die young."
The Avengers actor underwent surgery to remove the mass, which left him completely deaf in one ear.
However, there was a chance that the surgery could have 'killed' the nerve on the left side of his face, which thankfully didn't happen.
Reflecting on how lucky he felt, the actor summarised: "Take my hearing, but let me keep the face and just let me be the father to these kids."