'Sense of doom': Mark Ruffalo recalls a 'crazy dream' he had that led to the discovery of his brain tumor

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Mark Ruffalo opened up about a harrowing experience he faced at the age of 33 after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

In a candid revelation on the SmartLess podcast on Monday, January 22, the actor spoke to hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett about finding that he had a large "mass" behind his left ear.

Mark Ruffalo kept the diagnosis secret from his wife who was pregnant at the time

The 'Hulk' actor who married Sunrise Coigney in 2002 revealed why he decided to keep the diagnosis secret from his wife who was due to give birth to their first child, according to ET.

Coigney was days from giving birth to their now 22-year-old son Keen.

"I had a brain tumor after the success of You Can Count on Me. Sunrise was, like, nine and a half months pregnant, and the baby was imminently coming," the 'Poor Things' actor.

"I had one of those 4 a.m. calls, and I woke up probably around 3 a.m., and I just had this crazy dream," Ruffalo said.

He recalled the dream that subsequently helped him in the discovery of his brain tumor following the success of 'You Can Count on Me'.

Describing his dream as being "so intense" and had a "sense of doom" at the time when he only had an ear infection, Ruffalo still visited the doctor after the dream.

"I said, 'Listen, this is going to sound crazy, but I had this dream last night that I had a brain tumor,''' he said, sharing that despite a lack of evidence, he was asked by the doctors to undergo a CAT scan.

"She comes in, and she's just kind of, like, a zombie. And she says, 'You have a mass behind your left ear the size of a golf ball. We don't know what it is, we can't tell until it's biopsied.'"

The scan revealed a benign tumor, providing relief to the actor.

Mark Ruffalo's risky surgery to remove the brain tumor

The 56-year-old actor told Coigney about his diagnosis a week after they welcomed their first child Keen.

"When I told Sunny about it, first she thought I was joking. And then she just burst into tears and said, 'I always knew you were gonna die young'," he recalled their conversation before his surgery.

Ruffalo shared that the surgery had its challenges as doctors warned him of a 20 percent risk of nerve damage and a 70 percent chance of hearing loss, which he did. 

"And it wasn't like any other dream I'd ever had. It was just like, 'You have a brain tumor.' It wasn't even a voice. It was just pure knowledge, 'You have a brain tumor, and you have to deal with it immediately,'" he added.