Electric Dreams

An Excerpt From The Lucid Dream Exchange
Lucy Gillis, Editor

A Look at Lucid Dreams and Healing

Robert Waggoner


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Waggoner, Robert (2003 April). A Look at Lucid Dreams and Healing.
(An Excerpt From The Lucid Dream Exchange, Lucy Gillis, Editor.) Electric Dreams 10(4).






For this month's excerpt I am pleased to offer an intriguing article by LDE co-editor, Robert Waggoner, on the topic of healing and lucid dreaming.

Using lucid dreams to promote healing is a fascinating and broad topic. Some lucid dreamers have apparently used their lucid skills, and lucid, will to try to heal their own diseases or conditions with considerable success. Others have used lucid dreaming as a platform to gather information or understand the apparent underlying causes of a disease. Still others have suggested that their lucid dreaming allowed them to interact with another person's disease or condition in a constructive fashion (and of course usually with the person's foreknowledge and consent).

Examples of lucid dream healing, in turn, suggest some interesting observations about the nature of the dream state and lucid dreaming. Most of us would assume that a person could affect their own condition while lucid, because obviously one is involved in an intra-psychic field, in which lucid dream suggestions or actions are performed in one's dream state or unconscious that somehow alter one's disease or condition. In some respects, it could be likened to self-hypnosis; you get deep within your subconscious or unconscious and suggest or visualize a desired physical result. As we know from hypnosis studies, physical alterations can occur and be quite dramatic, particularly with "excellent" subjects.

Here is one example of an apparent intra-psychic or personal lucid dream healing, experienced by Ed Kellogg, Ph.D., taken from his article, "A Personal Experience in Lucid Dream Healing" (published in the Lucidity Letter 8(1), pp 6-7, 1989). Prior to the dream Ed had punctured a right tonsil with a wooden skewer from a fish shish-kebab. His tonsil had apparently become "horribly infected and swollen, looking about 3 times normal size, bright red, and with yellow lines of pus decorating the exterior." Using a "sensory awareness relaxation technique", Ed sought to have an OBE, but instead had a lucid dream:

"...walking through a house I wake to the lucid dream state, decide to try healing my throat. I look in a mirror and my throat looks healthy, but the tonsils look more like the middle section (uvula) than like tonsils. So in my dream body my throat looks healthy, but different. I program for healing to occur (using affirmations), and my throat does feel much better on awakening."

Ed noted, "Subjectively I would estimate that less than an hour had passed between waking and sleeping, and the pain had almost entirely disappeared. The next morning my right tonsil looked and felt almost normal, only slightly red and swollen. At least 95% of the infection had disappeared in less than 12 hours."

Whether the mode of action is similar to suggestion/visualization, a deep hypnotic state or some other dynamic, examples like this anecdotally suggest that intra-psychic lucid dream healing is possible. But what of extra-psychic lucid dream healing? How can one explain the means by which a dreamer becomes lucid and seeks to influence another's illness in the lucid dream state? If valid, what would extra-psychic lucid dream healing suggest about the broader nature of the dream state?

A possible extra-psychic (or person to person) connection is illustrated by Ed Kellogg in his aforementioned article. His account begins:

"...Fully lucid...(While staying at S's house in waking physical reality), I go into (S's and D's bedroom) and announce that we "dream". I ask (S), which knee needs healing, (S) says the right, but I want to see for myself. I have him pull up his pants to make sure. The left knee has a sort of metal plate, and on top of it a bump that (S) says needed healing (note left knee in waking physical reality needed healing not the right). I place my hand over the bump, and my left hand under the knee, I do HC chant for S's left knee, and both blue and green energy (bright, laserlike) comes out of my right hand. After 10 seconds or so, S says, "That's it" but light still comes out of my hands for a minute or so. I take my hands off and try applying this energy to myself, but I hear a phone ringing and return to waking physical reality."

In his comments, Ed notes that "S noticed marked improvement in the mobility and strength of his injured physical knee (the left one!), and a marked decrease in pain associated with the movement, on the day following the healing. S rated his knee for the week before the healing at about 4 out of a possible 10 (10 = the healthy knee), and for the week after the healing as 8 out of 10. The functional improvement has persisted, with continued physical therapy and exercise, S currently rates his left knee, now over 8 months later, at 9 out of 10." Now 7 years later, (in a personal conversation) Ed tells me that the knee continues at this level of health. (For more on Ed Kellogg's experiences with healing lucid dreams, go to www.asdreams.org and enter the site, click on "Member Pages" and then click on E.W. Kellogg; there you will find links to his reports of healing lucid dreams.)

[shortcut to Kellogg]:
http://dreamtalk.hypermart.net/member/files/ed_kellogg.html

While this lone example does not constitute "proof", the reader can see that extra-psychic lucid dream healing, if valid, suggests a revolutionary reappraisal of the nature of the dream state. It suggests that multiple dreamers or dream consciousnesses may interact within the dream state. It suggests that information and active intent can be transmitted in the dream state. It supports some aspects of dream telepathy, mutual dreaming, and psi-related dream states. And finally, it dramatically widens most dream theories beyond their limited frameworks, as well as the science of psychology and consciousness.

It is important to note, however, that not all attempts at lucid dream healing of one's self or others are successful. It may be that certain types of disease are more amenable to healing in the lucid state, while other diseases resist change due to additional factors.

In my analysis, the final function of lucid dream healing is gathering information or understanding on the nature of a disease or health. This can be seen in some examples from my own lucid dreams.

The first example is a bit sensitive, so please excuse me as I disguise the details. I became lucid in a dream and I seemed to be seeing a family member of a friend. I knew this family member had an odd illness. As I stood there observing in the lucid dream, I thought that there must be a "reason" why the family member has this odd illness. So I moved in very close and asked the person, "Why do you have this disease?" Immediately, the person responded, "I have this for...(this reason)". That response really surprised me! It was hardly what I was expecting. I decided to wake up and write it down.

Oddly, a couple of months later, I had a dream in which the dream suggested that I tell this same friend about this dream and a few others. One evening, I did just that. Things were going quite well as I expressed the dreams, and the person responded about how the dreams had picked up on activities in his life, and various interesting hobbies, etc. Then I came to the above dream, and told it. Stony silence. I quickly realized that I was in very sensitive territory, so I made a hasty advance to the next dream.

Years later, the friend saw me at a function and brought up the dream. He told me that the dream information was indeed correct and had picked up on a very sensitive situation that only people in the immediate family would know. He was quite surprised that a lucid dream could pick up the information accurately, and didn't know how to respond when I told the dream.

As I have reported in past issues of the LDE, I have become lucid upon seeing my deceased father, and in the dream asked him to predict health matters for a family member. In this case, the information that he provided has been indicated to be correct -- and it involved a medical condition that was unknown to me or the family member, and which showed up at the time indicated in the lucid dream (two years later). An example of a more general form of lucid dream knowledge comes from the following example:

Robert Waggoner
December 21-22 2002


I am in a room with Wendy and two others. As we talk about some odd issue, it occurs to me that this is a dream.

I fly out of the room and into the street scene outside. It seems like dusk and also a bit foggy as I fly across a street and city park setting. A few people are there. I practice flying at various speeds, including extremely fast, and feel that I am in good form and highly lucid.

As I fly, I think, "What do I want to do?", and it occurs to me that I should dream about something for the next LDE on health and healing in lucid dreams. Flying along, I yell out, "What is the Key to Good Health!!?" Almost immediately, I hear a voice reply (something like), "All things in Moderation" or "Moderation in All things."

I think I should wake up and write this down. Suddenly, I am writing down the lucid dream. I seem to be at a kitchen or dining room table. I am trying to recall the dream, when I notice that there are three tumblers of liquid on the table. I realize that we don't have tumblers like that. I wake up from the false awakening.

Upon awakening, I could not recall the exact words that the voice said, but I knew I had the gist of it. Then I began to think that excesses or lacks were the cause of many diseases, and therefore "moderation" may be a key element in good health. I told my wife the lucid dream, and she said that the voice's response is the same or similar to a belief that she vaguely recalls the ancient Greeks or Romans had."

After reading this dream, a friend sent me the following quotes, pertaining to the above:

"Moderation is best in all things"
Theognis, 570-490 BCE (Greek Poet)

"Moderation in all things."
Benjamin Franklin

Although the idea may not be an 'original' one, at least it is one that has historic precedence and commonality with some deep thinkers in Western history. I believe that a more specific question in the lucid state would have elicited a more specific and personal response.

While I have had some dreams in which I attempted to influence my mood (with apparent success) and influence other's health (with mixed results), I feel that "disease" is a relatively complicated aspect of human life and involves physical, psychological, and even spiritual needs that one may not fully appreciate.

In that sense, I feel that lucid dream healing is much more involved than the casual reader would suspect. I do feel, though, that lucid dream healing points to the potential of consciousness and the nature of the broader psychic reality in which we seem to reside.

My thanks to Ed Kellogg, Ph.D. for the use of his lucid dreams in this article.

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