In 1970 I was hit by a car when I was a passenger on a motorcycle. I received a broken leg and some injuries to my gallbladder. I underwent emergency surgery to remove my gallbladder.

A few days after the surgery when I was recovering in the hospital, I had a dream in which I was whole and floating about the hospital room. I saw my body lying in bed with the casted leg suspended slightly above my body and various tubes in every orifice, it seemed. I hovered over my own body, sometimes feeling the pain of my injuries and sometimes feeling the wholeness and ability of my dream body to fly about the room.

I decided in the dream state to give the gift of this wholeness to my physical body. I told my physical body that I loved it and that it would recover.

When I awoke that day I was able to stop taking medication for pain and had all tubes removed. On the next day I was able to convince the staff that I was ready to start hopping around on crutches.

After several more such lucid dreams willing or encouraging the body to heal, Stephen LaBerge comments:

Of course, these stories are anecdotal. We have no way of knowing whether lucid dreaming had anything to do with the reported improvements... Controlled scientific studies are the only certain way to determine the true potential of the healing dream.

SOURCE: Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge & Howard Rheingold, 1990, p.277-8. I added title.

EDITOR'S NOTE

No, the "way to determine the true potential of the healing dream" is for you to try it. Health outcomes are individual. Even if a large study showed no sign dream healing works on average, isn't it what you achieve that matters? Studies show people are on average innumerate, obese, and unable to lucid dream. Are you thus unable to learn math, nutrition or lucid dreams? These are skills. Skills aren't pills.

By all means, wait for scientific studies of an unpatentable, patient-controlled technique that drug firms can't profit from. Might be a while! Like... when hell freezes over.

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