Using Your Dreams For Healing

July 23rd, 2007

This article is part of the series Mastering the Art of Lucid Dreaming. If this is your first visit to the site, I recommend starting at the beginning of the series.

It is well known that the mind can be a powerful tool for healing. Studies have indicated simply using a daily affirmation about wellness can improve a patient's health. In the same way, your dreams may be used for health and healing purposes.

Before going to bed, spend time performing the dream incubation technique to incubate a dream environment where you will be comfortable and relaxed, such as a beach, a garden, or a luxurious bedroom. Perform your choice of lucid dreaming techniques and set your intent to become consciously aware once you reach the desired setting in your dream.

If there is a particular illness or injury you would like to address, use your dream to envision the injury completely healed. You may wish to create a dream scene in which the healing or recovery time is compressed. By doing this, you can speed up the healing process in the waking world. Use the techniques you've already learned about controlling your dream body, controlling the dream environment and creating objects to create a dream scene in which the time it takes to heal the injury or illness is reduced to mere minutes. See the injury or illness begin to rapidly heal itself, and continue to observe as the problem heals completely and totally until no trace of it remains.

Pay attention to all your senses within the dream. Don't just see the injury or illness disappear. Feel it disappear. Take a deep breath and smell your surroundings. Take in the scent of clean air and feel it energize you. Listen to the birds or the ocean surf or even the sound of your heart beating clear and strong. Walk around your dream environment and feel how healthy you are. Stretch your limbs, jump in the air, do somersaults, shout out loud. Act as silly as you want. It's your dream. Nobody can see you.

If you feel inspired, feel free to be a little more creative about how you eliminate the illness. You can create a dream scene in which your illness appears as a monster you successfully vanquish by making it shrink away to nothing in front of you, or depict your body as a plant you nurse back to health, or stand in a crystal clear stream and wash the illness away. Create any scene you feel comfortable with, but be sure to include plenty of imagery that represents health and vitality.

Before you end the dream and move on to a new dream scene, reaffirm to yourself that the rapid healing that took place within your dream will carry over into waking life.

You need not wait until you're ill or injured to use a healing dream technique. For continued health and wellness, it can be quite effective to devote a few nights to dreaming of yourself in a state of optimal health.

Stay tuned for the next article in the series, which will describe how to use conscious dreaming to overcome nightmares.