physical healing?!?!

[skinkie]

hey guys, i have had a few lucid dreams. lately i am trying to do some wilds (no succes yet). but 1 of the things i really want to explore is the healing of the physical body. did one of you guys do it succesfully? healing scar tissue? maybe even eyesight? if so? what did you heal? how did you do it?

[ParadoxOwl]

As much as I/we would like this to be a viable possibility, I don't think this is possible, If it was possible I would try my damnedest to reach it but alas it seems to be a pipe dream. Maybe some things can be healed the slightest bit, I don't know. I know it's generally best to keep an open mind and say everything and anything is possible but everything and anything have limits. Maybe I'm wrong...

[Fris]

I am currently reading about this topic in Robert Waggoner's book "Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self". He writes about people who have used lucid healing and got remarkably results. People have had serious injuries, like knee or back injuries, broken bones, plantar warts, menstruation problems and so on. These injuries and problems all got better or fully recovered after one or more lucid healing, so, unbelievably, this works. There are different ways of healing the physical body in a lucid dream. Some go inside their dreambody and try to fix the injury, some uses "healing" light from their hands, some sound, chants and affirmations, some even visit a dream doctor. Personally I'm suffering from an inflammation in my left leg, it has been going on for some months now. Last night I intended to have a lucid dream in which I would try to heal the leg. I did not have any lucid dreams or dreams about healing, but to be honest my leg feels better. I think this is because I so strongly thought about healing the leg, that it actually got a little better. I am 100% positive that if I would have a lucid dream and tried healing the leg, I would wake up to an almost healthy leg. I will try again tonight, and I'll post my result.

[Barry]

I am currently reading about this topic in Stephen Laberge's book "Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self". He writes about people who have used lucid healing and got remarkably results. People have had serious injuries, like knee or back injuries, broken bones, plantar warts, menstruation problems and so on. These injuries and problems all got better or fully recovered after one or more lucid healing, so, unbelievably, this works. Nothing more than placebo. How could it possibly heal serious injuries? just think about it.

[Dthoughts]

Nothing more than placebo. How could it possibly heal serious injuries? just think about it. I'd say that from a scientific standpoint there is some ground that you can work with. Getting loads of sleep for instance is one of the first things that helps in healing a lot of physical ailments. The next step is figuring out how dreams come into play with that and then lucid dreaming could be considered a viable option. I could easily visualize dreaming to be useful in sending immune-type responses to different parts of the body. Well not really but I believe that a lot of (consistent) physical ailments stem from psychological problems in the first place. I mean, thinking about it doesn't stop me from imagining the possibilities; not me atleast.

[Voldmer]

Nothing more than placebo. How could it possibly heal serious injuries? just think about it. Yes, let's think about this! Why does placebo work? In very many cases, where novel pharmaceuticals are tested alongside pills presumably without active ingredients, the pharmaceuticals do work - but not better than their fake alternatives. Apparently, the placebo effect is highly effective in curing all sorts of diseases. Why is that? Could it be, that the cure is actually flowing from the mind/brain ...? In that case, it would seem entirely reasonable to expect lucid dream healing to work!

[Fris]

Nothing more than placebo. How could it possibly heal serious injuries? just think about it. I get your point, as far as pain goes. The mind has great effect on the body, in the end, it's what's controlling it. I believe when we get to a deeper level of our consciuous, the unconscious, we are closer to our inner self, and more likely to make physical changes happen. Waggoner writes about a woman who had 3 plantar warts on each foot, and could barely walk when she went to bed. After a dream in which she lucidly aware summoned a white "healing" light in her hands and held around both her feet for some seconds, she woke up to no pain when walking. Sure enough, this could be placebo effect, but what's interesting is that all the wounds had turned black over the night and fell off within a few days.

[Barry]

Yes, let's think about this! Why does placebo work? In very many cases, where novel pharmaceuticals are tested alongside pills presumably without active ingredients, the pharmaceuticals do work - but not better than their fake alternatives. Apparently, the placebo effect is highly effective in curing all sorts of diseases. Why is that? Could it be, that the cure is actually flowing from the mind/brain ...? In that case, it would seem entirely reasonable to expect lucid dream healing to work! But its still not lucid dreaming in itself that is causing you to 'heal'. A lucid dream can cause your brain to heal itself, but lucid dreaming is not the cause of the actual healing - the brain is.

[Voldmer]

But its still not lucid dreaming in itself that is causing you to 'heal'. A lucid dream can cause your brain to heal itself, but lucid dreaming is not the cause of the actual healing - the brain is. But the mere idea of "lucid dreaming in itself" is meaningless; how would you divorce the dreaming from the brain? The point of healing by lucid dreaming, surely, is that the physical universe is temporarily cut off, and the mind can focus entirely on the interaction between its conscious and unconscious parts. In ordinary waking reality the outer world interferes with this communication, because it is so damn loud and hard to disregard.

[Seltiez]

Everything is possible. We dont know the extent we are able to do. You could try but i doubt we will find way to heal trough lucid dreaming.

[Dthoughts]

Ofcourse we should be wary of false promises that we make to ourselves.

[Fris]

Let's not forget the importance of the reality-creating complex of belief, expectation, focus, intent, and will. As lucid dreamers we learn that we need to believe, expect, focus, intend or will for something to happen, for it to happen. A constructive use of these elements is essential for a positive outcome, both in "normal" lucid dreaming, and in lucid healing. A person with little or no belief that this works, would experience little or no changes/healing. A person with a strong belief that this works, could end up with incredible results. I'm not saying that this has a 100% success rate, but in most cases, if done correctly, it does have an impact on the physical body. As Henry Ford says; believe you can, believe you can't, either way you're right.

[Yuusha]

Well, there is lots of evidence that the placebo effect is real in waking life, so it seems logical to me that a strong willpower in a lucid dream should have at least some kind of positive physical effect. One interesting experiment that I once heard regarding the placebo effect was that people were fooled into drinking alcoholic beer, but it was actually non-alcoholic, and they still became tipsy. I found that very interesting, and I suppose you can trick your body to react in similar ways by desiring certain healing effects in a lucid dream.

[StephL]

Of course we should be wary of false promises that we make to ourselves. Indeed we should. ... Personally I'm suffering from an inflammation in my left leg, it has been going on for some months now. Last night I intended to have a lucid dream in which I would try to heal the leg. I did not have any lucid dreams or dreams about healing, but to be honest my leg feels better. I think this is because I so strongly thought about healing the leg, that it actually got a little better. I am 100% positive that if I would have a lucid dream and tried healing the leg, I would wake up to an almost healthy leg. I will try again tonight, and I'll post my result. We should in especially not rely on it, but visit a doctor to get a diagnosis and the necessary treatment. I hope, somebody takes professional care of this leg of yours - inflammation over months sounds potentially dangerous. Please use "alternative methods" as an add on, not as first or even only choice! I get your point, as far as pain goes. The mind has great effect on the body, in the end, it's what's controlling it. I believe when we get to a deeper level of our consciuous, the unconscious, we are closer to our inner self, and more likely to make physical changes happen. Waggoner writes about a woman who had 3 plantar warts on each foot, and could barely walk when she went to bed. After a dream in which she lucidly aware summoned a white "healing" light in her hands and held around both her feet for some seconds, she woke up to no pain when walking. Sure enough, this could be placebo effect, but what's interesting is that all the wounds had turned black over the night and fell off within a few days. Well - one needed to think up proper studies, and it's going to be neigh impossible to do them - except the number of lucid dreamers will rise considerably in the future. Which of course I hope it will. Anecdotes are more or less worthless to glean valid, quantitative information. But as far as I know, there are several valid studies, which show treatments working psychologically to be very effective, and fast, when it comes to warts. Curious that this is so, why especially warts and not another infection? I'll look it up I guess... But its still not lucid dreaming in itself that is causing you to 'heal'. A lucid dream can cause your brain to heal itself, but lucid dreaming is not the cause of the actual healing - the brain is. How would you know that a lucid dreaming brain isn't more effective than a brain reacting to already established psychological methods like visualisations or placebo injections, which unsurprisingly work better than pills? Sure, the brain is the ultimate cause, but one can compare methods, and ascribe effects to certain methods - nothing wrong with that. I would actually find it very surprising, if no such specific potential in using lucidity would be measurable at all, while having lots of LDing patients and being smart with tweaking lucid procedures. A good hint at that is it's demonstrated positive effects when used in the context of sports training. As long as we lack proper studies, we can only self-experiment and collect our own anecdotal evidence. Which I deem a really good idea, but only if all sensible precautions are taken, and it's not substituting proper medical treatment, where advisable. But the mere idea of "lucid dreaming in itself" is meaningless; how would you divorce the dreaming from the brain? Well - you could compare it to giving placebo physically for example, or to visualisations. That's all the brain, and we could find out, which way of making use of one's mind/having others manipulate your mind is more effective for say - warts. Problem will be lack of sufficient numbers of study-participants. The point of healing by lucid dreaming, surely, is that the physical universe is temporarily cut off, and the mind can focus entirely on the interaction between its conscious and unconscious parts. In ordinary waking reality the outer world interferes with this communication, because it is so damn loud and hard to disregard. Yep, I think so as well! If only more people were LDers, and if only we all had a high enough "performance-level" to really use it as one's own laboratory of the mind, so to speak. I like to imagine the potential is immense. Probably the best way would be to systematically encourage and tutor young children, at an age where many LD on their own already anyway, but most of them lose it when going into their teens.

[Fris]

I did some research about this stuff, and got caught up on "the dark side" of it. Dreams in which you are hurt, in some way, shows on the physical body. It's the same the concept as lucid healing, and I did not have to dig deep to find a good article about it, so apparantly this is more occuring. I want to go deeper and do more research about this, but as for now I'm satisfied. In the article I read, it's written about people getting hurt in the dreamspace, and when they awake, they find themselves in great pain, and marks, wounds and cuts reveal on their bodies. Physical marks appearing after injuries sustained in dreams | Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother Here is an important quote from the article: “What has happened shows that the Divine Force also can now have a direct effect upon the body. If the dark powers have this new possibility, the inner Light and the higher Consciousness can just as well emerge into the body with concrete changes in it if we are truly receptive!”

[StephL]

Oh dear. I guess I won't comment on Divine Force and consorts...