Unconscious Visualisation
The dreams began while I was still recovering from the overdose of vincristine. I dreamed there were huge red dragons roaming around the countryside. Small white knights were out hunting them and I somehow knew, in time, the white knights would prevail. I woke up remembering my dream and than thought no more of it, till the next time. Again I dreamed, this time the dream had changed, there were more white knights now and the dragons, although still enormous, were somewhat smaller. I’d had dreams before, which after repeated times I was able to learn something positive from them. I felt a sense of calm knowing it was all going to be all right. I woke up and talked about my dream to one of the other patients, in the bed next to mine. I mentioned how I had dreamed the similar dream two nights in sequentially now, my curiosity was piqued.
I guess I have always been a bit of an optimist, some might say a dreamer. I
dream and then find the facts to prove that what I believe in is possible. Something
like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those who don’t look for the happy or
positive ending don’t have much of a chance of finding it. When given
the facts I’ll look for the positive rather than accept the negative any
day (well most days).
As the weeks and months went by the dragons slowly disappeared, as the white
knights multiplied, seeming to gain strength and looking healthier. The facts
were beginning to correlate my dreams as I began to overhear the doctors outside
my room conversing about my test results. There had been no cancerous cells
showing up for some time now.
Does visualisation work? A leading Cancer Research Centre has documented as
recently as 1995, that;
“Working with a patient’s mood state may improve their immune function
and their overall survival time”
Although the actual relationships among emotions, immunity, and disease are
still poorly understood, documented evidence by leaders in the scientific fields
are now correlating that the immune system is in direct contact with the central
nervous system and therefore effected by our moods.
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), is a widely recognised and systematically investigated,
though fairly new, ten years, field of study, demonstrating how emotions, sending
signals via the central nervous system, connect to the immune system. The immune
system secretes chemicals back to the central nervous system, effecting moods,
thereby clearly establishing a cybernetic feedback loop between the central
nervous system and the immune system. Science is only now proving what I had
been doing intuitively twenty years ago.
Does it work? Maybe. Can it hurt? Not at all.