Herb also pays attention to dreams which offer foods or special treatments to alleviate medical problems, for his dreams seem to be specifically keyed to his bodily needs at the specific time. He had a very bad tooth infection that caused him chills and fever. He dreamed he was eating rhubarb, a food he doesn't normally eat. His wife prepared rhubarb, he ate it, and was working again by the next day. Through his dreams he has received aid and healing by eating nuts to relieve an infected carbuncle, carrots and raisins to lighten the effects of flu, okra to aid in a kidney infection, and cabbage and lettuce to produce more restful sleep. He dreamed he was rubbing oil on his hands, and when he complied with his dream, an itching which the doctor thought was an allergy was terminated.

The phenomenon of precognitive dreams was the most difficult for Herb to believe, but his dream records over the years proved that he did have dreams of the future—from what was going to happen to him in a few days to as long as a year ahead of the actual event. "I feel sure," he says, "that everyone dreams precognitively, but that most people simply do not consciously remember their dreams, so they assume that they do not, or cannot, dream of their future. Events of the future seen in dreams need not be traumatic or emotionally overpowering to break through to consciousness. I discovered I was dreaming small details of my life before they happened in reality. I dreamed of people before I met them, although sometimes I saw them symbolically in my dreams as someone I had known who was most like them."

He also discovered that in having dreams of future events, he could alter the final outcome. He dreamed: I see our two- year-old daughter, Jolinda, with her face very orange in color, and suffocating. The following morning Herb told his wife the dream, and, although they could not interpret the symbology, they watched Jolinda very closely that day. "It was lucky that we did, for that evening we found her consuming a bottle of orange-colored baby aspirins. We rushed her to a nearby hospital where they treated her immediately. I asked the nurse what would have happened if we had not discovered Jolinda in time and was informed that she would have suffocated in her sleep."

Herb also assumed that precognitive dreams of world affairs were reserved for those with a much higher spiritual nature   than   he.   His   first   dream   of   this   type  had  him