DREAM THERAPY

FOR SINUSITUS

A CLINICAL STUDY

The use of dreams for anyone seeking physical or mental aid was often suggested by Edgar Cayce. He called dreams "the safe road to the unconscious." Dreams are a useful reflection of physical ailments, with historical precedent. The healing temple of Aesculapius in early Greek times was especially concerned with the power of dreams, for those seeking relief from disease as well as for those seeking enlightenment.

Recently, a physician friend told me of one of his own experiences with the creative potential of dreams for the medical arts. A practicing obstetrician-gynecologist, he was very much concerned about post-episiotomy pain, discomfort following childbirth that required minor surgery to widen the birth canal. Going to sleep one night with this concern, he awoke somewhat earlier than usual with the thought, "Don't tie the sutures so tight." Thereafter, he began only bringing the tissues together without tightening the sutures. Since that one "minor" modification, only rarely do his mothers have post- episiotomy pain. Considering the popularity of episiotomy, performed in perhaps 80% of all deliveries and resulting in some degree of pain in at least half of these, this modification is no small contribution.

Research has recently begun to investigate the possibility of incubating curative dreams (see, for example, "Dream Incubation," by Henry Reed, Sundance, Winter, 1978, II (1), 9- 26). There has been no research, however, on the usefulness of dreams with particular illnesses. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the usefulness of incubating a healing dream to improve or cure allergic sinusitis.

Subjects: Participants were patients of the A.R.E. Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona. Nine subjects filled out dream-sinus evaluation  forms,   which  served   as  a   thorough  historical