Oracles and Dream Medicine

Join me on this Solstice as we enter the Dream Temple for Oracular Healing.

That a dream could heal someone is a fascinating and plausible concept. But how might such a healing mechanism work?

I believe divine dreams were lucid as they are related in ancient dream records. The manifestation of an adored god or goddess would likely alert the dreamer to the fact that they are dreaming and subsequently activate the ecstatic and blissful sensations familiar to lucid dreamers.

Could this euphoric, blissful state be healing in and of itself? Could a healing event act out within a lucid dream to draw out a faith-healing or placebo-type self-healing response from the dreamer? Lucidity is a unique state of consciousness in which the mind and body are uniquely and deeply entangled. Therefore, this state is the perfect foundation for the reason to influence matter, and it is the ideal condition for a placebo effect.

The dream narratives of the sleep temples describe how gods or goddesses appear in dreams to the querent. Such appearances are said to delight the hearts of the dreamers. Examples of healing dream events might include: a luminous entity infusing the patient with healing light, or a god might rub a divine healing salve into their patient's body or give them some magical potion to drink. For someone suffering from headaches — the god might cut off their head, tip out the offending bees and sew their head back on. These tangible dream events could be experienced as more real than real — if in a lucid dream state, and they might kickstart appropriate biophysical responses to selectively match the dream's data points. For example, think of a real-life orgasm coming from erotic dream stimuli.