The Potential of Lucid Dreaming for Bodily Healing

Abstract

Dreams are, after all, a form of mental image. To be sure, they are ones that occur during sleep, but images none-the-less. In fact, they are extraordinary mental images in that we completely believe they are real until we wake up and discover that we were only dreaming. Even when we add consciousness to sleep our research has shown that lucid dreams differ very little in their felt sense of reality from ordinary dreams. If anything, the felt sense of real in lucid dreams is enhanced. Given the explosion of research looking at the relationship of mental imagery to healing, the obvious place to start the exploration of the potential for lucid dreams to heal our bodies is with the mental image.