Clinical dream incubation and body
For 1000 years during the beginning of Western medicine (500 B.C. – 500 A.D.,) of the hundreds of medical treatments offered at the time, only dream-based medicine was ubiquitously practiced throughout this entire period. The word clinic comes from the couches on which the patients slept to receive a dream for the cure of their physical ills. The scientific rationale for reviving clinical dream incubation in the 21st century is the current studies on placebo which, since the use of fMRI’s in the 1990s, have clearly demonstrated that imagination creates a powerful meaning response which can be pin pointed with great precision in the brain. Clinical dream incubation profoundly triggers this physiological meaning response arising from psycho-social contexts. During the incubation process a particular issue is intentionally somatised so it can be felt acutely in the body. The material derived from the responding dreams, when worked in an embodied fashion, can create powerful healing responses. In order to demonstrate this process, a volunteer will participate in an incubation experience during the previous week, and the resulting dreams will be worked in front of the audience
