Detox Dreams
by Patti Allen
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When seasons change, holistic practitioners often recommend detoxifying the body. By this they mean a cleansing where what is old, stagnant or unhealthy can be released and the body cleansed. This will usually be accomplished by a change in diet along with herbal or nutritional supplements. When we are working hard at physical cleansing, striving towards better health, we might wonder if our dreams need detoxifying too. Dreams are not something to clean out; they are natural detoxifiers and the very tools we need for balanced, holistic health. Dreams are a perfect companion to any health-promoting regimen that you might choose for yourself.
How does that work? Dreams help you become aware of what is not working in your inner world but they also tell you what is beautiful as well. They bring forward unfinished business, inner conflicts and deep emotions, while showing you your spiritual side and your best self. Dreams let you know exactly where you are stuck and where you are flowing. Taking the time to examine what comes up from the depths of your dream world, will keep you in optimum health.
If you are careful to watch your dreams while undergoing a physical cleanse, your dreams may even give you information about the state of your health, perhaps guiding you to make changes in your life-style or eating habits. I once had a very graphic dream about my liver crawling with bugs. I told my Naturopath about it and I tested positive for parasites! While not many allopathic (western medical model) doctors are interested in their patients’ dream life, Naturopaths and Homeopaths will always take their patients’ dreams into consideration, mining them for information and clues as to the state of their patient’s health. This is a practice, going back to ancient times where the whole patient—their lifestyle and diet, work, attitudes, experiences, dreams and symptoms—was taken into account. We seem to have lost this whole-person approach today in general medicine but these healing arts are still alive and well in the holistic and integrated health world.
While undergoing a detox, our dreams will often shift and become quite wild with nightmares or recurring dreams appearing. This demonstrates the interconnected nature of dreams and the body, where the process of the body releasing toxins and old material is reflected in the dream content. If dreams can show us the things that we know are going on as in the case of an intentional detox, then surely they can show us the things that are going on in the body that we’re not aware of.
These kinds of dreams are called “prodromal” dreams : from the Greek “pro” meaning before and “dromos” meaning running (forerunner) or warning dreams that signal the onset of illness. This was the experience of Wanda Burch who dreamt that she had breast cancer, long before her medical doctors discovered her aggressive cancer. She wrote about it in her book She Who Dreams, describing her journey to regain her health by listening for the messages in her dreams, then using their images as part of her healing program that included meditation and visualization along with traditional chemotherapy. She is alive and well today, having dreamt that she renegotiated her life contract. In fact, Wanda believes that she is alive because she dreams. *Dreams are that powerful and important to our on-going health.
During your detoxification process, watch your dreams for body signals like excessive amounts of water that can suggest fluid retention in the body, extreme heat, cold or water, dryness, itchiness, pain, or any focus on a particular body parts. Breathlessness, blockages, damage, destruction, impairment, malfunctions or breakages can all indicate imbalances in the body. Yet we still have to strive to understand the meaning of the dream before we can say if it is a body signal or not. That is why dream work is so powerful because whatever the message turns out to be, it has taken us on a journey of self-exploration that leaves us healthier than when we began. This is truly the perfect tool for detoxification.
*Burch, Wanda, She Who Dreams, p.xv-xvi
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