Utility of Lucid Dream Technique in normalizing mental agitation In my experience of treating patients of psychogenic pains I have found lucid

dreams or therapist-induced-day dreams or even self-induced day dreams highly effective in restoration of the altered homeostasis under the influence of uninterrupted stressors in the environment from the very childhood. Miss Elena is twenty-nine. She cleared her graduation in chemistry from Calcutta University with fairly good result. But her A-grade performance in her 10+2 examinations that she completed before getting into medical college was an indicator for better result in her college graduation. The fall obviously saddened her. Additionally she could not focus on her study for entrance to post graduation classes. She was doing part-time job in a chemical laboratory. There she was getting peeved too in interactions with her colleagues and senior researchers. She was developing more and more untoward feelings and beliefs about her fianc, and was of the view that she was definite that the approaching marriage would not be a happy one because of the ample incompatibilities. I m trying to give you the feedback of the last one week.. Actually i felt very hopeless about everything. Innumerable times i thought nothing is going to be right in my life again. I have not touched any of my dreams. I could not become a good daughter, sister or fiancee. I saw no hope for my future. I felt like time is being exhausted for me. I was thinking due to my laid back attitude ( i don't give you regular feed back ) this psychotherapy is not going to work out for me. i felt depressed, she wrote in her psychotherapy-journal about a week back, after having once a week two-hours psychotherapy session with me for two weeks. Among her physical ailments were low-back pain, tachycardia, raised blood pressure, and insomnia I diagnosed her case a complex of depression, anxiety and anger from both genetic loading and nurtural poverty following her disclosures about her family-fabric. Initially an attempt with CBT could not change her disoriented thoughts as her autonomic arousal was chronic and profound, and as such she failed to accommodate the logic of CBT. She was reacting more sub-cortically in her behaviours. Thought-stopping technique of CBT and BT failed too, because her ruminations were intense and inflexible. I held two sessions of taking her into lucid dreams through specially structured imageries. She started showing interest. She performed the process herself at home and aha (!), came the quick cut down on the psychogenic pain of the depressogenic pressures including the tachy within ten days of the practice in guided lucid dream combined with sound tracking relaxation. The patient is in the third week of therapy. She attends weekly session in my clinic. The rest she exercises at home. I expect to bring down her mental negativities comprising basically unconscious wishes and fears in further two months time to a manageable level. Once this is done, I plan CBT for her to reorganize certain core beliefs skewing her reality- oriented thoughts. The restoration of the altered homeostasis will definitely facilitate the contemplated thoughtrestructuring. Interpretation of the above absolutely psychotherapeutic outcome is not much difficult. I intend to attempt in that direction in my next write-up. Interested persons may get in touch with me through probirgupta@yahoo.com. I am a post graduate diploma holder in psychological counselling and am a free-lance practitioner of counselling psychology in south Kolkata, West Bengal.