Deep trance
Robert E. L. Masters, who died in July of this year (1927-2008), was a brilliant explorer of human consciousness and the mind/ body realm. He wrote many books on human behavior including one with the wonderful and watery title Swimming where Madmen Drown: Travellers' Tales from Inner Space.
It was in this book that I found the following intriguing speculation about what went on in the Asclepian sanctuaries. Masters' text preceding this extract describes the work of a late nineteenth century physician named Otto Wetterstrand who experimented with 'prolonged sleep' or deep trance of days or weeks.
Wetterstrand reported successful treatment of physical and nervous disorders where all previous treatments had failed, including epilepsy, hysteria, insomnia, severe headaches, and other pain. From the quote below, I have made some connections regards my own thoughts on dreaming in water and the aquatic bodywave.
In order to follow this discussion more closely, you may want to review my blog posts an An aquatic Kriya: the bodywave, The age of dreaming has come, and Asclepius: the god of spas. I hope you will feel encouraged to contribute your own thoughts on what you read here by commenting below or emailing me directly.
From 'Far Out Healings' in Swimming Where Madmen Drown by Robert Masters, 2002, pp. 70-71. [My italics.]
In the ancient world, there was the practice of temple sleep. The patient, in trance, or possibly drugged, might while sleeping have been visited by the Gods who did the healing. There were variations, but a long sleep in a powerful place where the cure was strongly expected to happen: those were the essentials. Temple sleep might also have included something like mesmerism, teams of healers passing their hands directly over the surface of the body of the afflicted one, or a little above the surface of the body, stroking for many hours or even days a presumed aura or energy field extending beyond the person's body. This would induce a state of trance or serve to deepen the already altered state. When such methods were used, the cure was likely a 'crisis,' a kind of profound and dramatic seizure, after which the symptoms were gone and the person declared cured. The person would have journeyed far into Inner Space where, at some point, the body discharged the illness and, when the mind returned to it's normal reality, the illness no longer existed. There is no doubt that such healings did and do occur, presently in New Age variants, with about as many explanations to account of the results as there are varieties of healers.
I went on to explore further Robert Master's reference to mesmerism and the crisis or seizure that was considered part of the 'cure'. It is perhaps not surprising that where these dramatic effects appeared to result in healing, it was often tempting to early physicians to make unsubstantiated and perhaps unprovable claims.
As I have noted before, this does not mean that what they (and their modern counterparts) observed was not valid, though their work may have been labeled as quackery or unscientific or otherwise discredited. This is no doubt partly due to their own exaggerated enthusiasm but also due to the cautious views of convention.
Franz Anton Mesmer was an eighteenth century German physician and astrologist, who discovered what he called magnétisme animal (animal magnetism) and others often called mesmerism. Mesmer's name is the root of the English verb 'mesmerize', and his ideas and practices led James Braid to develop hypnosis.
Mesmer understood health as the free flow of life force through thousands of channels in our bodies. (It's not difficult to see parallels here with the meridians of Chinese medicine.) Illness was caused by obstacles to this flow. Overcoming these obstacles and restoring flow produced 'crises', which eventually restored health.
When Nature failed to do this spontaneously, Mesmer believed that contact with a conductor of 'animal magnetism' was a necessary and sufficient remedy. His methods aimed to aid or provoke the efforts of Nature by accelerating these healing crises* without danger.
When treating someone, Mesmer would move his hands from their shoulders down along their arms, then press his fingers on the area below the diaphragm, sometimes holding his hands there for hours. Many felt peculiar sensations or had convulsions that were regarded as crises and supposed to bring about a cure.
Aquatic bodywaves (and similar effects on land) often originate at the solar plexus just below the diaphragm. There is a complex network of nerves in this area, also referred to as the Conceptor Vessel 14 (or death point) in Chinese medicine and the solar plexus chakra (or center of etheric-psychic intuition) in Ayurveda.
I am not necessarily suggesting that aquatic bodywork is a form of hypnosis or the bodywave is a healing crisis/ convulsion, but the phenomena and the way I have found it arises spontaneously in someone and seems to be connected with sensations in my own body and placement of my hands offers some interesting parallels to both these aspects of healing.
Skeptics have suggested that practitioners like Mesmer create dramatic manifestations such as convulsions or sleeplike stupor in people through their power of suggestion and the receptiveness of their subjects. My experiences with the aquatic bodywave show that both effects can occur without any prior expectation.
At a leisure spa where I worked, most clients came for Watsu sessions having never heard of this work or of what to expect. I gave only brief outlines and for the entire session they had their eyes closed and there was no verbal exchange between us since their ears are immersed. Complete novices had bodywaves.
I had no attachment to creating these effects nor was I making any claims for them. In fact I rarely spoke about them to people since I had already found that even when they were dramatic and prolonged many did not seem to register them at all; I did not want to make them feel uncomfortable or in any way vulnerable.
Dreaming in water
There is another Robert (Augustus) Masters whose work has also contributed to my thinking. This experienced 60-year-old man is, like his senior name-sake, also a psychotherapist and bodyworker with a strong following. He has described his experiences with dreams in ways that relate to my aquatic findings.
He writes about the movement aspect of dreaming and it occurs to me that the kinds of movements the body receives passively during aquatic bodywork (spinning especially) could be significantly linked to this. Some people find the motion of aquatic bodywork very disturbing to their vestibular system and become nauseous.
It is worth noting that in dreams we - as embodied dream-egos - are usually moving (or trying to move). The body as movement. Dream research has shown that during sleep the vestibular system of the brain - which is associated with waking-state spatial orientation and balance - is specifically associated with lucid dreaming. When I've been in lucid dreams that were fading or unraveling (clearly signaling the end of the dream-state), I've often been able to keep the dream-state going, albeit in a very different format, by letting my dream-body strongly spin for a few seconds. This may occur because the sensations of spinning stir up vestibular activity, which in turn facilitates the activity of that nearby part of the sleep system that produces dreams. - Robert Augustus Masters, Dreaming and the Body.
I am speculating completely when I suggest that those people who find this aspect of aquatic bodywork challenging may (if they have no vestibular pathology) be unconsciously resistant to the (unwanted or disturbing) information and insights provided by the lucid (awake) dream-world they sense may be provoked.For those who do not feel like this, the possibility that the movements of aquatic bodywork could be used for active dreaming, dream re-entry, or any other dream methods designed to facilitate healing might well be of interest. An interesting example of this can be found in Prof. JP De Vierville's Sleeping and Dreaming spa experience.
Dream incubation was an important part of Asclepian temple practice, though as far as we know aquatic therapy was not. And as far as am aware, I am so far alone in writing about this potential of aquatic bodywork to facilitate a form of healing that in many ways resembles shamanic practices.
* The 'healing crisis' as it relates here will be addressed in a forthcoming posting on this blog.
