Dreaming Up Cures
Henry here. CNN Reports that Gambia’s president has discovered a cure for HIV/AIDS. He says that the cure was revealed to him in a dream. Health officials are angry at him for creating “false hope” for the 20,000 HIV/AIDS patients in his country. CNN says that “at a hospital in the capital, patients claim the president’s concoction is making a difference to them.” What do we make of this? Is it as crazy as it sounds? Let’s make a few comments.
Everybody who does research knows, as we ourselves know, that many “cures” for “illnesses” work because they are psychosomatic, that is, the person is cured by suggestion. It sticks in my mind from years ago that some researcher said that some 40% of illnesses are cured by suggestion. All of us know the experience of finally getting an appointment with the dentist for a toothache and having the pain ease as soon as the appointment is made. I imagine that a big part of the difference that this cure is making for people comes from simply having someone concerned about them.
And there’s another problem with this situation. Sometimes, but not very often, dreams are to be taken literally. Paul McCartney heard the melody for Yesterday in a dream and wrote it down when he woke up. Most of the time this is not the case. If you dream that you have the winning numbers in the lottery, chances are you don’t. The dream is giving a symbolic message, not the literal truth. Unfortunately, the president of Gambia clearly hasn’t heard about this and by the sounds of it is taking the message of his dream all wrong and there will no doubt be a lot of disappointed people because of it.
Almost all of our dream images are symbolic. Dreams of curing AIDS are likely of that nature. Usually, as Doctor Carl Jung taught us, we dream primarily about ourselves. So perhaps the President is dreaming about some inner disease that he needs to deal with. If so, like most dreams, it is not about curing others, but what he needs to do to cure himself.