NDE in Hypnosis 2007

Contemporary Hypnosis 139
Contemp. Hypnosis 24(3): 139–141 (2007)

Published online in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/ch.337
THE HYPNOTIC USE OF WAKING DREAMS: EXPLORING

NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES WITHOUT FLATLINES
By: Paul W. Schenk
Crown House Publishing Ltd, Carmarthen, Wales, 2006. Pp 149. Paperback

Price £16.99 ISBN 798-184590030-4
Reviewed by John Gruzelier
Goldsmiths, University of London
Schenk’s novel approach as a hypnotherapist is his strategy and indeed primary goal of
encouraging patients to dream while hypnotized – what he calls a ‘waking dream’– and
with the psychotherapeutic process based on the dream content. But as we will see, this
is not any old dream. Schenk utilizes the therapeutic potential of what he likens to an
‘after death experience’, maintaining that waking dreams ‘can be used to help people
resolve a variety of personal problems, enhance their intuitive abilities, and enrich the
spiritual aspect of their lives’ (p. vi).
What Schenk further does is to draw a direct parallel with the poorly understood
phenomenon of the near death experience (NDE). The NDE may occur at times such
as a heart attack, when vital signs monitored electrophysiologically stop (the ‘flatline’ of
the book’s title) and before the patient is resuscitated. It is common for the syndrome to
be documented for the significance it has for life changing, positive and spiritual conse-
quences; though it may well be that the predominantly negative experiences felt by some
people are under reported as less noteworthy. While the validity of these experiences
cannot be taken as evidence of the nature of after death consciousness (though they often
are), they do constitute a reproducible syndrome, one which is underpinned by a CNS
which is often under duress and anoxic. However, the fact that they have been reported
during meditation does serve to raise a question as to their ‘after death’ significance.
Features that Schenk observes to be in parallel between the NDE and the ‘waking
dream’ include the feeling of death and bodily separation, positive affect such as peace-
fulness, entering a tunnel before being surrounded by light, and crucially for Schenk’s
therapeutic process, being aware of a guiding presence, which typically cooperates in a
life review process.
Unlike the NDE, in the waking dream the patient may return to cardinal moments
in the life review and substitute events, often done in concert with the dream character.
This appears the crucial interpersonal dynamic for Schenk. It is the guide, often in the
guise of an angel or family member, ‘who facilitates the life review and helps provide
important insights or perspectives’ (p. 16).
As he goes on to say page 19, ‘Initiating a waking dream in therapy is straightforward.
The experience is very much like having a daydream. While most clients choose to lie
down on a couch and close their eyes, some remain in a seated position with their eyes
open. I have even experienced some of my own waking dreams while pacing back and
forth in a room.’
Copyright © 2007 British Society of Experimental & Clinical Hypnosis Contemp. Hypnosis 24: 139–141 (2007)
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd DOI: 10.1002/ch
140 Book reviews
My own interest in waking dreams and their life enhancing potential stems from
research on EEG-neurofeedback, specifically the practice of slow wave training aimed
at increasing the ratio of theta to alpha activity and encouraging a state of hypnogogia.
In this border state between waking and sleeping theta activity in a pure form occurs,
oscillating at between 3 to 7 cycles per second. The EEG spectral band called theta is
above delta, which in a pure form occurs in the deeper stages of sleep, and below alpha,
which occurs with eyes closed while awake. What transpires in an alpha/theta training
session is the presentation of pleasing sounds, such as waves breaking on a beach, con-
tingent on the production of slow wave activity as the participant reaches the border
between waking and sleeping.
Training in the production of hypnogogia while remaining awake, with its fragmen-
tary sensory imagery and symbolic thoughts as in a daydream, has produced evidence
of life enhancing outcomes.
Our controlled studies have demonstrated professionally significant increases in
music and dance performance, especially regarding the artistic quality of performance
(Egner and Gruzelier, 2003; Raymond Sajid, Parkinson and Gruzelier, 2005a), while
neurofeedback training in socially anxious students produced enhanced feelings of well-
being and elevated mood (Raymond, Varney and Gruzelier, 2005b). In uncontrolled
studies, in fact in the very first report of alpha/theta training (Green and Green, 1977),
the one common outcome in the more than twenty subjects described, was the experience
of psychic integration and the resolution of problems in life. Since then some clinicians
have specialized in these objectives offering alpha/theta training as a primary therapeutic
modality (White, 1999).
Theta is well known to be one of the electrophysiological hallmarks of hypnosis, and
of meditation. In hypnotically susceptible subjects in a state of deep hypnotic relaxation
there are affinities with the alpha/theta experience, with the exception that in hypnosis
proceedings are directed by the suggestions of the hypnotherapist. Furthermore in our
hands, so long as deep relaxation occurs, abundant theta activity is found in participants
irrespective of levels of hypnotizability (Williams and Gruzelier, 2001).
In view of the clear affinities with the alpha/theta training experience, and its life
enhancing consequences, one investigative stance given the therapeutic potential of
alpha/theta training, and given the entirely unconscious nature of the slow wave neuro-
feedback process, would be to question whether the psychodynamic approach is at all
necessary. How far could unconscious, unguided integration take us? Or could the neu-
rofeedback training facilitate the psychodynamic process? The dream state could be re-
entered this way facilitated by the training process. Certainly it would be fascinating to
contrast and compare the two approaches. As has been fully documented culturally,
hypnogogia is capable of producing creative insights, sometimes with profound signifi-
cance (Koestler, 1964).
My other question relates to Schenk’s allegiance to the NDE. While it surely gives
the hypnotic dream approach a dramatic landscape, is this analogy necessary or indeed
valid? May it be indulgent and esoteric, and indeed potentially off-putting for some
clients? These reservations are not meant in any way to challenge Schenk’s integrity or
indeed creativity as a psychotherapist.
His innovative approach may be distinguished from psychoanalytical dream analysis
in a number of ways:
• The content of the dream can be worked with therapeutically at the time.
• It does not rely on long term memory over days.
Book reviews 141
• The nature of the dream in hypnosis differs in that the participant is always experi-
enced as a third person in the dream.
• There is the guiding character who usually dies at the end of the dream.
More than half the book is given over to informative case studies which illustrate dif-
ferent applications of the waking dream therapy, and, for those with an inclination, in
two chapters the dreamscape is extended to past life therapy. All in all Schenk’s book is
highly recommended for therapists interested in psychodynamic uses of hypnotherapy.
References
Egner T, Gruzelier JH (2003) Ecological validity of neurofeedback: modulation of slow wave
EEG enhances musical performance. NeuroReport 14: 1225–8.
Green F and Green A (1977) Beyond Biofeedback. Knoll Publishing: New York.
Koestler A (1964) The Act of Creation. Reprinted 1990. London: Arkana.
Raymond J, Sajid I, Parkinson LA, Gruzelier JH (2005a) Biofeedback and dance performance:
a preliminary investigation. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback 30: 65–73.
Raymond J, Varney C, Gruzelier JH (2005b) The effects of alpha/theta neurofeedback on per-
sonality and mood. Cognitive Brain Research 23: 287–92.
White NE (1999) Theories for the effectiveness of alpha-theta training for multiple disorders. In
Abarbanel A, Evans JR (eds) Introduction to Quantitative EEG and Neurofeedback. London:
Academic Press, 341–367.
Williams JD, Gruzelier JH (2001) Differentiation of hypnosis and relaxation by analysis of narrow
band theta and alpha frequencies. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypno-
sis 49: 185–206.
Address for correspondence:

Professor John Gruzelier
Department of Psychology
Goldsmiths
University of London
Lewisham Way
New Cross
London SE14 6NW
UK
Phone: +44(0) 20 7919 7881
Fax: +44(0) 20 7919 7873
Email j.gruzelier@gold.ac.uk

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Contemporary Hypnosis 139

Contemp. Hypnosis 24(3): 139–141 (2007)

THE HYPNOTIC USE OF WAKING DREAMS: EXPLORING

By: Paul W. Schenk

Crown House Publishing Ltd, Carmarthen, Wales, 2006. Pp 149. Paperback

Reviewed by John Gruzelier

Goldsmiths, University of London

Address for correspondence:

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