Dream therapy

Napoleon managed to conquer most of Europe often against extraordinary odds.

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When asked what was the most important characteristic of a good general he replied that they should be lucky! It is often said that people make their own luck. To quote one of the most famous golfers of all time, Gary Player “You know, it’s strange but the more I practice the luckier I get.’

We now know that luck is indeed hugely influenced by someone’s state of mind. The more self confident and optimistic you are the luckier you tend to be.

Behavioural psychologists have put this down to selective memory and the ability to grasp new opportunities. The optimists in the population are more likely to gamble on new experiences than realists, because they are less able to see the risks involved.

Optimists

Surprisingly the vast majority of us are optimists. It is hard wired into our brains due to evolution. If our ancestors had not been born optimists they would never have left the shores of Africa and Mesopotamia for fear of the consequences of going into the unknown. Optimists also tend to selectively remember those happy times that their luck was with them and forget the occasions when it wasn’t.

This is the reason why gambling is so addictive. When the outcome of an an event is not known, such as watching a football match live, if your team is successful your pleasure centre in the brain rewards you. If you are watching a recording of the match and already know the result then you are not rewarded with the same thrill.

Prof Allio

The world famous polymath Prof Aillo, whose discoveries have often been reported first in the Denmark Doctor, has discovered that there is much more to luck than we initially thought. His ideas are set to turn statistics on its head and will have a profound effect on future research in medicine which is a statistics based science.

Medical science is complex because of the enormous number of variables involved in all decisions. For example the simple question of whether or not doctors should prescribe antibiotics for a throat infection is fraught with complications. We know that antibiotics kill bacteria and we know that antibiotics cause sore throats so it should be obvious that antibiotics should be used to treat sore throats. But not all sore throats are caused by antibiotics, not all bacteria are killed by antibiotics and people get better from sore throats without any treatment anyway.

The difference is often only a day or two if your sore throat happens to be due to a bacterium which happens to be sensitive to the antibiotic which your doctors happens to have prescribed. Against this is the risk of side effects from antibiotics and often these risks outweigh the small benefits. But trying to unravel all these variables is incredibly hard and involves experimenting on huge numbers of people to pick up the small benefits or disadvantages involved and that is where statistical analysis comes in.

Statistics

Statistics deals with the probabilities of the unknown. For example if I toss a coin there is a 50 per cent chance it will turn up heads or tails. However if I toss a coin and cover it up so that I can see the result but you can’t, then the chances of it being heads are either zero or 100% from my perspective but 50% from yours. The subconscious brain control all our subconscious thoughts and actions. In effect our brains are like icebergs with the vast majority of work happening deep beneath the surface.

Dreaming

Prof Aillo has discovered that we are at our most creative and inspirational when dreaming, either in the middle of the night or in the middle of the day! This is the time when our powerful subconscious can really get to grips with those insoluble problems. He has now found that our subconscious connects into the collective subconscious of the human population, an idea initially developed by the psychotherapist Carl Jung.

The power of this collective subconscious is able to transcend time and space and can see into the future. It transpires that to know the result of tossing a coin you simply have to be able to project your subconscious through into the fifth dimension which exists outside of time. Alas visiting the fifth dimension is not something which our conscious mind can manage. Indeed even our subconscious can only cope with limited exposure to the infinite nature of the fifth dimension.

Prof Aillo concentrates on the question for which he needs an answer and uses eastern mystical medication to empty his consciousness and enter a trance state. When he wakes he has the answer to the question. Napoleon thought that his generals were lucky in reality they were all dreamers who would plan and drink together. His victorious campaigns were more down to the combined drunken comatose stupor of the French leadership connecting with their collective subconscious and knowing the future outcomes of their battles. Waterloo was lost not because of the brilliance of Wellington but because the French supply of brandy had gone dry!

Gary Player’s practicing enables him to go into a trance like state and see the path of the golf ball in the future. Most top class sportsmen are able to perform similar feats. Prof Ailo has now developed a super fast trance state for simple questions such as what are the numbers of the lottery. He has deliberately avoided winning the jackpot because of the adverse publicity it would generate but does earn sufficient to fund several multinational research projects.

Trance Sessions

More complex questions such as will my patient benefit from antibiotics require a lot more effort. Nonetheless his results have stunned the medical profession and it appears that future research is likely to dispense with the traditional approach of randomised controlled trials in favour of multi expert group trance sessions. To connect with the collective subconscious the experts all need to be masters in the field under study. Much in the same way that to answer questions about individuals health that person must also go into a trance state.

So in the none too distant future your doctor may well simply put himself and yourself into a meditative trance and ask for the best course of action. Apparently the GMC is already drawing up guidelines to ensure that these trance states are not used for any unethical reasons such as winning the lottery.

So the next time you happen to think that I might be day dreaming in the middle of the consultation feel reassured that I am working hard at trying to get you better and the best thing that you can do is to day dream as well.