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I think the exact mechanism for how body affects mind and vice-versa isn't fully understood. There's obviously some interaction between lower brain areas like the hypothalamus - which control body functions, heartbeat etc - and the cerebral cortex or more conscious, reasoning parts. Otherwise, how would yogis be able to alter their body temperature and heartbeat in very specific ways just by thinking about it. There's also all the cases of spontaneous remission to consider, where patients unexplainably recover from terminal or serious illnesses following dramatic religious conversion, falling in love or other emotionally-charged 'healing' events.
More intriguingly, but still off-the-point a bit, I've read about cases where peopple with multiple personality disorder underwent physiological changes when transitioning between personalities - one personality is allergic to citrus but the other isn't and that kind of thing.
But back to practical suggestions for your weird sleep thing - could be, as Bear says, a physiological thing, like bad posture (?), affecting you mentally. I read somewhere - think it was one of Barefoot Doctor's books - that sleeping on your left side can give you nightmares as the blood is being pushed into your heart chamber causing discomfort. You should sleep on the right, he says, because then blood goes more into the liver where it gets cleaned. Oddly enough- I have noticed, on waking from a nightmare, that I'm sleeping on my left side. But there we are.
Maybe some kind of shamanic journeying-type exercise, where you go back to the scenario of the dream while journeying, and ask questions of the participants, would uncover some worthwhile information about what's going on. I've read of such things anyway- haven't had much success with journeying meself. |
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