Observations placeholder
Fox, Oliver - Catalepsy and headaches as side effects
Identifier
002035
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Some side effects, as he drifts between lucid dream and full out of body state.
The headache suggests to me he may have been ill with bradycardia or similar.
A description of the experience
The mental effort of prolonging the dream produced a pain in the head – dull at first, but rapidly increasing in intensity – and I knew instinctively this was a warning to me to resist no longer the call of my body...............
Catalepsy can be produced by hypnosis, and it is very probable that my symptoms were actually physical and not merely an illusion of the dream state; but I know now there was no need for me to have had that painful struggle to break the condition. If I had just composed my mind and dozed off again, my body would have been normal on waking.
I have proved this on many occasions, and can recommend it as much the better course to pursue if any reader should find himself, perhaps quite by accident, in this state; for the mental strain and tendency to panic might react unfavourably upon a weak heart.