Maximizing Well-Being
By Joyce Lynn

In the fall of 1984, after a routine physical, my doctor informed me I had an abnormal (pre-cancerous) Pap test result. I had just turned 40. I had almost finished writing a screenplay — my first foray into writing after giving up journalism, my chosen profession, in disillusionment. Emerging from an intensely feminist stage, I verged on finding the personal happiness that had eluded me.

I used dreams, prayer and affirmations, in which I had recently become interested, to treat myself. Follow-up tests have been normal.

Since this potentially serious event occurred as I was about to find personal and professional satisfaction, I wondered what effect our thoughts have on our physical condition and could this knowledge be used to treat, cure and prevent disease? Could we use natural methods to become and stay well?

I researched these questions for a year. Shortly after my health crisis, I had a dream which indicated my future work would be in video, so I prepared a program giving an overview of the mind-body work I had researched. The program would consist of "talking heads - people who used natural techniques from herbs to body, their doctors and other medical practitioners.

I had nearly finished when a voice in a dream said, 'No, you're doing this wrong." In a series of dreams over several nights, a "revised" script-in symbolic form-was dictated. It was a beautiful synthesis of my experience and research. In a groggy voice, I put the words and verbal images on my tape recorder.

The first dream began, B.D. (my mother's friend who is a gourmet cook) gave me the name of somebody I should call—Mitzi—she owns a cooking shop.

I spent several months translating the dictated script, which told the story of three people who used spiritual powers to overcome long-time fears that had manifested as life-threatening illnesses. The story: We all have an inner source we can call upon to help us become well; stay well; be well. Because of each person's experiences, the events precipitating illness are unique. The best remedies are natural—love of self, love of others, faith. The way to tell this story is through three, powerful personal experiences: One story was my own. Mitzi is the divine spirit that lives within every soul and guides our well-being.

The doctors referred me to patients whose stories matched those in the dictated dream script.

Since my career background was in print journalism, I looked for a director with strong technical and television experience. Initial attempts were unsuccessful. Then in a dream a voice said, "Check every ______ in the telephone book."

One ______ in San Francisco was a publishing company; another was an apartment house. In Marin County, where I live, the man who answered my first telephone inquiry for that listing said he was an independent director who had worked for a major San Francisco television station for 20 years! Stumbling for words, I told him I had a script I would like him to read.

Then one night I had a dream in which a Best Western motel collapsed. Was this the fall of Western medicine? I woke up feeling the potential power of this work. .

Another dream spelled out the name of my productions company—Maxlwell. (I maximize well-being.)

This kind of dream power makes work fun and effortless. Dreams were not only the means to my physical healing, but also the direction to my work-and how to solve specific problems associated with it.

Dream Network Bulletin / july/dec 1989
© Joyce Lynn