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Dreams That Can Save Your Life

Early Warning Signs of Cancer and Other Diseases

By Larry Burk and Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos
Foreword by Bernie Siegel

An exploration of dreams as a spiritual source of healing and inner guidance for your health and well-being

• 2018 Nautilus Silver Award

• Shares stories--confirmed by pathology reports--from subjects in medical research projects whose dreams diagnosed illness and helped heal their lives

• Explores medical studies and ongoing research on the diagnostic power of precognitive dreams, including Dr. Burk’s own medical research

• Includes an introduction to dream journaling and interpretation techniques

Your dreams can provide inner guidance filled with life-saving information. Since ancient Egypt and Greece, people have relied on the art of dreaming to diagnose illness and get answers to personal life challenges. Now, dreams are making a grand reappearance in the medical arena as recent scientific research and medical pathology reports validate the diagnostic abilities of precognitive dreams. Are we stepping back into the future as modern medical tests show dreams can be early warning signs of cancer and other diseases?

Showcasing the important role of dreams and their power to detect and heal illness, Dr. Larry Burk and Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos share amazing research and true stories of physical and emotional healings triggered by dreams. The authors explore medical studies and ongoing research on the diagnostic power of precognitive dreams, including Dr. Burk’s own research on dreams that come true and can be medically validated. They share detailed stories--all confirmed by pathology reports--from subjects in medical research projects whose dreams diagnosed illness and helped heal their lives, including Kathleen’s own story as a three-time breast cancer survivor whose dreams diagnosed her cancer even when it was missed by her doctors.

Alongside these stories of survival and faith, the authors also include an introduction to dream journaling and interpretation, allowing the reader to develop trust in their dreams as a spiritual source of healing and inner guidance.
Introduction

The original inspiration for the research project which led to the publication of my paper, “Warning dreams preceding the diagnosis of breast cancer,” began in 2004 when Diane, one of my best friends, called me to say she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. A cardiac physiologist-turned-mindfulness meditation teacher, she had just had her 50th birthday and was previously in good health with no symptoms related to her breasts.

What Diane told me next would many years later send my research career off in an unusual direction into the world of dreams. She said a month earlier she had had a vivid, morereal-than-real dream of being on an operating room table having surgery on her breast for cancer by a woman surgeon. The dream was so compelling that she immediately went to her doctor to request a mammogram even though she had no symptoms or palpable lump.

After having the test every woman dreads and sitting in the waiting room anticipating bad news, the woman radiologist came out to assure her everything was fine, and she could go home. Diane was so certain of the warning from the dream that she asked for an ultrasound just to be sure. The radiologist refused saying that since there was no lump or abnormality on the mammogram she wouldn’t know where to do the ultrasound exam.

Diane pointed to the spot indicated in her dream and refused to leave without the ultrasound being done in that location. The exasperated radiologist finally agreed and put the ultrasound probe on the spot. She was shocked to find a small cancer deep in the breast and turned white as a ghost. She stammered, “How did you know it was there?” Diane replied that she was shown the cancer in a dream, and as a radiologist I can imagine that was quite an unexpected explanation for the doctor.

A referral to a surgeon for a biopsy led to another surprise for Diane. When she walked in the office she recognized the woman surgeon from her dream, dramatically taking her precognitive experience to the next level. The future vision scenario continued to play out in the operating room just as had been foretold in the dream as detailed below in summary from her dream diary in March and the narration of the scene in the operating room from April.

In March 2004, I had a vivid dream (unlike any before) in which I was lying on an operating table and a woman surgeon was operating on my left breast. At one point, she went to a microscope and looked through it and came back and told me that I have breast cancer. After hearing this news from the doctor, my daughter and former husband broke down and cried. I woke up.

While I was startled, there was also a sense of calm at the same time, a knowing that I needed to get checked medically as soon as possible. I was scheduled for an appointment several months later for my annual mammogram and I called and moved the appointment up.

On April 9, 2004, I was lying on an operating table. A woman surgeon excised breast tissue which was then examined under a microscope and determined to be cancer. Shortly after waking up from the anesthesia and getting dressed to go home, the doctor came to tell me that I had breast cancer. At home, my former husband and my daughter cried with the news.

Seven years later I was invited to present on a Medical Dream Diagnosis panel at the annual Parapsychological Association meeting held in Durham, NC, in August 2012. After telling Diane’s story I was approached by Bob van de Castle, a famous dream researcher, about making a related presentation on dreams and cancer at the next International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) meeting in June 2013.

At the same meeting, a physician/consciousness researcher friend of mine shared her story of breast cancer warning dreams with me, giving me reinforcement to submit the proposal to present at the IASD meeting. She had two scary dreams in one night, the first being about a serial killer, the kind that would make you get up in the middle of the night and check to make sure your doors are locked. The next one was about having breast cancer, found the next day on a mammogram without any symptoms.

It is a standard joke in medical research that when you discover one unusual diagnosis you can say you have “a case report.” If you see another similar one, then you can say you’ve seen “case after case.” If you find a third, then you have “a series.” The third one in my experience came from another friend who I had only met once during a week at a 2008 healing retreat in Brazil. Sonia Lee-Shield’s story from her blog below is truly a cautionary one that gave me the final push to do the research project.

In January 2009, I had a dream that I had cancer. I went to the G.P (General Practitioner) complaining of a lump and spasm-like feelings on my sternum. The G.P. concluded it was normal breast tissue, and the feeling in my sternum was dismissed, a devastating mistake. A year later, a different doctor diagnosed stage 3 breast cancer. If there’s one thing I could impart to everyone is that doctors and specialists make mistakes and when an inner voice starts screaming or dreaming you should listen.

Sonia died in 2013, and I now dedicate all my talks on this topic to her memory. Part of the motivation for doing research in this area is to make sure no other woman has her breast cancer warning dream dismissed by her doctor.
Larry Burk

Larry Burk, M.D., C.E.H.P., President of Healing Imager, PC, specializes in teleradiology, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), hypnosis, and dreamwork. He attended medical school and residency training at the University of Pittsburgh and later trained in acupuncture and hypnosis, becoming a Certified Energy Health Practitioner. The author of Let Magic Happen, he lives in Durham, North Carolina.

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Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos

Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos has spent years studying and teaching about dreams. A three-time breast cancer survivor whose premonitory dreams diagnosed her cancer, she credits her survival to conventional treatment combined with her dreams as a diagnostic tool. Kathleen is one of 20 case studies from a paper on precognitive dreams that diagnosed breast cancer recently published in a medical journal. She lives in Palm Beach, Florida.

“Dreams That Can Save Your Life is mesmerizing and empowering, letting everyone know that each of us has an inner physician who can be trusted to care for us--even when conventional medicine denies this. This book should be required reading not only for physicians but for anyone who wants to tap deeply into their inner wisdom and allow its intelligence to guide their lives.”

– Christiane Northrup, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wi

“This inspiring book could save your life or the life of someone you love, Dozens of medically verified stories of dreams accurately diagnosing, prognosticating, or suggesting the most effective therapies for deadly diseases will help you trust your dreams and intuition. Dreams are a vital part of the modern medical team. I rely on them. This book will convince you that you should, too.”

– Kathi J. Kemper, MD, MPH, author of Authentic Healing

“The authors provide the evidence we need to heed warning dreams. Live not in fear of them but in the joy of receiving the best of all gifts--a dream that can save your life.”

– C. Norman Shealy, MD, PhD, neurosurgeon and author of Living Bliss

“Information that comes to us through dreams can be important, compelling, and even lifesaving, as this beautiful book illustrates. Yet all too few of us are paying attention. Bravo to the authors for having the courage to step outside the medical box and expand our horizons. We are all enriched by their elegant work. They invite us to ask ourselves, ‘What else is possible?’ A life-changing question if there ever was one.”

– Thomad Hudson, MD, author of Journey to Hope: Leaving the Fear of Breast Cancer Behind

“The most overlooked and neglected source of health information is our own unconscious mind, especially our dreams. This ancient, nocturnal avenue to wisdom is vividly described in Dreams That Can Save Your Life. These abilities are an inherent part of our nature. They are a magnificent gift. We ignore them at our own risk.”

– Larry Dossey, MD, author of One Mind

“This breakthrough book is the bridge we’ve all been waiting for that connects the metaphysical dream world with the practical world of medicine and science. After reading this book, you’ll never again take your dreams lying down.”

– Kelly Sullivan Walden, coauthor of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Dreams and the Unexplainable

“This book not only contains case studies but tells its readers how to remember their dreams and put them to practical use. It needs to be widely read not only by physicians but by their patients. The authors have written a book that reads like a series of detective stories, with surprise endings that will motivate its readers to remember their dreams and take action on what they discover.”

– Stanley Krippner, PhD, coeditor of Working with Dreams and PTSD Nightmares

“This thrilling book combines the latest psychological research on the power of dreams to foretell the onset of cancer. The authors are awakening us to our innate power to perceive the reality of--and heal--our own lives and bodies.”

– Nayaswami Devi Novak, cospiritual director of Ananda

“The authors bring razor-sharp attention to one of the biggest epidemics of our times--cancer. Everyone would benefit from this eye-opening book. Read this book to know how dreams can work in conjunction with early diagnosis of diseases. This can make a big difference between suffering and healing, life and death.”

– Jerry Lazarus, author of Dreams: Listening to the Voice of God

“This very provocative book not only chronicles the predictive dreams of dozens of cancer survivors but also seems to activate such dreams within the reader. For anyone who wants to activate their own inner physician, I highly recommend it!”

– Tricia McCannon, author of The Angelic Origins of the Soul

“Reading the detailed narratives of the dreamers in these pages gives me hope for the restoration of dreams to their rightful place in medicine.”

– Jean-Marc Emden, CEO and cofounder of DreamsCloud.com and cofounder of CircadiaLabs.com

"An inherently fascinating, impressively informative, expertly organized and presented study, Dreams That Can Save Your Life" is a unique, thoughtful and thought-provoking read from beginning to end. Certain to be an immediate and enduringly popular addition to community and academic library Health/Medicine collections, it should be noted for the personal reading lists of medical students, academia, doctors, medical support staff, and non-specialist general readers that "Dreams That Can Save Your Life" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $11.99).

– Helen Dumont, Midwest Book Review

Dreams That Can Save Your Life

Early Warning Signs of Cancer and Other Diseases

By Larry Burk and Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos
Foreword by Bernie Siegel