Gene expression and brain plasticity in stroke rehabilitation: a personal memoir of mind-body healing dreams.

In this personal memoir the author describes the progress of his rehabilitation from a stroke and the dream manifestations of his mind-body healing. He also shares his reminiscences about Erickson's physical difficulties as well as Erickson's naturalistic or activity-dependent approach to therapeutic hypnosis and rehabilitation and emphasizes what he considers the least understood and most under appreciated aspect of Erickson's hypnotherapy--the fact that his patients frequently experienced intense emotional experiences as they accessed and replayed their traumas in a therapeutic manner. He also speculates about the neural mechanisms of his healing from the standpoint of his new neuroscience theory which includes the novelty-numinosum-neurogenesis effect.