For me, the documentary was frequently too self-focused, too much time spent on Ms. Hardie’s personal angst and not enough time on the nature of dreaming. I almost turned the TV off after the long opening about Ms. Hardie dream and sequence about her dead horse; I am glad that I didn’t.

Ms. Hardie chose to go to a shamanic healer to deal with the premonitory power of the dream that she was going to die. (In an interview with Ms. Hardie, she said that she went to three different psychotherapists first… I would still suggest that an experienced depth psychologist who works with trance and dreams might also have been as effective as the shaman.)

Nevertheless, as a result of the competence and the setting created by the shamanic healer and Ms. Hardie’s belief in the power of the shaman, Ms. Hardie clearly went into a profound altered state of consciousness that altered her pysche and,consequently and profoundly, altered her physical body. (During an interview, Ms. Hardie said that she was absolutely sure that she had been healed after the shamanic intervention.)

Interestingly, Ms. Hardie’s experience was a parallel journey to an ancient healing ritual that lasted over a thousand years, of visiting the temples of Aesclepius in Greece in order to have a healing dream. One had to journey far to get to these places, and the dream pilgrim was almost always in the midst of a crisis of mortality. Snakes were often strongly featured in these Aesclepian healing dreams. [They are a symbol of re-birth (from the shedding of their skin) and a symbol of ancient, deep animal instinct.] This particular sequence of the visions during the shamanic healing was quite well done.

I would hope that this film itself is a premonition of an increased in the power of dreams and healing in this dream-aversive and overly-rational culture. We have already had the film “Inception” this year; this is an excellent sequel.