DOWN TO EARTH

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The voice on the other end of the phone I’d just answered said, “Hello. I’m Mary. I’m a member of a motorcycle gang, and I want to order some dream pillow materials.”

The caller went on to tell me that her group consisted of several men who had served in Vietnam in the 1960s. Her husband, she said, suffered from persistent nightmares from that war and seldom slept through the night without waking in terror. Mary had bought my book, Making Herbal Dream Pillows, at a bookstore, found my website listed and had ordered a dream pillow from my company. “I wanted one from the source,” she said with a laugh.

I was imagining a motorcycle gang, dressed in their leathers, riding the roads on big Harleys, sleeping on the side of the road, roaring through dusty desert towns. How could a sweet little dream pillow fit into that scene?

Without hesitation, Mary began to describe the events that led up to her phone call. She’d ordered the Restful Sleep Pillow, willing to try anything that might help her husband sleep, placed the tiny pillow inside his pillowcase as they camped, and didn’t tell him. Since the pillows are intentionally made to have a very subtle fragrance, he wasn’t tipped off to its presence.

The first morning after the dream pillow was placed, she said he came to the campfire seeming very relaxed and mentioned that he’d slept through the night. Nothing more was said.

After the second night, she said her husband came to the morning campfire and, as he visited with fellow road hogs, said, “I’ve slept two nights in a row without nightmares. This fresh air is really good for sleeping!” Mary kept quiet, happy to be seeing results, but not yet certain of the source.

More mornings followed without comment, then on the fifth day her husband said out loud that he’d been almost a week without a flashback nightmare and didn’t know why. Mary sheepishly said it was the dream pillow she had placed in his pillowcase five nights before. He didn’t believe it, and Mary said, “I’ll prove it,” and dragged his pillow out of their tent. She directed him to fish around in the pillowcase and bring out whatever he found as their friends watched.