The Luckiest Man Alive?

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He notes that dreams play an important role in the lives of indigenous people, not just for shamans but as a way for anyone to get in deeper touch with the currents of their inner world and perhaps the whole universe. “I think dreams can be very practical,” he says. “When something comes into your awareness as a dream, take it seriously. If you dream of, say, an otter, then paint a picture of an otter, or read about them, or go to a zoo and watch them to see what comes up for you.”

Dreams can actually be incubated, he adds, sharing a few of his own tips. Put a glass of water, a wad of tobacco, a religious symbol, a meaningful word written on a scrap of paper, or something that represents an image from an earlier dream under your bed near the spot where your heart rests at night. “Many nights I get on my knees like my daddy taught me and pray for guidance, he says.”

Keeney, however, has not always been so at ease about revelations and disturbances from unexpected sources. One day while on the University of Missouri campus (where he enrolled after being kicked out of Bible college for starting an alternative paper called For Christ’s Sake), he began to shake uncontrollably. “I felt a ball of fire at the base of my spine. It rose up my body and out of my head. I saw a white light. It scared the hell out of me. I walked around for two weeks afterwards with my head looking straight down because I was worried it would start again.”

“As I always would do,” he continues, “I went to the library for a book to explain everything.” What he learned was that his experience resembled kundalini, a powerful form of body energy known to some yoga practitioners. This information provided little comfort, since the book noted that spontaneous eruptions of kundalini are considered quite dangerous. All Keeney knew was that he didn’t want to feel anything like that again—ever. So he began steeling himself against any experience he couldn’t control.

His resolve to keep everything under wraps drove him away from his first love, music, and toward psychology, with its safe and sound explanations for human experience. Yet throughout his studies and clinical work, almost by instinct, he found himself pushing the boundaries of the field—incorporating what he had learned at his grandfather’s Baptist revival meetings, in the basement as a teenage science nerd and inventor, from the radical ideas of cybernetics theorist Gregory Bateson, and in the energy of the counterculture swirling all around him.

He eventually braided many of these strains into something he calls Improvisational Therapy, which, unlike conventional psychological technique, focuses foremost on building a creative rapport between therapist and client. Like a jazz jam, the therapy process Keeney recommends is participatory, “with each party bringing something to the table” so they can explore a whole range of factors surrounding a person’s issues.

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