The story “Hypnotising Dogs” is also designed to cure the symptoms of travel sickness, since what’s good for dogs is also good for humans. The method involves refocusing attention from bodily experiences to the hearing, relieving anxiety and stress through a relaxation trance, and producing heart and breathing rates which are similar to those experienced during sleep and are wholly dissimilar to those experienced during attacks of nausea. The procedure is also suitable for infants, dementia patients, coma patients, people with severe mental disabilities and other people with whom verbal communication is not possible.

I recently took a coach trip with a group of family members, including Luna the labrador. “She feels sick,” said my sister-in-law. “She’s already retched several times. She doesn’t like travelling by car because it sometimes makes her vomit. Can’t you hypnotise her so that it doesn’t happen while she’s in the coach with us?” I talked to Luna for a while and then asked my nephew Nikolas: “Would you lend Luna your MP3 player? Find some peaceful music – a lullaby or something similar. Set the volume very low, and place the headphones on Luna’s ears.” Nikolas found a band whose music was suitable and put the headphones over Luna’s head. After half a minute or so, Luna relaxed and lay down, and was soon asleep. Her symptoms of nausea did not reappear.