I recently read that well-known psychiatric pioneer Carl Jung went through a period of "intense flooding of his consciousness"¹ from 1912 to 1917 during which he developed many of the theories that made him famous.  He later wrote about it in the book Memories, Dreams and Reflections.    I thought this was very interesting as it seems to closely mirror the experience of St. Francis of Assisi who had his first revelations and visions one morning while laying in bed recovering from illness.  Many people think that Jung was not very scientific in his method of developing psychiatric theories, which mainly came from analyzing his own dreams, visions and revelations and because he got involved with mystics, shaman and religion.  They forget that Freud developed most of his theories by studying his own dreams and that Freud also took interest in mystics and occultists.  
    For decades though, Jung has been pushed aside by the more materialistic types of psychiatry and psychology, but that seems to be changing as people are once again taking interest in the spiritual.

1: from the book "The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead" by Stephan A. Hoeller.