Incubation & Temple Sleep

Common throughout all antiquity, the practice of incubatio, or dream incubation, consisted of 'sleeping in a temple or sacred place for oracular purposes.'[1] Pilgrims would often travel considerable distances to reach such a temple or sanctuary in search of some divinely inspired dream vision. Within the sanctuary itself, they’d be placed in the care of officiating priests. These oneiromancers-versed in dream divination-would prepare the visitors’ sleep by offering them the miraculous waters associated with the sanctuary, along with some soporific plant or medicinal concoction. Anyone who is interested in dream interpretation will be familiar with the works of Carl Jung and his allegorical dream-scapes of the collective unconscious. In truth, the allegorical expression of ideas pervades literature, art, music, religion, politics, business, and advertising - as well as everyday speech. For the magical practitioner, the immense richness of the allegorical tradition was thoroughly mined and exploited by no less an individual than Aleister Crowley himself, whose grasp of classical understanding knew no bounds. By entering our consciousness as ’symbolically abstract concepts’ these classical entities do not in any way infringe on our belief in whatever godhead is pertinent to our personal faith, path or tradition when it comes to dreams and divination.  In ancient times incubation occurred during the religious practice of sleeping in a sacred area with the intention of experiencing a divinely inspired dream or cure. Incubation was practiced by many ancient cultures and was later adopted by certain Christian sects and is still used in a few Greek monasteries.