The practice of ‘temple sleep’ involved sleeping at a special temple or a venerated natural site with the aim of having dreams for initiation, divination or healing purposes. Certain ritual actions collectively known as “incubation” would be conducted prior to sleep to help direct the dreaming mind. Such dream-seeking procedures go back to the dawn of history.
    Jewish seers in antiquity would resort to a grave or sepulchral vault and spend the night there in order that the spirit of the deceased would appear in a dream and offer information or guidance. Indeed, the Jews were considered to be potent dream interpreters by the Babylonians, and this is encapsulated in the Biblical story of Daniel who was called on to interpret the dreams of King Nebuchadnezzar. Dynastic Egypt also had special temples for incubatory rituals where supplicants would fast and recite specific prayers. Immediately before going to sleep, the dream candidate might also invoke the help of suitable deities by writing their names on a piece of clean linen, then burning it.
    A classic example of an Ancient Egyptian divinatory dream is that of the pharaoh, Thutmosis IV (c.1419 – 1386 B.C.). Before Thutmose ascended to the kingship of Egypt the god Hor-em-akhet (Horus in the horizon) appeared to him in a dream, foretelling riches and a united kingdom when he came to power. All this came to pass, and the pharaoh recorded the dream on a stela, a pillar of stone, that still stands before the Sphinx to this day.
    China, too, had incubation temples and they were active up until the sixteenth century. The incubated dreams were used mainly as aids to political decisionmaking and state officials would spend a night at such a temple before important meetings. In Japan the emperor possessed a dream hall in his palace where he would sleep on a polished stone bed called a kamudoko when he wanted help in resolving a matter of state.

The Dawn of Therapy

    It is from ancient Greece that we have the clearest information regarding this practice. Temple sleep there was known as psychomanteia and was primarily aimed at finding cures for disease. It accompanied the rise in popularity of the healing god, Aesculapius, son of Apollo. Over 300 dream temples dedicated to Aesculapius were built throughout Greece; the first such Aesculapion (or Asklepion) was in Athens, but the most important was at Epidaurus.
    Founded in the 4th century B.C., this was both a religious centre and a fashionable spa. Its site nestles beneath Mount Velanidhia (the ancient Mount Tittthion) where Aesculapius was said to have been suckled. As the ruins of Epidaurus today still indicate, it was a large complex comprised of a Doric temple, baths, a theatre and stadium, a mysterious circular structure known as the Tholos, hotel-like buildings, and the Enkoimeterion, the hall where the temple sleep actually took place. This was built over a well that was sacred long before Epidaurus was built.
    Anyone seeking healing dreams at Epidaurus, or at any Aesculapion, would undergo a variety of spiritual and physical purifications in which water figured prominently. At the Corinth Aesculapion, for example, water was brought from a special source over 14 miles distant even though there were other springs at hand which were also used. It is interesting to note that this imported water at Corinth has been found to be radioactive, as is sometimes the case at other ancient sacred spas, that at Bath being a prime example.
    The temple would contain many statues depicting Aesculapius along with displays of terracotta models of body parts accompanying testimonial plaques left by previous visitors who had experienced successful cures. Harmless snakes were allowed free rein within an Aesculapion, symbolically relating to the god’s emblem of a snake entwined around a staff – the caduceus. Eventually, the person seeking the healing dream would enter a dream cell (abaton) and sleep on a special bed, hoping Aesculapius would appear in a dream. Temple assistants known as therapeutes would later interpret supplicants' dreams for them, advising on the course of treatment indicated by the dream imagery. There is evidence that the floors of abatons were sometimes covered in blood, suggesting that actual surgery may have been performed. The therapeutes also sometimes applied ointments to a supplicant’s afflicted parts, or else allowed a temple snake to lick them.
    Contemporary records from the Greek dream temples tell of a range of cures, some seemingly miraculous. One fellow, Heraieus, was described as not having a hair on his head, ‘but a great deal on his chin’. Tired of being the butt of humour, he slept in the temple; an inscription states: ‘And the god, anointing his head with a drug, made him grow hair.’ Another inscription says: ‘There came as a suppliant to the god a man who was so one-eyed that the other had only lids in which there was nothing. Then a vision appeared to him as he slept; the god seemed to boil some medicine and, drawing apart the lids, to pour it in. When day came, he went out seeing with both eyes.’

Dreaming On

    The Romans adopted and adapted the idea of dream temples, so it is not surprising that they have been found throughout the Roman Empire. One of the most far-flung was the Temple of Nodens, located over a powerful spring in Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, and overlooking the River Severn. Nodens was a native British god, patron of hunting and healing, who also had water associations. The sacred animals of this precinct were dogs, judging by the number of votive canine figurines that have been unearthed there. Like the snakes of Aesculapius, they would have been used to lick patients’ afflicted parts.
    Temple sleep continues in some countries to this day. This is exemplified by the Shiva shrine at Tarakeswar, north of Calcutta in India. Pilgrims suffering chronic or incurable diseases undertake dream incubation at the site, a procedure known as dharna in Bengali. Under the guidance of a priest, the sick person fasts for a period then sleeps in a specified area within the temple.

Haunted by Dreams

    Was there a psychic dimension to the spots selected for dream temples? It sounds unlikely, but the novelist and poet, Lawrence Durrell, made some astounding, if now long-forgotten, observations to this effect in The Listener, 25 September, 1947. On his first visit to Epidaurus in 1939, his sense was that the whole area held an aura of sanctity – there was ‘something at once intimate and healing about it’. But his Greek guide at the complex let it slip that he had managed to finagle a transfer to Mycenae. Durrell wanted to know why the man should want to leave this green and peaceful place in favour of the craggy citadel. ‘I can’t bear the dreams we have in this valley,’ the guide explained. ‘What dreams?’ Durrell queried. ‘Everybody in this valley has dreams,’ the man replied. ‘Some people don’t mind, but as for me, I’m off.’
    He went on to comment that the dreams frequently contained the figure of a man with an Assyrian-looking visage, with dense ringlets falling down onto his shoulders. He looked like a figure depicted in a fresco in the Epidaurus museum – an image of old Aesculapius himself, Durrell suspected. But surely that was to be expected, considering that the guide spent his days in Epidaurus? ‘Why should my two kids dream about him when they have never set foot in the museum?’ the Greek retorted. ‘If you don’t believe me, ask any of the peasants who live in this valley. They all have dreams. The valley is full of dreams.’ Durrell wondered if the thousands of dreams countless suppliants had experienced at Epidaurus over its centuries of activity had somehow lingered on.
    In 1945, immediately after the Second World War, Durrell had reason to revisit this train of thought. While visiting the island of Cos, he encountered two British soldiers who were clearing up scattered German and Italian ordnance; they were camped near the archaeologicallyexcavated site of an Aesculapion. Durrell chatted with the soldiers who asked him if he knew anything about the temple. He told them about the Aesculapian cult, and casually asked them if they had noticed anything unusual about their dreams. This startled them. It transpired that they had moved their tent out of their initial camping spot within the temple precinct precisely because they had experienced profoundly odd and disturbing dreams. ‘Was it possible, I found myself wondering again, that dreams do not disappear?’ Durrell wrote. ‘And especially in a place like this which must have been charged with hundreds of thousands of dreams?’
    Durrell decided to conduct his own experiment by undertaking a series of sleep sessions in the Cos temple, recording his dreams in a notebook. Unfortunately, it seems he did not publish these because he felt the experiment was not complete. However, in his 1947 article he added: ‘It may be years before I have time to visit Greece again and do some more work … But the material I have to date is interesting enough to suggest that dreams do perhaps live on in these ancient centres of healing, and can tell one things of great esoteric significance.’ It appears he probably did not return to complete his dreaming sessions, but half a century later a loosely similar and more extensive experiment was carried out by other investigators. That is another story – one that will be told in the next issue of Freemasonry Today.

Paul Devereux lectures widely, broadcasts occasionally, and has written many articles, academic papers and some twenty-six books. Recent titles include, The Sacred Place (Cassell), Stone Age Soundtracks (Vega), Living Ancient Wisdom (Rider) and Mysterious Ancient America (Vega).