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What was dream incubation at Epidaurus?
At Epidaurus, incubation was a method in which patients slept in the Abaton, a sacred dormitory, hoping for a healing dream from Asclepius. Priests then interpreted the dream and prescribed a regimen for the patient to follow afterward, as the tradition taught.
Facts checked on against 14 sources, 8 of them museum, university, archive, library, government or primary texts.
Key facts
Every line comes from a source listed at the bottom of the page. The small numbers point to it.
| Late Roman period | According to the tradition of incubation therapy, the practice continued until the late Roman period, when Christianity replaced ancient healing sanctuaries with churches.1 |
|---|---|
| Late 6th century BC | Asklepios' worship became centered at Epidauros, where the most famous Asclepieion was founded.2 |
| 1st century BC | The sanctuary was plundered during the war against Rome waged by Mithridates, King of Pontus.34 |
| 4th century CE | Epidaurus began actively promoting the Asclepius cult throughout the empire, and dream incubation flourished until about 400 CE.5 |
What the practice involved
Patients were purified before sleeping in the Abaton, the restricted inner area also called the Enkoimeterion, through bathing, votive gifts, prayer and sometimes fasting.162
The Enkoimeterion was a sacred dormitory where patients slept overnight awaiting divine dreams. Pausanias reported that patients who were ready to be cured sacrificed a ram, spread its skin beneath them, and slept while awaiting enlightenment in a dream.12
Healed individuals recorded their recoveries on stone plaques called Iamata, and these inscriptions are the main source for the cures described at the site.15
Preparation and conditions
Typical conditions for incubation included ablution, sacrifice or votive gifts, prayer, feeding the sacred snakes honey cakes, abstinence and diet or fasting beforehand.57
Pregnant women and the terminally ill were excluded from the Asclepieia in order to keep the sanctuary clean from birth and death.5
Caton described the ritual at the Athenian Asklepieion in which, at night, attendants put out the lights, enjoined silence, and told everyone to sleep and hope for guiding visions.8910
Surgery and opium: a debated reading
The same authors argue that poppy-flower coffers on the marble ceiling of a sanctuary building give indirect evidence for opium use in medical and surgical work in the inner area. Askitopoulou's review adds that a picture of the deity Methe (drunkenness) in the sleeping building, with the poppy coffers, suggests patients slept in the inaccessible abaton awaiting the god.2
What the tradition holds
How practitioners describe it, in their terms. Described, not endorsed.
Caton noted that the Epidaurian abaton was described in the tradition as the earliest known example of a hospital ward, while Egyptian institutions related to infirmaries existed many centuries earlier, though no structural trace was found.9
Csepregi's book describes incubation as a well-known Near Eastern ritual that became popular in Classical and Hellenistic Greece, where it became attached to Asclepius and other divinities.1112
What the evidence shows
What historians, scientists and controlled tests have found.
In a later review, Askitopoulou states that early in the 6th century BC, induced sleep, enkoimesis or dream incubation, became an established practice in the sanctuaries of Asklepios.213
Askitopoulou describes the sleep in enkoimesis as an imitation of decay, death, and rebirth, since sleep resembles a temporary death while waking includes rejuvenation.13
Renberg states that incubation was usually practiced to obtain a dream-oracle about a future matter or medical issue, and that Greek incubation sanctuaries had dormitory buildings termed ἐγκοιμητήριον/κοιμητήριον.14
Worked out from the evidence
Not stated outright by any one source. It is worked out from the sources cited.
- Dream incubation at Epidaurus was a ritual medical practice in which purification, sleep in a sacred dormitory and priestly dream interpretation were combined, and its surviving record rests largely on inscriptions and later accounts.1
- Scholars disagree on how to read the cures at Epidaurus: some accounts treat the dream experiences as visions and others suggest that drugs such as opium may have been given before surgery.8210
Not yet confirmed
- Which elements of the Epidaurian dream rite were shared with other incubation sanctuaries, and which were specific to Epidaurus?
- How far did the use of soporific substances shape the dreams that patients reported?
Sources
Museums, universities, archives and primary texts first. Every fact is paraphrased and nothing is copied; Wikipedia is never cited.
- olympia-museum.gr: Enkoimesis at Epidaurus: Dream incubation in Healing Rituals - Olympia Museum. Read on · Museum
- sciencedirect.com: Surgical cures under sleep induction in the Asclepieion of Epidauros - ScienceDirect. Read on · Reference
- visitworldheritage.com: Asclepieion of Epidaurus - The sacred centre of healing | World Heritage Journeys of Europe. Read on · Reference
- coinsandhistoryfoundation.org: The Poison King: Mithradates VI – The Coins & History Foundation. Read on · Reference
- psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk: Dream Incubation – Psi Encyclopedia. Read on · University
- namuseum.gr: The Magical Healing Sleep | National Archaeological Museum. Read on · Museum
- gutenberg.org: Plague and pestilence in literature and art. Read on · Primary text
- Internet Archive: Two lectures on the temples and ritual of Asklepios at Epidaurus and Athens : delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Read on · Primary text
- Internet Archive: The temples and ritual of Asklepios at Epidauros and Athens. Two lectures delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Read on · Primary text
- gutenberg.org: The Temples and Ritual of Asklepios, by Richard Caton—a Project Gutenberg eBook. Read on · Primary text
- brepols.net: Brepols - Incubation in Early Byzantium. Read on · Reference
- brepolsonline.net: Incubation in Early Byzantium | Brepols Online. Read on · Reference
- sciencedirect.com: Sleep and Dreams: From Myth to Medicine in Ancient Greece - ScienceDirect. Read on · Reference
- dlib.nyu.edu: Incubation in Demotic Literature. Read on · University