Incubation
Temple sleep
Sleeping in the sacred place to receive the healing dream.
Incubation: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The sick of the ancient world slept in the precinct of Asclepius and waited for the healing dream, or for the god himself to come. Jung’s colleague C. A. Meier read the practice as the ancestor of analysis, in which the cure is sought from the unconscious, and the physician only attends it.
Jung himself trusted that the dream brings the psyche’s own contribution to healing, if it is received as the ancients received theirs.
Incubation: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Epidaurus and its inner sanctum; the serpents of Asclepius; Jacob asleep on the stone at Bethel; the dream-seeking of many peoples.
From the Sources
The 1911 Britannica records that sleeping (incubatio) in the sanctuaries of Aesculapius was very common, since the god was supposed to cure the sick or prescribe remedies to them in dreams, and that those healed offered sacrifice and hung up votive tablets.
“The practice of sleeping (incubatio) in these sanctuaries was very common, it being supposed that the god effected cures or prescribed remedies to the sick in dreams. All who were healed offered sacrifice—especially a cock—and hung up votive tablets, on which were recorded their names, their diseases and the manner in which they had been cured.”
Encyclopædia Britannica, eleventh edition: Aesculapius, Article "Aesculapius". The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, as transcribed on Wikisource. The text, read in full
Jung notes that at the Amphiaraion of Oropos those healed through temple incubation threw gifts of gold into the sacred well, and quotes Pausanias on the custom of throwing in a coin when healed through a saying of the oracle.
“In the Amphiaraion of Oropos those healed through the temple incubation threw their gifts of gold into the sacred well, of which Pausanias says: "If any one is healed of a sickness through a saying of the oracle, then it is customary to throw a silver or gold coin into the well;”
Dr. C. G. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido, Part II, ch. VII, "The Dual Mother Rôle". Authorized translation, with introduction, by Beatrice M. Hinkle, M.D.; New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1916. The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- C. A. Meier, Ancient Incubation and Modern Psychotherapy (1949)
- “The Practical Use of Dream-Analysis,” CW 16
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among Rites and Ordeals
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“Incubation.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/incubation.
Nearby in the alphabet: The House: The structure of the psyche, lived in. Ice: Feeling frozen; life held still. Initiation: The passage through a threshold into a new state. Iron: The metal of Mars: strength, war, and will.