INCUBATION. – From the Latin *in-cubare* ‘to lie within’ (understood as within a temple or other sacred place, Ger. *Tempelschlaaf*), it is a rite connected with the cult of the Earth Mother, whose direct contact—since she in her essence holds the remains of the dead—is capable of providing responses and prophetic dreams. For this reason Euripides (Hecuba, 70; Iphigenia in Tauris, 1234) calls dreams the children of the Mother Earth.
The place of lying may be the earth itself, as at Dodona (v. DONNA, ORACLE of), where the priests slept on the bare ground, or, more often, a temple, where the assistance of the priesthood in charge of the sanctuary and possessed of the technical knowledge for interpreting dreams and oracles was more readily available.
The most abundant information regarding the rite of incubation concerns the cult of Asclepius (Aesculapius), god of medicine, a chthonic deity, as is evident from the rite of incubation and from the serpent, a chthonic animal, which is his constant symbol. In his sanctuary at Epidaurus (Argolis), in that on the island of Cos (Caria), and in Rome in the sanctuary built on the Sacred Island, on the site of the present basilica of St. Bartholomew, in 233 B.C., following an epidemic, the rite was practiced, which consisted in lying on the floor of the sanctuary awaiting the revealing dream of the god concerning the healing of the illness.
A priest was assigned to the temple who applied empirical remedies: ashes, honey, wine, and the blood of a white cock.
As a popular devotional practice in honor of the patron saint, without expectation of oracles or dreams, incubation is still practiced by the faithful in churches in various localities.