INCUBATION. - From Latin in-cubare "to lie within" (with the implied object being a temple or other sacred place; German Tempelschlaf), it is a rite connected with the cult of the Mother Earth, direct contact with whom — she who keeps the bodies of the dead in her bosom — is capable of providing oracular answers and premonitory dreams. For this reason Euripides (Hecuba, 70; Iphigenia in Tauris, 1234) calls dreams children of Mother Earth.
The place of the lying-down may be either the earth, as at Dodona (v. DODONA, ORACLE of), where the priests slept on the bare ground, or, more often, a temple, where the assistance of the priesthood attached to the sanctuary was easier, since it possessed the technical knowledge relating to the interpretation of dreams and oracles.
The most abundant information about the rite of i. concerns the cult of Asclepius (Aesculapius), god of medicine, a chthonic deity, as is evident from the rite of i. 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 Isola Sacra, 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 down on the floor of the sanctuary awaiting the god's revealing dream concerning the cure of the illness.
Attached to the temple was a priest who applied empirical remedies: ash, honey, wine and the blood of a white rooster.
As a popular devotional practice in honor of the patron saint, without expectation of oracles or dreams, i. is still practiced by the faithful in churches in various localities.
Bibliography3 works
Nicola Turchi