{"id":4404,"date":"2012-03-16T00:00:53","date_gmt":"2012-03-16T04:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=4404"},"modified":"2012-03-16T00:03:53","modified_gmt":"2012-03-16T04:03:53","slug":"inside-the-temple-of-dream-healing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/03\/inside-the-temple-of-dream-healing.html","title":{"rendered":"Inside the temple of dream healing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
R.M., "Serpent Staff in the Sky II," oil crayons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You have earned right of entry to the abaton<\/em>, the “forbidden dormitory” of the sacred healer, by following the path described in the previous article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Your bed for the night, in the womblike space of the darkened chamber, is an animal skin. A lambskin is always acceptable, and comfortable, but you may need to lie on the skin of animal that has shared your dreaming or your life odyssey in a deeper way. You may even lie on the skin of a lion, though if you presume to do that you must be ready to face the trials of Herakles, who had to earn his lion skin.<\/p>\n

As you enter deeper into the night, you\u2019ll want to add your own statement of intention to the ritual formulas. Aelius Aristides, who walked very close to the gods of healing, addressed Asklepios like this:\u00a0 \u201cYou in your kindness and love of man, relieve me of my disease and grant me the health that is required for the body to serve the purposes of the soul.\u201d Now that<\/em> is a creative way to invite the benign intervention of a god of healing!<\/p>\n

From the viewpoint of a god, or angel, a human who asks for help to serve \u201cthe purposes of the soul\u201d must be rather more interesting than one who is just ringing the changes on \u201cGimme\u201d (as in: \u201cheal my liver\u201d or \u201ccure my baldness\u201d \u2013 something people actually wished for at Epidauros). However, Aelius Aristides, as a gentleman of late antiquity, could not resist slipping in a further wish: \u201cAnd grant me a life lived with ease.\u201d<\/p>\n

What happens in the temple of dream healing, in the sacred night?\u00a0We learn from the testimonies that survive from the ancient temples of Asklepios.<\/p>\n

In a dream vision, a man infested with lice encountered the god, who stripped him naked, stood him up straight, and cleansed him with vigorous scrubbing with a broom. In the morning, the vermin were gone. A man with chronic headaches was also made to stand up straight and adopt an athlete\u2019s stance.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet up!\u201d the god ordered a man named Hermodikos who was \u201cparalyzed of body\u201d. He was instructed \u00a0to pick up something heavier than a sleeping mat: he was to fetch the biggest stone he can find and place it in front of the abaton.<\/p>\n

There is no more gripping account of the experience <\/em>of meeting the healing god than in Aelius Aristides\u2019 Sacred Tales<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201cI seemed almost to touch him. Halfway between sleep and waking, I perceived that he was there in person; one was between sleep and waking. I wanted to open one\u2019s eyes but I was anxious that he might leave. I listened and heard things, sometimes as in a dream, sometimes as in waking vision. My hair stood on end, and I wept tears of joy, and the weight of knowledge was no burden.\u201d \u00a0Who can put this experience into words? Not even Aristides, who prided himself on being one of the foremost rhetoricians of his day. \u201cOnly if you have been through it can you know and understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

That night, the god of Aelius Aristides gave him an unlikely prescription. Though he was weak and frail, wracked by a host of maladies \u2013 and though it was a very cold January \u2013 he should go and bathe in an icy river. It seems the remedy worked.<\/p>\n

We will open the\u00a0Temple of Dream Healing\u00a0<\/a>at a lovely private retreat center near Seattle from July 16-20. Then we will join in even deeper experiences of Asklepian healing at a beautiful site on the Aegean coast of Turkey from September 28-October 2<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You have earned right of entry to the abaton, the “forbidden dormitory” of the sacred healer, by following the path described in the previous article. Your bed for the night, in the womblike space of the darkened chamber, is an animal skin. A lambskin is always acceptable, and comfortable, but you may need to lie…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,78,38,10,46,19,20],"tags":[1132,1133,121,1809,1129],"class_list":["post-4404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-active-dreaming","category-ancestral-traditions","category-ancient-religions","category-conscious-dreaming","category-healing","category-healing-dreams","category-history-of-dreaming","tag-abaton","tag-aelius-aristides","tag-asklepios","tag-dream-incubation","tag-temple-of-dream-healing"],"yoast_head":"\nInside the temple of dream healing - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/03\/inside-the-temple-of-dream-healing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Inside the temple of dream healing - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You have earned right of entry to the abaton, the “forbidden dormitory” of the sacred healer, by following the path described in the previous article. 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He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three \"\"Only\"\" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse. Over the past 20 years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the \"\"Way of the Dreamer\"\" radio show at www.healthylife.net. He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.mossdreams.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/author\/rmoss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4404"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4411,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4404\/revisions\/4411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}