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Incubation is the old term applied to the sleeping in a temple--usually a special shrine or sanctuary used for healing and healing-dreams and dream-oracles alone--as a means of healing. This was practised by ancient Greeks and Babylonians. It was also frequently practised in ancient Egypt at the temples of Isis and Serapis with effects similar to those of hypnotism. Five hundred years before Christ at the temple of Epidaurus, where the inspiring spirit or god was Aesculapius (the patron saint of modern medicine still), sick patients were put to sleep by priests at the foot of Aesculapius' statue. In many cases, they awoke suddenly cured.
-- Notebooks Category 10: Healing of the Self > Chapter 2 : The Universal Life Force > # 16