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Therapeutic sleep temples are known to have existed in ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and other cultures. People with illnesses would come to the temples, where a number of therapies were applied. Some people consider the earliest forms of hypnosis were likely practiced in the Egyptian sleep temples, which were used during the reign of Imhotep.

Although we don’t know a great deal about the details of sleep temples, they appear to have been almost like sanitariums today. Treatment consisted of chanting, putting the person into a trans-like or hypnotic state, and analyzing their dreams. Meditation, fasting, baths, and sacrifices to the patron deity were involved.

Kline, Egypt, was a sacred place where sick individuals reclined for entering the dream state. We know that patients were kept in a trance for up to three days, during which time the priests used suggestions to help heal the individual, to make contact with the Divine, and to be cured. To a greater or lesser extent, these priests were essentially what we call shamans today, a term more commonly used with indigenous “medical” practitioners throughout the world.

Sleep temples also existed in the Middle East. In Greece they were built in honor of Asclepius, the Greek God of Medicine. The Greek process, called incubation, focused on prayers to Asclepius for healing. The mythical roots of Asclepius go back to a real, second millennium-B.C. individual whose work elevated him into becoming a temple demigod. The daughters of Asclepius were Hygeia and Panacea: thus we have the words panacea and hygiene.

Perhaps not as sleep temples but at least the concept in ancient Judaism of kavanah involved focusing on letters of the Hebrew alphabet and saying the names of the ancient tribal deities. The incantations were to induce a state of ecstasy.

The Romans also adopted the use of healing sleep incubation temples throughout their empire devoted to the god, Apollo. A Roman temple of this type was found at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire in England in 1928. Interestingly, in parts of the Middle East and Africa, sleep temples are still used for the mentally ill.