Incubation, Cocooning, and Dreamdeath

Kayin refers to incubation or dreamdeath as “taking the way of the shaman,” a process that removes his waking Self from the body and sends it to regions beyond his present world. In contrast to a shaman or a dreamhealer’s ascent through a hierarchy of heavens toward Tengri, Kayin’s mind’s eye becomes dispatched to the Unlit Shore, i.e., the Future, meaning the temporal rather than the geographical location of the Hiding Land. Cave Ichké, the starting point of Kayin’s journey, constitutes the very place in which the Hiding Land will emerge many centuries later. It is for this reason that Kayin positions his body as close as possible to the physical location of his destination. What remains is to have his conscious Self pass through the Gates of Yond. Kayin’s “far-traveling” to the Hiding Land may take up to forty days, and so the incubation procedure requires the immobilization of his physical frame in a restorative cocoon, during which the body cannot partake of nourishment except water.

According to Hedvig von Ehrenheim, in Greek Incubation Rituals in Classical and Hellenistic Times, p. 11:

“Divination in dreams, where a dreamer communicated with a divinity, was a well-known phenomenon in ancient Greece. The dreams were received both at home and in sanctuaries, and by all members of society. If a dream was received in a sanctuary, the ritual framework and the dream experience are called incubation by modern scholars.”

See also Charles Laughlin and Adam J. Rock, “What can we learn from shamans’ dreaming? A cross-cultural exploration”:

“Shamanism is a worldwide social phenomenon that is almost always associated with dreaming. Shamans commonly receive their calling in dreams and use dreams to travel to spiritual dimensions to access information and to acquire power. They also apply dreaming to the solution of problems.”

Further reading:

von Ehrenheim, Hedvig. Greek Incubation Rituals in Classical and Hellenistic Times.

Kernos Supplément 29. Liège: Presses universitaires de Liège, 2015. https://books.openedition.org/pulg/15905.

Hamilton, Mary. Incubation; or, The Cure of Disease in Pagan Temples and Christian Churches. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., 1906. https://archive.org/details/incubationorcure00hami.

Krippner, Stanley, and April Thompson. “A 10-Facet Model of Dreaming Applied to Dream Practices of Sixteen Native American Cultural Groups.” Dreaming 6, no. 2 (1996): 71–96. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0094448. 

Laughlin, Charles, and Adam J. Rock. “What Can We Learn from Shamans’ Dreaming? A Cross-Cultural Exploration.” Dreaming 24, no. 4 (2014): 233–252. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038437.