A night of Asklepian dream healing

I have an intention for the night, and I state it simply and clearly: “I wish to be healed.” I add a second statement: “I ask for the health of body and mind required to serve my spiritual purpose.”-

     I stretch out on the bed. Immediately, I see an enormous serpent. It is gray-blue, and could be twenty feet long. I see the dark slits of its pupils, quite close to me, in a head larger than my own. I do not feel fear, but there is a strong sense of the uncanny, the presence of a transpersonal other. I feel this is the Asklepian serpent, a power mastered for healing. The form of the god appears less distinctly, like a living statue. Also the form of a large dog with tall pointy ears.

-   I resolve to let the snake enter my energy field and do anything required for healing. I begin to experience movements of the serpent energy through my chakras, starting at the root center and moving upwards. There are moments of gentle physical pressure or constriction as it passes through some of my energy centers – of slight pressure in the heart, of a little constriction at the throat. The movement ceases to flow smoothly at the vision center, where I had been experiencing pressure and blurring. An experimental probe, not pushing too hard. The movement loops down and back, returning to try again. I invoke Light as well, and feel the presence and blessing of a being of Light I know well. I feel a process of healing has been initiated, and will be played out over time, if I allow it to be.

-    All of this has been enacted in the liminal state of wakedream the French used to call dorveille, which is where much of the work of Asklepian healing (I believe) took place, Now I let myself drift towards sleep, hoping for the gift of further healing in the dreamspace. That gift came in the form of an amazing and energizing sleep dream that connected my personal healing to new creative endeavors, writing new books and bringing them to the world.

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Comment: This is an excerpt from my journal from the night of March 6-7, 2003, a night of terrific personal healing of the kind pilgrims traveled to the temples of Asklepios to seek. For a full account of the ancient experience in the temples of dream healing associated with Asklepios and his divine family, please see The Secret History of Dreaming.

Photos: (1) Asklepios with his companion, in the archaeological museum at Epidaurus; (2) the author at the serpent column in the temple of Askelpios at Pergamon (Bergama) in Anatolia.