Ancient Sites Dreamwork Programme

In 1990, the DPT decided to shift the main focus of its work to the study of the interaction between human consciousness and ancient site environments. Its first effort in this broad area of enquiry was its ancient sites dreamwork programme, which had Dr Stanley Krippner of the Saybrook Institute in San Francisco as consultant. This was a kind of modern re-visiting of the ancient practice of “temple sleep”, of which the Aesculapia of ancient Greece are the best-known examples. The basic aim of the programme was to run many dream sessions at just four selected ancient sites: a holy hill in the Preseli range in Wales, and three Cornish sites - a Neolithic dolmen, a Celtic holy well, and an Iron Age underground passage(“fogou” or “souterrain”). Each of these places possesses a geophysical anomaly. The sleep volunteers were drawn from a wide a range of the public. Each volunteer was accompanied by at least one helper who watched for a rocking and rolling action beneath the volunteer sleeper's closed eyelids (Rapid Eye Movements or R.E.M), which denotes dreaming sleep. At these points the sleeper was awoken and a report of any dreams at that time audio-recorded in situ, and later transcribed. (See Gallery for on-site dreamwork pictures.)