A Scottish Dream Temple

Was Merlin a Lineage Carrier of Ancient Dream Healing?

Dreams are a possible daily gateway to the Otherworld, assuming we can pierce the fog of forgetfulness and then make sense of their symbolism. It is not surprising then that healers have been working with dreams for thousands of years. It is surprising to many that there is tantalizing evidence for an established practice of dream work in Southern Scotland long after the departure of the Romans and the supposed Christianization of the Britons. It points to the significance of dreams for pagan Celts.

I first learned about Dream Temples when studying hypnotherapy. The practices of these healing places in the ancient world are often considered an early form of hypnosis. The earliest associations we have are with the Egyptian healing deity Imhotep over 4,000 years ago. Sources describe buildings with unlit chambers where patients were taken to sleep. Chanting, fasting, meditation and other trance inducing activities were used to facilitate dreaming. Either the dream was the healing or the dreams were then interpreted by the healers to determine a course of treatment. Similar buildings have been found at Asklepios in Greece and possibly in Lydney, Gloucestershire in England. But is there any evidence that the Celts had a similar Dream Temple practice?

Possibly. A text written in the early 600s documents the life of Welsh St. Samson. The story goes that his mother, Anna, was having trouble conceiving a child before his birth. So she, and her husband, traveled to a renowned llfrawr (Welsh for a magician, possessing the gift of prophesy) who lived in the “remote North”. The text doesn’t say where he lived but describes a long and arduous journey to get there from Southern Wales. Scholars tend to think this refers to a location in The Old North (Yr Hen Olgedd in Brythonic Celtic) and likely north of Hadrians Wall, i.e. Southern Scotland.

Upon their arrival St. Samson’s future parents are shown to a room to rest after their journey. Anna dreams that an angel comes to her and tells her she will bear a son who will enjoy an honorable career. In the morning when they meet with the chief healer of the temple, he is already aware of the dream and confirms it will come to pass. They are overjoyed, return home, and soon after the child who will become St. Samson, is born.

It’s a long walk from Southern Wales to Southern Scotland. The fact that this couple made the trek suggests both that the fame of the temple was widespread through all of Britain and that likely there were no closer options. It suggests that the healing facility described in the Life of St Samson may have been part of a long healing lineage of the Brythonic Celts that had survived the onslaught of Roman occupation north of Hadrien’s Wall.

Nikolai Tolstoy in The Quest for Merlin, states that the dates line up in a way that the healer described in the Life of St Samson may have been a teacher (and possibly father) of the one we now know as Merlin. This casts Merlin as possibly the end of a deep, native British, healing tradition working with dreams (among other gateways to the Otherworld).

I feature the Dream Temple in Part 1 of my telling of Merlin’s story. The details in the story come from my imagination but the idea that such a place existed and may be associated with Merlin comes from this old text.