Article: Sleep, Dreaming, and Drugs

SLEEP, DREAMING, AND DRUGS

The use of "mind-altering" drugs and intoxicating drinks to hasten the onset of sleep and to enhance the experience of dreaming is a worldwide phenomenon and goes back to prehistory. The ancient Greeks used hallucinatory substances for religious purposes. The priestesses at Delphi, for example, chewed certain leaves while sitting in a smoke-filled chamber and going into a trance. On returning to consciousness, they would bring forth a divine prophecy. The various Dionysian cults encouraged their celebrants into ecstatic dream-like states through the use of wine and perhaps other drugs (Cohen, 1977).

The ancient Hindus imbibed a sacred drink called "soma," and ...

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