The incubant would next resume role-playing the characters in the dream, this time engaging in switch- back dialogue between the conflicting elements, while I acted as mediator, until some constructive resolution was achieved. By entering the dream emphatically and attempting to establish harmony, the incubant would experience how his or her variously conflicting motives, notions, habits and values resisted yielding to compromise. The struggle to carry the dream forward into harmony served as an affirmation of the incubant's willingness, nevertheless, to explore new patterns. A key assumption underlying this part of the ceremony is that the incubant's symptoms respond sympathetically to the constructive efforts applied in the domain of the dream symbols (1, 25).

I then asked the incubant to assume the role of the person chosen as the symbol of the revered benefactor, using the picture made of the benefactor as a point of focus or as a mask. I would interview this person, eliciting enthusiastic expressions of the benefactor's self-confidence in such areas as healing power and wisdom. When I asked the benefactor to speak about the incubant's predicament, the benefactor would often speak with remarkable compassion and authority, offering surprising insights and suggestions. I then prompted the incubant to comment on the benefactor's remarks, and a fruitful dialogue frequently ensued. The incubant would be encouraged by the discovery of such a helpful resource.

Finally I asked the incubant to describe the setting chosen as the personal symbol of the sacred place, while we looked at its picture. The incubant would assume the role of the sacred place, giving expression to those feelings that this symbol evoked.

The incubation ceremony at this point would have lasted from four to six hours. There had been a progression of emotional themes, from the frustration, sadness or longing of the period of confession, through the conflictual turmoil and its resolution in the dream enactment, and finally to the optimism and serenity evoked by the personal symbols. I would inform the incubant that our work was essentially finished, and we would take a needed break while the incubant prepared for bed.

We concluded the ceremony with a pre-sleep reverie. While the incubant lay in bed, I began coaching in relaxation, giving instructions in experiencing heaviness and warmth in the limbs, and in experiencing the breath  as transpiring of its