Hero-Dreams

The Ohanedin in Iber have a tradition of what they call the botera amets, or "Hero-Dream."
A pit is dug, usually at least twelve feet deep. About halfway do, the width of the pit is halved, so that there is a shelf above.
The dreamer first fasts for two days, and then gets down into the pit. Then a circular roof is placed over him, with a tube extending to the surface for air. Then the pit is filled in on top of that board, essentially burying the man alive. The pipe is often itself enclosed in a little roofed shelter so that no light or sound can come in.
The Dreamer, now thoroughly separated from the world, consumes an unwise quantity of elf-DMT. They dig him up after several days.
In the interim, the poor bastard will have seen some serious shit in the total isolation of his little prison, peering into the spirit-realm and interrogating the entities there, discovering truths about them and also about metaphysical concepts in the mundane world.
This form of altered consciousness (coupled with dehydration and hunger) often scars the subject for life or drives him insane, but those strong enough to endure it have found out the identities of powerful spirits inhabiting various things in the world, talked to them, and even coerced them into obedience or action.
This, along with the Mekulla and the Cenj Sultralu creates the trinity of divinations. The Hero-Dream can find out names (and once you learn a word in the spirit-tongue, you instinctively know it in every language) either of concepts or of spirits. The Cenj Sultralu can help to turn names into numbers. The Mekulla can turn numbers into source-data that can be used with magic to do...
...Basically anything.
Category:Science & Culture