Hayashi Oen, a nineteenth-century practitioner of ukehi, identified six functions of the rite.
He claimed it could be used to: The dictates of ukehi can come as a dream, but more commonly the petitioner would use the ritual to ask a question of the kami and then await an omen of some sort to confirm their [2] response.
If nothing happened, it was assumed that the kami did not favour the proposed course of action.
[3][4] Sometimes the ritual involved inscribing the choices available on bamboo slips, which were then shaken in a container; whichever slip fell out dictated the appropriate course of action.
[citation needed] In the novel Runaway Horses, Mishima Yukio described the procedure of ukehi as "contain[ing] an element of danger not unlike a footing that could give way at any moment".