“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The rigidity of a personality is its downfall. We will have some sessions dealing with dream therapy. Through such therapy actions would be allowed greater spontaneity, and channels would not be clogged by impeding actions to any great degree. Dream therapy would actually involve no more than lending a helping hand to a phenomena that already occurs.

(Jane is in her second year of keeping records of her dreams, and has written down several hundred. Since September of 1965, a period of 11 months, I have recorded 185 dreams. Jane recorded 103 dreams for 1964, and so for 1965 has recorded 303 dreams, for a total of 406 dreams to date.)

For once more, to the basic personality an experience is important according to its vividness or significance on an intimate basis. The personality does not differentiate between a waking or a sleeping experience in any real manner. This also is not clearly understood. Dream therapy could offer great advantages, but here again it could be dangerous in the hands of unscrupulous or rigid personalities.

This is not as farfetched as it might seem. Much seemingly erratic antisocial behavior could be avoided through such dream therapy. I will even say that crimes of the grossest sort could be prevented. The desired but feared actions would not then gather up toward an explosion. The habitual, overly-aggressive or overly-dependent tendencies would not result in habitual aggressive or dependent behavior, for each individual action would be harmlessly expressed.

The role-playing in the dream drama would be one in which you creatively worked out the problems that caused the imbalances to begin with. Dreams of a strongly aggressive nature in this context may be very beneficial to a given individual, allowing the release of usually inhibited feelings and freeing the body from tension. By such constant dream therapy, both body and mind regulate themselves to a large degree. So your flesh is affected by your dreams.

As the creation of any art is intimately connected with the dream state, so is the living art of your body. Its breathing form is influenced by the great therapy of dreams. If there are chemical imbalances they are often corrected quite automatically in the dream state, as you act out situations calling up the production of hormones, say, that would be summoned in a like waking situation. [...]

As you come to understand the nature of your own beliefs, you can learn to use the dream state more effectively for your conscious purposes. It is one of the most efficient natural therapies, and the inner framework in which much of your physical body building actually takes place.

[...] Some of the drugs given to “mental” patients impede the natural flow of dream therapy to varying degrees.

Dreams are one of your greatest natural therapies, and one of your most effective assets as connectors between the interior and exterior universes.

[...] Your own knowledge of dream symbols and their personal meaning is so opaque simply because you are not used to examining them with your conscious mind. [...] The great interconnections between waking and dreaming experience then escape you. You do not realize the many physical problems that are solved for you, and by you, in your dreams.

[...] These will include both waking and dreaming events. If you remember having certain dream experiences and waking refreshed, then before sleep consciously think about those dreams and tell yourself they will return.

Your dreams and the physical events of your lives constantly alter the chemical balances within your body. A dream may be purposely experienced to provide an outlet of a kind that is missing in your daily life. It will mobilize your resources and fill your body with a rush of needed hormones, creating a dream state of stress that will bring the organism’s healing abilities into combat and result in an end to particular physical symptoms.

(For some of Seth’s earlier material on dreams, dream symbols and healing, nightmare therapy, etc., see sessions 639–41 in Chapter Ten.)

The dream world operates as a creative situation in which probable acts are instantly materialized, laid out in actual or symbolic form. [...] There are other important reasons for dreaming, but here we will confine ourselves to this particular issue and to the dream landscape itself, period.

It is only because you seem to expect dream experience to be like daily life that you find so many dreams chaotic. [...] If you remember such a dream event, comma, it seems meaningless in the morning.

In the same way each of you form an overall dream world in which there is some general agreement, comma, but in which each experience is original. The dream world has its reaches as the physical one does. [...]

Other dream events, though forgotten, may also cushion the individual to withstand the effects of such “nightmare therapy.” In the same way that some LSD treatment finally results in a feeling of rebirth (that is often only temporary, however), so a period of such nightmares often leads quite naturally to dreams in which the self finally makes new and greater connections with the source of its own being.

(A one-minute pause at 9:21.) In normal daily life, considerable natural therapy often takes place in the dream state, even when nightmares of such frightening degree arise that the sleeper is shocked into awakening. [...]

It is always because you do not trust the natural self that you resort to such drug therapy. [...] There is, as Joseph (Seth’s name for me) said in our break, no magic therapy — only an understanding of your own great creativity, and the knowledge that you yourself make your world.

Nightmares in series are often inner-regulated shock therapy. [...]

Dictation: The natural therapies of the body can be called upon with great effectiveness, as you will see in the next chapter. [...]

3. As of several months later, though, Jane hasn’t remembered any dreams about the light….

[...] (Pause.) The dreams of the species are highly important to its survival — not just because dreaming is a biological necessity, but because in dreams the species is immersed in deeper levels of creativity, so that those actions, inventions, ideas that will be needed in the future will appear in their proper times and places. [...] I am saying that man’s evolutionary progress was also dependent upon his dreams.

You dreamed you spoke languages before their physical invention, of course. It was the nature of your dreams, and your dreams’ creativity, that made you what you are, for otherwise you would have developed a mechanical-like language — had you developed one at all — that named designations, locations, and dealt with the most simple, objective reality: “I walked there. [...] You would not have had any overall picture of the seasons, for dreaming educated the memory and lengthened man’s attention span. [...]

Animals, as a rule (underlined) are less physically-oriented in their dreaming states. They do dream of physical reality, but much more briefly than you. Otherwise, they immerse themselves in dreams in different kinds of dreaming consciousness that I hope to explain at a later date (louder).

His dreams reminded him that a cold season had come, and would come again. Most of your inventions came in dreams, and, again, it is the nature of your dreams that makes you so different from other species.

Both psychological and physical illnesses could largely be avoided through dream therapy. Rather harmlessly, aggressive tendencies could also be given freedom in the dream condition. Through such therapy, actions would be allowed greater spontaneity. In the case of the release of aggressiveness, the individual involved would experience this within the dream state and hurt no one. Suggestions could also be given so that he learned to understand the aggressiveness through watching himself while in the dream state.

Dreams can not only eliminate symptoms (as in Sue’s case) or completely alter moods (as in my dream) but they can give us warning of incipient health difficulties — as happened to me several years ago. One night, in the early days of our psychic experience, I dreamed I saw Rob standing by the kitchen sink. [...] The dream frightened me so much that as I awakened, I caught myself saying, “That dream scares me. [...] In other words, I found myself in the act of trying to censor the dream. [...] I didn’t even tell the dream to Rob.

The above portions therefore were actually not dreams but experiences happening while he was dissociated. They shocked him; hence, the shock later on when he turned this into a dream. When he heard the voices, instead of becoming confident, he fell into a dream state. He did not want to accept the responsibility that he felt his abilities put upon him, and so in the dream, he looked for an outside source for the voices and dreamed the radio sequences. In the dream, however, the voices continue [after he switched the radio off] because he knows he is picking them up from a channel that is not physical.

[...] If I had heeded the dream and told Rob, could the incident have been prevented? Had I told Rob, I now think that through dream therapy or in a light trance state he could have discovered the reason behind the symptoms and saved himself a difficult time.

“Many illnesses could largely be avoided through such dream therapy. Rather harmlessly, aggressive tendencies could be given freedom within the dream state. Suggestions would be given that the individual involved would experience, say, aggressiveness, within a dream. It would also be suggested to him that he learn to understand his aggressions by watching himself while he was dreaming [watching the dream as he would a play]. If I may indulge in a fantasy, theoretically you could imagine a massive experiment in dream therapy where wars were fought by sleeping, not waking, nations.”

Over and over Seth says that a dream or imaginative experience is as real as any waking event. If you have a period of depression, you are apt to have depressing dreams during the same period. But Seth suggests the following exercise as a dream therapy: before sleep, suggest to yourself that you will have a pleasant or joyful dream that will completely restore your good spirits and vitality. [...]

“Much work has been done to interpret dreams, but little to control the direction of activity within them. Upon proper suggestion, this can be an excellent method of therapy. Negative dreams tend to reinforce the negative aspects of the personality, helping to form vicious circles of unfortunate complications. Dream actions can be turned toward fulfilling constructive expectations, which can themselves effect a change for the better.

“If you have little memory of dream locations when you are awake, you have little memory of ‘physical’ locations when you are in the dream state. When the physical body lies in bed, it is separated by a vast distance from the dream location in which the dreaming self may dwell. But this distance has nothing to do with space, for the dream location can exist simultaneously with the room in which the body sleeps.

Our Jesuit with the ulcer—shall I say our ulcerated Jesuit—may derive some benefit by reading a few of our immediately previous sessions, in which we spoke of dream therapy.

Dream therapy will be discussed in many of our sessions, and definite directions will be given, whereby the waking self can to a large extent insure the help of the physical organism. [...]

(We discussed with the Gallaghers the material given on dream therapy in sessions 172-74. [...]

[...] With this in mind, consider once more the various aspects of the self in the waking and the dream states. The conscious “I” is unaware of the “I” who dreams. Indeed, the dreaming “I” seems more familiar with the waking self upon many occasions. [...]

[...] I think the vitamin therapy is helping considerably here, and seems to be following the results listed in Dr. Van Fleet’s book. [...] My idea is that if Jane will continue the vitamin therapy—a term I don’t particularly like—that in a couple of months she might achieve some good results, for as I explained to her, I think the key to curing the decubiti lies in increased mobility, especially in the knees. [...]

[...] (Long pause.) Hal’s therapy is very good. [...]

[...] I explained that I’d included material in my intro for Dreams that echoed Seth’s comments here as to why we became involved in the medical arena. [...]

(As I drifted off into my nap at 5:15, after finishing my dehypnotizing massage of Jane, I remembered the dream I’d had last night. [...] I’d dreamed, in color, that Jane rebroke her right leg several times in the same place. [...]

[...] One looked in for a moment after her own therapy — didn’t look good, Jane said. [...]

(After a few minutes, Jane said the dream could have been related to the injuries the nurse’s aide had suffered to her own impaired leg — the one that had been stapled inside that I described in a recent session. [...]

(Then Jane told me that she, too, had had a negative dream last night. [...]

[...] Some periods of dream activity do indeed supersede those of some waking states. [...]

[...] The ego feels threatened by the extended “leave of absence” it must take, becomes wary of sleep, and sets up barriers against the dream state. [...]

[...] The symbolism in dreams would appear with greater clarity, not, for example, be lost through the many hours you now give to sleep.

Rest or sleep cures — very extended sleep periods — have been helpful for therapy in some cases, not because extended sleep is in itself beneficial, but because so many toxins had built up that such extended periods were required. [...]

You may be interested in hearing some information about him, for he is working with art, painting, in terms of therapy. He is not only working with patients and using art as a therapy for them, not only having them paint as therapy, you see, but he is also working on the idea that some paintings in themselves have a healing effect. [...]

Now there is no reason why this cannot be conscious on your part, although portions may take place in the dream state. [...]

(Pause.) Yet in your dreams, you often see quite correctly the reasons for your physical difficulties, and begin a therapy that you could consciously take advantage of. [...]

[...] Sometimes, however, your own dreams or inspirations startle you by giving you information that is usually not available in the recognized order of events. [...] You are so conditioned that even when you sleep you try to monitor your experiences, and to interpret dream events according to the habitual frequency that you have learned to accept as the only criterion of reality. Quite literally, however, when you are dreaming you are tuning in to different frequencies and biologically your body responds to those on many levels.

[...] You still try to carry your own cultural versions of reality into the dream state, for example, but the natural heritage of both body and mind escapes such repression — and despite yourselves, in your dreams you come in touch with a greater picture of reality that will not be shunted aside.

On occasion, definite physical cures happen in the dream state, even though you may think that you are intellectual and knowing when you are awake, and ignorant or half-insane in your dreams. [...]

(Last night’s session had presented some new information about animal dreams. [...]

[...] Such people often watched the animals and observed nature’s own therapies and treatments.

[...] It automatically begins its own therapy.

If you misinterpret the myths, then you may believe that man has fallen from grace and that his very creaturehood is cursed, in which case you will not trust your body or allow it its “natural” pattern of self-therapy.

[...] I’d heard her talking to herself, presumably while dreaming in her chair. [...] I felt guilty at leaving her alone while I worked on the preface notes for Dreams after supper. [...]

[...] So, I think, are the results, re the vitamin therapy and our own efforts—the peanut oil massages and the cod liver oil, and so forth. [...]

Dreams, for example, were once as clear, vivid, and real as waking life was. People did not expect their dreams to be vague, or unreasonable or chaotic, any more than they expected waking experience to be. Men and women in fact learned how to deal with daily life—daily waking life—by studying the lessons they received in the dream state. To a large extent the young species relied on dreams to teach them all they needed to know, just as in your time people rely on schools instead. [...]

[...] Knowledge came from experience, and that experience was a product of both the waking and the dreaming states. Man tried out in waking life those lessons that he received in dreams. [...]

[...] Then the supervisor of therapy there, Wendy, got to see Jane’s buttocks for the first time in a long while. [...]

(As she ate a good lunch I told Jane about my very vivid dream of last night—in which Jane, myself and her deceased father, Del, had driven to Bemidji, Minnesota, in the summertime. [...]

[...] Ruburt should specifically request dreams in which he is running, with speed and flexibility, dreams in which he dances well, and dreams in which he experiences a magnificent sense of vitality and physical exuberance.

[...] Since the symptoms have been physical, this is excellent therapy and most practical from a psychic viewpoint.

[...] These dreams should be rather specifically requested.

[...] I emphasize the therapeutic dreams again. [...]

[...] In this book, Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, for example, Seth portrays us as a vibrant, well-intended species—a physically attuned kind of consciousness beautifully tailored by our own cosmic ingredients to live lives of productivity, of spiritual and physical enjoyments, with each individual life in charge of its own fate and adding to the potentials of all other life as well.

[...] So again, how did that experience fit into Seth’s Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment?

[...] We’d scheduled just a two-hour visit by a registered nurse five afternoons a week for Jane’s physical therapy, and to change the dressings on her decubiti. [...]

And amid all of this frenetic activity our painting and writing—those activities we’d always regarded as the creative hearts of our lives, the very reasons we’d chosen to live on earth this time around—had receded into a far distance, so that they’d become like dimly remembered dreams, or perhaps actions practiced in probable lives by “more fortunate” versions of ourselves.