“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

“My memories of those dream events are just as real as the memories of anything else I’ve done lately,” I said. “Going shopping, or working, or whatever….” I’ve always been intrigued by the simple observation that for me at least, once they begin moving into the past dream events assume an increasingly important place in my life. I think that upon awakening in the present, one is much more likely to call a dream “just a dream,” and not assign to it a reality and validity equal to one’s “real” experience in the waking state.

Children play at getting killed. They try to imagine what death is like. They imagine what it would be like to fall from a wall like Humpty-Dumpty, or to break their necks. They imagine tragic roles with as much creative abandon as they imagine roles of which adults might approve. They are often quite aware of “willing” themselves sick to get out of difficult situations—and of willing themselves well again (with humor).¹

(Long pause.) Discipline is a form of applied suffering, as discipline is usually used. People are not taught to understand the great dimensions of their own capacity for experience. It is natural for a child to be curious about suffering, to want to know what it is, to see it—and by doing so he (or she) learns to avoid the suffering he does not want, to help others avoid suffering that they do not want, and to understand, more importantly, the gradations of emotion and sensation that are his heritage. [As an adult] he will not inflict pain upon others if he understands this, for he will allow himself to feel the validity of his own emotions.

Give us a moment…. That will be it for the evening. My heartiest regards to each of you. I have but one more point to make: Each person’s experience of a painful nature is also registered on the part of what we will call the world’s mind. Each, say, failure, or disappointment, or unresolved problem that results in suffering, becomes a part of the world’s experience: This way or that way does not work, or this way or that way has been tried, with poor results. So in that way even weaknesses or failures of suffering are resolved, or rather redeemed as adjustments are made in the light of those data.

1. Seth’s idea that in their play children “try to imagine what death is like” certainly adds an intuitive dimension to my own activities as a child. “Cowboys and Indians” was our gang’s favorite game back in Sayre in the late 1920s, and as we roamed the nearby fields all of us made believe we killed our enemies and/or were killed ourselves. We had great fun, and used to play such games to the point of exhaustion.

I’ll also endorse Seth’s statement that children “are often quite aware of willing themselves sick to get out of difficult situations.” I remember very well doing that on certain occasions—usually to avoid some school activity—and that even then I was surprised because my parents didn’t catch on to what I was up to. (Getting well after the danger period had passed was no problem!)