“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Because the proper detection equipment was not in place, government officials do not know just how much radiation was released into the Pennsylvania countryside 28 months ago [in March 1979], when the reactor of Unit No. 2 at Three Mile Island overheated and approached a meltdown of the uranium-packed fuel rods in its core. Federal and state agencies have announced long-term population studies to measure the effects—if any—of this radiation. Since 1925 scientists have been steadily reducing their estimates of what a “safe” dose for human beings really is, however, and many now believe that there’s no such thing as a completely harmless amount of even low-level radiation. Any such dosage would be in addition to the earth’s natural background radiation, which varies across our country and around the world because of altitude and other factors.

Jane’s idea tonight was to have a session on Dreams only: “I don’t want more private stuff that’ll just make me feel more stupid,” she said. I reminded her that when I refer to her sinful self, I only mean certain groups of ideas that we’ve personified for convenience’s sake.)

Yet (remembering what I said about seeming contradictions), your dreams are also social events of a kind, and the state of dreaming can almost be thought of as an inner public forum in which each man and woman has his or her say, and in which each opinion, however unpopular, is taken into consideration. If you want to call any one dream event a private event, then I would have to tell you that that private event actually was your personal contribution to a larger multisided dream event, many-layered, so that one level might deal with the interests of a group to which you belong—say your family, [or] your political or religious organization—reaching “outward” to the realm of national government and world affairs. (Pause.) As your private conscious life is lived in a community setting of one kind or another as a rule, so do your dreams take place in the same context, so that as you dream for yourself, to some extent you also dream for your own family, for your community, and for the world.

Group dreaming was at one time taken for granted as a natural human characteristic—in a tribe, for example, when new locations were being sought, perhaps in time of drought. The various tribal members would have dreams in which the problem was considered, each dreamer tackling whatever aspect of the problem that best suited his or her abilities and personal intents. The dreamers would travel out-of-body in various directions to see the extent of drought conditions, and to ascertain the best direction for the tribe to take in any needed migration.

(Pause at 8:43.) Their dreams would then be shared by the tribe in the morning, or at special meetings, when each dreamer would give a rendition of the dream or dreams that seemed to be involved. In the same way, other dreamers would simply check with the dreamers of other villages or tribes—perhaps a hundred or even more miles distant. Some such dreams were extremely direct, others were clothed in symbolism according to the style of the dreamer, but in any case the dream was understood to have a public significance as well as a private one.

The same still applies, though often dreams themselves are forgotten. Instead, for example, for news or for advice you watch your morning television news, which provides you with a kind of manufactured dream that to some extent technologically serves the same purpose. Instead of sending cameramen and newspaper people to the farthest corners of the earth, early man sent out aspects of himself to gather the news and to form it into dream dramas. Oftentimes much of the material did not need to become conscious: It was “unconsciously” acted upon, turned directly into action. Now such dreams simply act as backup systems, rising to the fore whenever they are needed. Their purpose was and is to increase the value fulfillment of the species and of the individual.

(A note: Six years have passed since Jane delivered the passage I was trying to recall. It’s from Session 747 for May 14, 1975, and I found that I had quoted portions of the session in Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality: See Note 11 for Session 742. In essence my memory had been fairly accurate—yet rereading Seth’s material was like a revelation to me. I told Jane that I don’t think anyone else has ever said it as well. Through Seth she expressed the heart of her mystical knowledge:

“In the case of our book (Dreams), however, Ruburt himself was worried about your attitude. His overall concerns of course to some extent blocked his creative processes, which further alarmed him. The main issue here is that feeling of responsibility again, so that he writes or whatever because he loves to do it, not because he should or must, and that involves my book as well as his own.

End at 9:25 P.M. The “crisis point” Seth referred to revolved around the continuous efforts Jane and I had been making to help her; see the opening notes for the session. I hadn’t realized she was concerned that I thought she should let her work go on Dreams and concentrate instead upon our private material, but I was quickly able to convince her that I didn’t feel that way.)