“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

There are many other natural and spontaneous kinds of comprehension that can also result from the waking and sleeping rhythms that I have suggested. The unconscious, the color black, and death all have strongly negative connotations in which the inner self is feared; the dream state is mistrusted and often suggests thoughts of both death and/or evil. But changed wake-sleep habits can, again, bring about a transformation in which it is obvious that dreams contain great wisdom and creativity, that the unconscious is indeed quite conscious, and that in fact the individual sense of identity can be retained in the dream state. The fear of self-annihilation, symbolically thought of as death, can then no longer apply as it did before.

When you find yourself as alert, responsive, and intellectual in the dream state as you are in waking life, it becomes impossible to operate within the old framework. This does not mean that in all dreams that particular kind of awareness is achieved, but it is often accomplished within the suggested wake-sleep pattern.

(Quite forcefully:) A certain beneficial and natural situation is arrived at, in which the conscious and unconscious minds meet. This occurs spontaneously whatever your sleep patterns, but is very brief and seldom remembered. The optimum state is so short because of the prolonged drugging of the conscious mind.

In your present system of beliefs, and with the dubious light in which the unconscious is considered, a fear of the emotions is often generated. Not only are they often hindered in waking life, then, but censored as much as possible in dreams. Their expression becomes very difficult; great blockages of energy occur, which in your terms can result in neurotic or even stronger, psychotic, behavior.

(Very actively delivered:) In your current beliefs, again, consciousness is equated in very limited terms with your conception of intellectual behavior: you consider this to be a peak of mental achievement, growing from the “undifferentiated” perceptions of childhood, and returning ignominiously to them again in old age. Such wake-sleep patterns as I have suggested would acquaint you with the great creative and energetic portions of psychological behavior — that are not undifferentiated at all, but simply distinct from your usual concepts of consciousness; and these operate throughout your life.

If a young adult believes that sex is good but old age is bad, then he or she will find it impossible to consider exuberant sexuality as a portion of an older person’s experience. In the dream state the child and the old man or woman can exist simultaneously, and the individual is made quite aware of the full range of creaturehood.