“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The brain organizes activity and translates events, but it does not initiate them. Events have an electromagnetic reality that is then projected onto the brain for physical activation. Your instruments only pick up certain levels of the brain’s activity. They do not perceive the mind’s activity at all, except as it is imprinted onto the brain.

Even dreams are so imprinted. When one portion or one half of the brain is activated, for example, the corresponding portion of the other half is also activated, but at levels scientists do not perceive. It is ridiculous to call one side or the other of the brain dominant, for the full richness of the entire earth experience requires utilization of both halves, as does dreaming.

This is most difficult to explain, but the capacity for full conscious life is inherent in each portion of the body itself. Otherwise, in fact, its smooth synchronicity would be impossible. The brain has abilities you do not use consciously because your beliefs prevent you from initiating the proper neural habits. Certain portions of the brain seem dominant only because of those neural habits that are adopted in any given civilization or time. But other cultures in your past have experienced reality quite differently as a result of encouraging different neural patterns, and putting experience together through other focuses.

Theoretically, certain dreams can give you a lifetime’s experience to draw upon, though the dream itself can take less than an hour in your time. In a way, dreams are the invisible thickness of your normal consciousness. They involve both portions of the brain. Many dreams do activate the brain in a ghostly fashion, sparking responses that are not practically pertinent in ordinary terms. That is, they do not require direct action but serve as anticipators of action, reminders to the brain to initiate certain actions in its future.

(10:33.) Dreams are so many-leveled that a full discussion requires an almost impossible verbal expertise. For while dreams do not necessitate action on the part of the whole body, and while the brain does not register the entire dream, the dream does serve to activate biological action — by releasing hormones, for example.

There are also what I will call body dreams. No consciousness, to whatever degree, is fully manifested in matter. There is always constant communication between all portions of the body, but when the conscious mind is diverted that activity often increases. Cellular consciousness at its own level then forms a body dream. These do not involve pictures or words, but are rather like the formations of electromagnetic intent, anticipating action to be taken, and these may then serve as initiators of therapeutic dreams, in which “higher” levels of consciousness are psychologically made aware of certain conditions.

In physical waking life, you must do one thing or another, generally speaking. Obviously I am simplifying, since you can eat an orange, watch television, scratch your foot, and yell at the dog — all more or less at the same time. You cannot, however, be in Boston and San Francisco at the same time, or be 21 years of age and 11 at the same time.

Take a very simple event like the eating of an orange. Playfully imagine how that event is interpreted by the cells of your body. How is the orange perceived? It might be directly felt by the tip of your finger, but are the cells in your feet aware of it? Do the cells in your knee know you are eating an orange?

Take all the time you want to with this. Then explore your own conscious sense perceptions of the orange. Dwell on its taste, texture, odor, shape. Again, do this playfully, and take your time. Then let your own associations flow in your mind. What does the orange remind you of? When did you first see or taste one? Have you ever seen oranges grow, or orange blossoms? What does the color remind you of?

A double dream is like the double life lived by some people who have two families — one in each town — and who seemingly manipulate separate series of events that other people would find most confusing. If the body can only follow certain sequences, still consciousness has inner depths of action that do not show on the surface line of experience. Double dreams are clues to such activity.

(“So do I, Seth. Thank you, and good night.”

(11:49 P.M. By now it should be obvious that this session is an excellent example of the way Seth often winds our questions and concerns into book dictation, couching his answers so that they also fit the larger framework he has in mind. But even if our private lives do sometimes influence the way Seth delivers his material, we’ve discovered that he still pretty much covers the subject matter he wants to.)