“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Quite frankly, I believe that normal dreams are the outside shell of deeper inside experience. The interior reality is clothed in dream images as, when we are awake, it is clothed in physical ones. Dream objects and physical objects alike are symbols by which we perceive — and distort — an inner reality that we do not seem able to experience directly. In certain states of consciousness, particularly in projections from the dream state, we achieve a peculiar poise of alertness. This lets us briefly examine the nature of our consciousness by allowing us to view its products — the events and experiences that it creates when released from usual physical focus.

Consciousness forms its own reality, physical and otherwise. I think there is a “mass” dream experience, however, as there is a collectively perceived physical life and definite interior conditions within which dream life happens. Only inner experimentation will let us discover this interior landscape. Perhaps one day we will move freely within it, alert, conscious and far wiser than we are now.

It is a dimension native to consciousness, I believe, at whatever stage of being, physical or nonphysical. We have our primary existence in it after death and spend a good deal of physical time wandering through it, unknowingly, in sleep. Clues as to our creativity and the nature of our existence can be found there and from it emerges the organizational qualities of normal consciousness as we know it.

Since this book was not devoted exclusively to projections, I did not include those embarked upon from waking or trance states, though some of these provided excellent “evidence.” In them, however, my own consciousness was still physically oriented since I “went out” to check the reliability of my perceptions against physical reality.

The nature of this book also meant that the Seth material was chosen exactly because it related to subjective experiences such as dreams and consciousness. Seth also relates beautifully to other individuals in sessions and in give-and-take conversations, as I’ve tried to show several instances. He comes through as far more than just a voice delivering manuscript.

Seth’s own book will carry his discussions of the dream state still further. I have not read that manuscript through, since it is not quite finished, and I want to avoid conscious involvement with it. Rob tells me, however, that it contains a good deal of new material on the nature of dreaming consciousness.

I do not believe that there are any more dangers facing us in the interior universe than there are in the physical one. We should explore each world with common sense and courage. The interior universe is the source of the exterior one, however, and traveling through it we will encounter our own hopes, fears and beliefs in their ever-changing form.