“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Dreams are not just psychological events. There is a dimension of reality (an “objective” dimension, if you prefer) in which all dream events happen. There are rules; Seth calls them root-assumptions that operate in all realities, our own included. We have to learn what root-assumptions govern dream reality. I know that we can on occasion manipulate dream events; my students and I do this frequently. If we follow certain “rules” given to us by Seth, we will get more or less predictable results in the dream state — an indication that an “objective” dream dimension exists quite independently of us or our dreams, a dream dimension in which my dreams and yours have their being.

Records of individual dreams are not enough, nor are studies of the physiological effect of dreaming. Most psychologists would not admit the existence of a definite structured universe in which dream acts, rather than physical acts, happen. Therefore, at this time, they will not consider dreams in this larger context. Seth maintains that we will understand ourselves as dreamers only if we are also aware of the larger environment in which dreams take place, that we interact in the dream state as we do in the waking one and that we form mass dream events as we form physical events on a mass basis.

The unseen self is not a dungeon of repressed ideas and feelings, dangerous to behold, but the fountainhead of individual existence, upon which our present physical survival is dependent. Beyond this, it is our pathway to creative expression, inspiration and wisdom — a doorway to our own greater identity. This does not mean that we do not repress fears and desires beneath consciousness. It means that we must allow ourselves greater flexibility, look into ourselves, admit the fears and release the energy used in repression. As you will see later in this book, dreams can often release such repressed material for your conscious examination.

Now, there is something else to be considered. The very self-suggestions that will enable you to recall dreams will also change their nature to some extent. This is all right, and the effect will be minimized when the newness has worn off. Again, we want the dreams in the sequence in which they occur. If you do not want to wake up after each dream of the evening, then the suggestion should always include ‘I will recall the first three dreams … or the first five dreams, or whatever.’

With the method I have just given you, you will be able to capture as much of the whole dream experience as any investigators manage to do (in dream-labs) when the awakening is done by a mechanical device or by another person. You will also be gaining excellent discipline and training over your own states of consciousness and this, in itself, will be an important yardstick of progress for you both. …

All layers of the personality are ‘conscious.’ They simply operate like compartments, so that often one portion of the self is not aware of other portions. As a rule, when you are awake you do not know your sleeping self; you know your neighbor far better, so your sleeping self seems mysterious indeed. When you are awake, as Ruburt himself has written, you cannot find the dream locations that have been so familiar to you only the night before.

In your sleep, you may have greeted friends who are strangers to your waking self. But consider the other side of the coin. For when you are asleep, you usually cannot find the street upon which you live your waking hours, and when you are asleep, you do not know your waking self. The sleeping self is your identity.

I do have a thought, my Jesuit friend,

My dear Jesuit. Do I not try to explain things clearly, and am I not grossly misunderstood? (This was pure banter, between the two of them.) I have said all along that I am myself, and Ruburt is someone else. It follows that our gestures would be different. Wouldn’t you say so?

I do, and I use them in the manner that I have used mechanical faculties of my own when I had them.

Of course, though the face does not fully adopt my own expression. First of all, as far as the hands are concerned, to be left-handed or right-handed has to do with inner mechanisms and brain patterns that come before the motion of the hands. Characteristically, I operated in ways that resulted often in the primary use of my left hand when I was focused in physical matter.

As to facial expression, this again works in the same way, for in this case, matter does matter! Physical expression is again the result of the personality’s characteristic method of manipulating the physical organism. When I operated as such, I had my own way of doing so.

But if all this is so important, why can’t we do it more easily and naturally? Why do we need experiments? According to Seth, the way we use the ego and its idea of reality stand in our way. When he was still outlining these experiments for us, Seth explained this in some detail.

It is amazing how man regrets the hours spent in sleep. He does not realize how hard he works when the ego is unaware. We hope to make this clear. We hope to let you catch yourselves in the act of doing so. You will realize how productive dream experiences are and the ways in which they are woven into the tapestry of your entire experience.

Seth had set us some task and fulfilling it will be a lifetime proposition. There is a rhythm, even now, to my own experiments in dream reality. Some methods, to be given later, allowed us to come awake while dreaming, to take our conscious selves into the dream state, manipulate it and have deliberate out-of-body experiences while sleeping. (In some of these, what I saw later checked out against physical reality.) Sometimes I do very well and feel that I am learning to manipulate in two levels of reality at once, to be aware both in waking and dream states. And then for months at a time, I am plunked down in physical reality again, dumb and blind to my dream experiences. My students have noticed the same rhythms; so has Rob.