“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The interior universe is at least as rich, varied and complicated as the exterior one. Dream reality is only one aspect of this inner universe, in the same way that our planet is only one of many others in a physical sky. Before our experiments began, I used to think that dreams were relatively chaotic productions, with a few subconscious insights thrown in for good measure, now and then — a nightly retreat into idiocy for the tired brain. I considered sleep a small death in which all sense of continuity vanished. Most of the dreams I’d recalled until then had been nightmares — the self gone mad, I thought — so I wasn’t prepared for Seth’s emphasis on the importance of dreams.

Unknown characters within the dream action, persons unknown to you in daily life, should be given careful attention also, and the roles which they play within the dream drama. The primary colors should be noted. It goes without saying now that all dream events should be checked against physical reality so that any clairvoyant elements are clearly checked and recorded. …

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.’

You may try two different wordings for a start, and now I am speaking of precise wording. The first: ‘I will wake up after each of my first five dreams and record each one immediately.’ The second alternative wording would be the same as the one I have just given, but the ‘wake up’ would be omitted. That is, it is possible for you to record the dreams, speaking into the microphone without awakening in your terms.

Now, mankind uses but a portion of its capabilities. When you are well along in these experiments, you will find that you handle them very well, with no draining of energies. Your sleeping hours are already productive. We shall also use them to give you training in the utilization of various stages of consciousness. Added to this, the training will give you valuable insight into the nature of dreams in general, the stages of the subconscious and the inner life of the personality when it is dissociated from its physical environment to some considerable extent.

The present within which you seem to experience the dream is not, however, the present in physical time — the present in which your body lies upon the bed. There is a fine distinction here and one that you will learn through experience as you go on, so I will not discuss it now.

Now and then with Ruburt, to a greater or lesser degree, my own habits therefore show through, for I use his muscles in a different way than he does. But scientifically, this would not be proof of my existence as an independent personality who has survived death. Not that this concerns me, for it does not.

Bill laughed, and shortly later, the session ended. By now I sat down during sessions, and changes had taken place in my trance state so that the personality change was very marked. Rob was used to this, but Bill and Peg attended sessions only infrequently, and to Bill it was a constant source of amazement. Peg took it for granted.

Until we actually tried the dream experiments, we didn’t really have too clear an idea of what to expect. This series of sessions in which Seth explained dream reality and gave us instructions about exploring it, always struck me as highly evocative, yet oddly ambiguous. In a way, Seth was as nebulous as dreams are, but we already had over two thousand pages of manuscript he had dictated through me in trance; and surely he had changed our lives. Now here he was, telling us how to travel through a territory more naturally his, I thought, than ours.

3. Dream locations that represent definite places that appear as they were in the past. If you dream of your childhood home as it was, not as it is now, then the location would belong in this category.

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.