“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.

Because we must start somewhere, however, we will begin with dream recall and those practical aspects of dream investigation that let us use our dreams in daily life. For one thing, Seth followed this procedure with us, and it is the method I use to lead my students into dream reality. This is a gradual process that gently leads the ego into largely unfamiliar territory and at the same time encourages flexibility of consciousness.

This section of the book will include excerpts from Seth’s manuscripts on the general nature of dream reality, dream investigation and recall and will be followed by a series of chapters on various kinds of dreams captured by Rob, my students and me as we checked out Seth’s theories, as far as we were able. Later, we will journey further into the inner dimension in which dreams take place.

This method is really easy and workable — but it can be sabotaged. One of my students, Gloria, had great difficulty remembering her dreams until I discovered that she was using a clock radio to awaken her in the morning and the news happened to be on. The dreams must be recalled before you become mentally involved with the world’s activities.

If you have remembered only unpleasant dreams in the past, you may have built up a block against recalling any dreams at all. Mrs. Taylor, another student, had this problem. She gave herself the proper suggestions each night but had the greatest difficulty in remembering even one dream. “Maybe you really don’t want to remember any,” I said.

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.