“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

And in the same way that the dream world has no beginning or end, neither does the physical universe with which you are familiar. No energy can be withdrawn, and this includes the energy used in the continuous subconscious construction of the dream world. You continually create it — have always created it. It is the product of your own existence, and yet you can neither consciously call it into existence nor destroy it.

The dream world is, then, a natural by-product of the relationship between the inner self and the physical being — not a reflection, but a by-product — involving not only a chemical reaction, but also the transformation of energy from one state to another.

In some respects, all planes or fields of existence are by-products of others. For example, without the peculiar spark set off through the interrelationship between the inner self and the physical being, the dream world would not exist. But conversely, the dream world is a necessity for the continued survival of the physical individual.

This point is extremely important. As you know, animals dream. What you do not know is that all consciousness dreams. Atoms and molecules have consciousness, and this minute consciousness forms its own dreams even as, on the other hand, it forms its own physical image. As in the material world, atoms combine for their own benefit into more complicated structures, so do they combine to form such gestalts in the dream world.

I’ve said that the dream world has its own sort of form and permanence. It is physically oriented, though not to the degree inherent in your ordinary universe. In the same way that the physical image is built up, so is the dream image. You can refer to our previous discussions on the nature of matter to help you understand, but the dream world is not a formless, haphazard semi-construction.

The dream world, then, is a by-product of your own existence [from your standpoint]. It is connected to you through chemical reactions and this leaves open the entryway of interactions. Since dreams are a by-product of any consciousness involved with matter, then trees have their dreams. All physical matter, being formed about individualized units of consciousness of varying degrees, also participates in the involuntary construction of the dream world.

I mentioned the Crucifixion once, saying that it was an actuality and a reality, although it did not take place in your time. It took place where time is not as you know it… in the same sort of time in which a dream takes place. Its reality was felt by generations and was reacted to. Not being a physical reality, it influenced the world of physical matter in a way that no purely physical reality ever could.

The Crucifixion was one of the gigantic realities that transformed and enriched both the universe of dreams and the universe of matter, and it originated in the world of dreams. It was a main contribution of that field to your own and could be compared physically to an emergence of a new planet within the physical universe. …

The Ascension of Christ is … also a contribution of the world of dreams to your own universe, representing knowledge within the dream system that man was independent of physical matter. …

Many concepts, advancements and practical inventions simply wait in abeyance in the world of dreams until some man accepts them as possibilities within his frame of reality. Imagination is waking man’s connection with the world of dreams. Imagination often restates dream data and applies it to particular circumstances or problems within the physical system. Its effects may appear within matter, but it is of itself not physical. Often the dream world possesses concepts which will one day completely transform the history of your field, but a denial of such concepts as actualities or possibilities within reality hold these back and put off breakthroughs that are sorely needed.

The impact of any dream has physical, chemical, electromagnetic, psychological and psychic repercussions that are actual and continuing. The type of dream or the types of dreams experienced by any given individual are determined by many different factors. I am speaking now of the dream experience as it occurs and not of the remnant of it that his ego allows him to recall.

As an individual creates his physical image and environment according to his abilities and defects, and in line with his expectations and inner needs, so does he create his dreams; and these interact with the outer environment.

However, with the ego at rest in sleep, the individual often allows communications and dream constructions through — past the ego barrier. For example, if his present expectations are faulty, when the ego rests, he may recreate a time when expectations were high. The resulting dream will partially break the circle of poor expectations with their shoddy physical constructions and start such an individual along a constructive path. In other words, a dream may begin to transform the physical environment through lifting inner expectation.

We have seen that all experience is retained in electrically coded data within the cells and that the material of the cells forms about this coded experience. We have seen that the ego begins, sparked into being by the inner self, greatly influenced by heredity and physical environment; and that this ego, as it continues to exist, builds up an electrical reality of its own and forms its experiences … into the coded data within the cells.

At any given ‘point,’ the ego is complete within electrical reality as it is psychologically complete within the physical universe. This includes the retention of its dreams as well as the retention of purely physical data. …

The electrical system is composed of electricity that is far different from your idea of it. Electricity, as you perceive it, is merely an echo emanation or a sort of shadow image of these infinite varieties of pulsation which give actuality to many phenomena with which you are familiar, but which do not appear as tangible objects within the physical field. …

This density is extremely important, for it is a density of intensities. And it is the infinite variety and gradations of intensity that makes all identities possible and all gestalts, all identities in terms of personalities and fields and universes. It is this density, with this infinite variety of intensity, which allows for both identity and change. …

The electricity that is perceivable within your system is merely a projection of a vast electrical system that you cannot perceive. So far, scientists have been able to study electricity only by observing the projections of it that are perceivable within their terms of reference. As their physical instruments become more sophisticated, they will be able to glimpse more of this reality, but since they will not be able to explain it within their known system of references, many curious and distorted explanations of reported phenomena will be given.

Yet the inner self offers so many clues. … It operates outside of physical references. It is, of itself, free of the distorted effects peculiar to the physical system. A study of dreams, for example, would make many of these points clear, yet many scientists consider such work beneath them.

Why has no one suspected that dream locations have not only a psychological reality but a definite actuality? A study of dream locations is most important. Dream locations are composed of electrical mass, density and intensity. Here is another point: Definite work may be done in a dream, but the physical arms and legs are not tired. This would seem contrary to your known laws, but no one has looked into this. …

This not only applies to your physical field but also to all others. Your field is contained within its own range of intensities, a tiny band of electrical impulses a million times smaller than one note picked at random from the entire mass of musical composition that has ever been written or ever will be written. I am not going too deeply into this now because you are not ready. But because of the infinite range of intensities available, each individual has limitless intensities within which he can move.

All motion is mental or psychological motion, and all mental or psychological motion has its electrical reality. The inner self moves by moving through intensities. Each new experience opens up a new pulsation intensity. … To move through intensities within the electrical system gives the result, in the physical field, of moving through time. We will also discuss this later, in connection with so-called astral travel.

I would like to discuss dreams in relation to action. We mentioned earlier that all action does not necessarily involve motion that is apparent as such to you. To one extent or another, all actions are unfoldings. The action of dreaming itself is partially a physical phenomena. There is, then, the outside action that makes dreaming possible, the action that is dreaming.

Many of these actions performed by dream images are muscular ones, physical manipulations. But many of these actions are also mental manipulations or aesthetic realizations and even aesthetic performances. These dream images are not one-dimensional cardboard figures by any means. Their mobility, in terms of perspectives and within space, is far greater than your own.

You perceive but a small portion of these images which you have yourselves created. You cannot bring them back into the limited perspectives of your present physical field and are left with but glimpses and flimsy glimmerings of images that are as actual, vivid and more mobile than normal physical ones.

Nor is the dream world a shadow image of your own. It carries on according to the possibilities inherent within it, as you carry on according to the possibilities in the physical system. In sleeping, however, you focus your awareness in altered form into another world that is every bit as valid as your physical one. Only a small amount of energy is focused into the physical system during sleep, enough simply to maintain the body within the environment.

Some dream events are more vivid than waking ones. It is only when the personality passes out of the dream experience that it may seem unreal in retrospect. For [upon waking] again, the focus of energy and attention is in the physical universe. Reality, then, is a result of focus of energy and attention.

The slower physical manifestation of growth that occurs within the physical system involves long-term patterns filled by atoms and molecules which are, to some extent, then imprisoned within the constructions. In the dream world, the slower physical growth process is replaced by psychic and mental value fulfillment which does not necessitate any long-range imprisonment of molecules within a pattern. This involves a quickening of experience and action that are relatively unhampered by the sort of time necessities inherent within the physical universe. Action is allowed greater freedom. …

One of the closest glimpses you can get of pure action is action as it is involved with the dream world and in this mobility as the personality passes into and out of the dream field. Within the physical world, you deal with the transformation of action into physical manipulations — but this involves only a small portion of the nature of action, and it is my purpose to familiarize you with action as it exists, more or less, in pure form. In this way, you will be able to perceive the ways in which it is translated into other fields of actuality that do not involve matter as you know it.

Within the reality of the dream world, fulfillment and dependence, then, are not dependent upon permanence in physical terms. Bursts of developments are possible that have matured in perspectives that are not bound up in time.

These developments are the result of actions that occur in many perspectives at once and not developments that happen as within the physical system through a seeming series of moments. Basically, even the physical universe itself is so constructed, but for all practical purposes, as far as perception and experience is concerned, time and physical growth apply. As a result, the ego portion of personality is, to a large extent, dependent for its maturity and development upon the amount of time that the physical image has spent within the system.

A certain portion of physical growth, in terms of a series of moments, is, therefore, necessary for value fulfillment to show itself within a physical organism. But in the dream world, ‘growth’ is a matter of value fulfillment which is achieved through perspectives of action — through traveling within any given action, and following it and changing with it.

Now, you experience action as if you were moving along a single line, each dot on it representing a moment of your time. But at any of these ‘points,’ action moves out in all directions. From the standpoint of that moment-point, you could imagine action forming an imaginary circle with the point as apex. But this happens at the point of every moment. There is no particular boundary to the circle. It widens outward indefinitely. Now, in the dream world, and in all such systems, development is achieved not by traveling your single line, but by delving into that point that you call a moment. … Basically the physical universe is at the apex of such a system itself. …

The eye movements noted in the beginning of REM sleep are only indications of dream activity that is closely connected with the physical layers of the self. These periods mark not the onset of dreams but the return of the personality from deeper layers of dream awareness to more surface ones. The self is actually returning to more surface levels to check upon physical environment. There is a transference of main energy in deeper dream states from physical to mental concentration.

Quite simply, the self travels to areas of reality that are far divorced from the physical areas of mobility. The muscles are lax then because physical activity is not required. The energy that is not being expended physically is used to sustain mental actions. The chemical excesses built up in the waking state are automatically changed as they are drained off, into electrical energy which also helps to form and sustain dream images.

Using these methods, the dreams of the mentally ill could also be studied if the affliction was not too severe. The dreams of children could be investigated in this way and compared with those of adults. Children dream vividly and more often. They return more frequently, however, to periods of near wakefulness in order to check their physical environment, since they are not as sure of it as adults are. In deep periods of sleep, children range further away, as far as dream activities are concerned.

It is impossible to study dreams when an attempt is made to isolate the dreamer from his own personality, to treat dreams as if they were physical or mechanical. The only laboratory for a study of dreams is the laboratory of the personality. …

In midnight thickets
Dreamers plunge,
While the moon
Shines calmly on.
The town is sleeping,
Bodies lie
Neat and empty
Side by side.

Appointments are made and kept,
And records scrawled in haste,
While bodies wait in crisp white beds,
All untouched and neat and safe.