“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In closing, Sue added: “Of course, the dream itself was only the impetus. My inner self knew what to do all along. Maybe it had just forgotten how to keep a neat file!”

Whether or not Seth actually spoke to Sue in the dream is beside the point here. What is important is that symptoms disappeared as a result of a dream. She had worried about the condition and had requested help from her inner self; the dream was her answer. It’s possible, of course, that Sue’s unconscious adapted an authority figure to get the information about aggression through with greater impact, using Seth as a figurehead. (If you want to believe that Seth is an unconscious production of mine, then you must admit he lends himself rather well to the unconscious purposes of others and possesses a reality to them quite independent of his relationship to me. Later examples will make this clear.)

In this case, the illness could not be called an impeding action unless it persisted long after its purpose was served. … Even then, without knowing all the facts you could not make a judgment, for the illness could still serve by giving the personality a sense of security, being kept on hand as an ever-present emergency device in case the new unifying principle should fail.

These must be understood not as something apart from the personality, but as a part of the changing personality. Often, they point out the existence of inner problems. Often, they serve temporary functions, leading the personality from other more severe areas of difficulty. I am not saying here that illness is good. I am saying that it is a part of the action of which any personality is composed, and, therefore, it is purposeful and cannot be considered as an alien force that attacks the individual from without.

A few weeks after the dream, on May 12, 1970, Sue had another therapeutic experience that straddled dreaming and waking reality. She was reading a book on the life of Edgar Cayce when her shoulder began to ache. Suddenly she had the urge to leaf through the book to a paragraph she’d noticed earlier on yoga exercises for bursitic shoulders. As she read this, she heard a loud voice say: ‘Put wet tea bags on it.”

I dozed for ten minutes. When I woke up, the pain was gone. I’ve been doing the yoga exercise and using the tea bags and the pain hasn’t returned.

“Much better,” the second voice replied. “The yoga exercises are repairing the effects worked on the physical system. She is also learning not to channel aggressions onto the shoulder.”

Seth first spoke of therapeutic dreams in the 198th session for October 13, 1965 — though he insisted from the beginning that the inner self had the ability to cure the body. In this session, he explained exactly how such a dream acted upon the physical system.

We have not spoken about the inner senses in some time. By now, you should realize that they have an electromagnetic reality also and that the mental enzymes act as sparks, setting off inner reactions. In the dream state, these reactions are easily triggered. This is the result of the lowering of egotistical guards, for the ego sets up controls that act as resistances to various inner channels [during the waking state]. …

A destructive attitude of mind has been changed overnight in the dream state to a constructive situation in many instances, and the whole electromagnetic balance has been changed. In such a case, negative ions form an electrical framework in which healing is possible. Such healing dreams come most often when the self feels a sense of desperation and automatically opens up channels to deeper layers of personality.

Such inner therapeutics may occur at various other levels of consciousness, where they may be sparked by exterior stimuli of an aesthetic or pleasing nature. Other exterior conditions also have an effect. To involve oneself in large groups, for example, is often beneficial not simply to take attention away from the self for a change, but because of the larger range of electromagnetic ranges readily available.

I lay there, aware of a growing disquiet. Suddenly I realized that I was hearing voices, but they seemed to come from inside my head. They grew steadily louder and louder. I was certain that I was still awake. The voices rose. I felt as if a radio was turned on full volume in my head, but with stations scrambled — for I could make no sense out of what was said. Instead, I seemed to hear fragments of conversations. Really frightened, I shook my head and looked about the room.

I mentioned the other apartments and looked forward to exploring them. My friends thought it would be great fun and offered to go with me. A sense of adventure filled me. I couldn’t remember when I’d had such a good time! Then I remembered that I had to return by noon to get Rob’s lunch. Though I was very tempted to stay, I left my friends, promising to return that afternoon.

For the first time I wondered: Could this be some kind of dream? A rush of disappointment flooded through me. If I was dreaming then the apartments would disappear when I awakened. I would never get to explore them! I looked at the yard again. It was our yard. The environment was brilliantly clear. And then, out of nowhere it seemed, a sense of freedom and exhilaration flashed — I could explore the apartments if I wanted to! I was out of my body. My body was in bed.

With that realization, my senses became super-alert. The yard and everything within my vision was significant, alive, super-real — seemingly more real than at any other moment of my life. At the same time, it occured to me that I had lain down at 10:30, and, surely, it was past the half-hour I had given myself. For some reason the clock hadn’t awakened me. I would have to return. All the while, I stood fully conscious and alert out in the yard. Only then did I remember the suggestions I had given myself before lying down. I decided to return to my body at once.

The inner self does know the state of our health. At one time, I had some symptoms for which I was using a combination of healing methods suggestion, self-analysis and dream therapy. I seemed to be improving but wanted an inner check. One night, I requested a dream that would let me know my state of progress.

The individual would not necessarily remember such a dream. Psychologically, however, such an experience would be valid, and the dependency expressed. I cannot stress this too strongly: To the inner self, the dream experience is as real as any other experience.

It follows that [by] using suggestion, various problems can be solved within the dream state. The inner ego of which we have spoken is the director of such unifying activities. It is the ‘I’ of your dreams, having somewhat the same position within the inner self as the ego has to the outer physical body.