“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Yoga and psy-time helped reduce the symptoms temporarily, but by last week, the stiffness was so bad that my entire shoulder was grinding like jammed sandpaper. I even found myself yelling at the baby, which made me feel awful. Then, on April 25, 1970, I had the following dream:

When I awakened, my shoulder, arm and hand were completely free and loose. The lumps — called calcium lumps by my doctor — were still there under the skin, but I could move my shoulder with no difficulty for the first time in months. I could reach into my jean pockets also. I’d had some trouble with my complexion and this cleared up, along with a three-week bout of cramps.

(And here Seth explains something that many people often wonder about: If illness is detrimental and we know it, then why does poor health linger at times?)

At times, illness is momentarily accepted by the personality as a part of the self, and here lies its danger. It is not just symbolically accepted, and I am not speaking in symbolic terms. The illness is often quite literally accepted by the personality structure as a portion of the self. Once this occurs, a conflict instantly develops. The self does not want to give up a portion of itself, even if that part may be painful or disadvantageous. …

(This has serious implications. Obviously, the easiest time to cure an illness is before it is accepted as a part of the self-image. Seth goes on in this session to explain some of the other deeper reasons for the continuance of symptoms and our acceptance of them.)

Unifying principles are groups of actions about which the whole personality forms itself at any given time. These may change and do change in a relatively smooth fashion when action is allowed to flow unimpeded. When action is not allowed to follow the patterns or channels for its expression that have been evolved by the personality, then blockages of energy occur.

Let’s consider Sue’s symptoms, caused by explosive and repressed aggression, in relation to Seth’s statements. Sue had been taught as a child to repress emotions, but the time had come when expression was imperative. She wanted to strike out but didn’t feel that she should, and the denied actions then inhibited the function of the right arm that would ordinarily do the striking. According to Seth, even the calcium deposits were accumulations of repressed energy stored up in the body.

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]. …

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.

Next, I found myself running out in the back yard, through the rain. I dropped my cigarettes on the wet ground, picked them up, and discovered to my astonishment that they weren’t wet at all. At the same time I found another pack in my pocket. This really stopped me. I was so certain I only had one pack. As I stood there trying to figure this out, a newsboy came across the lawn and called out, “Hi.”

I looked up, really confused this time. He definitely was not our present newspaper boy, but the one who had delivered papers to us in another town, several years earlier. He couldn’t possibly be the same age and delivering papers in Elmira! Besides, we got only the evening paper, and it was still morning.

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.

With no transition at all, I sprang up to a sitting position in bed. Immediately, I checked the clock. The alarm had not rung because I had not pushed the little button down far enough. It was not quite 11 A.M., in any case. Only half an hour of physical time had passed.

Three days later, Rob walked into the bathroom, suddenly blacked out by the bathroom sink and fell unconscious to the floor. If I had heeded the dream and told Rob, could the incident have been prevented? Had I told Rob, I now think that through dream therapy or in a light trance state he could have discovered the reason behind the symptoms and saved himself a difficult time.

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.

We are not attempting to substitute dream action for physical action, generally speaking. Here we are speaking of potentially dangerous situations in which an individual shows signs of being unable to cope with these psychological actions through ordinary methods of adaption. No one can deny that a war fought by dreaming men at specified times would be less harmful than a physical war — to return to my flight of fancy. There would be reprecussions, however, that would be unavoidable, [for again, basically, the personality does not differentiate between sleeping and waking events].