“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

At the time, I had just begun two books — an initial draft outlining the ideas in the Seth Material and a manuscript on dreams that I thought of as my “dream book.” It didn’t occur to me that these two manuscripts could have anything to do with the dream interpretation because they were in the present rather than in the future. They were definitely two books, each with its own identity, and covering different subjects.

Then I recalled my previous experiments with dream states and knew that I wasn’t normally awake as I thought, but was wandering out in the living room, in an out-of-body state and hallucinating. The phone had never rung. My body was still in bed. The darkness was an effect caused by the state of my consciousness. So, while I had the chance, I decided to do some more experimenting and went out the hall door, downstairs and outside.

On May 5, I received a letter asking for a prospectus stating Seth’s views on various topics and strongly suggesting that this would be considered a basis for contract. From the letter I took it for granted that I’d have to go through the forty or so notebooks of Seth Material that we had then, and find sections dealing with various topics. This involved work that I really didn’t want to do, until the proposed book was begun. The next day, though, I started to work on it.

On May 14, I dreamed that I was doing something wrong about the prospectus. The dream bothered me so much that I called Prentice and learned that I’d misinterpreted Tam’s letter. All I needed was a simple prospectus and outline. Except for the dream, I would have spent considerable time gathering data long before it was needed. I felt much better and mailed the whole package off on May 17.

“You mean its a real letter? It’s not a precognitive symbol? Even if I do wake up, I can still read it?”

I’m making good progress with the suggestions for dream recall. Now I can remember at least one dream every two days. [Previously, he’d recalled dreams very seldomly.] It’s unfortunate that I can’t keep a notebook in the service, but I do make a quick note of dreams when I can.

Notice that his own death was not seen in the dream! But death dreams do not always foretell death, in any case. Some of them may simply allow us to release repressed wishes. Others may involve reincarnational data. Seth says that we use our inner perceptions as we use our outer ones — to discover more about things in which we are interested. If you are inclined to be pessimistic, most likely you will often have pessimistic dreams as well.

Sometimes we seem to tune into unfortunate events that do not even concern us. On June 20, for example, Virginia Mallery, one of my students, told our class the following dream: “I saw freight cars on the ground by the railroad viaduct. … I think the Gray Street viaduct in Elmira, though I’m not sure. They had fallen off the track. No one seemed hurt, and the cars weren’t smashed badly. As I remember, two were lying down, and one was up on end. I don’t recall seeing any automobiles.”

I mentioned in your last session that your scientists do not realize that man has, indeed, evolved since the development of the brain. For it has learned to form millions of new connections, meanings and concepts, new gestalts that have made man something different than he was. All of these are new electromagnetic patterns which are now indelibly a part of the race. …

The size of the brain has little to do with this beyond a certain point. The number of electrical connections are important, however, and even the old portions of the brain are affected by them. The old portions are not the same as they were. Physical examination only discloses their condition in the present.

You will discover definite correlations that exist between the incidence of precognitive dreams and data having to do with the temperature and weather. I don’t believe it is possible for you to carry your dream experiments far enough to discover certain other factors that exist between various layers of the subconscious and falling temperature rates in the body; therefore, I mention it here.

Sometimes precognitive information will appear to be wrong. In some cases, this is because a different probable event has been chosen by the self for physical materialization. I have access to the field of probabilities, and, egotistically at least, you do not. To me, your past, present and future merge into one.

Predictions, per se, do not contradict the theory of free will, though free will is dependent upon much more than the freedom of the ego alone. If the ego were allowed to make all the choices, with no veto power from other layers of the self, you would all be in a sad position, indeed.

This probable field seeds many other systems beside your own. It is composed of thought images, not physically materialized in your terms, but vivid storehouses of energy. Here is the material from which all pasts, presents and futures are made. It is far from a closed system. Not only does it feed the physical universe, but in it, many aspects of your own dreams become actual. Do you dream of an apple? The apple appears in the field of probability.

The ego, as a rule, is not aware of this broader time experience, but the subconscious often is; and associative processes of the mind can and do react to the future. Therefore, it is possible for our Frederick to become ill this year at the smell of a particular perfume because, say, subconsciously he knows that in 1980 his mother will be wearing it when she dies. The associative processes work both forward and backward.