“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The ego chooses channels of reception with great discrimination, and again, it censors anything which it feels is a threat to its dominance. In sleep, however, many dreams are of a telepathic nature, with strong clairvoyant overtones. [It is the ego’s persistent discrimination in choosing the stimuli to which it will react that determines the nature of physical time as it appears to the personality.] The ego, because of its function and characteristics, cannot make swift decisions as can the intuitive self. Therefore, it perceives events almost in slow motion.

Frederick may be reacting to an unpleasant event experienced in the dream state in which the upsetting situation was accompanied by the particular odor. [But] he could also be reacting to a future event of the same nature, for again, the mind does not break time into a series of moments. This is done by the physical brain.

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.