“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

On January 22, 1971, a few months after the first dream about the York Beach couple, Sue had another. Here is the dream, from her notes:

I realize that I am dreaming, and tell myself to go to another probability system. I am standing by Chamberlain’s Dairy outside Elmira, but the scenery doesn’t change, so I will myself to Jane and Rob’s apartment. The next thing I know, I’m there.

The two of them don’t answer me. They seem to be sharing a secret. ‘Look,’ I say again, to explain. ‘This is a probable system of reality, one of many. In the one I come from, I also know Jane and Rob Butts. Do you remember that?’

We all laugh at that. I can’t get over the change in them since our first dream encounter. Now their love for each other is much freer and more open than it was that first time, and they seem happier.

Jane then hands me a manuscript, a novel based on the August 11th dream encounter we had, from her perspective, but it includes this present dream experience also, the Seth breakthrough and someone named Michael J. Anthony. It seems to read well as I look it over, but I realize that the time sequence is confused here, in reference to me anyhow, and the story is mixing me up. ‘I’m sorry. It’s good, but I’ve got to go now,’ I say quickly. With a last look at the two of them, sitting together on the edge of so much, I wake up fully and alert, sitting up in bed.

Sue has had several other short dream encounters with the York Beach couple and in each they seemed more confident and assured. Now, when she comes to our apartment, she senses this other Jane and Rob moving about just beyond the focus of our normal perceptions.

In one dream she seemed to meet a probable self of her own. This was the dream:

Carl nods. At once I realize that somewhere — I don’t understand where — Carl does not own a cycle and that the two of us are man and wife, and have a baby. It is as though I am remembering physical life as a dream, and yet I have the feeling that Carl and I have done this cycle bit before, that we are doing it still in another place and that we will do it even as we are doing it now. The all-at-oneness seems perfectly natural.

We get on the bike and zoom through the countryside and while riding, I finally realize that this is a dream. I consider projecting but decide not to ruin the bike experience for Carl who would dearly love to own a motorcycle, even if he is only a dream Carl of mine.

The whole series of experiences concerning probabilities raised many questions. Seth answered several in a class session held several days after Sue’s last dream. Speaking to her directly, Seth first mentioned the headache that had been plaguing her all day:

The following excerpts from the Seth Material will explain probable systems more clearly, and relate probable selves with dream experience.

“Dream Selves and Probable Selves”

We mentioned that the dreaming self has its own memories. It has memory of all dream experience. To you, this might mean that it has memory of its past, and, indeed, to you, memory itself is dependent upon a past or the term seems meaningless. To the dreaming self, however, past, present and future do not exist. How can it be said to have memory?

All experience is basically simultaneous, as I have told you. The dreaming self is aware of its experience in its entirety. You, obviously, are not. You are hardly familiar with your dream experience and barely aware of its significance.

The dreaming self is to some considerable degree aware of the probable self. There is give-and-take between the two, for much data is received by the dreaming self from the probable self — the self that experiences what the ego would call probable events.

This data is often wound by the dream self into a dream drama which informs the subconscious of dangers or of probable success of any given event which is being considered by the subconscious for physical actuality.

Were it not for the experience of this probable self, and for its information given via the dreaming self to the subconscious, then it would be most difficult for the ego to come to any clear decisions in daily life. The ego does not realize the data that is being constantly fed into it. It cannot afford to, generally, since its focused energy must be used in the manipulation of physical actuality.

This information is sifted often through the dreaming self to the subconscious which has intimate knowledge of the ego with which it is closely connected. The subconscious makes its own judgments and passes these on with the data. Then the ego makes its decision. In some cases, the ego refuses to make the decision, and it is done by the subconscious. On occasion, when an unwise decision is made by the ego, the subconscious will change it. …

The probable self can be reached through hypnosis but only with excellent subjects and operators. Often it will not be recognized, however, for there will be no evidence of its experience in physical reality to back up its statements. Its data will agree when considered within its own framework. Reaching it in this manner would be highly difficult in any case. To my knowledge, it has not as yet been reached through hypnosis. It has been glimpsed but not recognized as a separate part of the self — in dream recordings and analytic sessions.

“Dreams and Probable Events”

If you would have some idea of what the probable universe is like, then examine your own dreams, looking for those events which do not have any strong resemblance to the physical events of waking existence. Look for dream individuals with whom you are not acquainted in normally conscious life. Look for landscapes that appear bizarre or alien, for all of these exist somewhere. You have perceived them. They do not exist in the space that you know but neither are they nonexistent, mere imaginative toys of the dreaming mind, without substance.

So far, we’ve experienced two main types of dreams that seem to involve probabilities. Sue’s, given earlier, represent the personally-oriented dream in which we seem to perceive probable events that could have happened or could happen in the future in our normal environment. Other kinds of dreams involve the “bizarre environments” Seth mentioned and show societies or civilizations quite alien to us, but built up around elements at least recognizable.

Several of us have had this type of dream. Again, two of Sue’s come closest to being representative. Both also involve projections or out-of-body states, a matter that will be discussed in the next section of this book. The following is from Sue’s notebook.

Dream One

Dream Two

According to Seth, children actually try out in dreams the various courses open to them. Speaking to Rob in Session 282, August 31, 1966, he said:

You may act out many probabilities within dream reality and try out alternatives, and not necessarily short-term ones. You would have made an excellent doctor, for example. In your terms, you worked out this possibility by weaving, over a period of three years, a dream framework in which you learned exactly what your life would have been, had you gone into medicine.

In your present life, the same process continues. Most of these dreams are very disconnected from the ego and will not be recalled. The self who pursues these divergent paths is actual, however. The doctor you might have been once dreamed of a probable universe in which he would be an artist. He continues to work out his own probabilities. He exists in fact. You call his system an alternate system of probability, but this is precisely what he would call yours.

Now you will have some experiences that are shared in the dream state. They will be involved with episodes familiar to you both before you went your separate ways. You are like two limbs from the same tree. You recognize the same mother. …

The dreams you will have and have had in shared experience are root dreams. They serve as a method of maintaining inner identity and communication. Projections can also occur from these — that is, you may, for example, project into the life of the doctor. (I am using you and the doctor as an example. Art, you see, is also closely connected with healing. The projections of which I spoke happen occasionally and spontaneously on both of your parts.)

Reincarnation is but a part of this probability system, the part that falls within your particular universe. There are also root dreams shared by the race as a whole. Most of these are not as symbolic as Jung thought them to be but are literal interpretations of the abilities used by the inner self. For that matter, as you know, flying dreams need not be symbolic of anything. They can be valid experiences, though often intermixed with other dream elements. Falling dreams are also simple experience in many instances, representing downward motion, or a loss of form-control during projection.

In the dream state, the portions of the larger ‘structure’ sometimes communicate in highly codified symbols. It would be highly improbable that you could decipher many of these now. There is a feedback system that operates, and yet you must understand that these other identities are fully independent and individual. They exist in codified psychological structures within your personality, as you do in theirs.