“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

All through this period I was trying to train myself to come “awake” while asleep. It serves no purpose to include all of the many dreams of this nature that I recorded — dreams in which I managed to regain my critical senses, sometimes only to fall back into normal dreaming and sometimes to embark upon conscious experiments. But one experience in particular was very vivid and informative. Excerpts from the following session will show you what I was trying to do.

“Instructions and Awake-Seeming Dreams”

There are some notes I wanted to give you concerning dreams in which you feel certain you are normally awake. When these dreams are unusually vivid, then the ego is aware and participating, but generally it is not using its critical faculties. As you know, you can become critically alert, but when you do so, you realize that you are not in your normal waking condition.

In awake-seeming dreams you are indeed awake, but within a different psychological framework, indeed, within a different framework of reality. You are operating at a high level of awareness, and using the inner senses. These enable you to perceive an added depth of dimension which is responsible for the vividness and sense of exhilaration that often occurs within the kind of dream. The next step, of course, is to allow the ego to awaken its critical faculties while within this state. You are then able to realize that while you are indeed awake as you seem, you are awake while the body is asleep.

When this occurs, you will be able to use your normal abilities in addition to those of the dream condition. You will be certain of your identity, realize that the physical self is sleeping or in a dream state and that the inner self is fully awake. This represents a definite increase in the scope of consciousness and a considerable expansion over the usual limitations set by you upon yourself.

False Awakening or Awake-Seeming Dream: Now I had a false awakening. In the back of my mind all night was the resolution to make sure I recorded my dreams. Here, I was sure I was awake. I wrote the dreams down in my notebook which was on the bedside table, and then, to make sure, I awakened Rob and told him the dreams also. Rob pointed out that the first dream and one of the others were definitely related. Again, I was positive I was awake.

Then the suspicion struck me that perhaps this was an awake-seeming dream, that I was still dreaming and that none of the dreams had been written down at all. I kept struggling to analyze my state of consciousness and finally decided to check the notebook again.

This is a pleasant and easy method. With some experience you will discover that you can maintain control, walk out of the apartment and outside. You may then attempt normal locomotion or levitate. There is little strain with this method. Keep it in mind so that you are alert to the initial favorable circumstances. You may be half awake. You may be in a false awakening. The method will work in either case. You can, if you want to, look back at your body.