“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

As we were going to bed, I began to feel a tremendous energy in the room. I tried not to be frightened and told myself that the intuitive self sensed something exciting going on, even if the ego was worried. I closed my eyes and the energy became stronger. Then I fell asleep and ‘woke up’ to find myself projecting in the dark-yet-not-dark of many projections. Seth stood in the doorway, looking as he does in Rob’s painting of him. He was short, rather stout, dressed in light shirt and pants. I realized that he took this form because it is reassuring to me.

The incident happened on a class night. Rob had been working in his studio and gone to bed around 11:00 P.M. He was vaguely aware of class leaving (at 12:30).

All this time Jane was beside me in bed. I was also snoring. I could hear the snoring clearly and was amazed at the loudness of the sounds my body made. I heard the sounds in my physical head, I believe, just beneath me. Now I conceived the idea of using the sound of my snoring as an impetus to leave my body on the bed, while I went soaring off.

Before he went back to sleep, Rob told me what had happened. I was amazed, because I hadn’t been in bed over five minutes yet. I’d been waiting for his snoring to quiet down or hopefully, stop. When it didn’t, I asked him to turn over. The bathroom light had been off only ten minutes at the most and the bathroom door closed. Except for undressing, these were the last two things I did before going to bed. A humorous domestic quandary results. Now I’ll have to think twice before asking Rob to turn over if he’s snoring. I’ll be afraid of disturbing a projection.

You tried the experiment when you did, having an ace in the hole, so to speak, in case you became frightened — knowing full well that Ruburt would be coming to bed. You were ready to try again, however, and picked a slow and easy method, pleasant surroundings, to make it easy to become familiar with the sensations before trying anything too adventurous.

“Did I try this before Jane came to bed, before I became conscious of what was happening?”

You began your attempts before Ruburt came to bed, but did not succeed until then. The time sense outside the body can be quite different than the body’s. You knew that one successful experience would free you, so you chose the best of circumstances. Remember, you have chosen those circumstances before, in the quick projection into the living room.

Rob has had several spontaneous projections but none experimentally produced. The one Seth mentioned happened several years ago, in wintertime. We slept in the living room for the night because the back of the apartment was chilly. Rob had just gone to bed on the opened-up couch. I puttered about, in the same room, ready to join him. All the lights were on. He closed his eyes. The next instant he found himself fully awake and conscious in his studio.

I worked at my drawing table. The light was on, and the windows dark. It was clearly nighttime. After a moment I realized that I wasn’t supposed to be in the studio, that I had just gone to bed and should be in the living room. As soon as I made this connection, I snapped back to my body. Jane was beside me, so she had just come to bed. I knew I had not been dreaming and felt a most peculiar sense of suspension and ease.

This experience happened September 27, 1967, after a social evening at home. I’d had several glasses of wine during the evening, and when I went to bed, I couldn’t get comfortable, but dozed and awakened often. I went to bed at 11:30 P.M. and recorded this experience at 1:30 A.M.

It all started when I turned over to switch on the light next to the bed. It flashed a bright red color which I thought strange and unaccountable. I got up to go to the bathroom, but when I began to walk, I felt very dizzy. When I reached the door, I had the odd feeling that I’d left something behind me. When I looked back toward the body, I nearly flipped. I sure had left something — my body! Then I realized that I was in my astral form.

Then I remembered that on first going to bed, I’d felt that someone was in the room. Right then, Sue Mullin [later Carl’s wife] now appeared, out of thin air. When I saw her, I suggested that we both go to Jane’s house to let her know we were out-of-body, but Sue wanted to talk instead. We talked for some time, but now I can’t remember the conversation. I kept watching my body on the bed. It changed position, lying on its back. Before it had faced the window. I was particularly interested in the eyes. Either the shadow in the room was freaking me out or the eyes were wide open but blank. When I turned around to Sue again, she was gone.

Now I had trouble staying out of my body but found that by exhaling I could keep myself in the astral one. Once I went back in my body, got up and thought I did so physically and was in a normal state, but then I saw my body on the bed …

Finally I looked up and saw my mother in front of me. She was lying in bed, and I couldn’t tell if I was in her bedroom or seeing through the wall or what. I started thinking about what Jane said about people being out-of-body without knowing it and wondered if Mom was out right then. With this, she sat right up and pointed at me. This reminded me of the way that Seth points at people sometimes. Apparently this worried me, for I ran to my body for protection. After this I came awake in my body and wrote down my first out-of-body trip!

First I found myself in the studio and Rob was there. He came to bed with me, and we made love. I was surprised he was home, knowing it was Friday when he was out of his body also, and so was I. I told Rob and we discussed it, plus our amazement over out-of-body love-making. Then, laughing and curious, we walked out into the living room together, looking at everything. The room and the morning were all normal. We hugged and joked — the bodies we had certainly seemed real to us. Yet to others we’d be invisible.

This made me think of looking at my physical body. Rob’s, we knew, would be at work. I went into the bedroom, but the bed was as I left it, only empty. This really confused me. I called Rob. He couldn’t see my physical body either. “My body’s got to be in bed,” I said. “Why can’t we see it?” We discussed what had happened so far, but couldn’t solve the mystery. “Could it be that we’re really both physical after all?” I asked.