“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.

Just last week, in a five- to ten-minute period, Rob had an excellent out-of-body with very little distortion. His abilities have developed along the lines of psychic-vision, as explained in The Seth Material. His projections have been infrequent, and he never gained conscious awareness of any from the sleep state until this one. “How can I tell if I do have a legitimate projection from sleep? How will I know its not a dream or hallucination?” he used to ask. After this experience he told me that the subjective feeling is its own proof — and of course, it is.

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).

From Rob’s Notes

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.

In our next Seth session, the 583rd, April 21, 1971, Seth took out time from his book dictation to mention Rob’s experience.

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.

In this case, I think that Rob projected to the studio, and hallucinated the rest of the events or performed them in the astral body. Had he been more critical at the time, he could have caused the hallucinations to disappear, continued with them or left the apartment.

By now, I was standing with my back to my body, and I just ‘fell’ backward into it. I got out again fairly quickly, this time able to study the strange sensing involved in distinguishing between the astral self I wanted to sit up and the physical self I wanted to stay flat. I walked out to the center of the room which now was perfectly normal, but had difficulty walking and remembered that in my case, at least, this sometimes happens when I’m close to my body. I decided to go to Rob’s studio, where he was working, to see if I could make him observe me.

As I was entering my body, I heard Rob in the bathroom. I wondered if he would come in to see what I was doing. This awakened my physical body.

We didn’t go to Saratoga physically until the summer of 1970, when we drove through on our way north. When we were there, I had Rob drive around to Linden’s. The house was exactly like it had been in my experience, with the side porch removed and a front one added.

One of my most delightful dream encounters involved a meeting with Rob in the out-of-body state on May 9, 1969. I had a dentist’s appointment later in the day, but in the morning I lay down at 9:30, specifically to try a projection from the dream state. I dozed and awoke at 10:30, remembering nothing. Disappointed but determined, I set the alarm for 11:15 and tried again. Almost instantly I fell asleep.

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.

“No,” Rob said. “My physical body’s at the art department.” With that, he simply disappeared. I found myself back in the bedroom. I left the apartment and had two very long adventures in the astral condition, all clear and vivid, and recorded in my notes.

I still couldn’t figure out what had really happened with Rob and me, though. Luckily, in the next, 481st session on May 12, 1969, Seth began an explanation. The session also contains further hints for dream projections.

Sue and I are positive that we have met many times during out-of-body states. Sometimes one of us remembers, sometimes the other does. On several instances, however, both of us have remembered and recorded our experiences which were similar but not identical. We hope to do much more work here. Rob is now becoming much more familiar with projection, so he and I plan to do some extensive work on our own. Hopefully, through the years, we can amass some kind of evidence that will be of help to others.