“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.

I was particularly aware of my lower astral legs, hovering above the physical ones, and took great pleasure in wiggling them about, enjoying the marvelous sense of freedom and lightness they possessed. I knew my physical legs couldn’t move this freely, although they are in good condition. My astral legs felt rubbery, so loose and flexible! I could see that they were light-colored, translucent from the knees down — this without my sitting up in my astral form to see them.

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.

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.

As I fell off to sleep I had been thinking of Congress Park in Saratoga Springs, New York. Suddenly, I became aware that I had begun a projection, but I wasn’t sure exactly how far the process had gone. I found myself seeing Congress Park very clearly, for example, yet I wasn’t there yet, and my head kept throbbing in a way that wasn’t physical — as if I heard rather than felt the throbs. This was accompanied by a buzzing noise and other loud sounds that I now accept as characteristic of certain kinds of projection. My head felt full of a white light. Everything in my astral visions was opaque white, instead of dark.

All the while, I was very conscious of the white light that was beginning to bother me. It seemed to fill my entire head, growing more and more intense. A funny whooshing sound inside my head also distracted me and my head itself began to feel fantastically light. The more I tried to concentrate in my environment, the stronger these effects grew.

Ignoring the light, I willed myself to go to the house of the Linden family, across town. Instantly I found myself there on the porch. For a moment I wondered if I was in the right place, then I saw that the old side porch had been completely removed and another front porch added. Was this a distortion or hallucination? I willed all hallucinations to vanish, but everything remained the same. This usually means that the environment is a “real” location. It was dark, with no lights on in the house, and I decided to go inside.

At this point the pulsations of the white light inside my head quickened and grew very powerful. I felt for a moment as if my consciousness could really be swept away or as if I could really have difficulty getting back to my body. I kept “testing” the strength of the light during the whole experience, and each time decided to continue despite it. Now I decided I’d better return.

I found myself then in my astral body above my physical one, but in reversed position. My astral hand with its strange sensations and pulsing light was to the south, over my physical feet. For a few moments I kept fluctuating — back to the park then back to my room — with the white light pulsating very strongly. Finally I just wished myself into my body, experienced some difficulty, a brief instant of unconsciousness, and fell back in.

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.