“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

21
Projections from the Dream State

I’m going to devote this chapter to various kinds of dream projections from our own records and those of my students. I refer specifically to projections embarked upon from the dream state, rather than those in which a trance is induced. Deliberate waking projections will also be excluded.

I had a long series of projections in which I talked to Sean [Sue’s son] about his health in the physical environment, and suggest that he will find health easy to maintain. In the last projection, I found myself hovering over a long row of shopping-center-like stores. There was a large grocery store near me and a drugstore somewhere beyond. Suddenly the entire grocery store exploded into flames. I could clearly hear explosions in the building. The windows blew out and the color of the flames was fantastic.

NOTE: On April 13 at 6:00 A.M., the huge K Mart at the Mattydale Shopping Center near Syracuse burned in a sudden fire. I saw this on TV when I awoke in the morning. The news film showed the food cans exploding — or rather, the newscaster explained this was what happened. The plate glass windows blew out, and all of this was in the news. I got up at 6:30 A.M. so I don’t know if the experience was a projection at the time of the fire or a clairvoyant viewing of it. A drugstore next to the market was undamaged.

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.

He said that he was here to take Carl and me on our second trip. He promised three some time ago, and we’d been on one. I turned and looked at Carl’s sleeping body. Then I shouted at him until he began to project, grabbed his astral arm and helped him to his feet. Seth stood smiling, then gestured and we followed him. He gave us a lecture that I swore to remember. When I came to, it was dawn. The lecture had been so real that I was certain I’d remember it. Of course I didn’t. From now on, I will hereby install a pen point in the end of my nose and sleep with my head on a writing table.

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 next thing I knew, I had the feeling that I was hovering in our dark bathroom. We close the door between the bath and living room to keep Willie, our cat, in the living room at night. I was before the closed door, but wasn’t able to penetrate it. I felt no fear or panic. Although I was awake while sleeping and definitely projecting, I didn’t realize this at first. The fact slowly dawned on me. This was the first time that the fear element wasn’t present for me. I had no actual memory of leaving my body, and I must have fallen off into normal sleep for a moment, because the next thing I knew, I found myself out of my body, hovering just above my sleeping physical image.

Physically, I was sleeping flat on my back with my hands down at my sides. My astral body was in the same approximate position, perhaps six inches above. The state and sensation were remarkably steady and pleasant. I felt fully awake, aware of what I was doing and quite free and weightless. I knew I wasn’t dreaming. At the time I remembered asking Jane in the past how you could distinguish between dream projection and dreams. The difference is obvious, when you have the experience at first hand.

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 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.

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.

I lay down to experiment and fell asleep at once to have a confused experience, mixed with dream elements. I found myself getting out of my body with some difficulty, only I was someone else or in someone else’s body, a young woman student. I went running out of a house into a landscaped yard, sat down, left that body and went strolling through the yard. Other people were there, and I was jubilant because no one saw me. A young man stood by the steps. I finally said, ‘I’m out of my body. Can you see me? Can you?’ He said that he could, and didn’t seem at all impressed, so I went back into the other body again. I started to wake up and realized that some kind of a projection had been involved, though I wasn’t sure how much was contaminated by dream elements. I decided to let myself fall back into a doze to see what else developed and to monitor my consciousness.

Sue, my other students, and myself are aware that creative, psychic and sexual energy are only various aspects of the same force. At times we may collect this energy sexually, then switch over, transforming the energy from one form to another. The sexual feelings accompany many dream projections and are entirely absent in others. Their presence at all, however, may easily give rise to interpretations based more on social taboos than anything else — and to sexual hallucinations that should be but are not always recognized as such.

Here is another example, also from my own records, in which I struggled to maintain proper consciousness and perfect a projection. Hopefully, these various episodes will illustrate some of the many ways that projections can be brought about from a sleep state.

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.

I decided to continue the projection though I hadn’t faced these particular conditions before — being half in and half out of an environment. Instantly, I found myself walking along the park path, sometimes slightly above it. The night was foggy and dark, as it was in Elmira. My sight was operating perfectly, but it took a while before my hearing worked. (In good projections, all senses are super-perfect). I worked at getting clearer focus and really enjoyed walking down the park paths. I hadn’t been in that park for years and was consciously delighted. Now and then I paused to see if anything had changed. So far everything was the same.

It occurred to me that perhaps the effects were warnings to go back to my body or indications that conditions weren’t good. At the same time, there was no way I could check out the projection physically — I’d met no one — and I decided that since I was over 250 miles away from my body, I may as well get whatever evidence I could for myself.

Since this book is about the dream state, including dream projections, this is not the place to compare waking, trance and dream projections. I simply hope to show some of the types of projections possible from the dream state. The following experience was Carl Watkins’ first projection, January 6, 1969.

From the sleep state I project to Carl’s and shout at him until his astral body sits up. I try to get to Jane’s.

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.

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.

Ruburt was writing earlier in the morning, and, without realizing it, he was telepathically aware of your emotional presence. It was this that gave him the idea of a projection experiment. He wanted to see if he could become more aware of your form. You did not want to project per se, necessarily. You wanted to be here to offer comfort. The desire got you here. Your conscious mind was fully taken up with your activities at the art department, giving the inner self full rein.

In the same way do you travel in other realities without being aware of it. You perceived in a ‘normal’ fashion, which should show you again that perception is not dependent upon the physical image. You have both traveled together in such a fashion from the dream state. There is no reason why you cannot try such experiments, trying to project at the same time.

For your own purposes, an unfinished painting on your easel would help you project to the studio, for you would wish to study it. You have often done this, without remembering. It would be to your advantage if the two of you traveled together, however. You could help each other retain proper consciousness and purpose during projection. If Ruburt is projecting, he should try to rouse you astrally.

He can be of great help to you, when he develops further. You can also suggest dreams in which you are flying in an airplane and tell yourself then that you will waken from the dream and project. You will know the plane to be a dream image, but be able to retain it for your convenience if you want, so that you do not fear falling at first.

It is because of this instantaneous creation and projection of inner reality outward into form that you experience time within the physical system — to train you, to give you time to learn to handle your own creations. Projection experiments, then, should only be tried when you are in a peaceful state of mind, as Ruburt should know after his black creature experience [described in The Seth Material].

Now, there are ‘objective’ realities that exist within the astral system. There are more than your own thought forms, in other words. Your own thought-forms can be definite aids when you are in the proper mental condition, and they can impede your progress if you are not. For example, a man in a desperate frame of mind is more apt to emphasize the unpleasant aspects of the news and to see bitterness rather than the joy in the faces of those he meets. He will ignore a contented child playing on one side of the street and notice, instead, a dirty ragged child, even though he be further away. So your frame of mind when projecting will largely determine the kind of experiences you have.

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.