“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

“Seth,” Rob said, “Jane had several confused dreams in which she seemed to be getting or giving instructions in life readings.”

He says, ‘I breathe, but who breathes, since consciously I cannot tell myself to breathe or not to breathe?’ He says, ‘I dream. But who dreams? I cannot tell myself to dream or not to dream.’ He cuts himself in half and then wonders why he is not whole. Man has admitted only those things he could see, smell, touch or hear; and in so doing, he could only appreciate half of himself. And when I say half, I exaggerate; he is aware of only a third of himself.

If man does not know who breathes within him, and if man does not know who dreams within him, it is not because there is one self who acts in the physical universe and another who dreams and breathes. It is because he has buried the part of himself which breathes and dreams. If these functions seem so automatic as to be performed by someone completely divorced from himself, it is because he has done the divorcing.

The part of you who dreams is the ‘I’ as much as the part of you who operates in any other manner. The part of you who dreams is the part of you who breathes. This part of you is certainly as legitimate and necessary to you as a whole unit is, as the part who plays bridge or Scrabble. It would seem ludicrous to suppose that such a vital matter as breathing would be left to a subordinate, almost completely divorced, poor-relative sort of a lesser personality.

As breathing is carried on in a manner that seems automatic to the conscious mind, so the important function of transforming the vitality of the universe into pattern units seems to be carried on automatically. But this transformation is not as apparent to the one part of yourself that you are pleased to recognize, and so it seems as if this transformation is carried on by someone even more distant than your breathing and dreaming selves.

In your quiet unguarded moments, you still say, ‘Who breathes? Who dreams? Who moves?’ How much easier it would be to admit freely and wholeheartedly the simple fact that you are not consciously aware of vital parts of yourself and that you are more than you think you are.

It is true that, as a rule, you are not aware of your whole entity. There is no reason, however, why you must be blind to the whole self of your present personality, which is part of the entity, and which can be glimpsed in terms of the breathing and dreaming ‘self of which I have spoken.

Time to your dreaming self is much like ‘time’ to your waking inner self. The time concept in dreams may seem far different than your conception of time in the waking state when you have your eyes on the clock and are concerned with getting to some destination by, say, 12:15. But it is not so different from time in the waking state when you are sitting alone with your thoughts. Then, I am sure, you will see the similarity between this alone sort of inner psychological time, experienced often in waking hours, and the sense of time experienced often in a dream. …

Who do I share this image with?
What ghost haunts this house?
I smile and reach for a cup of tea
And motions beyond my will begin.
My fingers move smoothly out
And lift the curving spoon.
With just the proper touch
They pick the china saucer up.
Yet I have nothing to do with this.
Who moves the cup? Who moves?

While I sleep and lie stretched out,
Eyelids closed and pupils dark,
Who walks wide-eyed downstairs
Through the door in the cold night air,
And travels where I have never been?
Who leaves clear memories in my head
Of people I have never met?
Who takes these trips while I
Never lift one inch from bed?
Who dreams?

The mover, the breather, the dreamer
Shares with me this fond flesh.
He is a twin so like myself
That I cannot recognize his face.
He goes his way and I go mine.
We never meet head-on, and yet
I am aware of this ghost
Behind my every word or act.
Who moves? Who breathes?
Who dreams?