“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Two periods of three hours apiece would be quite sufficient for most people, if the proper suggestions were given before sleep — suggestions that would insure the body’s complete recuperation. In many cases ten hours sleep, for example, is actually disadvantageous, resulting in a sluggishness both of mind and body. In this case the spirit has simply been away from the body for too long a time, resulting in a loss of muscular flexibility.

There are many variations, in fact, that would be better than your present system. Ideally, sleeping five hours at a time, you gain the maximum benefit, and anything else over this time is not nearly as helpful. Those who require more sleep would then take, say, a two-hour nap. For others a four-hour block sleep session and two naps would be highly beneficial. With suggestion properly given, the body can recuperate in half the time now given to sleep. In any case it is much more bracing and efficient to have the physical body active rather than inactive for, say, eight to ten hours.

You have trained your consciousness to follow certain patterns that are not necessarily natural for it, and these patterns increase the sense of alienation between the waking and dreaming self. To some extent you drug the body with suggestion, so that it believes it must sleep away a certain amount of hours in one block. Animals sleep when they are tired, and awaken in a much more natural fashion.

You would retain a far greater memory of your subjective experiences, and your body would be healthier, if these sleeping patterns were changed. Six to eight hours of sleep in all would be sufficient with the nap patterns outlined. And even those who think they now need more sleep than this would find that they did not, if all the time was not spent in one block. The entire system, physical, mental, and psychic, would benefit.

The divisions between the self would not be nearly as severe. Physical and mental work would be easier, and the body itself would gain steady periods of refreshment and rest. Now, as a rule, it must wait, regardless of its condition, at least for some sixteen hours. For other reasons having to do with the chemical reactions during the dream state, bodily health would be improved; and this particular schedule would also be of help in schizophrenia, and generally aid persons with problems of depression, or those with mental instability.

Small meals or snacks would then be taken upon rising. This method of eating and sleeping would greatly help various metabolic difficulties, and also aid in the development of spiritual and psychic ability. For many reasons, physical activity at night has a different effect upon the body than physical activity during the day, and ideally, both effects are necessary.

Now the period just before dawn often represents a crisis point for persons severely ill. Consciousness has been away from the body for too long a period, and such a returning consciousness then has difficulty dealing with the sick body mechanism. The practice in hospitals of giving drugs to patients so that they will sleep entirely throughout the night is detrimental for this reason. In many cases it is too great a strain on the part of the returning consciousness to take over again the ailing mechanism.

Such medications also often prevent certain necessary dream cycles that can help the body recuperate, and the consciousness then becomes highly disoriented. Some of the divisions between different portions of the self, therefore, are not basically necessary but are the result of custom and convenience.

The functions of hormones and chemicals, and of adrenal processes in particular, would function with far greater effectiveness with these alternating periods of activities as I have mentioned. The wear and tear upon the body would be minimized, while at the same time all regenerative powers would be used to the maximum. Both those with a high and low metabolism would benefit.

If you do not understand that in periods of sleep your consciousness actually does leave your body, then what I have said will be meaningless. Now your consciousness does return at times, to check upon the physical mechanisms, and the simple consciousness of atom and cell — the body consciousness — is always with the body, so it is not vacant. But the largely creative portions of the self do leave the body, and for large periods of time when you sleep.

(10:39.) Some cases of strong neurotic behavior result from your present sleeping habits. Sleepwalking to some degree is also connected here. Consciousness wants to return to the body, but it has been hypnotized into the idea that the body must not awaken. Excess nervous energy takes over, and rouses the muscles to activity, because the body knows it has been inactive for too long and otherwise severe muscular cramps would result.

The same applies to your eating habits. By turn you overstuff and then starve the tissues. This has definite effects upon the nature of your consciousness, your creativity, your degree of concentration. Along these lines, for example, you do literally starve your bodies at night, and add to the aging of your bodies by denying them food throughout those long hours. All of this reflects upon the strength and nature of your consciousness.