“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Persons vary in the amount of sleep they need, and no pill will ever allow them to dispense with sleep entirely, for too much work is done in that state. However, this could be done far more effectively with two, rather than one, sleep periods of lesser duration.

This would not lead to a blurring of consciousness or focus. Instead the greater flexibility would result in a perfection of conscious focus. The seeming great division between the waking and the sleeping self is largely a result of the division in function, the two being largely separated — a block of time being allotted to the one, and a larger block of time to the other. They are kept apart, then, because of your use of time.

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.

(Since this session — it is June 1 as I type this — Jane and I have been experimenting somewhat with altered sleep patterns, and we can say that Seth’s ideas seem eminently workable. After a shorter nighttime sleep period, we have no difficulty waking up easily, alert and ready to go. We supplement this pattern with one or two rest periods during the daylight hours. The system adds an unaccustomed sharpness of appreciation to all of our activities.)