“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Alternate focus is merely a state in which you turn your consciousness in other than its habitual direction, in order to perceive quite legitimate realities that exist simultaneously with your own. You must alter your perception to perceive any reality that is not geared practically toward material form. This is something like looking out of the corner of your eye or mind, rather than straight ahead. (Pause.)

Using alternate focus, with practice it is possible to perceive the different physical formations that have filled any given area of space, or that will fill it in your terms. In some dream states you may visit a particular location and then perceive the location as it was, say, three centuries ago and five years hence, and never understand what the dream meant. It seems to you that space can be filled only by a given item at a time, that one must be removed to make room for another.

It plays hopscotch in and out of reality. It is gone sometimes and you are not aware of it. On such occasions your attention is focused elsewhere, in what you might call mini-dreams or hallucinations, or associative and intuitive processes of thought that go quite beyond normal focus.

In these lapses you are perceiving other kinds of reality — with other than normal waking consciousness. When you return, you lose the thread. Normal waking consciousness pretends there was never any break. This happens with some regularity, and to varying degrees, from fifteen to fifty times an hour, according to your activities.

(Pause at 10:23.) In periods of conscious “blank spots” or certain fluctuations, these memory systems are often perceived. As a rule the conscious mind with its own memory system will not accept them. When a personality realizes that such other realities exist and that other experiences with consciousness are possible, then he activates certain potentials within himself. These alter electromagnetic connections both within the mind, the brain, and even the perceptive mechanisms. They bring together reservoirs of energy and set up pathways of activity, allowing the conscious mind to increase its degree of sensitivity to such data. The conscious mind is set free of itself. To a large measure it undergoes a metamorphosis, taking on greater functions. It is able to perceive, little by little, some of the content before closed to it. It need no longer perceive the momentary “blank spots” fearfully, as evidence of nonexistence.

With some, the lapses are more noticeable, outside of the norm. If the situation is not understood, then the personality may find it difficult to relate to physical events. If he is able to perceive the other areas of consciousness, he may find himself in still more difficulty — not realizing that both systems of reality are valid.

(10:55.) The fluctuations also follow seasonal changes. Events from any given layer of consciousness are reflected in all other areas, each being actualized according to the characteristics of the given layer. As one dream is like a stone thrown into the pool of dream consciousness, so any act appears in this pool also in its own guise. Alternate focus allows you to perceive the many manifestations of any given act, the true multidimensional reality of a given thought. It enriches the normal consciousness.

Your future thoughts and acts are as real in these dimensions as if they had already occurred, and as much a part of your development. You are formed not only by your past but by your future, and by alternate existences. These great interactions are only a part of the framework of your soul. You can, therefore, change present reality as you understand it from any of these other layers of consciousness.