“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

We will find in many cases, first of all, dreams originating in that layer of personal subconscious, the most simple being those that have immediate reference to daily conscious life. While such a dream is less complex than others, it is nevertheless an amazing construction, and when we break down the obvious perceived objects or events of such a dream, we will find that the immediate objects and events that have application in daily life, that may be rehashed versions of the day, have nevertheless been carefully chosen.

The dream objects are in fact chosen with such precise discrimination that in many instances, on deep examination they will be seen to embody not only data concerning the dreamer’s daily conscious existence, but one and every dream object may be seen to apply on many levels at once.

One dream object may represent simultaneously a simple daily and familiar portion of conscious life, a strong feared or desired portion of the immediately subconscious layer, an event or object from a past life, and a feared or desired future event or future possibility, as the case may be.

Friends knowing of our sessions have asked at one time or another that I explain what appeared first in the universe, what started it all, and they ask with such ponderous voices. They want a first thing, or a first person. In this discussion on dreams we have indeed an excellent example of how creation is achieved.

The fact also remains that on other levels but conscious ones, you know and every individual knows that the dream world that the conscious mind believes so foolish and irrational, is indeed constructed by the inner self with utmost care, with a precision known only by the intuitions. And each individual knows that such a splendid creation as this then exists beyond the self that was its origin.

It is therefore only in a world obsessed with objects, and to some extent necessarily obsessed, that the question of what comes first has any meaning. Your conscious energies are focused upon the physical field, and the distortive cause and effect theory holds sway.

You create this universe individually and collectively, man and all other beings within it, in the same manner that you create your dreams. The only difference is that your conscious energies are focused upon only one rather minute aspect of creation, and all other larger fields of activity are closed off by the outer senses, simply so that the bulk of your attention be momentarily fixed upon one small area.

I can hear anticipated objections. Even those who are familiar with our material, and know the various means by which individuals create a fairly cohesive body of physical data and call it the physical universe, even these persons will say that while they agree that the individual creates the physical universe with the cooperation of others, that universe has a unity and permanence and recognizable form that the dream world does not have.

They will then think that there is no real comparison to be made between the two, since each individual dream world would be a conglomeration of diverse individualistic symbols, even if they were projected into a type of universe of which the conscious mind was ignorant.

First of all, the physical universe is indeed a conglomeration of diverse individualistic symbols, none of which mean precisely the same thing to any two individuals, and in which even so-called basic qualities like color and placement in space, cannot be relied upon or agreed with.

Telepathy could be called, indeed, the glue that holds the physical universe in precarious position, so that anyone can agree upon what a particular object is, or where it is at any given time.

So, when you consider the dream world, you have the same sort of a universe, only one constructed on or within a field which your outer senses cannot perceive. But it has more continuity than the world known by the outer senses so intimately, and there are similarities within it that are amazing to behold.

I want to make a point however, that the dream universe is as real and cohesive as your own, and that the same glue of telepathy holds it together, and gives it not only as much reality but validity in actual terms.

For one thing, and I will go into this deeper shortly, those who now know existence on the physical level more or less because of certain cycles lived before on the physical level at about the same historical periods. They possess an inner familiarity, a cohesiveness that belonged to a more or less specific period, and to periods before, where they inhabited the same sort of physical universe.

Their dream worlds are not then so diverse in some ways as you might have supposed. Certain symbols are constructed into realities in the dream universe, then, in much the same manner that certain ideas are constructed into matter in the physical universe.

The same sort of psychic agreement holds the dream universe together as holds the physical universe together. If a man could actually focus his concentration upon those hidden, feared, mainly unknown, unrecognized elements in the physical universe upon which men simply cannot agree; if he could focus upon the dissimilarities rather than the similarities in the physical universe, he would wonder what gave anyone the idea that there was even one physical object upon which men could agree.

He would wonder what collective madness made or permitted man to select, from a virtual infinity of what would appear as chaos, to select a handful, a mere handful, of similarities and call it a universe.

He projects it in a dimension unperceived by the conscious mind. But even though it has served his purposes and he contracts, the expansion and projection of energy has taken place and he cannot call it back. He can only withdraw from it.

The conscious mind does not even know, and cannot of itself command, the legs to walk across the floor. Is it any wonder, then, that the conscious mind does not know how it creates the dream universe?

But the legs do walk, and the dream universe does exist. As the entity expands and originates new personalities, and these personalities then become independent individuals, so do the individuals create dream or so-called dream realities and individuals of the dream universe, which are independent.