“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Dreams, then, come from various levels of what you call the subconscious. But as a rule any particular dream, although it originates in a particular level, will nevertheless have meaning on all levels. The meaning however may well not be the same. That is, the particular dream may be a method of saying different things or bringing different messages, the one particular dream automatically being translated by the various levels of the subconscious in terms of the interpretation given by any particular subconscious level to the dream symbolism.

The dream could be said to be a message to the multitudinous levels of the self. For purposes of analogy only, imagine that each subconscious layer is personified into a personality, who is then subjected to rendition of a dream or more, who watches a screen upon which the dream images flicker.

Every subconscious personality then would see and hear the same dream, as many persons may watch the same movie; and as each person in a theater interprets the symbolism of the drama differently, so does each layer of the subconscious interpret differently the same elements of one dream.

Now. The “I” who dreams, who is aware of motion, action and participation in a dream, this “I” is of course the inner self, focused momentarily upon the particular subconscious layer at which the dream is originated.

In dreams the inner “I” changes its point of focus, and this is important. It is therefore able to view the self as a whole, with its past and present life. And because the focus brings it outside of camouflage time and space, it is also able to project itself into what you call the future.

In other words, a dream allows the inner self to view itself within the spacious present. Now, chemically the physical body does need to dream. That is, dreaming is a necessity if the physical body is to survive. This is the result of certain chemical reactions and chemical necessities, chemical excesses that build up during the days, inciting the mental dream mechanism.

Without dreams the outer camouflaged self would lose all touch with inner realities, or would be in danger of thus denying its own heritage; and therefore the physical body is so constructed that excess chemicals must be discharged and transformed into human action, or the physical mechanism would be clogged with poisons.

When I spoke of the fine discrimination used in the construction of a dream, I had reference to the amazing work done by the inner self in the choice of its individualized symbols, which would have meaning to the many and various levels of the subconscious.

The dream objects are not randomly chosen, but only those are chosen which will be significant to the many layers of the self, according to the need or according to that part of the subconscious area which is to be instructed; that is, the portion which is directly a participant in the dream activities, and which plays out the dream drama while other parts of the self observe.

The self, in this manner, looks about. The direction in which the self looks is not the self. In dreams the self looks elsewhere, and the “I” is a conscious “I”, and the working ability is tremendous. The inner self perceives realities that it observes in many directions, being free from the intense focus within limited directions of camouflage existence.

It then constructs its dreams in such a way that the symbols within will sift through all areas that are themselves less able to survey large vistas, but whose energies are focused along specific lines.

Without dreams the whole self would have no way of holding its various manifestations together, and the so-called conscious present personality would soon falter. Imagine if you will now a band of men, some in cars with the high beams of the headlights gleaming, so that some generalized conditions can be seen; and some with low beams showing only the road that the automobiles directly pass. The men can be compared to personified areas of the subconscious, with partial vision of existing conditions.

Only in this case the man in the airplane, instead of a radio message, would radio directly into the mind mechanism of the men below, a dream drama in the coded symbols which would be interpreted automatically by the men below.

Now. The conscious self responds without knowing it, often changing course and direction, to these dreams of which he is often not aware. The ego, the conscious ego, the so-called conscious self, is only the front man in the front lines, supported by multitudinous areas or portions of himself that he does not know, and whose messages come to him only through the correspondence of dreams.

A man stands in the center of a room. When he looks to the right you say “This is my conscious self.” When he looks to the left, we have something else again. You say “This is the dreaming self.” The dreaming self, or if you will, the left-handed self, indeed is as important as the so-called conscious self. The whole self merely changes direction and viewpoint, and focuses its energies along a particular line.

It turns beams of attention off and on. It has many facets and many volumes and many dimensions. It acts out roles, but the whole self is entire, and every individual innately knows and is intimately familiar with the intents and purposes of the whole self. And in dreams and in intuitions and unspoken thoughts, the individual comes to terms with the whole self, of which it is merely one portion, and not necessarily the dominant portion.

The idea that sparked the book came to him, though he may forget, in two ways. First as intuition; in other words from his inner self as he sat down to write poetry, and in a dream the following night.

Messages from the inner self if strong enough will pass through the conscious barriers, and the conscious ego is only too happy to receive them. But such intuitions have usually first appeared in dream form, appearing to the ego later; and many such messages appear in dreams ahead of time, to be released to the conscious mind when situations demand it.

(As Seth states, Jane did have a dream about the idea the following night, September 11,1963. She recalls it quite easily. However she has no written record of the dream, since this was before she had cultivated the habit of keeping a dream notebook. As mentioned many, many sessions ago, however, her poem The Fence, written in May 1963, clearly foreshadows the Seth material, dealing with [but not always by outright name] such subjects as reincarnation, dreams, unperceived worlds, etc. [See the poem on page 28, Session 5, in Volume 1 of The Early Sessions.]

The conscious self does not perceive, or the so-called conscious self does not perceive, the equally valid dream constructions. You will discover that the whole self is composed of many so-called conscious selves. But neither of those conscious selves are aware of the existence of the others.

The dreaming self, dear friends, is not aware of the conscious self. The whole self, the entire inner self alone, holds knowledge of the direction in which it moves. The directions can be likened to conscious selves. Any individual on the physical level who has achieved great things has done so because his so-called conscious self was intuitively (and underline the word intuitively) aware of the selves of which he could not be consciously aware.

Men are not islands, even unto themselves. They merely perceive islands, or they perceive bits of realities. The dream correlates the various manifestations of the self with the whole portion. Dreams bring intuitive knowledge of the whole self to its own parts.

I will end the session shortly, after mentioning briefly an example of how various levels of the subconscious interpret a symbol. We will take Ruburt’s dream that we have already interpreted on some levels, and one symbol only, that of a tub, t-u-b.

The tub was the unifying symbol of the dream, interpreted by the various levels of the subconscious. On the most superficial level, dreaming Ruburt thought “One day I shall be an old tub,” meaning an old worn-out vessel. This having to do with the disappearance of early youth, and having superficial meaning to the surface female personality.

The tub was next interpreted as a washing machine in a secondary level that was in itself a symbol leading to the next interpretation, belonging to a past life, that of an old tub that leaked. In his dream the washing machine leaked, leading him into a third level, where the tub was a symbol for the old ship that leaked when you, Joseph, were a passenger on your way to Boston in a past life.

Now, in any dream you will find a unifying image that will seem as diverse as this to the conscious mind. But it will speak to various portions of the self. In that dream you found the word tub referring to many various meanings, but in many cases you will find various other images, all cunningly connected so that it seems most unfortunate to you that the conscious mind cannot interpret them.

However, I have said that the conscious mind is but a small portion of the whole self, and the information thus received through dreams is automatically acted upon or assimilated, regardless of conscious cognition.

This information itself may enable you to interpret your own dreams more effectively, and should enable others who read the material to interpret their own dreams with more sense.

I hope to get into your father’s appearance in your dream. However the explanation will take nearly an hour, and is not what you think. I would suggest now that we end the session, although if you wish me to continue I will.

(I will include a copy of the very long, vivid and involved dream I had involving Jane, Bill Macdonnel, three friends of a family from Sayre, and my father, before whatever session Seth uses to discuss it. This dream also was followed by what I believe to be a sequel, a week or so later.

(The two dreams following are included here because they are dealt with extensively by Seth in the following, 94th session. They are taken from my dream notebook, which I have just recently begun to keep.

(September 18, 1964, Friday: This was a long, complicated and very vivid dream that seemed to consume hours. It was in full color. In the beginning Jane; Bill Macdonnel; Clark, Alice and Larry Potter; and myself were in an apartment I did not recognize but took to be occupied by Jane and me. [Clark and Alice Potter had been our landlords in Sayre, PA, for over four years. The four of us had liked each other from the start and had always gotten on well together. Larry is their teenage son, and they have another son, Norman, older by a year or two, who was not in the dream.]

(Next, Jane and I had been attending a party in a building on a busy downtown street corner, on the second floor. I did not actually see Jane but knew she was there at the party. Many people were about. I entered this part of the dream as I left the stairway to move out on the corner for a breath of fresh air. I was now dressed, and it was daytime. As I stood on the corner with people passing me in all directions, I stretched my arms high above my head. Then to my surprise I saw my father ride past me, past the corner, on a bicycle. Father was wearing a familiar brown hat, and a long brown topcoat, incongruously enough, and he was his present age. His face was very smooth-looking and pink-cheeked, looking very healthy, and he seemed to pedal past me quite easily, as a youth would do.

(I was very surprised to see Father. As he passed me he turned his head to look back at me over his left shoulder, smiling serenely all the while. Caught by surprise with my arms up in the air, I quickly lowered my left arm somewhat, holding it stiff, and waved at Father with my hand revolving at the wrist. I did not bend my arm but waved at him awkwardly with it held stiff so that only my hand moved. Father did not speak a word to me, nor did I speak to him or call after him. He kept on pedaling, seemingly up a slight incline just beyond the intersection. This was the end of the dream, and it made quite an impression upon me.

(September 24, 1964, Thursday: Is this dream a sequel to the previous dream? Again in color. My two brothers, Loren and Dick, and I were in a room something like a courtroom, seated behind a long low polished dark-colored table. The three of us sat facing our mother, who was behind some kind of higher desk or bar. She was her present age.

(Some kind of steady noise pervaded the air. Mother spoke to us, or one of us asked her what the trouble was, I am not sure which. Mother answered, but though I saw her lips move plainly, I could not hear what she said. The three boys leaned toward her. I believe it was I who then asked her to repeat what she had said, over the noise which was something like a rushing wind. Leaning forward at the table, I then heard mother say very distinctly, “Father has a spot on one lung.” This was the end of the dream, and it woke me up.

(These two dreams impressed me considerably, and I wondered whether they were clairvoyant in that they might presage an illness or farewell on Father’s part. I might as well add here, as well as in the session, that the three boys do not get together very often—on the average less than once a year I would say—because we all live in different communities, Loren and Dick have families, and of course each person is always busy with his or her own life.

(However, the three of us did meet with our parents last Sunday, October 4, 1964, to handle some family business. None of us knew of any such meeting at the time of my above dream of September 24, simply because the meeting had not been scheduled yet, or indeed even thought of. And I must admit that such was the involvement in the problem at hand when the family did convene on October 4, that I completely forgot the dreams at the time, never realizing that I had dreamed of a family get-together 10 days before it took place. This clairvoyant aspect of the second dream is discussed by Seth in the following session.)