“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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 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.

(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.

(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.