“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The following dream and experience is taken from Jane’s notebook; it concerns her results obtained after she deliberately lay down from 8 to 9:30 AM, Monday, June 1, to attempt projection. She wrote out the account immediately upon arising:

(I am not sure of some of these events as far as sequence goes, and also believe I forgot some of the experience itself. I believe I also fell into inconsequential dreaming or sleep after the last event.

(I see plants I have planted long ago; flourishing and beautiful, and can be used for decorating or repotted. I think that here I had a false awakening and told Rob about the beautiful plants. I also thought they were symbolic of the work put into my books. It is possible that this was preceded by a levitation dream.

(The false awakening: I tell Rob about the plants, and perhaps make a note to record the dream. “Then I realize this is a false awakening, and that I should be able to project. I am sitting in the bathroom when I realize this. I try to levitate or project. I hold my legs out and my feet feel strange: There is an odd sensation, a shifting of some kind. Then I really project. There is an experience of seeing many mirrors, through which I travel. The mirrors are not solid. Feeling of motion, and the mirror scenes also move.”

(I was in a landscape with two women. We were leaders of some kind. Running over the hills, I leap from ground to a high ledge. I am not satisfied with the leap, so move “backward through the air” to my original spot, and do the whole thing over. Then I have another false awakening in which I tell Rob about the dream and levitation.

(Jane’s notes concerning the dream: The actual separation from physical body is the most vivid experience of the whole sequence—if separation is what it was. This is the first time I definitely realized I had a false awakening, then consciously tried to project from it. I certainly seemed to do so.

(The following dream and experience is from my notebook for the night of Tuesday, May 31:

(In full vivid color. One of the most unusual dreams I have ever had. There are probably gaps in my recall of it.

(I stood on a narrow ledge at night, on a cliff side, with several men I knew well in the dream but not in waking life. There was a fire burning in a circle of stone at our feet, and we all held long poles like broom handles. I dropped a lighted match into a littered ashtray, which flamed up; when I tried to put the fire out I found I couldn’t.

(Then I was on a vacation trip in the tropics. I believe the same group was with me. I had a pair of binoculars to watch others on the trails. There was a woman here in the dream but her role is beyond my accurate recall.

First, some general comments. You are both learning rather quickly. Ruburt’s projection from the dream state, through a false awakening, was indeed legitimate. He gave himself no suggestion beforehand, yet the overall suggestions that he has given himself stood him in good stead.

Now your own dream, Joseph, also involved projection, but with less intent behind it, and some less control, though very little control occurred in either case. You will learn control as you go along.

On Ruburt’s part we had a definite manipulation of consciousness that was directed to some extent. You projected once into the past, and I was one of your friends. This episode was the less distorted. One episode involved a small future projection, and was intermixed with ordinary dream elements. This involved the operating episode.

We will skip a bit around here. The plants in Ruburt’s dream did represent the books upon which he has worked and is working. The projection was quite legitimate. The Lydia episode contained many ordinary dream elements. You were indeed present, (smile) with Ruburt in some of his travels, but you have forgotten.

Ruburt saw two of you. He saw your form number two as described earlier, in which you were also traveling, you see. (See the 262nd session.) The other was Ruburt’s dream form of you, created by himself in the dream state. When you appeared in form two he was conscious enough, you see, to recognize your arrival, and then to point out to you the dream image which he had already created. And you were able to see it because of your own state.

Now when Ruburt dreams that he has discussed a dream with you, in most cases he has indeed done so. You have both conversed quite naturally in forms number two. With enough training, these conversations can be recorded in both of your dreams. The amount of work necessary is literally astounding, but I tell you that you can both do this; and you can make general, through your work, a knowledge of the true potential of the dream state.

(I had my dream on the evening of Tuesday, May 31, then wrote out my account of it the next morning before going to work. This is not the full account reproduced in this session but a summary containing the main points of the dream.

(I noticed the similarity between the last part of my dream, wherein I was to operate without instruments in a tropical shack, amid surroundings not clean and containing insects, etc., and the description of the psychic surgeon’s quarters, and that his shack was situated in the tropics. I explained it to Jane at break and hoped Seth would comment as to any clairvoyant elements in the dream.

(On Tuesday, before the dream, I remember thinking casually about Fate Magazine, and that perhaps a new issue was out. The thought was quite brief and without emphasis. I do not know when the magazine comes out, although I suppose it is on the first of the month or thereabouts. I did not mention my thought to Jane. I was alone when I had it; I was therefore a little surprised to see that she had bought the magazine the next day, Wednesday, but the surprise was not connected with my recalling my dream. Until I read over my notes Wednesday evening I had forgotten the dream.

It is important for your training and development that consciousness be brought into the dream state.

Projection is a normal occurrence under dream conditions. However for the further development of consciousness and of identity, the so-called waking I can be of great benefit.

You will learn to manipulate and control various levels of awareness, and the habit will carry over into other aspects of reality. With continued development you will be able to keep appointments and pass information in the dream state, and have your records to prove it.

The trick is to achieve the proper balance. As Ruburt discovered, you can try too hard to take waking consciousness into the dream state, so that you simply cannot sleep as easily. Trial and error will show you the proper balance, and each successful attempt gives you added experience and control.

Later your experiences themselves, within a dream, will tip you off as to which form you are using, so that you will know what is possible under these particular conditions.

If you want to record any given experience in its clearest form, then you should train yourself to wake up immediately afterward. Otherwise later ordinary dreams will be remembered falsely as being part of the projection experience.

(It is Friday evening as I type this; our dream records since Wednesday give no indication that either Jane or I remembered meeting each other, or Seth, or whether all of us met together.)