“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The overall needs of the personality are always taken into consideration by what I have called in the past the inner ego. Now this portion of the self is indeed self-conscious in the highest meaning of the term—aware of the subconscious portion of the personality, aware of the primary conscious framework that you call your ego, and constantly directs the overall activities. This portion is aware of the complicated workings of the nervous system and all bodily functions. It is the overseer. It knows when to allow subconscious needs and wishes their fulfillment. It knows when to put fulfillment off for a time. It is this part of the personality that is in charge of overall stability.

Now. This inner ego can also operate within the dream state, and in certain awake-seeming dreams it is the portion that realizes that the personality is not in its normal waking condition. It is this portion of the self that is with you in the most excellent projections. The inner ego is the part of the personality that contains the highest aspirations and capabilities. It has been called by psychologists the subliminal self.

When in such dreams your perceptions seem exceedingly clear, you can be certain that the inner ego is operating. Now all portions of the personality, of the present personality, belong to this inner ego. It functions constantly, and yet it is always in a state of becoming. It is more than what you are at any given moment in your time. It contains, and is, the psychological blueprint containing the full potential of the present personality within any given incarnation.

It dabbles in both your future and your past, speaking now in your terms. As you create a painting, and the painting is still an aspect of yourself, so it creates the whole personality, which is an aspect of itself. It operates in both the waking and the dream state. It often forms the content of each. It is more knowledgeable than any one aspect of the personality. It is more knowledgeable than all other aspects of the personality, for it forms them together into a cohesive whole.

If only the physically-oriented ego survived, very little indeed would survive at all. The physically-oriented ego is hardly aware of your experiences in their entirety. The physically-oriented ego, if it alone survived, would contain only your conscious memories. Even now, in physical existence, you operate on a much deeper and more complicated level than this. Events and experiences which are forgotten, or which escaped the physically-oriented ego, still affect your activities in this life, and if they did not your physical existence would be brief indeed. (Jane pounded the tabletop for emphasis, eyes wide and dark.) Any survival that was based upon the survival of the physically-oriented ego alone would be as shallow as a paper cutout. These things escape you. You take it for granted that the physically-oriented ego represents your own psychological identity, you see, and this is an illusion. It contains a portion of your psychological feeling of identity, but only that.

The surviving personality has a different psychological balance. The outer ego no longer shows its outside face, so to speak, (again Jane struck the tabletop) but takes its place with the other aspects of the personality. You might say that it becomes the subconscious, although I am speaking now simply to get the idea across, and this is not precisely the case.

It is true however to say that the memories of the physically-oriented ego take their place with memories that were once subconscious. I am speaking now of the psychological makeup of the survival personality. The memories remain in physical existence. There is no real distinction between psychological reality and physical reality. The physically-oriented ego manufactures this distinction of necessity.

Now, Ruburt’s book on the nonphysical self will sell, and shortly. Put down the initials G S here, and let it go for now.

Now, do you have an envelope for me, Joseph?

(We named our second cat thinking it a female, but now have strong reason to believe we made a mistake. Male or female, the cat is now called Catherine, and answers to it. Jane laughed briefly, eyes closed.)

There was no personal danger to either of you, as far as Ruburt’s dream is concerned, and that is all for now.

(Besides involving Jane and me, the nightmare also involved members of both our families. Jane was now surprised to learn it had been necessary for me to shake her out of the nightmare last night; she had thought she came out of it spontaneously.)