“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now. Root assumptions represent the basic premises upon which a given existence-system is formed.

A strong part of your personalities is therefore a product of the physical system in which you have physical existence. All ideas of reality must be glimpsed through the physical net which is the materialized form of these assumptions. You are, in other words, physically able to observe reality in a highly specialized fashion. You must, physically speaking, interpret existence in terms of these very definite assumptions.

The nervous system itself must, you see, be so constituted, and the nervous system reacts definitely to visual block images. Such images are received through the skin as well as through the eyes. The whole system is highly complicated and organized, and organized to react to specific patterns that are formed from these basic root assumptions.

The fact that this does occur does show that the systems of perception are not basically biologically a form of overall structure however, but learned secondary responses. It is disturbing to the whole physical system however to break up the strong pattern of perception. Inner stability of response is suddenly swept away. Changes that are not yet known occur within the nervous system under such circumstances, both electromagnetic and chemical.

Beneath these root assumptions however portions of the self perceive physical reality in an entirely different fashion, free of the tyranny of objects and material form. Here you experience concepts directly, without the need for symbolisms. Here you experience the spacious present directly. Here you have knowledge of your past personalities, and know that they exist simultaneously with your own.

The root assumptions upon which physical reality is formed represent secure ground to the ego. We always operate with the ego’s consent. It consents to step aside momentarily. It interprets the inner knowledge gained in its own way, true, but it is immeasurably enriched by so doing. Other layers of the self interpret the same inner experiences quite differently.

The ego can exist only within the context of these root assumptions. The primary dream experience is finally woven into a structure composed of these root assumptions, and it is these that you remember. These serve you as basic information, but the information is then put into symbolic form. Objects, you see, are symbols. These objects in dreams are symbols of realities that the ego could not otherwise perceive.