“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I mentioned that objects are symbols to express a basic reality, the reality of direct experience. On one level dreams deal with objects and dream images. Here they are still being used as symbols. At deeper levels however in the dream state there is direct experience, and objects are not used.

There are root dreams that represent basic inner experiences. Initially no images are involved. If you remember the dreams, you remember them with images however. Flying dreams are an example here. They are not symbolic of anything, basically speaking. They represent direct experience.

Dreams in which psychic instruction is given: here we have another example of a root dream. Again, not symbolic but actual experience. Past life dreams are root dreams. This is not to say that upon awakening the direct experience is not automatically intermixed with other dream elements.

With some individuals some of these dreams may also represent personal symbolisms, but the original dream in the raw, unembellished, is a root dream. The embellishments are added after the dream is completed, just before the point when you remember it on a conscious level. The embellishments may be portions of other dreams, recalled now out of context, and attached to your memory of the original root dream.

There is a strong connection between what I have been saying and the way in which you translate inner reality into symbolic form, either in the waking life, as objects, or in the dreaming state as dream images. I am working from the other end, you see.

Your outward physical experiences are also symbolic interpretations of inner reality. That sentence can be outlined several times.

The physical body as an object is, among other things, a symbolic representation of your own emotional reality. (Long pause.) Your dreams and your waking experiences both closely mirror your psychic condition. Symbols may be individualistic to some small extent, but physical bodies are your main symbols. While they are all amazingly different, the basic symbol within your system is universally accepted as a reality.