“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

One night I had a frightening dream that seemed very real. I found myself in our bedroom, out of my body, and suddenly I realized that someone or something was directly above me. The next minute I was pushed down to the foot of the bed, off into the air, and then down to the dark corner of the bedroom floor. Above me was what I can only describe as a big black thing like a bloated, blurred human form, but larger and very solid.

It sounds ridiculous, but I knew that this thing was “out to get me.” I knew that I was out of my body, and I was overwhelmed with astonishment, as well as very frightened. Although I’d read of people being attacked by demons or the like while they were “projecting,” I just didn’t believe in demons. So what was it? I didn’t have time to wonder, because it bit me several times on the hand. It was amazingly oppressive, and kept up its efforts to drag me farther away from my body into the bedroom closet.

In dismay, I heard Rob snoring. In any case, I wasn’t in my physical body, and he probably wouldn’t know anything was wrong anyhow. And where was Seth? Where were all those “guides” who were supposed to come running to your aid when you got in predicaments like this? All these thoughts went scurrying through my mind as I tried to fight this thing off. I was very conscious of the creature’s weight, which was really amazing, and its intent—which was to maul me up as much as possible, if not to kill me outright.

“Don’t panic,” I told myself, trying desperately to retain some semblance of calm. But the thing pressed down and was about to bite me again. This time I thought, “To hell with not panicking,” and I started to yell my head off. I knew it wasn’t my physical head, but I hoped that my shout would either frighten the creature away or attract some kind of help.

The thing pulled back for an instant, much like a huge startled animal, and I slipped from beneath it and shot fast as a rocket for my body, with it after me. In other words, I beat a fast cowardly retreat. I hit my body so quickly that my physical head was spinning, but no matter. My body never felt so welcome.

For a minute I was afraid to open my physical eyes. “Boy, if it’s still here, I’ve had it,” I thought. But it was gone. At least it was in another level of existence. I thought of waking Rob to tell him, but decided not to interrupt his sleep.

Now that I was safe I was more than a little ashamed of myself for being such a coward, but I wasn’t so complacent that I felt like going right back to sleep, either! So I got up, drank a glass of milk, and thought of all the things I should have done—like saying grandly: “Get thou behind me, Satan,” or some such. The least I could have done, I thought, was bite back.

Now Seth said: “Our friend [meaning me] attempted to choose a different battlefield last night. He decided to think of all negative feelings as enemies, and to give them form in another plane of reality where he could do battle with them. This was not an astral plane, but a lower one.

“The energy behind his ‘black thing’ was the energy of hidden fears, but such a thing could be formed by anyone, since there are fears in any man. Ruburt tried to isolate them, give them form, and fight them all at once. The thing was actually a rather clumsy lower-dimensional animal, a provoked dumb dog of other dimensions who then attacked him, symbolically enough, by biting. Any ‘thing’ so created entirely of fears would be frightened and particularly angry at its creator. It could do nothing but attack to protect whatever reality it had, for it knew Ruburt created it only to slay it, if possible.

“It did have reality, therefore. Ruburt leapt back to safety and normal consciousness. The thing then dissipated [as far as Ruburt was concerned]. For when Ruburt ‘ran home’ he automatically withdrew the energy [of his attention] from it. … Ruburt tried to separate from himself all those elements he considers negative, and fight them at once, almost as if in so doing he could remove evil from the universe.

Seth went on to say: “The evil that Ruburt imagined he was projecting outward does not exist, but because he believed it did, he formed the materialization from his fears. It was the shape of his recent depression. In larger terms, there is no evil, only your own lack of perception, but I know this is difficult for you to accept.

In a sort of backhanded compliment, Seth asked Rob to tell me that my abilities were improving—it was a well-made thought-form. Now, I don’t propose for a moment that any of my readers attempt such a foolhardy venture. But I do suggest that perhaps some of them have already done so without knowing it, waking only with the memory of a particularly bad nightmare.

This episode was an out-of-body experience from the dream state, though, and it will serve to make one point: dream reality is as valid and real as waking reality. Dreams definitely affect daily life. They can improve our health or help deepen a mood of depression. There are ways to use dreams purposefully, however, to improve our existence, even though I admit that the last instance was not a very good example.

“Many illnesses could largely be avoided through such dream therapy. Rather harmlessly, aggressive tendencies could be given freedom within the dream state. Suggestions would be given that the individual involved would experience, say, aggressiveness, within a dream. It would also be suggested to him that he learn to understand his aggressions by watching himself while he was dreaming [watching the dream as he would a play]. If I may indulge in a fantasy, theoretically you could imagine a massive experiment in dream therapy where wars were fought by sleeping, not waking, nations.”

When I first read this session I thought this was a great way to get rid of your repressions—dream them away! If you’re really furious at someone and don’t dare retaliate, then you can give yourself the suggestion before sleep that in a dream, you’ll really get even. But it isn’t that easy.

While all of this is of practical interest, Rob and I are even more intrigued by Seth’s explanation of dream reality. Since I’ve had many out-of-body experiences from the dream state, I was rather concerned about the reality of the environments in which I found myself. Seth began his discussions on the nature of dream reality very soon after the sessions began, and they still continue. Until I learned from Seth to “monitor” my own dreams, and awaken my critical faculties, I was simply astounded by some of his statements.

Seth calls dream-created personalities (such as my “black thing”), dual-hybrid constructions. In my case, the “expansion” he’s speaking of occurred as I formed it with my own psychic energy. The “contraction” took place as I withdrew the main energy of my attention from it; but I could not take back the energy that I had given it that resulted in its existence. The creature continued to exist, but not in my dimension; it was set free on its own.

Seth has answered many questions that were in Rob’s mind, and are probably in your own. How is it that ordinary daily life seems much more real to us than any dream existence? And if such a universe is valid, why doesn’t it intrude on our daily life even more? At least we all more or less agree on what happens physically, but dreams are highly individual. How can there be any continuity to a dream universe? Within such a universe, how could anyone possibly agree with anyone else as to what was happening?

“The same sort of psychic agreement holds the dream system together as holds the physical system together. If a man could actually focus upon those unrecognized elements in the physical universe upon which no agreements can be reached, if he could focus upon the dissimilarities rather than the similarities, then he would wonder what gave anyone the idea that there was even one physical object upon which man could agree.

Each dream object is actually double- or triple-decked, a symbol for other, deeper data. A dream involving reincarnational information, for example, may also serve to help us face a present-day problem by reminding us of other unused abilities inherent in our personalities. I’ve had two particularly vivid reincarnational dreams. One, occurring shortly after our sessions began, really frightened me because I was afraid that it might be precognitive, I dreamed that I was an old woman in a very poor hospital ward of some kind. I was dying of cancer and knew it, but wasn’t a bit frightened. An old man beside me was also about to die. I told him not to worry, that I would be there to help him. Then I died, but there seemed to be no break in consciousness. I helped the old man out of his body and kept telling him that everything was all right.

The other dream was even more vivid, and really enjoyable. I don’t know when I’ve had such a great time—certainly not in waking life. On Seth’s suggestion, I told myself before sleep that I would have a dream that would give me further information about my own reincarnational past. At this time I really didn’t believe in reincarnation, but I said to Rob, “Well, what have I got to lose? I’ll try it.” Then I gave myself the suggestion several times and fell asleep.

In this dream Rob and I were both men in our late twenties and partners in the episode. I knew very well that we would “later” end up as Rob and Jane in this life, even though there was no physical resemblance. Rob, for example, was dark and swarthy, although now his skin and hair are both light. We wore long billowing trousers, bound tightly at the ankles, Turkish-style. I do not remember our names.

As the dream opened, we entered a large hall. A group of men, attired in the same costumes, sat on brightly colored pillows on the floor, roughly in a circle, with the center of the floor clear. I knew all of the men from a previous life in which I had been their leader, dying very young. These men had grown old, while I had been reborn. Now I had come back to fulfill a promise I had made to return. I was well aware that they would not recognize me in this body in which they had not known me.

I stated my case, while they listened politely. Their spokesman told me that their dead leader had promised them that on his return he would perform one particular feat for which he was known to prove his identity. He asked me, then, to show by my actions that I was this personality, ready to take over his rightful position. Rob and I both smiled, having anticipated the test.

The center of the hall was vacant except for a few low tables. Rob-to-be asked that these be removed for the demonstration. This was done and the men came closer, squatting on the pillows. My partner stood behind me. I took several light bouncing footsteps that were somehow ceremonial, and then left my physical body. It slumped down to the floor, and my partner gently moved it to the side.

All the while my partner was laughing loudly, and I was having a tremendous time. Finally I returned to my body and stood up to the cries and shouts of recognition. The rest I hardly remember. I know women were brought to us, but, smiling, we waved them away, preferring to talk to our old comrades first. All of us had very dark skin.

The Turkish life was the only colorful past life I’ve had to my present knowledge. The Boston life was ordinary enough, according to what Seth said. I made no big splash as a medium, and gave sittings in order to help others and help pay the rent. I was quite undisciplined, however, and flighty—personality defects that I am trying to correct in this life. This dream, I believe, was to remind me that I had once been in a position of authority, and should not now be afraid of responsibility, or of my abilities. Seth insists that many people have dreams that give them information about past lives, but often they do not remember them simply because they do not realize the importance of dreams in general.

But what about that location, the Turkish hall? How real was it? How real are the places we seem to visit while we sleep? Here’s what Seth has to say: “You think that you are conscious only when you are awake. You assume yourselves to be unconscious when you sleep. The dice are indeed loaded on the side of the waking mind. But pretend for a moment that you are looking at this situation from the other side.

“In some dream states you form from these same atoms and molecules the environment in which you will operate. While dreaming you cannot find the bed or chest or chair; and awake you cannot find the dream location which was there only moments before.”

Seth told us that this was possible long before I had any such experiences on my own and before I had read about them. But his ideas of the interrelationship between waking and dream reality are fascinating.

“I mentioned the Crucifixion, saying once that it was an actuality and a reality, although it did not take place in your [physical] time. It took place in the same sort of time in which a dream occurs and its reality was felt by generations. Not being a physical reality, it influenced the world of physical matter in a way that no purely physical event could.

“The Crucifixion was one of the realities that enriched both the universe of dreams and the universe of matter, and it originated in the universe of dreams. It was a main contribution of that system to your own, and could be physically compared to the emergence of a new planet within the physical universe.”

Seth is not saying here that the Crucifixion was “just a dream.” He is saying that though it did not occur historically, it did happen within another reality and emerged into history as an idea rather than a physical event—an idea that changed civilization. (According to Seth, of course, an idea is an event, whether physically materialized or not.)

Seth gave us instructions first in dream recall. Following this, he told us how to awaken our critical faculties while we were dreaming, and how to project our consciousness out of our bodies, using a dream as a sort of launching pad. I was always delighted to try any experiments Seth suggested, and I still am. The resulting personal experience gave me subjective evidence of the validity of many of Seth’s concepts; besides, I like to do things on my own.

Look at this projection from the dream state, for example. One morning after breakfast I lay down to try a dream projection. This simply means that I can sometimes recognize when I am dreaming, bring my normal “waking consciousness” into the dream situation, and then use it to project my consciousness elsewhere. When I got to this point that morning, I felt myself leave my body, knowing all the while that it was safe and comfortable in bed, with the door locked.

I traveled through the air so quickly that everything was a blur. Then I found myself on a strange city street. I was determined to find out where I was, so I walked around the block looking for street signs. The area was one of hotels and large shops. I saw two street names and finally decided to enter the lobby of one of the hotels. Here I found a bookshop and walked over to the shelves to look around. There were three books by Jane Roberts on ESP, and at the time of the experience (1967), I’d written only one.

Startled, I looked around again. Everything seemed normal enough. Wherever I was, it was a physical place. Something made me look up. A young man was looking at me with a pleased, cat-caught-the-canary grin. He was one of the clerks, and I saw now that most of the clerks were quite young, and they were watching me.

“You just aren’t that good at it yet,” one of them said. And I really got angry. Whether I was astral-traveling or whatever, these people were really having a good laugh at my expense.

No matter what anyone said, I was determined to remember any specific material I could—names, street signs, or route numbers. Finally the clerk offered to take me on a tour, when I told him I was going to explore the place alone in any case. He was very nice. We chatted and he pointed out places of interest in the city even while he warned me that I wouldn’t be able to remember them.

Then, without any warning, I felt myself pulled away. There was a terrific whooshing sound and I was back in my body. I really felt tricked. Usually its quite difficult to go right back to the same location, but I was so angry that I willed myself back. Not that it did me much good. I “landed” on the same corner, but the young man was nowhere to be found. Then I set out to find the hotel, and while I swear I walked the block three times and recognized the other buildings, I just couldn’t find the hotel. Finally I returned to my body.

Naturally we asked Seth about the experience. He was giving us general information about the conditions we could expect to meet in projections from the dream state.

Whole blocks of sessions deal with the methods used and the conditions that can be met in projections of consciousness from the dream state. Seth says that he has personally assisted me in some of my own projection experiments, but that I have not been aware of his assistance. I’ve never dreamed of Seth, and I find this rather strange. I’ve often awakened, fully alert, in the middle of the night, suddenly conscious that I’ve been giving a kind of Seth session. I can hear Seth’s words going through my head like signals. It’s as if I’m tuning in on a radio broadcast that I’m not supposed to be hearing, because when I start to listen there is a clicking sound in my head, and the “station” turns off. On two occasions I heard enough to know what was being said and to whom the sessions were directed. Later the people involved told me that they dreamed that Seth was speaking to them through me on the same nights as my experiences. I had said nothing to them; they volunteered the information.

In this session Seth also mentioned John F. Kennedy, and had some comments to make connecting racial problems with dreams. “As you know, many people dreamed of Jack Kennedy’s death in advance. On one level the knowledge was available to the man himself. This does not mean that the death had to occur. It was a vivid possibility. It was also one of many solutions to several problems. While it was not the most suitable solution, it was the closest man could come at that particular time in physical reality. …”