“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(From Jane’s dream journal, then, for Sunday, October 6, 1974:

(“I heard Seth’s voice, very loud and powerful, as I lay asleep in bed last night [Saturday]. This was the first time I’ve had such an experience. The voice was coming from the area of the room next door or just beyond, but also from above; like out of the sky or something. It wasn’t speaking through anyone — that is, it wasn’t coming from inside my head or through me as it always has so far, even in the dream state. I tried to understand what was said. The words didn’t seem to be directed at me, particularly, but just to be there. It seemed that Seth was really laying it on somebody. At first I thought he was angry, but then I realized I was interpreting the power of the voice that way. This wasn’t part of a dream, but I awakened almost at once as I tried to make out the words. Subjectively, I wasn’t aware of Seth’s presence in any way. The sound was like a supervoice; maybe like Nature speaking, or something, not the way a person would speak.”)

In the dream state and in certain other levels of reality, ideas and their symbols are immediately experienced. There is no time lag, then, between a feeling and its “exteriorized” condition. It is automatically experienced in whatever form is familiar and natural to the one who holds it. The psyche is presented with its own concepts, which are instantly reflected in dream situations and other events that will be explained shortly. If you dream of or yearn for a new house in physical life, for instance, it may take some time before that ideal is realized, even though such a strong intent will most certainly bring about its physical fulfillment. The same desire in the dreaming state, however, may lead to the instant creation of such a house as far as your dream experience is concerned. Again, there is no time lag there between desire and its materialization.

(Pause, one of many, at 9:49.) There are levels within dreams, highly pertinent but mainly personal, in that they reflect your own private intents and purposes. There are other levels, further away in your terms, that involve mass behavior on a psychic level, where together the inhabitants of the physical world plan out future events. Here probabilities are recognized and utilized. Symbolism is used. There is such an interweaving of intent that this is difficult to explain. Private desires here are magnified as they are felt by others, or minimized accordingly, so that in the overall, large general plans are made having to do with the species at any given “time.” Here again, these desires and intents must fit into the codified system as it exists.

When you travel into such realms you usually do so from the dream state, still carrying your private symbols with you. Even here, these are automatically translated into experience. This is not your own codified system, however. You may journey through such a reality, perceiving it opaquely, layering it over with your own perceived symbols, and taking those for the “real” environment. In these terms the real environment will be that which was generally perceived by the natural inhabitants of the system.

If you are in a world not yours, with your consciousness drifting, you are in free gear, so to speak, your feelings and thoughts flowing into experience. You have to learn how to distinguish your psychological state from the reality in which you find yourself, if you want to maintain your alertness and explore that environment. Many of my readers find themselves in just such situations while they are sleeping. While still dreaming they seem to come suddenly awake in an environment that appears to make no sense. Demons may be chasing them. The world may seem topsy-turvy. The dead and the living may meet and speak.

(10:16.) Now: In almost all instances, demons in dreams represent the dreamer’s belief in evil, instantly materialized. They are not the inhabitants of some nether world, then, or underground. We will be giving some instructions that will enable readers to experiment with the projection of consciousness at least to some extent. It is very important for you to realize that even in dreams you form your own reality. Your state of mind, freed from its usual physical focus, creatively expresses itself in all of its power and brilliance. The state of mind itself serves as an intent, propelling you into realities of like conditions.

They were not only his private religious beliefs, but those of his contemporaries generally — and (loudly:) the foundations upon which your present civilization was made. He had to find the courage to encounter those old beliefs boldly, and he is finally doing so. I will have more to say to him in the dream state this evening, and I will shortly explain his experience with my voice.

(11:46 P.M. All Jane could say the next morning was that she had no conscious memory of any contact Seth might have made with her in the dream state. Looking ahead a bit: In tomorrow night’s session, though, Seth does explain her weekend sleep-state encounter with his voice.)

1. A note added six weeks later Seth further “develops” his camera analogy (as dream photography, for instance), in Section 5. See sessions 719–20.