“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You are familiar with your own view of the world. As you leave your usual orientation, however, altering the focus of your consciousness, you may very well structure your new experience just as you do your physical one. At the same time, you are more free. You have greater leeway. You are used to projecting your beliefs onto physical objects and events. When you leave your home station, those objects and events no longer present themselves in the same fashion.

(Long pause.) None of this is necessary. There is no danger in the exercises I suggest. You are in far greater danger the longer you inhibit your natural feelings, and alterations of consciousness often present you with the framework in which these come to light. If they do not in one way or another come to your attention, then it is very possible that the denied energy behind them will erupt in ruptured relationships or illnesses.

(Long pause at 10:11.) “Psychic explorations” never cause such difficulties, nor do they ever compound original problems. On the contrary, they are often highly therapeutic, and they present the personality with an alternative — an alternative to continued repression that would be literally unbearable.

Your alterations of consciousness frequently occur in the dream state, therefore, where it seems to you at least that your experiences do not have any practical application. You imagine that only hallucinations are involved. Many of your best snapshots of other realities are taken in your dreams.⁵ They may be over-or-underdeveloped, and the focus may be blurred, but your dreams present you with far more information about the unknown reality than you suppose. In the most intimate of terms your body is your home station, so when you leave it you often hide this fact from yourselves.

You will, of course, try to snap as good a picture as possible. Varying results can be expected. Some of you will awaken with a dream picture that presents itself immediately. Others may find such a picture suddenly appearing later in the day, in the middle of ordinary activities. If you perform this exercise often, however, many of you will find yourselves able to use the camera consciously even while sleeping, so that it becomes an element of your dream travels; you will be able to bring more and more pictures back with you.

(11:56 P.M. Seth’s comments on my experience certainly illustrate his notions of simultaneous time to some extent, since from my “present” I perceived aspects of myself in the reincarnational “past” as well as in the “future” in this life. See Note 4.

I saw the head of a very old man, in his late 80’s or early 90’s. I had no doubt that this was a definitely probable version of myself in this reality. How strange to peek at the curve of my own skull from that odd viewpoint. I saw short, almost wispy white hair, but I wasn’t bald. Through the hair I could see the pulsing bluish veins in the skin as it lay over the bone — and in some fashion this sight alone was most evocative of the very young and the very old. I lay face up, bony arms folded across my chest, just as my present “me” did. I knew that I was resting, and that I wasn’t senile. I don’t believe I was bedridden, but that I was being cared for somehow.

My eyes were closed, and something about my bearing or pose reminded the present me of my father in his old age. When he lay dying, early in February 1971, I stood so that I had a view of him similar to the one I’d just experienced of myself. I was sure that this old man was me, though, and no one else. I was very thin beneath the blanket, which I believe was an ivory color.

5. All in Volume 1: Note 1 for Session 698 contains quotations from the dream material Seth gave in the 92nd session for September 28, 1964. Then see the equally interesting information on dreams in Session 699; I especially like Seth’s statement that “In a way, one remembered dream can be compared to a psychological photograph….” Jane’s poem, My Dreaming Self, is presented in the notes following that session, along with references to other dream material.