“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The same applies to dream reality, for the dreams that you recall are indeed like quick pictures snapped under varying conditions. No one picture alone tells the entire story. You should write down your description of each dream picture, therefore, and keep a continuing record, for each one provides more knowledge about the nature of your own psyche and the unknown reality in which it has its existence.

Now, using an analogy only, let me explain that your thoughts and feelings also give off shadows (intently) that we will here call hallucinations.² They are quite valid. They have as strong a part to play in dream reality as shadows do in the physical world. They are beautiful in themselves. They add to the entire picture. A shadow of a tree cools the ground. It affects the environment. So hallucinations alter the environment, but in a different way and at another level of reality. In the dream world hallucinations are like conscious shadows. They are not passive, nor is their shape dependent upon their origin. They have their own abilities.

Following our analogy, in the dream world the shadow of the oak tree, once cast, would then be free to pursue its own direction. Not only that, but there would be a creative give-and-take between it and the tree that gave it birth. Anyone fully accustomed to inner reality would have no difficulty in telling the dream oak tree from its frisky shadow, however (humorously), any more than awaking photographer would have trouble distinguishing the physical oak tree from its counterpart upon the grass.

When you, a dream tourist, wander about the inner landscape with your mental camera, however, it may take a while before you are able to tell the difference between dream events and their shadows or hallucinations. So you may take pictures of the shadows instead of the trees, and end up with a fine composition indeed — but one that would give you somewhat of a distorted version of inner reality. So you must learn how to aim and focus your dream camera.

Since these are far more lively than ordinary shadows, and are definitely more colorful, they may be more difficult to distinguish at first. You must remember that you are wandering through a mental or psychic landscape. You can stand before the shadow of a friend in the afternoon, in waking reality, and snap your fingers all you want to, but your friend’s shadow will not move one whit. It will certainly not disappear because you tell it to. In the dream world, however, any hallucination will vanish immediately as soon as you recognize it as such, and tell it to go away. It was cast originally by your own thought or feeling, and when you withdraw that source, then its “shadow” is automatically gone.

Now: The physical shadow of a tree bears witness to the existence of a tree, even if you see only the shadow; so your hallucinations appearing in dreams also bear witness to their origin, and give testimony to a valid “objective” dream object that is as “solid” (slowly) in that reality as the tree is in your world.

(Long pause at 11:32.) In physical reality there is a time lag that exists between the conception of an idea, say, and its materialization. Beside that, other conditions operate that can slow down an idea’s physical actualization, or even impede it altogether. If not physically expressed, the thought will be actualized in another reality. An idea must have certain characteristics, for example, that agree with physical assumptions before it turns into a recognizable event. It must appear within your time context.

In the dream world, however, each feeling or idea can be immediately expressed and experienced. The physical world has buildings in it that you manufacture — that is, they do not spring up naturally from the ground itself. In the same way, your thoughts are “manufactured products” in the dream world. They are a part of the environment and appear within its reality, though they change shape and form constantly, as physically manufactured objects do not.

(11:44. Speaking as Seth, Jane now delivered two pages of material for herself and me. Embedded within it were these lines: “Ruburt’s idea did come from me, about your reincarnational episodes involving the Roman officer, and your personal experience illustrates what I am saying in ‘Unknown’ Reality — the individual’s history is written in the psyche, and can indeed be uncovered.” Note Seth’s heading for this Section 5, for example.

1. The reader can also refer to Seth’s material on dreams in chapters 8 and 10 in Seth Speaks, and chapters 10 and 20 in Personal Reality.