It participates in the construction of some dreams having a more or less important role according to some circumstances. Punishment can be meted out in dreams, you see. But also moral encouragement can be given in dreams.

[...] It was the spontaneous self who kicked up the fuss this afternoon, thinking: hurry, hurry, hurry, see things my way (when Jane tried to work on the dream book, unsuccessfully).

[...] He can himself communicate to Ruburt through his dreams, and clear up many confused issues. [...]

(“Can the conscientious self construct its own dreams?)

(Here is a copy of my dream of September 28, taken from my dream notebook: Color, much forgotten. Father and myself and the whole family—I don’t believe Jane was in the dream—had all decided to leave physical reality together. [...]

This was not a dream, but the first clear recognition on your father’s part that he was ready to leave the physical plane entirely. You also picked up this information, and it was the impetus for your dream. [...] The paper (which Jane, in her dream, saw my father throw down) represented the notes your father wrote to himself. [...]

In your dream you nicely placed the family in the garage, outside of the closed house, you see. [...]

The father’s body was also a vehicle in bringing you and your brothers into physical existence, and the dream represented several things. [...]

(There follows a copy of my dream of Thursday night, October 21, as taken from my dream notebook: “I dreamed briefly that the first of the two short stories Jane has sold has now been published—The Big Freeze, I believe—and that as a result Jane can now get paid for it.” I hoped Seth would comment on the dream.

You were given the precise title of the dream content; that is, you knew the particular story was called The Big Freeze. It is true that you forgot that the title itself was a part of the dream,yet you did remember enough so that you were sure of the particular story. [...]

(Oddly enough, I remember waking up chilly in the morning last week, but do not know whether this followed the dream. I made no conscious connection with the dream in any case, and it seems to me I might have woken up chilly on more than one night last week also.)

Your dream was an excellent example, Joseph, of a clairvoyant one, in which definite new information was received. [...]

(Jane had also described some excellent, very positive dreams she’d had last night, containing clear instances in which she’d been walking normally. [...] I took the dreams as a very good sign. If Seth came through, I said, I’d like him to comment on her reading difficulties, the dreams, and the two leg wounds. [...]

Those dreams reactivate Ruburt’s conscious memory of walking normally, and also serve to reawaken nerves and muscles that are connected with normal walking. The dream helps open the door to probabilities. [...]

(“How about his dream last night, in which he was walking?”)

(From my own notes as the afternoon progressed: Seth’s material on Jane’s dreams was just what I hoped it would be—another sign that her body is awakening, and that it knows what to do and how to do it. [...]

“At first, in your terms, all of probable reality existed as nebulous dreams within the consciousness of All That Is. Later, the unspecific nature of these ‘dreams’ grew more particular and vivid. The dreams became recognizable one from the other until they drew the conscious notice of All That Is. And with curiosity and yearning, All That Is paid more attention to Its own dreams.

“On the other hand, you could say that the pressure existed simply on the part of the God since the creation existed within Its dream, but such tremendous power resides in such primary pyramid gestalts that even their dreams are endowed with vitality and reality.

[...] Yet all individuals remember their source, and now dream of All That Is as All That Is once dreamed of them. [...]

[...] In many respects, you are in a dream. It is you who have made the dream too vivid. [...]

2. Seth mentioned a “correspondence” among my dreams, painting, and writing because just lately I’ve been doing small oil paintings of a few of my more vivid dream images. I’ve discovered that this is great fun — and much more challenging than I’d anticipated, as I try to reduce the shifting, brilliant dream elements to the motionless painted surfaces we’re so used to in waking reality. [...] Now, futilely, I wonder why I didn’t try painting images from my dreams at a much earlier age; and why one so seldom hears about other artists doing the same thing. I don’t personally know any other artist working with dreams this way.

(9:29.) Give us a moment… By all means encourage the dream activity, and there will be a correspondence between your dreams, your painting and your writing.² Each one encourages the others. Your writing gains vitality from your painting, your painting from your writing — and the dreaming self at one time or another is in contact with all other Aspects — capital “A” — of your reality.

SLEEP, DREAMS, AND CONSCIOUSNESS

[...] The conscious self would recall more of its dream adventures as a matter of course, and gradually these would be added to the totality of experience as the ego thinks of it.

You have trained your consciousness to follow certain patterns that are not necessarily natural for it, and these patterns increase the sense of alienation between the waking and dreaming self. [...]

[...] For other reasons having to do with the chemical reactions during the dream state, bodily health would be improved; and this particular schedule would also be of help in schizophrenia, and generally aid persons with problems of depression, or those with mental instability.

(I’m writing this down finally two days later and even right after the dream, much was confused. [...]

(Either the end of above dream or the end of another. [...]

JANE’S NAP DREAM

[...] He says “I breathe, but who breathes, since consciously I cannot tell myself to breathe or not to breathe?” He says “I dream, but who dreams? I cannot tell myself to dream or not to dream.” [...]

If man does not know who breathes within him, and if man does not know who dreams within him, it is not because there is one who acts in the physical world and one completely separate who dreams and breathes. It is because he has buried the part of himself which breathes and dreams. [...]

You, or the part of you that you are pleased to call yourself, refuse to admit as part of yourself the “I” that is aware of every breath you breathe, every move you make, and every dream that you dream. In other words breathing and dreaming are not automatic, nor do they operate without your knowledge. [...]

The part of you who dreams is the “I” as much as the part of you that operates in any other manner. The part of you who dreams is the part of you who breathes. [...]

In a strange fashion, the dream process in which your dream occurred was truth. The creative energy that fashioned the dream was truth—though the questioning kind of attitude you had in the dream of itself would make truth seem always unavailable.

The dream is self-explanatory. [...] For one thing, the dream represented an attitude, of course, that truth was something apart from man, hopefully to be acquired, and definitely involving an ascent.

[...] “It’s about my dream last Sunday morning, when I was climbing the church steeple that reached way above me into the sky. [...]

[...] In the framework of the dream, then, you and mankind seemingly could not succeed. [...]

The festival incident of the dream state was highly fascinating, and it did represent a particular state of consciousness above all—one in which reality is perceived in a different fashion. The dream (last night) reflected and updated old Sumari traditions that honored God as a god of festivals, of celebration, traditions, that built upon the idea of life itself as a celebration. [...]

The dream also served as a framework allowing him to intuitively and psychically and biologically perceive the emotional reality of Framework 2. That is, he participated in its emotional content. [...]

It seems you need certain practical instructions that involve direct experience, immediate feedback, and Ruburt has been receiving some of that in the dream state, and also to some extent in his waking reality, as he begins to trust the feelings of support and relaxation. [...]

[...] Ruburt’s dream, by the way, also signaled him that he is now approaching what the Sumarians used to call “the time of festivals,” or a time of grace. [...]

Your own dream of last night contained far more powerful “medicine”—for it shows you where enthusiastic beneficial beliefs can lead. [...] Even though Ruburt was not consciously aware of the dream, inner portions of his being were, and the dream itself helps to bring about the conditions that it pictures. [...]

(I told Jane about the very excellent dream I’d had about her last night—in which I’d seen her fully recovered—walking, her hair black again, shopping, going out, meeting friends who exclaimed over her great progress. [...] It was the type of dream where one returns to it several times. [...]

[...] At 4:10 Jane had a cigarette while I reminded her that I wanted Seth to comment on my dream about her last night. [...]

We could have presented Dreams as is, or at least have avoided mentioning certain less-than-advantageous circumstances surrounding its production by Jane and by Seth, the “energy personality essence” she speaks for while in a trance or dissociated state. [...] Since we’ve always wanted to make sure that our “psychic work” is given within the context of our daily living, I’ve undertaken to present in these essays intensely personal material relevant to the creation of Dreams. (The mechanics of Jane’s still-fascinating trance phenomenon have been described in some detail in the six previous Seth books she’s produced—with my help—and they’ll also be referred to, if briefly, in Dreams.)

[...] Originally I’d planned to write the standard kind of introduction for Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment. However, as I became involved in describing the complicated, emotionally charged series of events surrounding the hospitalization earlier this year of my wife, Jane Roberts, the material automatically began organizing itself into a series of dated essays. [...]

[...] I did not look at Seth-Jane’s Dreams itself while writing the essays, in order to avoid having them overly influenced by work in the book. [...]

Seth, then, has finished his work on Dreams. I wrote the original version of the notes for each book session as he delivered it through Jane, and also began collecting other notes and reference material that might be used. [...]

[...] They are the children of our dreams and so, also, do you seed other realities and other systems. They are the children of your dreams. [...] Consciousness releases its abilities in ways that you do not understand and yet from your own mind, springing from your own dreams, other systems of reality emerge as you have emerged from our dreams. [...]

Now in dreams you open [sic], though not always, also escape and time is meaningless to you. In a dream you may experience say, an episode in which you are involved with adventures that last for years, and when you wake up you have not aged for (4?) years. During the dream state you can travel to the ends of the universe as you know it. [...]

[...] I will see to it that you have a very vivid out-of-body experience from the dream state. [...]

(To Sue:) Your dream was quite legitimate. [...]

Look at Ruburt’s Turkish dream. [...] Ruburt’s dream had motion also, rolling, say, off the edge of Framework 2 into Framework 1, where lo and behold it changes its form and becomes a book.

In a manner of speaking, and to a certain extent, one level of dreaming almost always involves a probable event that may or may not be actualized. That portion is taken into consideration, along with the same portion of all other dreams, so that the raw material for future events is processed. [...]

[...] There are too many people who expect the worst from you, yet even then the creative self will try from Framework 2 to bring all resources possible, through dreams and intuitions, to alter that pessimistic progress.

[...] Dreams events are not only registered there, but their possible effects upon daily life on an individual and mass basis.

[...] It is extremely important that he become more permissive, particularly in the dream state, and to change his attitude about dreaming, to go along with his experience and forget how he can make it understandable to others.

Whenever Ruburt opens to the dream state, physically he is specifically worried about out-of-body travel. [...]

[...] When he began to cut off his natural spontaneous expression in dream reality, out-of-body travel, etc., he denied himself the acquisition of that facility to some degree.

He normally and naturally awakens often in the early hours, and does not get up because his body is too sore, in his terms, but he spontaneously feels an alliance with himself and those hours, and intuitively knows that his creative abilities are strong then, and his dream recall good.

He has actually been trying too hard on the dream book—his mental set. [...] His attitude has been “I have to start my dream book.” Tell him that his dream book will start itself if he leaves himself alone. The attitude has impeded his dream experiences also.

The nonphysical symptoms will also appear in various guises, often symbolically within the dream state long before any physical symptoms appear. [...]

Now his contract (for the dream book) is assured, and tell him I said so.

He is to forget thinking of the dream book as something he must do. [...]

[...] A fond good evening—and expect the new material on dreams in my book to further extend and illuminate your own dreaming activity. [...]

Ruburt’s project—and this book (Dreams)—serve the same purpose to him, of course, as painting does for you, and such activity can in that light only benefit him. [...]

[...] I described my very vivid dream of last night. [...] I dreamed I was jogging along a country road beside the Chemung River on the way toward Sayre. [...]

(I told Jane that I thought the police in the dream meant that I’d left behind me old imprisoning beliefs, that I was now running free of those beliefs. [...]

Your dream was indeed an excellent “omen.” [...]

[...] The dream was meant to remind you of that inner and outer buoyancy and freedom.

(Both dreams are on record in my own dream notebook. Jane herself wrote up the Stamp dream and its many connections. [...]

[...] I mentioned two questions: 1. Some comments on my dream about Louise Stamp recently, and the series of connections Jane had made, based upon it. It sounded very much like another instance of the workings of Framework 2; 2. Some comments on my recent dream involving my meeting my parents in the great marble hall, as I called it. [...]

[...] Faith in a creative, fulfilling, desired end, sustained faith, literally draws from Framework 2 all of the necessary ingredients, all of the elements however staggering in number, arranges all the details, and then inserts into Framework 1 the impulses, dreams, chance meetings, motivations, or whatever is necessary so that the desired end then falls into place as a completed pattern.

[...] Framework 2 contains all the dreams, plans, and thoughts of all human beings of any time. [...]