“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now: This extended period, given to waking consciousness without rest periods, builds up chemicals in the blood that are discharged in sleep. But in the meantime they make the body sluggish and retard conscious concentration. The long sleep period to which you are accustomed then does become necessary. A vicious circle then is formed. This forces overstimulations during the night, increasing the body’s work, making it perform continuously over an extended time physical purifications that ideally would be taken care of in briefer periods of rest. The ego feels threatened by the extended “leave of absence” it must take, becomes wary of sleep, and sets up barriers against the dream state. Many of these are highly artificial.

Rest or sleep cures — very extended sleep periods — have been helpful for therapy in some cases, not because extended sleep is in itself beneficial, but because so many toxins had built up that such extended periods were required. Learning processes are definitely hampered through your present habits, for there are certain periods when consciousness is attuned to learning, and yet you try to force learning during unrecognized minimal periods. Creative and psychic abilities are thrust into the background simply because of this artificial division. Dualities result that affect all of your activities.

Now: It is well known that fluctuations of consciousness and alertness exist in the sleep state. Some periods of dream activity do indeed supersede those of some waking states. But there are also fluctuations in normal waking consciousness, rhythms of intense activity followed by a much less active period of consciousness.

(10:28.) Because of your habits of an extended sleep period, followed by an extended waking period, you do not take advantage of these rhythms of consciousness. The high peaks are to some extent smothered, or even go unnoticed. The sharp contrasts and the high efficiency of the natural waking consciousness is barely utilized.

Now the period just before dawn often represents a crisis point for persons severely ill. Consciousness has been away from the body for too long a period, and such a returning consciousness then has difficulty dealing with the sick body mechanism. [...]

[...] His sleeping periods were instead for two or three hours, stretched through the nighttime from dusk to dawn, but alternated by periods of high wakefulness and alert activity. [...]

[...] I want to make it plain, however, that anything over a six- to eight-hour continuous sleeping period works against you, and a ten-hour period for example can be quite disadvantageous. [...]

If you do not understand that in periods of sleep your consciousness actually does leave your body, then what I have said will be meaningless. [...] But the largely creative portions of the self do leave the body, and for large periods of time when you sleep.

(I do think Seth offered an excellent insight when he said that the blue periods on both our parts were ways of expressing fears. Without thinking about such bouts particularly, I suppose I at least had taken it for granted that the blue periods reflected weaknesses on my part, say — times when I should have known better or wasn’t doing well. [...] Now we can appreciate that the blue periods are therapeutic.

[...] She said she’d been very blue as I left last night, but that the period had passed after a while and she’d felt fine. I’ve also had a number of blue periods lately, but try to keep going anyhow.)

It is natural enough in your situation to have blue periods now and then.

At the same time, you both should — and do — try to turn your minds in other directions, so that the periods do not linger. [...]

Such concentrated periods of activity follow their own patterns and rhythms, and you need rest from them. This period however will answer some of your questions. [...]

[...] This period will also see the first of the seven dreams. The next such period will not come for approximately three years. [...]

[...] You and Ruburt both will be involved in another period of rather concentrated psychic activity together as a main project, within a short time. [...]

[...] The third such point will find your individual activities heightened; spontaneous visions and occurrences for example on your part; generally better projections on Ruburt’s part, and heightened psy-time periods for you both. [...]

[...] En masse and through the methods I have described, you help form a physical reality in which, however, each experience is unique, period.

[...] From infinite probable acts, comma, only one can be physically experienced as a rule, period.

[...] There are other important reasons for dreaming, but here we will confine ourselves to this particular issue and to the dream landscape itself, period.

(Since break Seth had taken to calling out more periods, commas, and other such indicia than he usually does, so I included a few examples. [...]

[...] In Ruburt’s natural, quite periodic rhythm of creativity, he writes rather steadily, exuberantly, and inspired. [...] He is regenerating, and those periods are also natural, and act to increase the creative “periods” of obvious daily production. [...] Period.

He has been getting up in the night because his body wants to exert itself fairly regularly, at this period of time. [...]

[...] Period. [...]

[...] The drug allows for regulated periods of highly intensified consciousness, operating at peak levels, with all of the mental faculties accelerated. Between these periods however there are periods of unconsciousness. [...] During the periods of unconsciousness the drugs injected into the brain give increased nourishment to those areas of the physical brain that are involved in such ejections of consciousness. Therefore even though your probable self is within reaching distance, so to speak, he is sometimes involved in such blackout-nourishment periods.

In your time the periods of high conscious activity would run approximately for three days, followed by a day and a half to four days of inactivity, according to the circumstances. [...]

In this case the sleep-nourishment period is activated as a cushion. [...]

[...] It is much easier to pass through such periods if names are not given to symptoms, and many people pass through many so-called diseases without ever being aware of it.

One important point, again, is to remember that in any given day his mood is often excellent for many periods of time. He should concentrate his attention upon those periods, rather than concentrating upon the periods when he is blue or upset, and berating himself for those reactions.

(Jane has grown increasingly restless over the breaks in her activities that are caused by the rest periods she’s taking several times daily. [...] I told her I knew she didn’t want to take the rest periods, and that I had little to offer as an alternative, beyond her simply cutting down on them. [...]

[...] They keep the sessions going over periods of time. [...]

[...] Yet I couldn’t equate the few moments she spent walking with the half-hour rest periods, either.

Each of you need two 5-minute periods a day, at least, in which you purposefully relax mental and physical tensions through whatever methods you choose. Two 10-minute periods would be excellent—if you will spare the time.

[...] The relaxation periods will help short-circuit your own problems. [...]

2. The time span Seth referred to here existed 30 million to 50 million years ago, he told us in the 689th session, and fell within the Tertiary Period. How long before that period had the intelligent birds lived? [...]

3. Nor was I quick enough to ask Seth if the material Jane delivered for him tonight constituted any kind of contradiction with that of the 689th session; for in that session he discussed man-animal and animal-man as existing within the Tertiary Period. [...] Was it possible that during the complicated rhythms of history, man could have been man (at least approximately as we know him) even before the Tertiary Period, then moved into a long cycle of animal-man forms before returning to being man again? [...]

[...] Period.

— comprehension, period. [...]

I get quite carried away for one thing, and our material has been coming over so well that I quite forgot that a rest period has been due. [...]

Even though such a period is due, I find myself jealous of missing any sessions, as you might guess, knowing me by now.

[...] There will be no Wednesday session, and that will be your rest period. [...]

It is necessary, even regardless of your physical health which is in good condition, and your mental health which is fine, it is still necessary that I give you a period of relaxation from time to time. [...]

[...] Periods of especially intense psychic and mental activity can help you achieve projections. Periods of very little, unusually sparse, mental and psychic periods are often apt to result in projections—also however for the same reasons given concerning sexual activity.

[...] Periods of intense activity may also then generate this additional chemical propellant. [...] Although this necessary chemical fuel is generated through intense activity of a mental or psychic nature, it is released, making projections possible in alternating periods of quietude and rest.

[...] Periods of heightened sexual activity of a strong and deep nature will help. However, periods of no sexual activity will also help. [...]

[...] You know that dreaming has definite chemical bases, that chemicals built up during periods of waking existence are released through dreams. [...]

[...] Sometimes at certain periods in his life schedules are good, focusing his energies in certain directions. [...]

[...] These periods can be extended as he progresses; that is, the psy-time.

You should both, as Ruburt thought earlier, go out into the public at least one night within a two-week period. [...]

[...] Jane thought a period of less than a century was much too short a time to encompass so many dramatic changes. [...]

In any given historical period, one religious drama may finally emerge as the exterior representation, but there will also be many minor dramas, “projections,” that do not entirely take. [...]

(Pause at 9:09.) Some of these men were too tinged, too caught in the torment and fervor of the period to rise sufficiently above it. [...]

[...] The other changes will occur generally over the period of a century, but the results will show far before that time.

For Ruburt, spring and fall are periods when all of his energy rouses at a highly creative level, and insights are particularly valuable at such times. The period before an individual’s birth is enacted again symbolically, but in new ways, each year. [...]

If he did, freely now, work as long and often as he wanted to, without worrying about going out, or housework, then naturally the period of intense mental activity would bring about a desire to go out, and be physically active.

[...] To some extent Ruburt believes it, and believes that the body must suffer if it sits for long periods, and so forth. [...]

[...] In a weekly period, for example (rather than a daily one), these suggestions if followed will show him his own rhythms and patterns, so that he may feel like going out impulsively because he wants to, after a bout of writing, rather than feel that he “should.”

In these periods he understands that he had his hand in the writing of the play, and he is freed from those assumptions that bind him while he is actively concerned with the drama’s activities. These periods, of course, coincide with your sleep states and dreaming conditions; but there are also other times when each actor sees quite clearly that he is surrounded by props, and when his vision suddenly pierces the seeming reality of the production.

[...] They take place in different periods of time. [...]

I am speaking of the portion of you who is taking part in this particular period piece, however; and that particular portion of your entire personality is so focused within this drama that you are not aware of the others in which you also play a role. [...]

[...] Now these various plays, these creative period pieces represent what you would call reincarnational lives.

[...] A woman will often feel her most sexually active in the midst of the menstrual period, precisely when conception is least apt to occur. [...] Such peoples, building up the human stock, intuitively knew that the population would be increased if relations were restricted to periods when conception was most likely to occur. The blood was an obvious sign that the woman at her period was relatively “barren.” [...]

[...] Nor is it inherently focused in the particular age period in which it now shows itself. [...]

(Pause at 10:01.) During that period, many elements come into play and are meant to make the process attractive to the individuals involved, and to their tribes, societies, or civilizations. [...]

[...] I would like you to make a list of what you want to do in a day—that is, in a 24-hour period, and to think of that period, now, as a gift of time, to be used as you desire.

[...] Ruburt went in a very short period of days from doing relatively little physically to giving the legs rather constant stimulation with the chair. [...]

[...] It was natural enough that he has periods of disorientation walking—but overall he has handled this well. [...]

(9:30.) The gradations will be less apparent before too long, and Ruburt will be able to do more and more without such obvious changes in the body—that is, they will occur, but in this period, very important ligaments have been released, and they are bound to be felt.

The same kind of event may happen in periods of poor health, or in over-drugged states. They are less easily handled, however, under drugged conditions, since the consciousness does not have the full agility to depend upon in periods of stress — unusual stress. [...]

[...] On some occasions — sometimes in periods of poor health or seeming senility — such instances may occur. [...]

1. Seth is letting his material automatically answer my question about early man; See Appendix 6, as well as Note 7 for Session 688. According to our dictionary, the geologic time span he indicates in tonight’s session falls within the Tertiary Period of the Cenozoic Era. This period is further broken down into epochs. [...]

[...] These have been found in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Missouri, Texas, New Mexico, California, and other states, and range back an incredible 300 million years to the Carboniferous Period. In Texas, very clear giant-sized human tracks, dating from the Cretaceous Period of 140 million years ago, have been found intermixed in rock with those of several kinds of great dinosaurs — a discovery completely at odds with current scientific ideas that man is at most but a few million years old. [...]

[...] Instead, many types of consciousness existed in the period of which I am speaking. [...]