Library » Seth Quotes on Dreaming and Group Dreaming
Compiled by Annette Shacklett.
This compilation may only be used for private study, scholarship, or research.
“Dreams, ‘Evolution,’ and Value Fulfillment, Volume II” by Jane Roberts. Copyright 1986
(Seth in Chapter 10, titled “The Pleasure Principle. Group Dreams and Value Fulfillment.”)
Session 933
“Earlier, I also spoke about the importance of dreams in man’s early background, and their importance to you as a species. Here, I want to stress the social aspects of dreams, and to point out the fact that dreams also show you some of the processes that are involved in the actual formation of physical events: You actually come into an event, therefore long before the event physically happens, at other levels of consciousness, and a good deal of this prior activity takes place in the state of dreaming.
“Yet (remembering what I said about seeming contradictions), your dreams are also social events of a kind, and the state of dreaming can almost be thought of as an inner public forum in which each man and woman has his or her say, and in which each opinion, however unpopular, is taken into consideration. If you want to call any one dream event a private event, then I would have to tell you that the private event actually was your personal contribution to the larger multisided dream event, many-layers, so that one level might deal with the interests of a group to which you belong—say your family, [or] your political or religious organization—reaching ‘outward’ to the realm of national government and world affairs. As your private consciousness life is lived in a community setting of one kind or another as a rule, so do your dreams take place in the same context, so that as you dream for yourself, to some extend you also dream for your own family, for your community, and for the world.
“Group dreaming was at one time taken for granted as a natural human characteristic—in a tribe, for example, when new locations were being sought, perhaps in times of drought. The various tribal members would have dreams in which the problem was considered, each dreamer tackling whatever aspect of the problem that best suited his or her abilities and personal intents. The dreamers would travel out-of-body in various directions to see the extent of drought conditions, and to ascertain the best direction for the tribe to take in any needed migration.
“Their dreams would then be shared by the tribe in the morning, or at special meetings, when each dreamer would give a rendition of the dream or dreams that seemed to be involved. In the same way, other dreamers would simply check with the dreamers of other villages or tribes—perhaps a hundred or even more miles distant. Some such dreams were extremely direct, others were clothed in symbolism according to the style of the dreamer, but in any case the dream was understood to have public significance as well as a private one.
“The same still applies, though often dreams themselves are forgotten. Instead, for example, for news and for advice you watch your morning television news, which provides you with a kind of manufactured dream that to some extent technologically serves the same purpose. Instead of sending cameramen and newspaper people to the farthest corners of the earth, early man sent out aspects of himself to gather the news and to form it into dream dramas. Oftentimes much of the material did not need to become conscious: It was ‘unconsciously’ acted upon, turned directly into action. Now such dreams simply act as backup systems, rising to the fore whenever they are needed. Their purpose was and is to increase the value fulfillment of the species and the individual.
“Psychologists often speak of the needs of man. Here I would like to speak instead of the pleasures of man, for one of the distinguishing characteristics of value fulfillment is its pleasurable effect. It is not so much that man or nature seeks to satisfy needs, but to exuberantly, rambunctiously seek pleasure—and through following its pleasure each organism finds and satisfies its needs as well. Far more is involved in the experience of life, however than the satisfaction of bare needs, for life is everywhere possessed with a desire toward quality—a quality that acknowledges the affirming characteristics of pleasure itself.
“In your terms, there is great pleasure to be found in both work and play, in excitement and calm, in exertion and rest, yet the word ‘pleasure’ itself has often fallen into disrepute, and is frowned at by the virtuous.
“One of the main purposes of dreaming, therefore, is to increase man’s pleasure, which means to increase the quality of life itself. Dreams are mental work and play combined, psychic and emotional rich creative dramas. They also involve you in the most productive of enterprises as you being to play with versions of events that are being considered for physical actualization, as on a personal level you ‘view’ the probable event which your family, tribe, organization, community, and country will actualize.”
Session 934
“Man explored the physical world in the dreaming state long before he explored it physically. Such dreams gave him the assurance that other lands existed outside of his own, and spurred him onward into those physical expeditions in which the species has always take particular delight.
“A man or woman might [be] while dreaming suddenly in a strange territory, looking at the sky from a different viewpoint, with say, a familiar river nowhere in sight, and with a mountain where ordinarily a plain might be. This was in a way as startling an experience as it would be to you to find yourselves on some distant planet. (You do, for that matter, explore space in the same fashion, and on at least some occasions you own ‘visitors from outer space’ are dream travelers from other dimensions of reality. Period.)”
“... Families in your society are often broken up, parents and children living quite apart in other portions of the country or in different countries entirely, so dreams that connect you with such relatives have risen to the fore, so to speak. People often keep track of changes in hometowns that they may not have visited for twenty years except in the dream state, when they familiarize themselves with the alterations that have happened, visit beloved streets and houses or view old classmates.
“Very few people make any attempt to check out such information in physical terms. There is an entire global dream network, in other words, that goes quite unrecognized—one of spectacular organization in which exchanges of information occur that give you the basis for the formation of recognized physical events.”
“As far as group dreaming is concerned, however, there are still some people who have always served as watchdogs in that regard, while other even in the dream state operate as healers or teachers or explorers or whatever. There is no craft that was not first conceived of by an individual dreamer, who later transferred it to the social world of activity.
“In the dreaming state, then, the needs and desires of families, communities, and countries are well-known. The dream state serves as a rich source for the world’s knowledge, and is also therefore responsible for its technology. This is a highly important point, for ‘the technological world out there’ was at one time the world of dreams. The discoveries and inventions that made the industrial world possible were always latent in man’s mind, and represented an inner glittering landscape of probability that he brought into actualization through the use of dreams—the intuitive and the conscious manipulation of material that was at one time latent.
“Value fulfillment will always provide inner directions that remind man constantly of the best ways in which such technology can be used. The need to possess such knowledge is uppermost in man’s mind now, and so it also become a vital dream topic or subject. In the dream state, then, to one extent or another man seeks solutions to the problems of his age.”
Session 935
“You are bound to have, then, many larger dream formations that can only be called group dreams—subjective events in which your own dreams happen, and in which your own dreams take part. You expect all of the elements of the physical world, however diverse, to fit together and form a certain kind of permanency and order. It should be no surprise, then, that this same kind of ‘fitting together’ includes subjective life also—or that, say, your private dreams are also fragments of a vaster dream reality. They are as important to the operation of that reality as electrons are to your physical one, providing inner pathways for the accumulation of wisdom and pleasure.
“There are certain kinds of dreams in which the various species then communicate, and in which the energies of the environment and its inhabitants merge. These include a kind of horizontal psychological extension, the translation of one kind of dream into another kind—the transference of information from one system to another, in which the symbols themselves come alive.”
“In a fashion your own dreams operate or appear as electrons in other realities. That is, they change their form, their subjective force or direction, and become part of the working mechanics of the universe. The same applies to your own thoughts. They are not ‘wasted’ after you have thought them (with humor), or simply discarded. They do not become extinct either, but go on to serve other functions in the universe than those with which you are presently aware.
“This all involves a lush multitudinous creativity. The pleasure principle can probably be likened most to the latent appreciation of beauty that is everywhere apparent if you look for it: the ecstasy of each form of life for the wonders of its own existence, in which love’s values go beyond themselves, and yet a condition in which each species or life form ‘realizes’ that its own fulfillment adds immeasurably to the existence of all other forms.”
“Conversations with Seth: The story of Jane Roberts’s ESP Class, Volume I” by Susan M. Watkins, copyright 1980
(Seth speaks to Jane’s ESP class about dreaming a city in Chapter 10)
“To the class in general, Seth continued: ‘Now, at certain times, dream activity is also accelerated, and this is indeed such a time. You have an opportunity, now, to know yourselves as you are, and as you also exist in inner reality.’
“Seth’s eyes were wide, dark, and penetrating. The room as stuffed with the magic of an autumn night and a fragrant wind blowing in through the open windows. ‘You have an opportunity now to open new roads, if you will—to form your own inner city,’ Seth said, a smile creeping across Jane’s features. ‘You will be the new inhabitants. It can be your own city. You will have to make your own politics! They will be any kind you desire.’
“ ‘You have enough class members now to form such a city. It will be used symbolically as a meeting place. You will have your own inner home, then that you form yourself.’
“ ‘You should go there as a founder, each of you. You can begin forming that city now. And when you form such city, you form it for yourself, and yet you also form it for others. And, in greater terms, of course, you have already formed it; and when you no longer need it, it will be used by others, and it will be a kind of inner landmark where others may use what you have created.’
“Part of me was fascinated. Part of me was horrified. Red flags waved in my brain. An inner City? Uh-oh. It sounded a bit too much like some kind of occult-records-hidden-in-the-mountains thing. Besides, I didn’t like cities on the level I was dealing with now, let alone a level somewhere in the sky. And yet . . . Seth’s words fit somehow, and I felt the call of challenge and adventure. It was exciting to think of the kinds of lucid dream correlations class might have, using this ‘city’ as a symbolic meeting place. But the thing was, I had the uneasy feeling that this was one of those times when Seth was not speaking ‘symbolically.’
“ ‘Now, I have hinted at multidimensional art, and this is multidimensional art indeed,’ Seth was saying. ‘Each of you has abilities particularly suited to form such an inner environment—such a ‘Sumari City’—and so shall you then be pioneers in your own way. There are inner lands to be conquered, for there are inner lands still to be formed. For when you create this city, you create the landscape and the reality in which it exists. The planning of your city should begin now. Keep track of your dream activity!’
“ ‘Now, I return you to yourselves, and to this room, and to the founding of your first inner Sumari city. You cannot complain about that city, for you will have formed it! Make it pleasant and warm for other dream travelers’—here, Seth stared directly at me—‘and always be courteous to those who knock at new doors!’
“Seth withdrew. Class burst into a flurry of conversation, hardly stopping to tell Jane what had been said. ‘A dream city?’ she said quizzically, frowning. ‘Hmmmm.’ Getting a word in edgewise, I quickly described the weird noises and knockings on my front porch during the week—had that been part of this city thing? It was already midnight, but as we kept on talking all at once, Seth came through again.
“ ‘There are old tales telling you that ‘the way’ is prepared—that there are many mansions in God’s house, but who made the mansions? Now I am beginning to hint in ‘Unknown’ Reality at a different kind of culture and activity. And I would like to see, in this space and time, a beginning made again of that kind of activity. I would like to see you, then—and you can—build up an entirely valid culture, beginning with a city in another level of reality; where, if you believe what I am telling you, you can deal with mathematics—mathematics that you have not dreams of as yet, and realities of which you are not as yet aware.’
“ ‘You can, therefore, build an inner level of freedom that gives you access to far more information than you usually have. You can colonize an entire inner level of reality. To do so, you must give your best with dedication and joyful creativity.’
“ ‘This will not be an imaginary city! It will have a greater reality than any physical city you know . . . there, you will hopefully work on developing skills . . . you will learn what you have forgotten, and yet when you do so you will learn something new. For you have all changed, and there is no such thing as dead knowledge or of a dead skill . . .’
“ ‘The city will have more than seven hills [like ancient Rome], and not all roads will lead to it; nor should all roads lead to it. Try, then before you sleep to remind yourself of your own endless creativity. Remind yourselves that what I say can definitely be accomplished. Try, before you sleep, to remind yourselves of the city, and to plan what you would do there, for you will do it!’ ”
“ ‘Now, each of you in your own way have been working with the nature of reality and of creativity,’ he said. ‘There is much I have not told you about your city, for you will have to discover it for yourselves. And yet, there is, indeed, this other reality in which your creativity blossoms; and when you make your plans here, they do indeed come to fruition. I am merely encouraging you to focus your joint energies in that direction. And if you do, you will have in whatever terms, a dimension in which you can meet...’
“ ‘You will be dealing with symbols, yet you will learn that symbols are reality, for you are symbols of yourself that live and speak, and you do not think of yourselves as symbols. You do not understand that symbols live—that there is no symbol that does not have its own individual life.’
“ ‘I speak to you theoretically of other realities. I challenge you now to be creative in another reality, as you are in this one. And if it seem to you—if it seems to you—because of your beliefs, that you are limited here, though you are not limited here, then I challenge each of you, joyfully, as in a game, to create a city, an environment and perhaps a world in which no such limitations occur. And if you had your choice, what kind of world would you create?’
“ ‘And so you have begun the building. For each of you, in your own way, will contribute in your own way. There are birds to be created to fly through those skies—and those birds are your thoughts, freed to their own fruition; and again, in other words, what wrens and robins and cardinals’—‘fly invisibly out of your skull to materialize in you city, and light upon the trees that are also the fruition of your desire?’
“ ‘Now, you take it for granted, most of you, the fact that you can, indeed, travel out of the body. For centuries, in your terms, there have been no pleasant, recognizable roads for out-of-body travelers to follow. So I am suggesting that you create such a road and such a destination.’
“ ‘Now, listen—you think there is nothing impossible, intrinsically, about building a platform in [outer] space—a handy place where supplies may be gathered. I am suggesting, then, a platform in inner reality; a safe place for travelers, and you can build it. It is as valid, and far more valid, than an orbiting city in the sky in physical terms, and it challenges your creative abilities far more.’
“ ‘You need a good challenge—it is fun! Not because you should do it, but because you desire it and because it is fun, and because there is no other such creative challenge that you can throw down to yourselves—and no one else has ever thought of a better one: thrown down to yourselves from future selves that you shall indeed encounter, and you know you can do this and you know that you have done it; and on the face of the Earth, as you know it, there is no greater challenge that you can give yourselves...’ ”
“Conversations with Seth: The story of Jane Roberts’s ESP Class, Volume II” by Susan M. Watkins, copyright 1981
(Seth speaks to Jane’s ESP class about dreaming a city in Chapter 21)
“ ‘ ...and we do have a city building. A city. Highly impractical, it seems, at this time. A city that does indeed exist mentally. But all things exist mentally first, or they will never be materialized. And some day that city might exist physically. But it will not be when you are here. Yet your memories will be in it and your desires. And to that extent you will be founders.’
“ ‘And you forge such dreams in your sleep and in your private imaginings, and in your inspirations. For when one member of a species dreams such dreams, those dreams are transmitted to all other members. They do not die. When a runner at the Olympics does better than the runner before, then all the sportscasters say, ‘How grand! We did not know man could run so fast!’ and so now records are being broken all the time. And mentally, the same thing applies.’
“ ‘Dream a grand dream. For when one member of the species dreams, all members, to some extent, participate. and the psyche, and the soul, and the heart of man take new leaps, in your terms, not taken before. So trust yourselves, and trust your love and your dreams. [To Rudy, and Charlene, and Vic, looking at Rudy:] And tell your students I say [shouts] R-A-YYYY!!!! Which means hooray. [Shouts] HOOORAAAYYY!!!!’ ”
“ ‘Now, I have spoken about a city. A dream city that you do not see now, Sue. It is not before your eyes. But this world as you know it came from some un-where. It came from a mental dimension and was then materialized. And so our city that is not manifest now, is a reality of the mind. And since it is a reality of the mind, it will somehow be a reality in physical fact. And it will be a realm, however small, however large, in whatever probability, and you will be a part of it. And it will be a realm in which men and women know themselves and walk in honor, and in freedom. And it will be a realm, however small, however large, in which there is indeed an infinite creativity, And it can be a creativity that seeds worlds.’
“ ‘Your thoughts now seed worlds. It is only because you do not know that, that what I say sounds strange. You are here because your thoughts before your birth seeded this world into which you would grow. You did not come here strangers. There is still, you see, much to learn...’ ”
“The ‘Unknown’ Reality, Volume I” by Jane Roberts, copyright 1977
Session 700
“... The trouble is that many in the sciences do not comprehend that there is an inner reality. (Intently) It is not only as valid as the exterior one, but it is the origin for it. It is that world that offers you answers, solutions, and would reveal many of the blueprints that exist behind the world of experience.
“The true art of dreaming is a science long forgotten to your world. Such an art, pursued, trains the mind in a new kind of consciousness—one that is equally at home in either existence, well-grounded and secure in each. Almost anyone can become a satisfied and productive amateur in this art-science; but its true fulfillment takes years of training, a strong sense of purpose, and a dedication—as does any true vocation.
“To some extent, a natural talent is a pre-requisite for such a true dream-art scientist. A sense of daring, exploration, independence, and spontaneity is required. Such work is a joy. There are some such people who are quite unrecognized by your societies, because the particular gifts involved are given zero priority. But the talent still exists.
“Give us a moment, and rest your hand... A practitioner of this ancient art learns first of all how to become conscious in normal terms while in the sleep state. Then he becomes sensitive to the different subjective alterations that occur when dreams begin, happen, and end. He familiarizes himself with the symbolism of his own dreams, and sees how these do or do not correlate with the exterior symbols that appear in the waking life that he shares with others. I will have more to say about these shared symbols later, for they can become agreed upon signposts.”
“The ‘Unknown’ Reality, Volume II” by Jane Roberts, copyright 1979
Session 719
Practice Element 14
“Before you go to sleep, tell yourself that you will mentally take a dream snapshot of the most significant dream of the night. Tell yourself that you will even be aware of doing this while asleep, and imagine that you have a camera with you. You mentally take this into the dream state. You will use the camera at the point of your clearest perceptions, snap your picture, and—mentally again—take it back with you so that it will be the first mental picture that you see when you awaken.
“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 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.
“These will be relatively meaningless, however, if you do not learn how to examine them. They are not to be simply filed away and forgotten. You should write down a description of each scene and what you remember of it, including your feelings both at the time of the dream, and later when you record it. The very effort to take this camera with you makes you more of a conscious explorer, and automatically helps you to expand your own awareness while you are in the dream state. Each picture will serve as just one small glimpse of a different kind of reality. You cannot make any valid judgement on the basis on one or two pictures alone.
“Now this is a mental camera we are using. There is a knack about being a good dream photographer, and you must learn how to operate the camera. In physical life, for example, a photographer knows that many conditions affect the picture he takes. Exterior situations then are important: You might get a very poor picture on a dark day, for instance. With our dream camera, however the conditions themselves are mental. If you are in a dark mood, for example, then your picture of inner reality might be dim, poorly outlined, or foreboding. This would not necessarily mean that the dream itself had tragic overtones, simply that it was taken in the ‘poor light’ of the psyche’s mood.
“Inner weather changes constantly, even as the exterior weather does. One dream picture with a dreary cast, therefore, is not much different from a physical photograph taken on a rainy afternoon.
“Many people, however remembering a dark dream, become frightened. You even structure your dreams, of course. For that matter, your dream world is as varied as the physical one. Each physical photographer has an idea of what he wants to capture on film, and so to that extent he structures his picture and his view. The same applies to the dream state. You have all kinds of dreams. You can take what you want, so to speak, from dream reality as basically you take what you want from waking life. For that reason, your dream snapshots will show you the kind of experience that you are choosing from inner reality.”
Session 721
Practice Element 15
“In a dream, attempt to expand whatever space you find yourself in. If you are in a room, move from it into another one. If you are on a street, follow it as far as you can, or turn a corner. Unless you are working out ideas of limitations for your own reasons, you will find that you can indeed expand inner space. There is no point where an end to it need appear.
“The properties of inner space, therefore, are endless. Most people are not this proficient in dream manipulation, but surely some of my readers will be able to remember what I am saying, while they are dreaming. To those people I say—‘Look around you in the dream state. Try to expand any location in which you find yourself. If you are in a house, remember to look out the window. And once you walk to that window, a scene will appear. You can walk out of that dream house into another environment; and theoretically at least you can explore that world, and the space within it will expand. There will be no spot in the dream where the environment will cease.’ ”
Practice Element 16
“When you find yourself within a dream, tell yourself you will know what happened before you entered it, and the past will grow outward from that moment. Again, there will be no place where time will stop. The time in a dream does not ‘displace’ physical time. It opens up from it. Exterior time, again, operates in the same fashion, though you do not realize it.
“Give us a moment ... Now (with a smile):
“The following material may be used here in our book, or in your own books. There will be no gap in this book if you do not use it here.
“Time expands in all directions, and away from any given point. The past is never done and finished, and the future is never concretely formed. You choose to experience certain versions of events. You then organize these, nibbling at them, so to speak, a bit ‘at a time.’
“The creativity of any given entity is endless, and yet all of the potentials for experience will be explored. The poor man may dream he is a king. A queen, weary of her role, may dream of being a peasant girl. In the physical time that you recognize, the king is still a king, and the queen a queen. Yet their dreams are not as uncharacteristic or apart from their experiences as it might appear. In greater terms, the king has been a pauper and the queen a peasant. You follow in terms of continuity one version of yourself at any given ‘time.’
“Many people realize intuitively that the self is multitudinous and not singular. The realization is usually put in reincarnation terms, so that the self is seen as traveling through the centuries, moving through doors of death and life into other times and places.
“The fact is that the basic nature of reality shows itself in the nature of the dream state quite clearly, where in any given night you may find yourself undertaking many roles simultaneously. You may change sex, social position, national or religious alliance, age and yet know yourself as yourself.”
“Quite literally, you live more than one life at a time. You do not experience your century simply form one separate vantage point, and the individuals alive in any given century have far deeper connections than you realize. You do not experience your space-time world, then, from one but from many viewpoints.”