The "Introduction" and "Chapter Highlights" for this chapter were summarized by an AI editor based on the main text below; they are not words spoken by Mike during his lectures. The main text comes from Mike's commentary, and the block quotes are Seth's original words (the portions Mike read aloud).
Introduction
This session discusses the relationship between dreams and human exploration, knowledge, and social activity. People first explore the world in dreams, and only then explore it physically; from this they learned of the oceans, the stars, and so on, and it influenced navigation, politics, and the election of tribal leaders. Dreams are guided by personal intent and interest, and information is also exchanged through family and global dream networks. Modern people still use dreams to contact loved ones and visit changes in their hometowns, but they are less aware of it. Dreams are also the forerunners of technological invention; people first have the will to acquire knowledge, and then seek answers to the questions of their age in dreams.
Key Points of This Chapter
- Humans first explored the physical world in dreams, and only later with the physical body, thereby gaining clues to other lands, oceans, and stars.
- The content of dreams is guided by the dreamer's personal intent, purpose, and interest, yet dreams still lead toward public value fulfillment.
- Tribal leaders were usually chosen only after long dream investigations, and the information received in dreams was shared and examined together with concrete considerations.
- There exists a global dream network, and the exchange of information in dreams provides the basis for concrete events; the dreams of family members can reveal unsuspected connections.
- The dream state is a rich source of world knowledge, keeping the inventions and discoveries possible in an industrial world latent within the human psyche; humans first seek in dreams the answers to the problems of their era.
Main Text
Exploration in Dreams: Humanity First Came to Know the World Through Dreams
Today we continue sharing Session 934 of Volume 2 of the Seth book Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment. This session began on Monday, August 10, 1981, at 8:27 p.m. Right at the start, Seth directly stated a core point: before human beings explored the physical world with their bodies, they first explored it in the dream state.
Man explored the physical world in the dream state, before he explored it with the physical body.
He first explored the world in dreams, and only then went on to explore it in the physical world with his own body. Such dreams assured him that other lands existed beyond his own land—through dream exploration, he came to understand that beyond the territory of physical exploration, there were still other lands. This recognition urged him forward into those concrete expeditions that humanity has always been so fond of. Because without dreams, he would not have known that there were other lands beyond his own territory.
When a person dreams, he may suddenly find himself in an unfamiliar realm, looking at the sky from a different viewpoint, completely unable to see a single familiar river, everything strange everywhere; and usually, in a place where there should have been a plain, he sees a mountain. This experience is just as astonishing as finding oneself on some distant planet.
In a fashion, this is the same kind of startling experience as finding yourself on some distant planet.
The meaning is this: in dreams, your environment is strange to you, completely unfamiliar. Seth says that in that respect, you do indeed explore space in the same way—you have indeed gone to outer space, to other planets, but you went there in this manner.
Interestingly, Seth goes on to say:
At least on some occasions, your own visitors from outer space are dream travelers from other dimensions of reality.
That is to say, the UFOs, flying saucers, or aliens we see in our own space-time—at least on some occasions, not all occasions—are travelers from other dream spaces, breaking into our space. Just as we in dreams also go to unfamiliar places, and in dreams we likewise break into those spaces, it is the same.
After a long pause, Seth spoke about how human beings learned through dreams the knowledge of the earth—the location of the oceans, the existence of large bodies of water, along with clues to their positions, and the configuration of the stars overhead.
In such a fashion, man learned the position of the oceans upon the earth, or at least was assured that such large bodies of water did indeed exist, along with clues as to their location, and the configuration of the stars overhead.
How did human beings explore the entire earthly environment? For example, the oceans, the vast seas, the stars—all of these were obtained through the dream method. It is like how China's study of the stars has its own separate system of explanation, with metal, wood, water, fire, earth, and so on1—how did he come to know the properties of these stars? He also obtained that through the dream method just described.
In the same way, dreams were also a help to navigation. Because dreams could let sailors know that land was near before the land could be concretely seen. Seth says that there is no human activity that has not received the contribution of dreams and collective dreams. In human politics, dreams also provided tremendous help—for example, the intentions of tribal leaders would be known by others. Within the tribe, there were some people who specialized in such dreams.
Seth added that the content of dreams is guided by the dreamer's personal intent, purpose, and interest—whatever you are interested in, whatever you pay attention to, you will have such dreams. This is what the old Chinese saying means: "What you think of by day, you dream of by night2": whatever you focus your attention on during the day, at night you will dream about things related to it.
Moreover, dreams reinforce this tendency in the person—because you thought about it during the day, and then dreamed about it at night, and the dream gives you more information—but at the same time, dreams still direct you toward public value fulfillment. Although dreams are very personal, caused by your own intent and purpose, they still, through dreams, lead toward a public value fulfillment: the overall value fulfillment of a group, a tribe, a community, or a large nation.
Dreams and Tribal Knowledge: Herbs, Performance, and Leaders
Seth gave an example: those most interested in herbs and the life of plants would find that their dreams at night reflected their daytime focus.
So in that evening's dream journey, perhaps the dreamer would examine strange herbs in a location not his own, or he might be given knowledge of the best healing uses of those herbs.
Seth went on to say that people are natural mimics, as are certain animals and birds.
So when the tribe members spoke of their dreams, he did not simply speak of it, but acted it out with great vitality, carefully mimicking whatever animals, people, or other things on the earth they might have encountered in their dreams.
Note that the person did not simply describe his dream—he would perform it—telling you "what I dreamed last night," and then gesturing and drawing pictures, adding all kinds of expressions and ways of presenting it, letting others feel his dream as if they were there themselves. Seth says that the origin of human drama began in exactly that way. That is how drama came about—from the desire to perform the things in dreams.
Next, Seth talked about the election of tribal leaders, and this is especially interesting.
Tribal leaders were usually chosen only after a long period of dream investigation.
How was a tribal chief chosen? Not the way we imagine, with some person of high virtue and prestige, or by seniority—no. It was in dreams, in a dream investigation, that the name of the new leader appeared again and again in the dreams of the people of the tribe. First, the name appeared in their dreams; then they expected to receive advice from dreams about this person—who the new leader would be. This information was then spoken aloud.
Because in dreams there is no limitation of time and space, they knew who the next leader of the tribe would be. When these people wanted to know who the leader was, they pursued the question in dreams, and the dream state would give them the answer. Moreover, this information was shared, and studied and examined together with the specific considerations that applied before all important decisions were made.
That is to say, when they made important decisions, they took into account the information given to them in dreams. Whereas in our ordinary activities, especially public matters, we rarely consider the factor of dreams. But we as individuals do—individually, sometimes after receiving some revelation from a dream, a person will change certain concrete decisions, change behavior. Let me give an example: suppose a person dreams that he was in a car accident yesterday, then for the next couple of days he will drive with unusual care—this dream does have an influence on his behavior.
Modern People's Dreams: Travel from the Earth to the Sky
Seth says:
Again, you do indeed still continue such activity.
Human beings today are still doing this—although you have turned the conscious mind away from those directions, and no longer pay attention to these matters. This activity has largely become unconscious; you are not aware of the existence of these activities, because you do not want it that way—you do not want to focus on it anymore, so you are no longer aware of it.
However, in certain areas, as physical travel has increased, certain dreams have become more highly pertinent. What does pertinent mean? It means more purposeful, more significant.
Seth gave a very practical example: in your society, families are often scattered—parents and children live quite far apart, in other regions of the same country, or not even in the same country at all. Therefore, those dreams that connect you with your loved ones have risen to a prominent position.
People often notice changes in their hometowns that they have not visited in twenty years, except in dreams.
There are many such dreams: you dream that you have returned to your hometown, and you see some changes there, yet you have not been back for twenty years, and you basically do not know what changes have taken place in your hometown—but in the dream you return to your hometown to explore, to familiarize yourself with the changes that have occurred, to visit the beloved streets and houses, or to see old classmates.
How many people have had this kind of dream? Returning to your hometown, returning to the neighborhood you once lived in, that house, that countryside, or some familiar city or environment. You find that there are familiar things in that place; you know you have returned to your old home, you know that the place in the dream is your hometown, but you also find that there are some differences. You mostly think that these differences are brought to you by the dream; you feel that the dream does not reflect your impression of your hometown all that faithfully. When you wake up, you think: I remember there was no big tree in front of this door, or there used to be a big tree, how come it is gone now?
This experience is you returning to your hometown in a dream. But very few people ever try to actually verify this information—you would not call an old classmate in your hometown and say, "Go check whether the tree in front of our old house is still there." Generally, you would not verify it.
Seth says, in other words, there is an entire, quite unknown, global network of dreams:
From a certain standpoint, with an organization that is breathtaking.
In this dream world, you can go to all the places you want to go. Depending on where your focus lies, or what you are interested in, you go to different places and experience different things. The exchange of information takes place within such a dream network, and it gives you the foundation upon which recognized concrete events are formed—it gives the underlying basis for the concrete events that happen in our three-dimensional world.
Family Dreams: Connections, Guardians, and Roles
Seth gave an example: if small families paid attention to their own family dreams, they might discover unsuspected connections, and sense the interplay of the subjective and objective dramas in which they have been psychologically participating.
What does this mean? For example, in a family, there are parents, children, and so on. If you recorded all their dreams, or if everyone talked about the dreams they had recently, when they examined these dreams together, they would be surprised to find some common threads, and these threads are connected. And such connections cannot be discovered when you are alone, without comparing dreams with others. But when several family members compare dreams together, they will discover this connection—very interesting. This connection involves the interplay of the subjective and objective dramas in which they have been psychologically participating—the subjective, needless to say, refers to the activities of their minds, their imaginative activities; the objective refers to the things that happen in the three-dimensional world. He mixes these two together, and there is interplay between them.
Seth then gave a very practical method—pay attention to what information you seek from the newspaper.
Do you read the front page and ignore the sports section, or just the opposite? Do you read only the sports section? Do you read the columns that talk about celebrity gossip and privacy? Do you read the local notices of who has died? Do you search for very frightening crime stories, or for stories about political maneuvering?
We no longer read newspapers; we read the news. Whether you open an app or a news website, look at what you pay the most attention to. The answer will show you the kind of information you most often seek. Some people care more about current politics, some care about military affairs, some care about sports, some care about local social life and social news—everyone's focus is different, so you always read information related to that.
Seth says that when you dream, you more or less specialize in the same kind of information—it is the same when dreaming: whatever you pay attention to during the day, you will still pay attention to at night.
You will organize the contents of your mind, and the information available to you, according to your own intents and purposes.
The contents of your mind, including what we know as daytime life and our dream life, are also organized by your mind, but it is all according to your intents and purposes, related to the things you care about.
So although a person's dreams are his own, they still cut into an important position in the dreams of a given family—from the perspective of a small family, your own dreams are also the family's dreams, because they are connected with the entire family.
Seth then gave an example of role division. One person's interest may be mostly to seek warnings of problems or dangers from dreams—some people are very interested in warning-type things, such as revelations in dreams, predictions of disasters, and so on; they are very interested in this, so in dreams they often dream about such things.
Hence acting as the guardian of the family's dreams.
What does the guardian of dreams mean? For example, in a family, only one person has nightmares, and no one else does—that person is the guardian of dreams, having the nightmares on behalf of everyone else that they should have had. Why does he always have nightmares while others do not? Because that person, in ordinary waking life, as a member of the family, also plays a somewhat similar guardian role. Every family generally has such a role: he always thinks of the worst, always warns of the occurrence of danger, always says, "Are the doors and windows closed?" "Is the electricity turned off?" "Is the gas stove turned off?" Such a person, in the family role, will have a higher probability of nightmares, because he has always served as a guardian, a sentinel.
Seth went on to say that the question in such cases is, initially, the reason for such a person's excessive worry and panic—why does he have such a strong interest in possible disasters, crimes, or whatever? And the answer lies in an examination of this person's feelings and beliefs about the nature of existence itself.
Simply put, why does a person have excessive anxiety? It is because of his own personal beliefs, and based on those personal beliefs he determines his focus of attention. For example, if among his beliefs he worries that society is unsafe, then he will be excessively anxious in this way—so this is related to his beliefs.
However, at the level of group dreams, there are still some people who will always serve as guardians, while others, even in the dream state, play the roles of healers, teachers, explorers, or whatever. In the world of group dreams, some people may always serve as guardians, while others serve as healers, as teachers, as explorers, or other roles. We also play different roles in the dream world, just as we do when awake.
Dreams and Knowledge: The Forerunner of Technology
Seth stated a very fundamental point:
Memory was not first conceived of by an individual dreamer. All memories were first conceived of in the dream state by the dreamers, and then transferred to social activity.
That is to say, they were first conceived in the dream world, and only then transferred to social activity.
In the dream state, the needs and wishes of families, communities, and nations are widely known—in the dream state it is open. Although you have your individual dreams, you will know the needs and visions of the entire family, community, and nation, and this will be transmitted to you through the dream platform in dreams.
Seth says that the dream state is a rich source of world knowledge—our sources of knowledge, in part, besides daytime study and work, also come mainly through dreams at night. Therefore, dreams are also responsible for the natural development of its technology—the natural development of world technology also comes from this rich knowledge. This is an extremely important point, because the technological world in the outer physical world, the three-dimensional world, was once the world of dreams—it was first the inner dream world, and only then the outer world.
The inventions and discoveries that made the industrial world possible have always been latent in the human mind, representing an inner glittering storm of possibilities.
That is to say, those flashes of brilliance in technology that have led the development of humanity all exist in dreams, and have always existed in our subconscious. We human beings, through the use of dreams, bring them into reality.
That was once a latent, intuitive, and conscious manipulation of matter.
This is something you are able to bring into the physical world, which means you are relatively skilled at this manipulation. The most typical examples are these inventors—Edison, Tesla3, and so on—many of their inventions were completed in dreams, already completed in the dream state.
Then Seth said that value fulfillment will always provide the inner direction—how technology should develop, how human civilization should develop, the inner value fulfillment will always provide the inner direction, constantly reminding people of the best ways in which this technology can be used. Inwardly, it often tells you what help this technology will bring to human development after it is used.
The key point is here:
Now in man's mind the first thing thought of is the need to possess such knowledge.
This is a key point. That is, I want this kind of knowledge, and then I feel that if this knowledge is applied, it might bring about the best change to human life—at this point you do not yet possess this knowledge, or this thing has not yet been created; it is only an idea. But you must first have the idea of wanting to obtain this kind of knowledge; you have this desire, this willingness—this is the key. Then that knowledge can come into your mind, and then in practice you can create it.
Therefore, it also becomes an important dream topic or theme. For example, Tesla's invention of the electric motor4—he did not succeed after just one dream. He wanted to invent this motor, including using alternating current—he had thought about it for a long time, but had never thought of a good solution. In dreams, he certainly had many similar dreams, and only one of them gave him the most perfect model, the most perfect plan. So the theme of wanting to research the alternating current generator became a dream theme for him during that period.
In dreams, people to some extent sought the answers to the problems of their time.
Remember the premise: it was suited to his time. Later, on the basis of researching the alternating current generator, Tesla went on to research an inexhaustible, limitless free energy source5. He was building a device, a tower, whose principle was to make use of nature—the earth is a magnetic field. While researching the alternating current generator, he discovered that the magnetic field was very important in the process of generating electricity, and the earth is a huge magnetic field. So how could we use the earth's magnetic field, how could we produce a device, an apparatus, that could generate electricity automatically, without external energy? Current generators all need to be driven—you drive them with water, with wind—all driven by external energy, whereas this one would not need that.
Such an invention, at least from the current perspective, was not very suited to the era in which Tesla lived. There are many legends that he had already built it, or at least built a prototype, but it was not accepted by that era. Think about it: at that time, the alternating current generator had just been invented, and he wanted to build a free energy power station that would last forever, so it was not suited to his era; whereas the alternating current generator was suited to his era.
The Magical Approach: Effortless Protection
Seth's dictation ended at 9:23 p.m., and then between 9:23 and 9:35 p.m., he gave Jane and Rob a passage of personal material. Mike made a brief excerpt.
Seth told them:
The entire concept of the magical approach will itself protect you.
That is to say, when you understand the concept of the magical approach itself, when you understand this matter, it will itself protect you.
It should remind you, in a fashion, of the true effortlessness that is responsible for your own existence itself.
It can remind you of a true effortlessness—effortlessness means that without having to put in too much extra effort, you can realize your being protected, being graced, being safeguarded. You do not need to do anything; you are naturally protected from birth.
When you become too concerned or worried in any area, remember that it is you who are thinking those thoughts, but the process of thinking is completely effortless.
We often pay attention to certain areas, such as physical illness, emotional relationships, our own career development—these are all things we often care about. When you become too concerned about any area, you must understand that this anxiety itself, your wanting to give it an answer, your wanting to find the answer—when that answer is given to you, it can be completely effortless; you do not need to obtain it through fear and worry. You can obtain it effortlessly.
That realization alone can further remind you:
The conscious mind does not have to have all the information it needs. It only needs to believe that the means of obtaining that information are available, even if those means are outside the scope of its own activity.
The meaning of this passage is this: the answer to the problem you are concerned about solving does not require as much time and energy as you think. You only need to believe that the answer will definitely be given to you, that it is definitely available. And in this process, you do not need to obtain enough knowledge or enough information, and then apply logical reasoning to arrive at it. You do not need that. The answer comes to you in a way you have no idea how it was derived, but it will be given to you directly.
Although the answer or the method of solving the problem may not be on your level, and you cannot obtain it through your own means—but what does it matter? Anyway, you know the solution, you know the answer, and that is enough. What he means is that it is not that your consciousness must know all the information, and then add reasoning to obtain it—none of that is needed. You only need to believe that this information will definitely be obtained, and that is enough, and then you will obtain it. This is what he calls this effortless, truly effortless protection, grace, and safeguarding.
注释与核实
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Source: Li Jingjing, "The Astronomical Mysteries in 'Five Stars Rise in the East, Benefiting China'" 2023 (https://xao.cas.cn/xwdt/kxpj/202404/t20240426_7135733.html) ↩
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Source: Ministry of Education, Republic of China, Revised Mandarin Chinese Dictionary 2021 (https://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/dictView.jsp?ID=135136&la=0&powerMode=0) ↩
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Source: U.S. Department of Energy, "Top 11 Things You Didn't Know About Nikola Tesla" 2013 (https://www.energy.gov/articles/top-11-things-you-didnt-know-about-nikola-tesla) ↩
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This claim could not be verified. ↩
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Source: U.S. Department of Energy, "Top 11 Things You Didn't Know About Nikola Tesla" (https://www.energy.gov/articles/top-11-things-you-didnt-know-about-nikola-tesla) ↩