Exploring Primary and Secondary Realities

Seth Early Sessions, Vol 5, Session 209

This business of primaries and secondaries will concern us for some time, and in more ways than you suppose. For we are outlining the stages of an investigation of the nature and conditions of consciousness.

Whether or not you realize it, you have already begun such an investigation, and Ruburt's careful notes and recordings of his dreams, over nearly a three-year period, and your own dream recordings, are only the beginning.

So far you have analyzed these dreams as best you could, but soon you will begin to look at them in a new way. The dream experiments with the recorder will be much more proficient. These investigations will also deal with a systematic examination into all levels of consciousness.

Autohypnosis then will be utilized in an effort to discover what experiences are common in various levels or trance states, and these shall be examined in a search for primary and secondary conditions. These experiments however are for the future. Some of the data I will give you as a guide, but much you shall do on your own. There is no way to probe the realities of consciousness except that a personality travels through all levels of consciousness open to him, and do so in such a way that he can retain and apply the information that he receives in these inner travels.

The potentialities of human personality cannot be examined as one would crack open a nut to see what is inside. The dream experience is a living, moving action. To some extent it can never be captured, but we shall capture enough of it for our purposes. And the suggestion which I have given you will, after some practice, allow you to awaken and speak the dream into your recorder almost automatically.

... There are indeed common mental experiences that exist in all levels of consciousness, and these are what we shall be after.

Your records must be immaculately kept. The material will indeed serve for several books for Ruburt, and I suggest that serious thought be given to the bedroom setup so that the recorder is easily accessible. An extremely dim light may be used if necessary. As the experiments continue you should automatically be able to switch the recorder off and on in the dark.

I mentioned earlier that with training you can do this in your sleep. You have no idea as yet of the amount of data that can be obtained through these efforts. The dreams will be scrutinized for many elements. Some you are familiar and some you are not.

The action performed within the dream; the location; the lack of specific location; the time in which the dream appears to occur; the apparent movements through time within any given dream; the emotional content; the surface psychological content; the work done within the dream; the familiar persons spoken to; the unfamiliar persons spoken to; the relation of the dream to past events and to events immediately preceding sleep; the dream events in relation to future events; messages that are given or sent in sleep.

Dreams will be categorized in various ways when enough of them are gathered. You will find I believe that particular kinds of dreams occur with definite seasonal variations. Particular interest should be given to the space that you perceive within a dream. Are you, for example, aware only of the specific location in which the activities happen, or are you aware of a further space extent?

You will learn to take a certain portion of purpose with you through suggestion, so that you can attempt to enlarge the dream space of which you are first aware. You can extend it in other words. The investigation will always be concerned with the search for primaries and secondaries. On many occasions an apparent primary reality will later be seen to be secondary, as a result of experiments with the trance state.

Your psychological-time experiments will serve you well in the future in relation with these endeavors. We shall of course set you about studying the conscious state also. We shall have you using your physical senses to a much higher degree than is normal with you now.

… The investigation will allow you to probe into the realities of conscious wakefulness, extending your sensual perceptions so that you can probe further outward into physical reality. This is indeed an ambitious project. We shall proceed as we always do, slowly but steadily; and you shall change along the way, for the very actions involved will change you. I might add for the better.

("Good.")

You will learn to deal with primaries, while giving secondary realities their due. Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's... I am sure you see what I mean.

("Yes."

(Again Seth was very amused.)

All of these projects are interconnected, and they will help both of you in your writing and painting, and greatly increase your capabilities in your own fields. Again, we shall proceed cautiously, precisely but steadily, and always you shall be in control. But when we are finished, and it will not be for a long time, you should be able lo travel from any state of consciousness to another and back again, safely, with full awareness of your identity.

For your identity is dependent upon primary reality, which is a certain kind of action, and all of this will lead to heightened consciousness under all circumstances.

As a side benefit, ultimately, recall of past lives may be achieved, and a synthesization, by yourself, of your past personalities.

Hypnosis is not generally understood in its true light. The hypnotist is not necessary except as a director; and indeed in most cases such a director is necessary. But the hypnotic state is simply a level of awareness in which the personality is freewheeling, so to speak, dissociated from physical reality in its usual terms.

He is still dependent upon it symbolically, however, generally speaking. The inner ego however can be utilized in such a dissociated state as such a director of activities, with sufficient training. I must emphasize that indeed years of training are required. But then the experience is ten times more rewarding and informative.

You have what you may think of then as a split action, where one portion of the self, the inner ego, is allowed to travel through the other states of action that compose the whole self, purposefully as a director, and retain the knowledge thereby received.

... Once a week to begin with, you will suggest before sleeping that you send a particular message, which you have written down, to another person whose name is also given on the piece of paper, that is of course dated.

This information to he sent by you in the dream state. It will not be restrained by the ego to any large degree. There will be some difficulties here however, since the information, if legitimately sent, will be picked up by the individual in his own dreams, and therefore may escape detection. For this reason an order, may be in order, if you will forgive my pun, such as "come and see me Thursday afternoon."

This idea is not fully developed however, and is in the future, but we should work out a definite plan along these lines. And for curiosity's sake, Ruburt may send you a message in such a manner, which he has of course earlier written out and concealed, and you may do the same, as a warming-up exercise.