Probable Self, Dreaming Self, Subconscious and Ego

Seth Early Sessions, Vol 5, Session 233

I would like to add somewhat to our discussion concerning inverted time and probable events.

If you recall, we mentioned the fact that the dreaming self has its own memories. It has memories of all of its dream experiences. To you this might mean that it has memory of its past, and indeed to you memory itself is dependent upon the existence of a past, or it is meaningless.

To the dreaming self however, past, present and future as such do not exist, and yet it has what you term memory. How can this be?

All experience as I have told you is basically simultaneous, and the dreaming self is simply aware of its experiences in their entirety.

(Seth began to talk about the simultaneity of basic reality in the 41st session, which dealt with the spacious present, see Volume 1.)

You are not aware of your experiences in their entirety, for you experience events in a consecutive manner. You are therefore aware of your dreams only in a consecutive manner. You are hardly familiar with all of the dream experiences of your dreaming self, and barely familiar with any of their implications. The dreaming self is to some considerable degree conscious of the self which we shall here term the probable self.

The probable self is somewhat like a twin self to the dreaming personality, for neither the experiences of the dreaming self nor the probable self occur within the complete radius of physical reality.

There is a constant give and take between the probable self and the dreaming self, for much data is received, particularly by the dreaming personality from the probable self, or the self that experiences what the ego would term probable events.

This data is often wound by the dreaming self into a dream drama, which informs the subconscious of dangers, or of the probable success, of any given event which is being considered by the subconscious as suitable for physical actuality.

In other words the ego is not familiar with the probable self, but certain portions of the subconscious are. For the subconscious, like the probable self, is aware of its existence in the inverted time system. The subconscious is aware of many realities which are not accepted by the ego as actual physical events, and it reacts to many stimuli of which the ego is completely unaware.

Again past, present and future are definite realities only to the ego. Memory to the ego presupposes the existence of a past that no longer exists within physical reality. When I say that the dreaming self has memory, therefore, of its dream experiences, I mean that it scans its present existence. It is a simultaneous self.

The same can be said for the probable self. Were it not for the experience of this probable self and for the information which it gives, via the dreaming self to the subconscious, then it would be most difficult for the ego to come to any kind of a decision within the physical universe.

The ego does not realize the data that is constantly feeding into it. It cannot afford to, generally, since all its focused energy must be used in the maintenance and manipulation of physical actuality.

It will take us many years before all of this information on this particular subject is clear. You must take it for granted also, you see, that this probable self has operated in each incarnation, in each materialization of the whole personality, and has therefore at its command literally millions of probable situations and conditions upon which to make value judgments.

(For an idea of the complexity implied here, in Volume 3 see the 88th session, in which Seth goes into the structure of the subconscious to some degree.)

Of itself however it does not make these judgments in those terms. The decision as to whether or not a particular probable event should be perceived as a physical one depends, of course, upon the nature of the ego which would then experience it. The probable self does not make the decision, but merely passes on the data which it has received through its own experience with the event.

The information is sifted often through the dreaming self to the subconscious, which has intimate knowledge of the ego with which it is closely connected. The subconscious makes its own value judgments here, and passes these on to the ego. But then the ego must come to its own decision.

In some cases the decision is made by the subconscious. However, for various reasons often the ego will simply refuse to make the decision. Occasionally when a decision has been made by the ego, the subconscious will change it, because the decision is obviously such an unwise one.

The self is far from a simple psychological structure, and your psychologists are barely beginning to have any understanding of what it is.

… Now. This probable self can be reached through hypnosis, but only with excellent subjects and an excellent operator.

It will often not be recognized for what it is, however, for there will be no evidence in the physical universe to back up its statements. There will not be much of a problem however, since it will not be reached often. It lies, so to speak, on the other side of the subconscious.

Its data will agree when taken within its own framework, but this will be the only clue visible at first sight. The probable self, as far as I know, has not yet been reached in any hypnotic experiments. It has been glimpsed however, but not recognized as a separate part of the self, in dream recordings given in analytic sessions.

It must be recognized also that these portions of the self exist in each incarnation. In the materialization of personality through various incarnations, only the ego and the layers of the personal subconscious adopt new characteristics.  The other layers of the self retain their past experiences, identity and knowledge.

The ego receives, in fact, much of its stability because of this subconscious retention. Were it not for past experiences in other lives on the part of deeper layers of the self, the ego would find it almost impossible to relate to other individuals, and the cohesiveness of society would not exist.

Learning to some extent is indeed passed on through the genes, biochemically, but this is a physical materialization of inner knowledge achieved and retained from past lives. Human beings learn mainly through experience, and the experience is derived from past experience in other existences.

The human organism does not spring full blown, erupt into existence at birth, and laboriously then begin its first attempt to gain experience. If this were the case you would still be back in the stone ages.

Now there are indeed waves of energy, and waves of reincarnational patterns, for there have been many stone ages on your planet, where new identities began their first experience with physical existence, and changed the face of the earth as they progressed.

They changed it in their own individual ways, and not in your ways. But this will be discussed at a much later time. Yet all of this occurs, basically, within the blinking of an eyelid, so to speak, yet all with purpose and with meaning, and based upon achievement and responsibility. Each portion of the self, while independent to some considerable degree, is nevertheless responsible to every other portion of the self, and each whole self, or individuality, is responsible to all others while it is still largely independent as to activity and decision.

For as many layers of the self compose the whole self, so many selves form a gestalt of which you know relatively little, and of which I am not yet prepared to tell you.