Self-Conscious Portions of the Self

Session 235

If you would have some idea of what the probable universe system is like, then examine your own dreams, looking for those events which do not have any strong resemblance to physical events in your own conscious, existence. Look for dream individuals with whom you are not acquainted in your waking life. Look for landscapes that appear bizarre or alien, for all of these exist somewhere.

You have perceived them. They do not exist in the space which you know, but neither are they nonexistent, merely imaginative toys of the dreaming mind, without substance.

You may not be able to make sense from what appears to be a chaotic jumble of disconnected images and actions. The main reason for your confusion is your inability as an egotistical identity to perceive an order that is not based upon continuity of moments.

The order within the probable system is based upon something that could be compared to subjective associations, or intuitive flashes of insight, that can combine elements that would appear to the ego as quite disconnected, into whole and integrated patterns of action.

Now. In reality the possible system does not achieve its order through subjective association, but the term, subjective association, is the nearest that I can come in approximating the basic causes for this order.

The word subjective, to you, implies immediately that which is not objective. However the events and actions of the probable system are indeed objective and concrete within their own field of reality. Your own physical system, you should remember, is only real and concrete within its own field. It is for this reason mainly that the physical system is so little perceived by you when you sleep.

You withdraw yourself to a large extent from the physical field of actuality, but you do not only withdraw from the physical system. You enter other fields of actuality. Sleep is far from a negative state. In the sleep state there are, as you know, several stages. Some of these you call dream states, because the ego is aware upon awakening that some kind of mental activity has occurred.

But there are other states which the ego does not recall, states of activity that are presently beyond the reach of current scientific endeavors, and these states we shall discuss rather thoroughly.

First of all, some of these states of activity take place so far beneath the ego or the subconscious that you simply do not know of them.

Some of these states take place above the ego or the subconscious, although I am using the terms above or below simply for your convenience. You think of the ego as the center of the self, therefore I am forced to use these terms. You think the other portions of the personality revolve about the ego.

The ego is only one layer of the self that has self-consciousness. Being self-conscious, the ego attempts to be conscious only of itself. Self-consciousness results in an intense, but necessarily limited focus. It necessitates boundaries. It depends upon some sort of inner psychological decision as to what will be considered self, and therefore accepted by consciousness, and that which will be considered notself, and not accepted by consciousness.

Now, my dear friends, your self-consciousness is the self-consciousness of the ego which you know, and which you consider your self. But where this self-conscious self ends, another self-conscious self begins. The two selves, being self-conscious selves, cannot be aware of any reality but their own.

They cannot be consciously aware of each other. Now the ego interprets all it perceives mainly in terms of its self. Other portions of the self, also self-conscious, interpret what they perceive in terms of themselves.

Each layer, or each area of the whole self, imagines that it is the center of awareness, and that the whole self revolves about it. So far you have had little experience with these other "centers" but before too long we shall give you some ideas so that you may become at least slightly acquainted. Initially this will be done through suggestion on a subconscious level.

Now. You have become somewhat aware of the subconscious. This means that your ego has enlarged its conception of the self, of itself, to include certain activities of which it is now aware. Progress in the development of personality in the long run will be determined by the ability of the whole self to recognize and become aware of all of its self-conscious portions.

The subconscious is a self-conscious portion of the whole self. It is called subconscious because the ego as a rule is not conscious of it.

The subconscious, so-called, is aware to some extent of the ego, regarding it as an extension of itself, over which it does not have as much control as it would like. This is precisely however the way the ego views the subconscious, as a rule. These two self-conscious portions of the self simply happen to coincide or to coexist with some proximity, psychologically speaking.

There are other self-conscious portions of the self however, with which the ego is not at all familiar, but of which the subconscious has intuitive knowledge. These self-conscious portions of the self exist in different reality systems. … let me remind you however that there is a whole self, composed of these various self-conscious selves, and that a portion of the self is indeed aware of the unity that exists to form the whole psychological gestalt.