Root Assumptions and Dream Rememberance

Seth Early Sessions, Vol 7, Session 285

Root Assumptions

Now.  Root assumptions represent the basic premises upon which a given existence-system is formed.

These are the ground rules, so to speak.  Your physical mechanisms are equipped to function in such a way that reality is perceived through the lens of particular root assumptions.  Using the physical senses alone, it is almost literally impossible for you to perceive reality in any other manner.

A strong part of your personalities is therefore a product of the physical system in which you have physical existence.  All ideas of reality must be glimpsed through the physical net which is the materialized form of these assumptions.  You are, in other words, physically able to observe reality in a highly specialized fashion.  You must, physically speaking, interpret existence in terms of these very definite assumptions.

Again physically speaking, you will find nothing to contradict these assumptions, since physically to you they are all that you can experience or perceive.  These root assumptions are the framework of your camouflage system.  As you attempt to explore other realities you almost automatically interpret such data in terms of the root assumptions of your own system.

This of course highly falsifies such data.  The inner senses are not bound by those root assumptions however.  This is why many psychic or subjective experiences seem to contradict physical laws.  Inner experience often seems chaotic or meaningless because you attempt to interpret it according to the root assumptions of physical reality.  You must learn the laws that apply to other systems.

The root assumptions that govern physical reality are indeed valid, but within physical reality alone.  They do not apply elsewhere.  There is a natural tendency to continue judging inner experience against these root assumptions however.  The tendency, with further experience, will fade.  This interpretation of inner reality into physical terms is at first automatic, and far beneath conscious levels.  Inner experience, you see, must to some extent be colored by the physical system while you exist within it.

In order for such information to rise to conscious levels, it must of necessity be translated into terms that the ego can handle, and the translation must to some extent distort the original experience.  The whole physical organism of the body has been trained from infancy to react to certain patterns, these patterns based on physical root assumptions.

The nervous system itself must, you see, be so constituted, and the nervous system reacts definitely to visual block images.  Such images are received through the skin as well as through the eyes.  The whole system is highly complicated and organized, and organized to react to specific patterns that are formed from these basic root assumptions.

This is obviously necessary for physical survival.  The organization however is, biologically speaking, artificial and learned.  It is no less rigid for that reason, however.  The organizational structure of perception can indeed be broken up, as recent LSD experiments certainly show.  This can be highly dangerous, however.

The fact that this does occur does shows that the systems of perception are not basically biologically a form of overall structure however, but learned secondary responses.  It is disturbing to the whole physical system however to break up the strong pattern of perception.  Inner stability of response is suddenly swept away.  Changes that are not yet known occur within the nervous system under such circumstances, both electromagnetic and chemical.

The inner senses alone are equipped and able to process and perceive other reality systems.  Even the distortions can be kept at a minimum with training.  Indiscriminate use of the psychedelic drugs can severely shake up learned patterns of response, that are necessary for effective manipulation within physical reality, break subtle connections and disturb electromagnetic functions.

Ego failure may result.  Development of the inner senses is a much more effective method of perceiving other realities, and followed correctly, the ego is not only stronger but more flexible, and consciousness even of physical reality is increased.  Such development becomes an unfolding and a natural expansion of the whole personality.

The root assumptions are so a part of your own existence that they appear and cloud your dreams.

Beneath these root assumptions however portions of the self perceive physical reality in an entirely different fashion, free of the tyranny of objects and material form.  Here you experience concepts directly, without the need for symbolisms.  Here you experience the spacious present directly.  Here you know knowledge of your past personalities, and know that they exist simultaneously with your own.

The practice of psychological time will allow you to reach these portions of the self.  The ego is not artificially disorganized by such practice.  It is simply, for the moment, bypassed.  The experience gained does become a part of the physical structure, but there is no massive disorganization of perception, since the ego agrees to step aside momentarily.

It is not bombarded as with drug experiments, and forced to experience chaotic and frightening perceptions that can literally terrify it into complete disorder.  Survival in your system is strongly dependent upon the highly specialized, focused, limited but specific organizational qualities of the ego.  It should not be rigid but it should not be purposely torn apart, nor weakened.

The root assumptions upon which physical reality is formed represent secure ground to the ego.  We always operate with the ego’s consent.  It consents to step aside momentarily.  It interprets the inner knowledge gained in its own way, true, but it is immeasurably enriched by so doing.  Other layers of the self interpret the same inner experiences quite differently.

Dream Memories Are Structured Around The Ego’s Root Assumptions

The ego can exist only within the context of these root assumptions.  The primary dream experience is finally woven into a structure composed of these root assumptions, and it is these that you remember.  These serve you as basic information, but the information is then put into symbolic form.  Objects, you see, are symbols.  These objects in dreams are symbols of realities that the ego could not otherwise perceive.

Objects are indeed symbols to represent inner realities that could not otherwise be perceived by physical organisms.  You manipulate these symbols.