EP75: Modern Significance of the Seth Material

Today's guest is Saelyx Finna, a very talented producer and writer, who maps the emerging industry of dream tech by presenting her research and developing the first film about dream neurotechnologies.

 The conversation dives into The Seth Material, a body of work channeled by Jane Roberts in the 1960s. We discuss its implications on understanding dreams, consciousness, and reality from a modern scientific lens. Saelyx explains the impactful discoveries made through dreams and the need for a paradigm shift in how science approaches dream research. The conversation highlights historical discoveries like Otto Loewe's Nobel-winning dream, the interplay between science, spirituality, and quantum physics, and offers practical insights into lucid dreaming and sleep science.

Links
Saelyx's Context Moves Website
Seth Material Books

Chapters

• 1:02 Exploring Seth's Work
• 1:51 The Origins of the Seth Books
• 8:33 Scientific Insights and Dream Research
• 43:22 Seth's Sleep Schedule and Health Suggestions
• 58:41 Visiting the Seth House: A Personal Experience

Transcript

Seth Material
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Saelyx Finna: [00:00:00] This is where he calls dreams, animated postcards of journeys that you've been on, as well as multi dimensional artistic productions, which I really love. Just think about Otto Loewe, the Austrian chemist who discovered the first neurotransmitter in the dream, and therefore discovered that neurons do communicate chemically and not just electrically as was thought at the time.

In other words, he really did find expression from the dream for this scientific discovery that ended up winning him the Nobel Prize. 

Amina: Today's guest is my friend Salix Finna, who is a very talented producer and writer. She maps out the emerging industry of dream tech by presenting her research and developing the first film about dream neurotechnologies.

She introduced me to the books we're going to be discussing in today's episode. Today is going to be a topic regarding the Seth material, which is a really interesting body of [00:01:00] work that goes back to like the sixties and it was really ahead of its time. So this is aimed at people that haven't heard about it and

people that are looking for like the bridge between science and spirituality and quantum physics.

And I think this is a really good job at doing that. So thank you for joining me for this podcast. We've been looking forward to this and planning this out for a really long time. So welcome Salix. 

Saelyx Finna: Thanks, Amina. Wow, I feel like you just set the stakes pretty high there. I love that though, the proposition that like, this is the bridge.

Amina: Yeah, I mean, that's kind of like stuff I'm really interested in is things that like explain or try to explain the things that science doesn't understand yet, because there's only so much that we understand about consciousness and life. And when we can't explain things, people just kind of don't understand.

I feel like they shut down from it, but you introduced me to the Seth material, um, and these books. So I want to hear about how you found out about it. Do you want to tell me about like how this came about? Like who is Seth? Who is Jane Roberts and her husband who, you know, put the books together? 

Saelyx Finna: Sure.

[00:02:00] Yeah. So I think you and I met at the IASD conference. Was it last year or two years ago? Yeah, last year. Yeah. That was my first one. And I generally go to those because I'm interested first and foremost in dream neuroscience and dream technology. So for the past five years, I've been really focused on mapping this emerging realm of neurotech that interfaces directly with the dreaming mind.

and developing a film about it. But I have a longstanding interest in dream neuroscience dating back like 20 years. And I am not a scientist myself, but I've found a lot of ways, I suppose, as a lay person researcher to just track what's happened in the field for quite a while now and have found, you know, opportunities to study it more formally when I can.

So that's the kind of background that Took me to IASD, but I remember the first time I went to a [00:03:00] conference, I saw that there were some sessions in the program about the Seth books and, you know, just reading over the description. I was like, this is too far out there for me. This is not about the science.

This is not relevant to my work. So I didn't even give it the time of day. And then fast forward last summer, a dear friend of mine, Yeah. Was like, yo, you need to read this book. Seth speaks. It ties together more of my understanding of various spiritual and just consciousness related sentiments than any other single work I've come across.

And I really respect the opinion of this friend. So I was like, okay, let's get on it. So I read it and absolutely found that to be a resonant with me as well. It's a really distinctive body of work and Something that is important to share is, as you're asking, the story of the history of how it came into being.

So, [00:04:00] in 1963, a woman named Jane Roberts, who is a writer, um, she was a poet, she was a sci fi writer, Had a pretty profound set of experiences that resulted in the emergence of what she described as this entity called Seth coming through her and essentially she was channeling this entity and speaking the words of the personality of Seth through her and over the next almost 20 years, her Husband would record and transcribe these sessions where Jane was in these trance states channeling Seth, and through that they wrote 45 books, and several of them were dictated directly by Seth, and remarkably, with complete drafts, Just through the pronouncements [00:05:00] of these sentences in the trance state with very little editing and at the time, the books, the first one was published in 1971, the Seth material and it was followed by several others that were quite popular, including Seth Speaks.

And these books made quite a splash because they really started to introduce some of the ideas that would become tenets of the New Age movement. The most kind of fundamental of which, if you were to boil down all of this work to one thesis, it would be, you create your own reality. And this is where dreams become of interest because Seth and Jane, I quote, Can maybe we can use their names a bit interchangeably here describe dreaming as a really formative realm of experience in which our beliefs create our reality.

So I know that I just want to pause there because that is a lot to take in. And I think something that. It's [00:06:00] sort of important to focus on for the purposes of this discussion is like, yes, there's like a pretty wild story historically of like how these books came into existence and understandably can provoke a lot of skepticism about the legitimacy of did Jane really channel this thing called Seth, is this real, et cetera, et cetera.

But I would suggest that people kind of suspend disbelief less about this story and is it real and more in terms of like grappling with the content of the work itself. Because that's where, you know, the actual ideas themselves, as well as some factual information, as it would turn out to be the case, you know, demonstrated decades later in scientific research, are fascinating.

And so that's, that's kind of the place where I'm coming from a little bit more from having standpoint that is very much grounded in the dream science world. And [00:07:00] at the same time, as, as you're pointing out, when we have such a huge realm of The unknown in regards to what our current scientific understanding our paradigms and our tools and instruments can actually give us in terms of like proof and evidential information about things like the nature of consciousness.

I mean, clearly we don't have. agreed upon theories of what is consciousness? How does it arise? Does it arise simply from the brain and the body in the central nervous system? We don't know. Therefore, we also don't have an agreed upon consensus of what is a dream? Why do we dream? And all of these are huge Questions in the field of science, they might be less so open questions for other traditions, or I would suggest perhaps even on the individual level, if we sit and reflect on the question of why do I dream?

I'm not sure that it is actually that mystifying on the personal [00:08:00] level, but that's kind of like just some backstory on where this work comes from and my kind of particular vantage point into it. 

Amina: That's a great introduction. And it's interesting because me personally, on my personal level, all the concepts that I read in this book, I kind of already understood to some degree, so it was not new to me, but I've never really been a skeptic.

I love evidence. I love science and, and all that, but I've never been a skeptic. So I. I understand the idea of channeling and that kind of stuff. Some people might just have trouble with that right there. But like you said, the content is what's really fascinating and we will get into it, you know, comparing what he says about dreams and you know, how it backs up with what science does understand about dreams, current scientific research about dreams, they're focused on lucid dream induction instead of understanding what even is a dream, what even is consciousness.

Saelyx Finna: You know, what I consider to be Seth's definition of dreaming, it's not stated in an explicit, this is my [00:09:00] definition of dreaming kind of way, but it really is a demonstrable definition. I would say says dreaming is a by product of any consciousness involved with matter. Interesting. 

Amina: So then it's the question of, well, what is consciousness, like, or is this Mike, inanimate objects, consciousness in matter, or just like living, breathing things?

That's, that's a whole other rabbit hole. 

Saelyx Finna: Well, and, but I do think it's helpful to just like establish that quickly to. understand where we're going to go from here that, you know, I think you could say loosely that Seth is a panpsychist because he does describe every atom and molecule having consciousness and this sort of field of consciousness, which is also always kind of described in electromagnetic terms.

terms as being the basis of reality. So all physical reality emerges from this kind of underlying consciousness or mind. And so this is to your point too about these ideas have been expressed in a number of different traditions, in [00:10:00] a number of different eras, and it's just a kind of unique. framework that the ideas are being integrated in in in this work.

Amina: Yes, exactly. There's a quote that I want to read that I think really from one of Seth's, one of the Seth books, Dreams, Projections of Consciousness, that I think it like really explains it really well how I see it, the connection between dreams, reality, and how they influence each other. Because one thing, you know, in the whole we create our own reality thing, dreams are kind of like a playground to As we know, in some ways, but it really does influence the other.

And the more conscious we are in our dreams, the more we can do this intentionally. So, pretend that you have some weird creature with two faces. One face looks out upon the world, the dream reality, and one face looks out upon another world, our physical one. Imagine further this poor creature having a brain to go with each face, and each brain interprets reality in terms of the world it looks upon.

Yet the two worlds are different, And more, the [00:11:00] creatures are Siamese twins. At the same time, imagine these two creatures are really one, but with definite parts equipped to handle two entirely different worlds. The subconscious, in this rather ludicrous analogy, would exist between the two brains, and would enable the creature to operate as a single entity.

At the same time, and this is the difficult part to explain, neither of the two faces would ever see each other. see the other's world, they would not be aware of each other, yet each is fully conscious. So basically what that is saying is like, yeah, we have this whole life in our dreams that we are, most of us are not aware of, we just don't remember.

But the more aware you are of one world, the physical in the dream world, the more aware you'll be of the dream world in the physical. So that's just a quote that really stood out to me that that made a lot of sense. 

Saelyx Finna: Yeah, I love how you kind of see Jane pulling from her background as a poet to kind of search for these analogies or metaphors to convey ideas that are both pretty [00:12:00] complex and also somehow intuitively familiar.

So maybe this is a segue to just Keep laying out some of the groundwork for how dreaming is discussed in these books. So, for Seth, dreams are experiences that consciousness or the self has in other states that are not literally in our physical world here. And, interestingly for Seth, In the sleep cycle, you know, rapid eye movement sleep always comes after deep sleep.

And in the Seth framework, the consciousness leaves the body during the deep sleep and then returns. And in rapid eye movement sleep, the physical brain then translates the experiences of consciousness into forms that the conscious mind can understand. In other words, into, you with its [00:13:00] oftentimes confusing symbolism because it's really the limitations of the physical brain that is doing its best job at translating an experience that is not fundamentally physical in nature.

And so this is where he calls dreams animated postcards. of journeys that you've been on, as well as multi dimensional artistic productions, which I really love. And there's something about the way that the contention that's at the, you know, foundation of this work, that you create your own reality, It does have and it has been taken up in subsequent years by, you know, kind of new age sentiments around, you know, manifesting and things like that, but actually at its basis, the way that it's always described in the Seth books.

is actually like neurologically and in a way that is like neurologically consistent with how neuroscientists [00:14:00] describe our experiences of perception and reality as also being based in a largely cognitive realm, right? Like more of our internal experience is composed of internal inputs than it is of external inputs.

And we know That there is too much external data for the brain to be dealing with on any given moment of our perceived sense of existence, right? And so Seth says things like, you know, you are neurologically forced to experience your life as a series of events. And that's because the brain is a physically limited organ that must represent time to us in this linear fashion.

But we also know from physics that time doesn't actually exist in that way. And so Seth is saying that in dreams, We actually get to see and experience a another [00:15:00] version of reality that is actually closer to the truth of things, which is that it's much more fluid, it's much more transient, you know, in a dream, of course, your visual environment can change right before your eyes, your sense of who you are.

can be quite slippery. You could be you very clearly. You could have a sense that you're actually a different character. You could have a sense that you are a non character and that you're, you know, a sort of like omniscient observer or that, you know, the story is simply not about you. And so we actually know that The idea of a sense of self is a kind of constructed story, and the idea that we are a kind of monolithic self is, you know, scientifically and psychologically not really the accepted norm today as much as like there being an understanding that there's much more of a multiplicity of [00:16:00] personality but that like for the sake of orienting in you know our physical and social worlds we kind of like go with this idea that like I'm Salix and you're Amina and like we're definitively different.

But for many centuries, of course, people have understood how dreams reveal that there's a lot more to a personality or to a self. And Seth is saying that if we bring a little bit more conscious awareness and intentional engagement to the dream life, then we can understand more about ourselves. And this is something that is, you know, quite common across a lot of traditions, but there's also a lot of kind of specific exercises given throughout the books that are, are super juicy.

Amina: Yeah, the books are great and I can't I didn't even know there were so many I've only read like two of them But yeah, so it's interesting because there are some things that we understand about the neuroscience of dreaming But then the concept of us [00:17:00] entering another dimension and being more than our physical body I feel like that's where a lot of people get skeptical and don't understand how it's possible because Unless you had a lucid dream and you've personally felt the experience of being in another dimension consciously, it's very hard to explain and understand.

And a lot of people think that what's real is what's physical and tangible in this reality. Um, but it's, it's so much more than that. Yeah, I think 

Saelyx Finna: there's something that is kind of interesting on this point around, uh, the nature of how association works where psychologically, you know, we talk about how we form emotional associations based on past experiences, and we see these associations play out in dreams.

And, you know, there's theories about why that happens. you know, largely for emotional regulation purposes. But I just came across a kind of fascinating quote from Dreams and Projections of Consciousness that I wanted to share where he's basically [00:18:00] saying, many associations that you have are also the result of events that happen in the dream state where the mind continues its associative processes.

Which is to say it's not, you know, the associations you might have, like a subconscious association you might have when you're awake, where you're, you know, afraid of spiders, might not actually be based on a previous experience you had with spiders in real life, but it might be something that happened in a dream.

And to go on in terms of this conception of time that starts to get into some kind of interesting quantum physics territory, he says, Your psychologists have not yet accepted the theories of your own physicists as they continue to consider time as a series of moments. The inverted time system recognizes the actual nature of time.

There is room in it for a rather complete explanation of the mind's associative processes. The mind, as opposed to the brain, perceives in terms of a spacious present. And therefore it draws its associations not only from your present and past, but also from your future. So here we start to have what could be [00:19:00] an explanation of precognitive dreams, which are, of course, are, uh, well established in the research, you know, certainly from an anecdotal standpoint.

There's of course, frequent critiques of that in terms of having coincidence explain, uh, some of these events, but the sheer amount of instances in the literature is, is, is hard to argue with. I mean, there have been so many dreams that women had of having breast cancer before they woke up and had any symptoms or had any indication medically that this was a health issue.

So many women had these dreams that they actually did a study on them at Duke. But meanwhile, we have brand new research that neurons in the hippocampus anticipate future events in sleep. And this is something that just came out of Rice University and involved, uh, training rats in a maze and really [00:20:00] tracking the neuronal activity of the rats while they were in the maze and then while they were sleeping.

And what they found was that, strikingly, the ripple representations during sleep predicted the future place fields of neurons during re exposure to the maze, even when those fields deviated from previous place preferences. So the rats really were anticipating the spatial arrangement of the maze in their sleep and continued that associative process, you know?

So there's a way of thinking about, ah, the idea of precognitive dreams or anticipating the future in your dreams is fantastical. But then there's also just a very, you know, neurologically banal way of looking at it as well. And I think that's what's pretty fascinating about Seth is That the way that these ideas are presented, even though they're, they really stretch the imagination to me, there's still a, uh, a strong basis in our understanding of the physical sciences.

[00:21:00] And there's a frequent tying back to that in the work. And so, you know, there's a lot of discussion of biochemical processes of hormonal changes during sleep and dreams. of the effects of the thyroid gland and neuroendocrine systems. And mind you, a lot of these sessions were happening as early as the mid 60s when, you know, the role of something like the neuroendocrine system vis a vis sleep and dreaming was barely studied or understood.

And Jane was not educated in this area. And she's living in the sixties, right? She's not able to like Google this stuff or follow the scientific research. She didn't know about any of this, but she is. speaking very specific words about this, about these processes that have a really strong physical and kind of neurophysiological basis.

So that's, [00:22:00] that's why I feel like the work actually does have some nuggets of interest for scientists who are studying dreaming because Yeah, there's just so much specific suggestion and direction for the types of studies that could happen and there's even a number of times in the books where Seth comments on dream science and what dream scientists are up to and heavily suggests that it is impossible to treat the dream as a purely physical object that can be studied by extracting it from the dreamer and studying it in the lab, and that indeed the dream must only be studied in the laboratory of the personality where it takes place.

Amina: And that's tough because science has a problem like grappling with that way of studying dreams. And I say this all the time, like there's going to be a huge paradigm shift for how we approach these, this type of research. I mean, I think [00:23:00] we can get great information from formal lab settings, but dreams, there's just so much.

More than that. Um, and I love watching science unfold and start to confirm things that Seth has been saying, like you said, since before Google existed, it's crazy to me. That just makes it so much more valid. We have a lot of theories about why we dream and the purpose of dreams. And it's, it's never really been one solid consensus.

We know that we consolidate memories and process emotions. There's a threat simulation theory of dreams, which is kind of like what you were saying with the rats about how our brains are a complex. Algorithm always predicting possibilities for our lives things that can happen always thinking about the future which makes sense if you think about it So now science is starting to uncover that and another thing I found really cool was like you said Jane was I guess a skeptic.

Um, she was not aware of any of this kind of stuff She was not really that type of open minded until she started to you know 

Saelyx Finna: channel. Yeah, it should be noted like she was an atheist 

Amina: Yeah, 

Saelyx Finna: she had no You Prior experience or beliefs [00:24:00] in kind of altered state experiences, and she was very skeptical of her experiences when she started to have them.

So that is definitely an interesting point, and I also feel like it merits just mentioning that in terms of where this all went. By no means did there become a cult around the Seth stuff. She was not in it to make a buck. I mean, she just wrote these books and then she died. You know, like, it was the real deal in terms of there was never any scandal or kind of commercial agenda uncovered here.

It was pretty clearly someone just sharing the experiences that she was having. 

Amina: Yeah, I love that. It is very genuine, and I got such a good, just like, energy from reading the, the material. And from my understanding, Seth taught Jane and her husband how to lucid dream, or introduce them to the idea. 

Saelyx Finna: Yeah, because, because Seth is describing dreaming as such a powerful, domain of [00:25:00] personal exploration.

He's encouraging his readers to learn how to enter and engage with this state consciously in order to essentially, yeah, like do what people frequently are drawn to do with lucid dreaming. And so there are a number of suggestions given throughout the, the books for how to have lucid dreams. And yeah, I'm curious for you as, as a lucid dreamer, was there anything that kind of felt new or different or fresh in terms of what they're saying about either how to lucid dream or why to lucid dream?

Amina: For me, it was a lot of confirmation. What was new was just the way that Seth explains. How it's related to our waking life and how it is more real, not maybe not more real, but just as real because we're experiencing it and yeah, the importance of what you do in your dreams. For me, that's what, that's what I noticed is taking my lucid dreams more [00:26:00] seriously because, you know, it was always like a fun thing for me, or maybe I didn't pay as much attention to it.

And I feel like when I read the book, I feel like I increased my lucidity in waking life as well. 

Saelyx Finna: Yeah, and again, it really just resonates with what the science is finding in terms of consciousness being, you know, again, like if we are trying to understand it. Neurologically or biologically that it's much more of a continuum that it's much more of a spectrum that you know, it's more of a historical cultural understanding that when you're awake, you're turned on when you're asleep, you're turned off, and it's some sort of switch that gets flipped and like being awake is what matters and being asleep and dreaming is kind of whatever.

But you know, we're really finding that when you actually look at the brain data, there's a tremendous gradient Yeah. of experience and of perception and a lot of fuzziness at times between whether the brain might be awake or asleep like the amount of activation during REM is remarkable. [00:27:00] So Seth is really just encouraging us to embrace that continuum and see how it really is a two way street between the sleeping and dreaming self.

So for me, I, I totally agree with you. It's, ultimately a sort of very empowering set of ideas because it suggests, you know, by saying like you create your own reality, it's suggesting that the beliefs that you hold really do have a direct effect on your physical health. on your physical environment. And again, we have some really interesting recent research that backs that up.

So there was a study published recently in molecular psychiatry that found that personality traits influenced the expression of genes. And they used machine learning to look at a network of 4, 000 genes. And it really did highlight the role between [00:28:00] the mental state and the and biological functioning.

And it, the study found that people with a more creative or self transcendent perspective on life do positively impact gene expression. And so, you know, this follows in recent research that says your genes are not necessarily your destiny. Like we do have some ability to influence our genetic expression.

And it's interesting that in this study, they basically categorized three different kinds of personalities. And the more creative and the more, you know, self transcendent was used to kind of describe a more mindfulness. Based type of awareness and in the personality, these people were healthier and one of Seth's contentions, which is a bit more bold, is that in this mind body connection, it is not just that the two influence each other.

He really is saying it starts with the mind. It is. The mind [00:29:00] does send messages to every cell in the body, which means that inevitably we are sending many mixed messages to our bodies, which is resulting in, you know, mixed health outcomes. And I thought it was interesting that the study also mentioned creativity and people's relationships to being creative, because that is such a huge aspect of, you know, the Seth books in a way of trying to really give people a sense of self empowerment that's like, you are a creative being, right?

And this is another issue that I think we find a lot in the general population and that also can maybe frequently be a way of, you know, Categorizing between people who are have active engaged dream lives and those who don't as much is whether or not we see ourselves as creative and whether creativity is something that feels like it's reserved for artists, or it's reserved for scientists solving big problems and that it's not something [00:30:00] that like I have because engaged in that in a direct way every day in my life.

But Seth is saying you absolutely are. And this is also consistent with more and more, you know, cognitive research that describes creativity as merely a function of any mind or any brain that is exploring contingencies and trying to make its perceptual world, right? 

Amina: Yeah, and us creating our own reality, you know, we said it's one of the main points of what Seth talks about and that for me over the years has been something hard for me to grapple with, and I know that there's like a lot of new age criticism on that concept of you create your own reality, and it is a very complex process, but there's a lot of factors to it, and so when I started to think about that, I'm like, but how, because there's so many things Out of my control.

I mean, maybe that's my limiting belief. And then there's other people's actions and thoughts and beliefs that will influence my reality, you know Then I stop and look around and i'm like everything in this room that I see [00:31:00] Started with a thought in someone's brain like literally everything in existence pretty much Other than like nature, I guess but everything we create we co create our reality and I think it's a process that happens anyways We're just not aware of it.

You know, when we wake up in the day, whatever we think and believe, you know, has an impact on our reality. And of course, it's not everything. It's not like a perfect equation. Like you think something and it happens. It's, it's a complex process that I'm still trying to understand. But I, I know deep inside that there's underlying truth to it.

It's just, that is the one thing, I guess, where I'm a little, not skeptical, but just still trying to figure out how it works. 

Saelyx Finna: Right, because there's so many angles from which you can approach it. I mean, you know, one of the exercises that Seth suggests is to inventory all of the beliefs that you have about yourself, because it's your beliefs.

that shape your reality. And side note, I find it fascinating that we frequently overlook the role of belief in science, but is a hypothesis [00:32:00] not based on a belief that something may or may not be true and that we got to go out there and find out using the scientific method, which was derived from a dream that Descartes had in 1619.

Anyway, side box rant. Um, yeah, But I think this is a pretty profound exercise because what, what you find, it's like, it's a way of saying, like, what are the stories I tell about myself and about who I am? And that's a whole long thing to go on right there. But, you know, the next layer is what are the things that I've been telling myself are facts that are actually beliefs?

For example, you know, I'm genetically predisposed to this disease. Therefore. it sucks to be me. As opposed to, you know, through my lifestyle and my attitudes, I can shape my health. I do understand limits of, of this perspective in terms of conditions that people really cannot control about their lives.

But even from my perspective, a standpoint of looking [00:33:00] at trauma, right? Like people having traumatic experiences that impact their creation of self and their mental health for their whole lives. What they're also finding in successful treatments is working with people to reshape their beliefs.

associated with that trauma can have very powerful healing effects. And I want to share just another very inspiring quote from, it's also in Dreams and Projections of Consciousness. They say, Many concepts, advancements, and practical inventions Simply wait in abeyance in the world of dreams until some person accepts them as possibilities within their frame of reality.

Imagination is waking man's connection with the world of dreams. Imagination often restates dream data and applies it to particular circumstances or problems within the physical system. Often the dream world possesses concepts which will one day completely transform the history of [00:34:00] your field, but a denial of such concepts as actualities or possibilities within reality hold these back and put off breakthroughs that are sorely needed.

And it's just so beautiful because we also know this to be true. Like, even if you just isolate all of the examples of scientific discoveries out of dreams, you know, the visual display of The periodic table of elements, the discovery of the benzene ring, the discovery of the first neurotransmitter, acetylcholine.

And it comes down to people taking their dreams seriously. Like if they didn't, we wouldn't have those discoveries or certainly not in the expedited pace that we received them. Right. So it really does. Raise this question of whether it's lucidity during the day or during dreaming, you know, what information is available to us that is simply a matter of reaching [00:35:00] out and recognizing it for what it is.

Amina: Yeah, I love that. Dreams are really are so powerful. And it's this time where we are more creative. We're not bound by our conscious chatter, the laws of the physical reality or what we think necessarily. So our brain can be, you know, more free associative thinking. And that's why we're able to solve problems and work through things.

And this has been known, like, you know, they say sleep on it, you know, you'll get the answer, like people have been saying things like this forever. And now science just as Seth predicted is starting to understand it. And I hope that it goes in the right direction. I think it's still the very beginning and it's going to be another few decades before, you know, it catches up to what Seth has been saying, but I think that's really cool.

And another example of like how powerful our mind is to going back to that is like the placebo effect, which I think about all the time. It's like, if your mind thinks something is going to have a certain effect on you, It's more likely to be that and that alone like my blows my mind, right? and 

Saelyx Finna: even 

Amina: the 

Saelyx Finna: nocebo effect that they're [00:36:00] finding that it's still very effective if a Doctor tells you this is not a real medication, but if you take it you might feel better And it works because sometimes just that they're, they're thinking that it's just that act of interaction from a provider and the moment of care that's powerful.

And also I read that the placebo effect has increased in effectiveness by like 75 percent over the last 50 years in the American population, but that's unique to the U. S. Interesting. 

Amina: I 

Saelyx Finna: wonder why that is. Across all forms of placebos too, you know. So clearly our beliefs are shaping our reality. You know, another just like specific offering is the idea that the order of your dreams throughout the night matter.

And this is something that, again, has been researched more in recent years, that essentially, we, we know that dreams don't just happen in [00:37:00] rapid eye movement sleep, and that in fact, you're cognating throughout most of the night and throughout most of your sleep. And that if you wake people up and get a dream report from all kinds of different moments throughout the sleep cycle, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, Likely to get kind of different flavor profiles of dream report, some that feel more like thinking cognitive, some, and then, you know, the more vivid dreams being in REM, et cetera.

And so Seth says that it really is a good idea to not just record your dreams, but record them in consecutive order throughout the night so that you can compare report to report or the data sets across. multiple nights to understand how each part of the night reflects a different state of consciousness because you have different types of dreams according to that state.

This is a very tricky thing to try to do, right? Not least because perhaps we are constantly dreaming and so how do you [00:38:00] parse, you know, where to stop and wake up and get a dream report. But if you were just looked at it as. something based on every time you have a REM period, then you would be, you know, collecting at least four to five dream reports throughout the night.

And it's things like this that are so specific as suggestions that have these correlations to these like scientific interests in like, how can we understand different shades on the consciousness spectrum? As they pertain to different kinds of phenomenological experience in these dreams that I find super fascinating and, you know, I've noticed for myself, for example, when I'm in a much lighter state of sleep, that is the only time that I noticed that I have dreams in which I'm actually in the physical environment that I'm in in real life.

Amina: Oh, interesting, like in your bedroom, or? 

Saelyx Finna: Exactly. Otherwise, you know, in a full on, you know, kind of deep REM [00:39:00] dream, I'm going all kinds of other places. I am never at home, but it's in those later stages of sleep. And when I first read this idea in Seth, in one of the books, that was like, okay, so try to remember your dreams in order, even at the time in the session, like, Rob her husband and Jane like guffaw at this idea because like how difficult would that be, you know But you know The suggestion is like just do it like you would any other suggestion you give yourself When you go to sleep whether it's i'm gonna have a lucid dream Do it and say, you know I'm gonna remember my dreams in order and that very same night when I went to sleep I did Wake up throughout the night, which I don't normally do You know always out of a dream and I kind of created a mnemonic to remember the dreams throughout the night by just like, you know, giving one word to associate a memory for that dream.

And sure enough, in the morning, I remembered like six or seven dreams in a [00:40:00] row. I remembered the first dream of the night the best because I had rehearsed it the most times. And I also felt well rested because that's the other thing, right? It's like, well, if you're disrupting your sleep this much, um, that can be problematic.

And Seth also acknowledges that, but he's like, no, if you like do it in just like a natural, you know, rhythmic way, you're going to feel just fine. And I totally did. Now I, I didn't. Replicate this night after night, nor did I really try to, but to me, this was just like a fascinating evidence that like we can do this, you know, this was just like one spark of a suggestion and I was able to have a completely different kind of consciousness architecture throughout this one night of sleep.

So I just find it so fascinating. 

Amina: Yeah, I noticed that for myself too. I record most of my dreams throughout the night and I use a voice recorder So I record things that I would have otherwise forgotten and I've noticed by doing this that all my dreams throughout the night [00:41:00] That seem at first to be separate dreams.

They're all related in some way like there's a common theme throughout the night It's like a storyline that continues and every time you know, I write down a dream. It's a different piece of that puzzle so That's just so interesting to me that I've noticed that and I can even feel like when I go so deep into this other dimension and I still record the dream, but I can hear it in my, on my voice recorder that I'm like, not even fully conscious.

And sometimes like I go so deep in these travels that I don't even remember that dream, but because I use the voice recorder, that's the only reason why I remember. And so, 

Saelyx Finna: yeah. I mean, and so when you listen to it, there are times when you listen back to your own voice and you don't, it does not conjure 

Amina: the memory that you're describing.

Sometimes, yes. And I, sometimes it's like I'm so deep in the dream still that I can barely even speak. Like, I can barely even understand what I'm saying. Um, and I'm like, wow, I'm telling myself this story that I don't even remember. It's mind blowing. Most of the times I'll remember the dream after I hear the [00:42:00] voice recorder, but there's always like one in the night, usually in my deepest, longest REM period towards the end where I'm like, wow, I do not remember saying this, but it still fits into the whole story of all my dreams throughout the night.

And that's always like mind blowing to me. Cause it's like, yeah, we really go on these travels and most of us just don't remember it. 

Saelyx Finna: Wow. Good. It, you know, that really does just show how much activity is going on that even in the course of a few hours, you know, you had an experience that like your waking, reflexive mind cannot connect with anymore, you know, does not, does not identify as a memory that it holds, you know, if, if nothing else, I feel like that demonstrates just the, the multiplicity of, you know, Our experiences.

Amina: Yeah, exactly. And I do believe that these memories are in our brain somewhere, even though we don't consciously remember them. It's in there somewhere, stored, and it still affects our waking life and [00:43:00] our emotions and our psyche. And yeah, I love, like, hearing, like, the tone and inflections of my voice when I just come, like, freshly out of this dream.

It adds, like, a whole other level of dream journaling to me, so I love doing that, and it's not, like, The most, uh, convenient method for a lot of people, but that's what I do. 

Saelyx Finna: Yeah. So I'm, what do you think about the ideas? in the Seth books about sleep schedules and the suggestions that he has for how to kind of structure your sleep throughout a 24 hour cycle.

Amina: I think it's very interesting and I've heard like similar theories like this that we don't he says that anything over eight hours of sleep you're actually doing yourself a disservice or You know, too much sleep is not good. And I actually had to, I sleep a lot. Like sometimes I get way more than eight hours of sleep.

And I noticed once I read that, that I do end up more groggy. So I've kind of purposefully wake up earlier than I have to now. Yeah. Sometimes too, like if I just take [00:44:00] little naps throughout the day and kind of chop up my sleep that way, like. I do feel better in general and I have more dreams and another thing that he said to that was interesting which is kind of related was to sleep with your head facing north which kind of lines up to like the Electromagnetic fields of the earth.

I mean I was already doing that but hearing him say that makes more sense No, 

Saelyx Finna: isn't that interesting that maybe I mean, maybe you had intuitively already known that and arranged your bed Mine, mine is the same. I was like, oh, wow, like come to think of it, my bed is I already did 

Amina: that. Yeah, exactly. When I read that, I was like, oh, I'm going to try it.

And then I'm like, oh, it's already like that. 

Saelyx Finna: Yeah. And what do you know? It's working out for you. So yeah, I mean, I think it's super, it's super interesting, this suggestion that, I mean, he's basically saying like, instead of sleeping in one long chunk, uh, consider breaking it up and sleeping maybe five hours at night and then, you know, small naps during the day.

And to also kind of break up your, your [00:45:00] eating schedule so that it's like, instead of like these large, but few meals, it's more like, you know, you eat a little when you wake up and you're hungry. And, you know, it basically encouraging, I think the physiological conditions to embrace this more fluid type of relationship to consciousness that we also see in some of the, like monastic traditions of.

For example, like Buddhist monks who are meditating for many hours a day, such that they do not need as much sleep. And, you know, there are many accounts of these kinds of contemplatives only needing one to two hours a day. Of sleep, because if your brain as well as your body is not expending energy, it doesn't need the same kind of restoration process.

So it kind of shows the adaptability of the human body and central nervous system. And meanwhile, you [00:46:00] know, these are the most important components of the human experience. Contemplatives that are practicing in these ways with meditation are in, you know, if you were to look at their brain waves, right?

Like they would not be in just a normal waking state for those 20 hours that they're awake, right? Like there, there's a lot more gamma activity. There's a lot more variety. And so that's kind of like, I think what Seth is suggesting is like, you can ride the waves of consciousness. with a lot more ease and be able to tap into these abilities to, you know, connect with something like, you know, precognitive information or other dimensions, et cetera.

If you embrace this kind of biological rhythm and even talks about how, you know, it's actually quite healthy for the body to be outside in the night air, you know, that it's actually, there's a different electrical reality to the like nighttime [00:47:00] atmosphere that's beneficial for health reasons and so if you never allow yourself to be in the night that has consequences just as we do put a lot of focus on you need to get you know like a certain amount of daylight and there are certain times of day that there are suggestions for getting daylight in order to help set your circadian rhythms but the idea here is that the same could go for the night 

Amina: Yeah, that makes sense because the moon energy just it just hits different.

I feel that in my soul Yeah, and another interesting thing is like our circadian rhythm is adaptable Like we can adapt if you're like a new mom or you work a night shift, you know that we can adjust And a lot of like the whole nine to five structure of society and affects our setup of how, you know, we sleep all night or wake all day working, but it doesn't have to be that way.

And like, I feel like humans aren't necessarily wired to be that way. We adapt. And when you were talking about meditation, it made me think all these different states of consciousness, the meditation, [00:48:00] dreaming, hypnosis, trans states. Like Jane was in while channeling, they're all related, you know, they're all just different ways of experiencing reality.

That's where the whole question too of like astral projection and out of body experience comes in. I just see them as all related, like different levels of experiencing consciousness from, you know, more than just our physical body. Like we are so much more than what's physical. 

Saelyx Finna: Yeah, you know, and again, I want to, I want to respect the scientific tradition and, and in so far as like, technically the jury is still out on that question, but I think like the fact that there is so much left to try to prove in, you know, this area of science.

You know, the hard problem of consciousness, et cetera. Like I've been, you know, spending a lot of time with the various theories about this and people are really trying to demonstrate that they've solved the hard problem of consciousness, but there is still no consensus on that. And we're clearly miles [00:49:00] away from it.

And I think about one of the The dream scientist whose work I really respect. He's a neurochemist, uh, James Pagel. I mean, he's written a lot about, especially these kinds of different parasomnias and like, different types of dreams across different, uh, states of sleep. In my, you know, very first conversation with him, he was like, I think neuroscience is a desert.

When it comes to explaining dreaming, like, I think like, you know, sociologists and filmmakers and let alone, you know, the many indigenous bodies of knowledge about dreaming are way further along in in helping us to understand what's going on. This is coming from a neurochemist who is also a neuroscientist.

a practicing physician and incorporated dream reports into his practice as a physician with patients for many, many years, which is of course a rare thing to do in our particular time and place, you know, culturally and historically, but has been part of traditions of [00:50:00] working with dreams in many cultures throughout the majority of human history.

So it's also kind of fascinating to think about how there might be a little bit of regression. in how our culture puts the sort of sole emphasis of credibility for understanding something like dreaming in the hands of science when what is being explored there and researched there is fascinating and has, you know, Amazing advancements have been made in recent years, but, you know, as, as I think like all of the good dream scientists that I know recognize, you know, dream science is in its infancy, and it just so happens that Jane Roberts started to write these books and have these experiences, like 10 years after Rapid Eye Movement.

Sleep was discovered in the laboratory. You know, when it's something that people knew about for so many millennia before. So [00:51:00] I do think that what you said at the top of this conversation is really helpful in understanding the potential offerings of diving With a little bit more of a embracing lens into the Seth books that there really are some ideas and very specific suggestions in this material for bridging the science that we know.

And the questions that we feel ill equipped at this time to approach with science. And there actually might be some, some connective tissue here, even for specific studies that, that could be conducted. And Seth actually gives very specific ideas for things that could be studied, such as getting these dream reports throughout the night.

And even for things like what would be called astral projection or out of body experiences. says that there are [00:52:00] electromagnetic changes that can be perceived with scientific instruments at the time of projection. Certain electrical fields will make themselves known under these conditions. The fields have always existed, but they will become apparent to physical instruments only when they are being crossed.

In other words, at the very act of projection. So in other words, he's suggesting a very specific intervention in a dream experiment for when and how to try to study any, you know, electrical changes in the brain. He even says very specific things like there's a change of sexual hormones during the act of projection.

There's a subtle difference in the way sugar molecules are utilized and less is used during projection. You know, these are, these are very specific suggestions. And of course, like, then you have to grapple with how science would define and go about studying something like projection out of the dream state.

But I just find it interesting that. [00:53:00] This is the kind of language and methodology that's being suggested that it isn't like, well, it's magic. So just like use your magical mind, you know, and but it's like, here's ways for you to to really try to explore this in the terms that you understand what the tools that you have, but at the same time, know that your tools are limited.

Amina: That's a perfect way to put it because in the scientific methodology we want to understand things in a physical way but this is a non physical phenomenon that we're dealing with here so we really eventually you're going to have to starting with those suggestions but we're also going to have to change the way we approach research and data because it's just a whole new it's a whole new field.

Saelyx Finna: Yeah and and this is where like it is encouraging with You know this, especially I think the younger generation of dream scientists, as well as a lot of their predecessors, that there is such a robust history of self experimentation in the field, like out of necessity [00:54:00] largely, but I think also out of an open mindedness and a curiosity that a lot of these scientists have, that you have to understand your own experience, your own direct experience, and that there are ways that of studying that, and there are different ways to engage with like first person reports versus third person reports, and you know, ultimately, like time and again, you know, Seth says that scientists need to be willing to study their own dreams.

If they're going to make any progress and, you know, ultimately in order to do this, we need to use our inner senses and our inner senses are not things that can be probed with our physical external instruments at this time. 

Amina: Yeah, and science has a problem with, like, subjective data, like, you know, my own personal dream report is not necessarily seen as, like, a valid source of information, so we're gonna have to change the way we look at things.[00:55:00] 

Saelyx Finna: Yeah, and, you know, I, there's also this kind of underlying, uh, issue of the scientific disciplines ignoring the subjectivity at the basis of their own structures because, you know, every scientist is subjective. Every scientist has a psyche that is also affecting the research and the way that Sciences conducted is really going to great pains to try to make it as objective as possible, but it's ultimately not foolproof in this way.

And even the fact that we have these like demarcations between the scientific disciplines kind of acknowledges that there are, you know, limitations inherent in all of them. We'll see what happens, but I'd, I'd love to just share one last quote that. To me is kind of what sums it all up and I think it was like challenging.

I don't know about you, but it was like challenging for me to think about how to approach this conversation in terms of giving a primer to people [00:56:00] about some of Seth's ideas about dreaming because there are a lot of like really big. ideas here. And at the same time, there's a lot of like pretty fascinating nitty gritty and their ideas are pretty like interconnected and the way they come up in the books is very interconnected.

And also they, a lot of them resonate with ideas that have been expressed by, you know, different people and traditions throughout human history. It's just a very kind of specific. cultural moment that this stuff was put forward in a way that actually was pretty new for a lot of people. And at the time, the books made quite a splash and they were bestsellers.

And this was in the 70s though. And I think there's just been a huge loss of cultural memory around these particular books. And so it's, it's just kind of interesting to also think about them historically as like something that did influence. the culture and [00:57:00] introduce ideas that went on to have a lot of influence and that, you know, a lot of times the original influencer can be lost in the historical story.

Well, but I just, I just love this. It says, it might be said then that in many ways, the dream universe depends upon you to give it expression in the same manner that you also depend upon it to find expression. And so, you know, I just think about, you know, Otto Loewe, the Austrian chemist who discovered the first neurotransmitter in the dream and therefore discovered that neurons do communicate chemically and not just electrically as was thought at the time.

In other words, he really did find expression from the dream for this It's scientific discovery that ended up winning him the Nobel Prize. And that's just one example. [00:58:00] It's I feel like it's another way you could kind of substitute the word dream with just like inner self, the kind of understanding that the self that is out and about in the waking day and very externally oriented and very like socially engaged with others.

Is in a really deep intimate relationship with this inner self that goes beyond the bounds of that kind of externally oriented world, so I just find it inspiring. 

Amina: Yeah, 

Saelyx Finna: it really is. And this 

Amina: is why I take my dreams seriously. Not too seriously, but they're important. Just writing your dreams down. If this is all new to you, just be open to it.

Okay, so let's get into what's going on now with, you know, the body of work and also the location where all this went down. They, they, they did all this channeling in the house for years and then you had the opportunity to visit it. So what was that like? 

Saelyx Finna: Yeah. So in May of 2024, it was [00:59:00] the 95th, it would have been the 95th birthday of Jane Roberts.

She actually passed away in 1984 and there was a gathering at the house. Where she lived for 15 years and wrote most of these books and had most of these kind of channeling experiences that produce the books. And when the house was up for sale several years ago, it was actually purchased by the kind of community around the, the Seth books.

So it's now like, you know, can be formally known as the Seth house. It's in Elmira, New York, and it's actually this big old Victorian mansion that was built in 1888. So, you know, we've certainly got the premise of some sort of creepy ghost story here, but it very much is not that. I live not too far from the house, so when I heard about the gathering, I went over there and I got to meet a number of [01:00:00] people that have different relationships.

to the Seth material and it was pretty interesting because I was like I don't know what kind of scene I'm going to be walking into but it was more just like meeting a variety of individuals that had their individual relationships and unique stories around this stuff which is really appropriate because there is a certain way in which the Seth material can be taken up for a pretty like libertarian.

It's like on one level it's like very individualistic and on another level it's like all about the interconnected nature of like all of this. life right so there's a lot of ways that people could engage with it but it was really fascinating to hear people's stories and most significantly to get to stay in Jane's bedroom in the apartment where she channeled all of these books and so it's kind of like imagine if you got to go to the place where an author lived whose books were really, you know, influential for you.

But it's not just [01:01:00] that. The house is actually a massive character in the books. And it's not just that. But the books aren't novels. They're like metaphysical treatises. And you get to sleep in the bedroom of this person who had so many of these wild experiences frequently when she was asleep in the bedroom.

So that, honestly, I'm still digesting the experiences that I had there, but I came back, I think maybe this is the greatest testament to it. I came back from that weekend and was just like brimming with creative energy. And I needed to do a lot of writing. I was on a writing deadline and I wrote a lot and got a lot of stuff out that I had been struggling to piece together for a long time.

And just side note, Mark Twain is also buried in this same town, Elmira, New York. 

Amina: So it's, 

Saelyx Finna: it's got some interesting history. 

Amina: Yeah. Wow. That is awesome. Such a [01:02:00] like unique experience that you got to do that. That's really powerful. And I just can imagine like the energy there and, and the dreams. I know that the soul of Jane and, and Seth and we're, we're all there cheering you on.

Saelyx Finna: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, in terms of where to start, if people are curious. I would suggest listening to the audiobook for Seth Speaks on Audible. I'm usually a reader, I like reading physical books, and that is absolutely a great way to read these. But this audiobook is kind of special. And the voice actor who voices Seth, I actually called him up, because I had to know the answer to this question of, was your relationship to this material while you were reading it?

Because I understand it's an actor's job to perform, but the way that he delivers the lines is, is so powerful that I just had to know for myself, was this just a guy doing a really good [01:03:00] job or was there something else going on here? His name is Brayden Wright and he said, when I first read those books to prepare, there were so many things that I felt were so true and things that I had known like since I was a kid and was hearing for the first time be put to words by somebody.

So very validating and kind of what you were talking about, Amina, just like affirming of like these deep truths you already know. And he told me that it's the work that he's most proud of doing is voicing these books. 

Amina: Wow, that's cool. I love that you called him up. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna have to listen to to the audio now just to like hear his voice.

I didn't even know that I also just read physical but 

Saelyx Finna: Well, if you haven't read, um, The Nature of Personal Reality, that one is also an audiobook that he voiced, and that's, that's a great next book to read after Seth speaks as well. And there's a lot of really good [01:04:00] stuff on dreaming in there. 

Amina: Cool. Okay, that's gonna be my next one then.

Saelyx Finna: There's so, so much, and we really did barely scratch the surface. Yeah. And I just really recommend people check it out. 

Amina: Yeah, definitely. I think it's going to speak to people. I trust that the universe will, will do its job at allowing the right person to find the episode and whatnot. Okay, cool. So just to close us off, like, I know you do a lot of cool stuff, and you're a filmmaker, and you're doing a presentation at the conference, so just give a second, like, where can people find you?

Like, what do you do? What do you want to share? Thank you. 

Saelyx Finna: Sure, yeah. So I come more from the world of film, which I eventually realized was because cinema is the art form that's most akin to dreaming. And I'm actually working on a film that is about kind of like the global significance of dreaming in a moment when we are seeing the early days of neurotechnology that interacts with the dreaming mind.

And so that project is nearing the end of development [01:05:00] right now. And I am also just a mega dream research nerd. So I have this spreadsheet that I've shared with a lot of the researchers and has helped connect the dots for some folks to meet each other or discover new work. It's been called a Staggering Compendium, um, which just goes to show, show how much of a nerd I am.

But yeah, so at the conference I'll be presenting with a couple of my friends about. the intersections of art and dreaming. So if you're going to be at IASD, please do come check that out. And then, you know, I can also be found, um, probably the best ways through my film company. It's called context moves.

com can reach me there. And I'm always down to talk about dream research. 

Amina: Awesome, I love it. Well, I really, really appreciate you helping me put this episode together and bringing all of your knowledge and passion. Couldn't have done it without you, so thank you. 

Saelyx Finna: Oh, likewise, [01:06:00] Amina. Thanks for going down the rabbit hole with me, and I'm, I'm so glad that, you know, the books also spoke to you, and I love just having book club friends to talk about this stuff with, so it's been, it's been great putting this together.