"Dreaming or awake, we perceive only events that have meaning to us"
About this Quote
Roberts slips a radical idea into a calm, almost commonsense sentence: perception is not a camera, it is a filter. By pairing “dreaming or awake,” she erases the prestige hierarchy that modern life grants to waking reality. The move is quietly insurgent. Dreams aren’t treated as nonsense; waking experience isn’t treated as pure fact. Both become edits of a larger, messier stream of stimuli, shaped by what the mind is prepared to recognize.
The phrase “only events that have meaning to us” is doing the real work. It’s not merely about attention (“we notice what interests us”), but about construction: the self as a meaning-making machine that turns raw occurrence into “event” only after it’s been interpreted. Subtextually, Roberts is arguing that what you call reality is partly a narrative you authorize. That’s flattering (you have agency) and unsettling (you may be trapped inside your own significance map).
Context matters: Roberts is best known for the Seth material and a broader 1970s American appetite for consciousness exploration, therapy culture, and metaphysical counter-narratives. Read through that lens, the line isn’t a neutral psychology lesson; it’s an invitation to treat inner life as actionable data. Change what “has meaning,” and you change what appears to happen to you.
The sentence works because it’s modest in tone but expansive in implication, smuggling a worldview through a simple grammar: two states of being, one rule of perception, and a pointed limitation (“only”) that turns everyday experience into a question about who’s editing the tape.
The phrase “only events that have meaning to us” is doing the real work. It’s not merely about attention (“we notice what interests us”), but about construction: the self as a meaning-making machine that turns raw occurrence into “event” only after it’s been interpreted. Subtextually, Roberts is arguing that what you call reality is partly a narrative you authorize. That’s flattering (you have agency) and unsettling (you may be trapped inside your own significance map).
Context matters: Roberts is best known for the Seth material and a broader 1970s American appetite for consciousness exploration, therapy culture, and metaphysical counter-narratives. Read through that lens, the line isn’t a neutral psychology lesson; it’s an invitation to treat inner life as actionable data. Change what “has meaning,” and you change what appears to happen to you.
The sentence works because it’s modest in tone but expansive in implication, smuggling a worldview through a simple grammar: two states of being, one rule of perception, and a pointed limitation (“only”) that turns everyday experience into a question about who’s editing the tape.
Quote Details
| Topic | Meaning of Life |
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