949. The play, "fate", is therefore performed in the I's subconsciousness, which can thereby be likened to a theatre. And just as a theatre has a stage with scenery and a backstage area for the actors, and an auditorium with gallery, boxes and stalls for the audience, we can see that in principle the same phenomena in fact apply to the subconsciousness. Here, however, there are only two performers and one audience member, but a great wealth of "scenery" and "masks". The two performers are "God" and "the son of God". The "scenery" is everything that comes under the category of "Nature". To God the "masks" or "disguises" are everything that comes under the category of "fellow beings", whereas to the son of God they are all the physical and spiritual organisms he has represented throughout his earthly lives or throughout the many different stages of his evolution. Everything he has represented, ranging from "mineral", "plant" and "animal" to "terrestrial human being", are thus merely the "disguises" that the I has to make use of in particular situations in the process of performing its "role" in "fate", just as in the same way all the types of fellow beings are the particular "disguises" with which God can sustain his role in the many shifting scenes of this eternal performance. And it is on account of this great "art of disguise" that all the things that we see or sense are illusions, and that in reality nothing whatsoever is what it appears to be. Everything constitutes what appears to the I to be an eternal play, in which the director and the players are, true enough, the I itself, but which does not constitute any kind of obstacle to its identity as a "member of the audience" of its own performance. On the strength of its talent kernels, and the automatic functions released by them, the I is the actor-director on its own stage of life or subconsciousness. But this aspect of its existence consists of automatic functions, which means that it consists of certain kinds of forces emanating from the talent kernels that are released by the centres in the individual's organisms specifically developed for that purpose, and as a result these functions are beyond the I's conscious perception. They are like a play "behind the scenes", beyond the I's day-conscious will and control. It is as if they are in darkness. And this is why this aspect of the subconsciousness is in "Livets Bog" called "night-consciousness". This "night aspect" of the subconsciousness, or "night-consciousness", is therefore really the backstage area of the stage of life, its control room or technical department. It is this aspect of the stage that lies behind the "curtain" and the "scenery". Here we will call the I's "night-consciousness" "life substance no. 35".