Completely unprovable off course, but yeah, I also want to believe in infinity. It is.... comforting, somehow. Like the game can never be over.

Personally, the idea of going on forever scares me just as much as the idea of personal oblivion .

Hi Mattoid,

I don't know of any specific documentaries off the top of my head, but I have a fair few of them on youtube.

I haven't managed to find anything out regarding this other than he removed himself and posts from the site.
It's something I've noticed with people in this area, they change their direction and suddenly try and remove trace of their movements on their regular forums/blogs etc. I guess it's a "fresh start" kind of thing.

I've been patiently waiting for them to fire that baby up. There's the slight possibility of creating a black hole that will eat the world, but other than that...

There should be enough energy in the LHC to create many blackholes - but they will be so small, they will near instantly evaporate due to Hawking Radiation - so we should be safe!
The term "the God particle" is a name given to the Higgs boson due to a tongue-in-cheek book title.
There are lots of interesting theories sorrounding the LHC though, one of them being them being that it could accidently become a time-machine! The reasoning behind this is that the LHC could possibly create wormholes, so future civilisations with the tech could use them as a means of communicating with us by opening a connecting wormhole their end. So this year could be year zero for time-travel. If this is even a remote possibility - we won't have long to wait and see

I've currently have hair down to the middle of my back, and in the past I used to shave it on no#1 for years. No difference at all in OBEs in regards to long/shaved hair.

So perhaps ultimate enlightenment then, is the process of my shedding one ego after another until there is nothing left to shed.  At that point Buddhist annihilation has occurred and I am at one with the universe (pardon the cliche) in such a way that I don't even exist anymore.

The idea of not existing anymore might seem a bit distressing at this point to "Rob", but actually when it occurs it will just be that last ego finally acknowledging that it never had an objective existence to begin with, but rather that it (and all egos) are nothing more than passing thoughts in the mind of God.

Anyway, that's my .02

Hey RJA,

In the purest form, ego is simply self awarness. So at any level we are aware of ourselves as individual, we have ego of one form or another. Without ego we probably have no existence - or at the least, we wouldn't know that we exist, so we wouldn't be able to have 'feelings' about moving past the ego and joining with the source etc.
When I followed lines of thought like the above, I always face the conclusion that joining with the source and oblivion on death (the physical being all there is, and we being biological machines) are indistinguishable. Applying occam's razor here gives one conclusion. I'm content that both might be a possibility.

Good question Stookie! My own opinion is that to see past our own identity, we first need a self-awarness developed enough to do so i.e. a developed enough ego can see past themselves to others, wheras a less developed ego might not have enough self awarness to put other 'beings' into the context of being individual like themselves.
It's like the experiments (mainly done on children) which show that until they have a distinct self awarness (ego) they find it difficult to relate to others and their feelings (an issue also seen with autistic people).
I guess this where the 'refinement' bit comes in, we learn to see past the self to the feelings and emotions of others, rather than developing the ego in a purely selfish and self-facing way.

Hey Tayesin,

good post!
I've taken to seeing ego as a cumulation of our experiences, warped and filtered through predispositions to various stimuli - which gives rise to seeming individuality. I see the mechanics of consciousness as a universal - that is, we each have the same core mechanics which let us percieve and be self aware. Ego is an emergent property of each point of consciousness storing different experiences, and consequently interpreting new experiences in light of the old.
I believe there are also base predispositions i.e. some might be more fearful of certain situations/stimuli than others, which are represented genetically and allow for greater difference between those sharing similar experiences.
So our surface representations to the 'outside' world consist of seemingly unique instances of consciousness.
I also disagree with the idea of 'letting the ego go', to do such a thing is to devolve and if that goal is reached, to cease to exist. I think we should be aiming to refine the ego, letting go of traits we see as undesirable - which as ego-centric beings we have the ability to do so. A reduced ego would also mean a reduced ability to self percieve and perhaps move back into the more beastal pre-critical thought areas. For example, supposedly higher beings, or more spiritually advanced beings percived in OBEs have a very distinct (And sometimes overpowering) sense of individuality (ego), which implies their ego is well developed but controlled.

There aren't really any hard facts on this slipknot. Personally, I can't deny the similarity between DMT experiences and OBEs. Low dose DMT produce vibrations which sound exactly like the famous' vibrations'. High dose DMT experiences produce experiences which sound exactly like full blow astral plane based OBEs. It's an area I'd love for research to be done in. It's at least plausible that OBEs could be the result of low dose DMT release, the effects being magnified by the reduced sensory input of the sleep state or the trance state usually experienced prior to an OBE.
A book you might find interesting is: "DMT: The Spirit Molecule" by Dr. Rick Strassman. It details experiements with DMT on humans, and their resulting experiences.

Hi Johnny,

a book I recommend to everyone who is interested in starting meditation is:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Teach-Yourself-Meditate-Exercises-Clarity/dp/0749913282

This book could possibly teach 'seasoned' practitioners a thing or two too.
The book itself gets to the core of what meditation is, and what it isn't. It completely decouples it from belief systems and practices. A problem with meditation advice on the net (and in most books) is that it's usually deeply influenced by one belief system or another - so the techniques of meditation get lost or irrevocably joined to the belief system itself. Ones first experience of meditation colours the practice for life - which is why I recommend the above book. Once people get to grips with meditation itself, they can then go explore all the other forms and linked belief systems.

Hi Michael,

It's hard to say if you reached focus 10 as each of us can experience it differently. While some people experience a complete seperation from physical stimuli, others still have a sense of their body. Although there does seem to be common elements across all experiences. The open expanse you mention is one of them (this can be a feeling of expansion, or sometimes the blackness behind the eyes suddenly seems to open up and become three dimensional).
Personally speaking, F10 for me doesn't nessesarily have any visual elements (there can be clouds of dull colours and such forth) but the expansion is a sign. I also feel removed from my body, or my body can feel very heavy and vauge. Deeper F10 can lead to sensory distortion, such as feeling like my hands are merging into one, or i'm sinking into the bed etc.
F12 is usually considered the next step along, to me this *is* more visual, there can be hypnogogic images, and the feeling of expansion is a lot greater.
Regarding if you did move beyond it, it's hard to say (again). But it all sounds very positive! It also sounds like you are approaching the exercises in the right way. Don't try to analyse these things too much right now - just go with it and see where it leads you. Also, don't impose previous sessions experiences on the next - expecting things to happen is one way of stopping what might possibly happen.
Finally, something i've discovered over the past 6+ years is that regular practicing with F10 produces a deeper state year on year. What I took as F10 when I first started using these CD's is a lot shallower than what I can achieve with F10 now. Keep at it and good luck!

I will watch this when it comes out on DVD.
It is an updated version of the Omega Man.

The omega man was based upon the book of "I am Legend" by Richard Matheson (1954), and so was another film. The most recent version is based upon the book, and is more faithful than the earlier versions (the omega man changing quite a lot).
I enjoyed the most recent version, although felt it ended quite abruptly and it deviated from some potentially interesting plot routes (such as the increasing organisation of the 'others').

Hey Kiwibonga,

Great post. Not wanting to go into details, but I’ve been in more than one situation where death seemed imminent and totally out of my control. And in such times, previous held beliefs dissolved. I didn't fear death, but when it's facing you, it's a very different story. As someone said above, death itself doesn't really worry me; it's the method of dying and the reaction of the brain to the dying process. I've had experiences on psychedelics where time stood still, an eternity passed. I've also had experience during OBEs of unfathomable forces and pressures pulling and crushing my very essence. I feel when the brain starts shutting down for the last time, there’s every possibility the dying process could last a subjective eternity including any distortions experienced as various brain areas malfunction and shut down. This could be very uncomfortable, and a situation nothing or nobody could remedy.
My OBE experiences have taken me from believing in existence after death, to sitting on the wall. When I first entered the OBE field I drank up the words of various Gurus and integrated their beliefs into my own without questioning. But my own questioning and searching have made me look fully into the possibility that death is the end. If we survive or not, it doesn’t matter as one possibility sees us go on, the other sees nothing – and such nothingness could never be feared by pure definition.
Although to counter the above, I’ve also been in situations where I wouldn’t have cared at all if I had died right there and then, as I was absolutely content with my place, myself, and the situation going on around me.

Hey, You didn't really judge! Your observations are on the whole correct in regards to his radical change . When you do get to a point where you project regularly, what you find is that projection itself becomes a norm of your world view, rather than this amazing concept you spent so long trying to attain. Other changes come too, these are more subtle and occur over a larger time period.

Great post Stookie!
This struck a chord: " I perceived everything to be a single consciousness. I've had this experience a few times before, but never so unexpectedly."

This has crept up on me quite a few times when i'm doing pretty mundane things, most recently was a few months ago. I was sitting on a bus - admittedly I was thinking about the nature of reality - when quite swiftly my awarness of self seemed to "bleed" away, it was like my boundaries had dissolved and suddenly I encompassed everything, and everything encompassed me - I literally stretched off into forever. If i'm honest, such a thing occurring on a bus caused me to panic for a few seconds . The feeling of having no boundaries lingered for some time after.