http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/3534361.stm 

Hey Woah,

I remember you too .
Welcome Back.

Hey tvos,

I haven't come across any study which looked at projectors who later experienced NDEs - although I think the results of such a study might be interesting. I'm guessing possible sample groups might be quite small though! .

It sounds quite like a false awakening mixed with sleep paralysis. Or you were in a SP state but wavering in and out of sleep, leading to the voice experience. I've had a lot of weird experiences around that kind of state too .

Google "Martin Gradwell", especially in the sci.physics groups of usenet (google groups), as there is a tremendous amount of data debunking his ideas and calculations from regular posters to those groups.

Thank you for the kind comments . I haven't had much time for writing lately - well apart from lots of snippets of ideas, lines etc.
Good luck with your writing, I hope to read some of it if you post it here .

I'd be curious to hear what the dream was about - that's if it's not too personal .

Is there a lot of math in it?

It's more an idea book with very little in the way of math, but it is an enjoyable read and makes you think.

I do agree that it depends on the meaning, and in part that is problematic because such experiences are so personal that one persons meaning is different to another’s. That’s why we need to define these terms in language. We might not capture the depth of experience in words, but we can at least identify which experience/meaning we are referring to. Ego is 'I', 'the self',' 'the individual' - if each has a different interpretation of that word, then we talk in circles, and that is the crux of it: the words identify meaning, but if we attach words to different meanings, then we simply confuse ourselves and perhaps assimilate wrong concepts. Earlier in this thread there was talk of ego being negative to spiritual development – or at least the enhancement of it, this is what I believe is misguided.
I used to think words were limiting and experiences themselves could transcend base language. But now I feel one can get too caught up in experiences on a sub-conscious level believing such experiences to be enlightenments, transcendental etc and simply bathe in them rather than learning and growing from them. Sort of like people who meditate but actually just sit and simply day dream rather than maintaining a level of focused awareness. Perhaps the answer is to expand language consciously, perhaps even invent new language or forms of communication to better communicate these things.

Our true self is the pure universal mind, not our everyday mind which is rambling and moving here and there, which we listen to and follow endlessly. The Universal mind is that part of your mind that is not tainted by delusion.
Takes a while of watching the mind and you will notice that part of it that has always been there, watching, not the restless part that is always moving.

Without EGO there would be no ‘I’ or watching, or awareness of everything. I’ve often wondered if this desire to return to some base state of unconsciousness (which returning to the source would be*) is misguided. To quote an idea I find interesting:

I read an interesting book by Ken Wilber called 'Up From Eden' where he uses the Jewish creation myth to describe a particular stage of the evolution of human consciousness. As the title of his book suggests, Wilber does not see a “fall" from this perfected Edenic state after eating from the Tree of Knowledge  of Good and Evil but rather the reverse. To him, Adam and Eve in Eden represent mankind in the unconcious pre-personal/pre-egoic state...basically the state of mind of most animals. However, he makes an important distinction and says this state is not the ideal state. Seeing it as an ideal state is a view which he calls "the pre-trans fallacy", that being: confusing an unconscious pre-personal state with the superconscious trans-personal state (ie.enlightenment), a fallacy he attributes to what he calls 'Romanticism' (in  other words, romanticizing some distant time when humans existed in complete harmony with Nature, God, et al. - a time which he thinks didn't exist in our  past, but could exist in the future of our species when the consciousness of our species as a whole evolves further.) He describes it much better than I could. It's a pretty interesting book and one worth checking out if any of this makes sense to you.

This seems to resonant. The idea is not to remove the ego, reduce it or kill it, the idea is to refine it, improve it, build it. As we look into our past, we see a refinement of EGO to the state we currently perceive. All experiences of advanced entity contact in the astral show such beings displaying EGO (sense of identity, self, personality), some to the extent that people feel over powered by it.

The reason I quoted you is not that I disagree with you, just the thought behind the idea. Many spiritual paths see the reduction of EGO as a goal, as above, I think possibly the opposite should be the goal.

EGO does not have to mean selfishness, infact, sharing is an EGO action born out of Love. All the good and altruistic actions must have awareness and intention behind them (EGO). This to me is a refinement and a beneficial thing.
Meditation does not reduce the EGO, it simply reduces the monkey chatter and constant conceptualisation of past, present and future, it lets one be.


* The reason I say it would be unconscious and unknowing is that EGO is the tool which gives us a sense of individuality, identity, even separation. Without some form of self identity there would be nothing (EGO death).


Interesting link to read:

http://www.praetrans.com/en/ptf.html

A lot of what you wrote is still caught within a very human-centric view of reality. Yes we are human and so that is to be expected, but we must consider our interpretation of even basic things is enforced by our meat brain - rather than a representation of a more 'base' reality.
Even givens like shape and form are but a learnt concept. They might have no meaning outside of the narrow perception our brain/mind have learned to give them. The same could be said of time.
Humans are animals. Humans seemingly have consciousness. Animals seemingly have consciousness. Regardless of form, there is consciousness in both. We can talk about intelligence being some form of differentiating factor, but even intelligence as we measure it is simply interaction in a very narrow range of human defined parameters within the physical.
So we have consciousness, and everything we ever experience is our consciousness interpreting 'external' stimuli i.e. everything we ever interact with is formed of self (not to mistaken with ‘we are all one’ concepts).
I’d say splitting things into ‘dimensions’ is also limiting our perceptions. I, and many others, see everything as consciousness. The astral is not simply another dimension it’s just a different locale within consciousness’ sphere. The same as the physical – it’s but another locale within consciousness sphere. A loose analogy could be local areas of turbulence in a transitory medium (such as water or gas).
If you really want to think radically, push the boundaries, then you need to look at everything you take for granted, every given, every ‘known’ and interpret it in terms of experience to date. Whilst doing this, also be aware of the human taught processes which decipher reality and categorise things into the reality we see around ourselves now – and don’t take such categorisation for granted.
Animas, humans, astral, physical. All concepts which might have no greater meaning outside of a ephemeral glance from an evolving ‘consciousness’.

I'd also recommend The Holographic Universe, as it is a good book. But, i'd add one caveat: Research what it presents because much of it's interpretation of quantum mechanics has been shown to be wrong, and a lot of the 'facts' it details are more personal interpretation of certain sciences.
It does give a lot to think about though.

A similar book i'd recommend is: 'Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness ' by Itzhak Bentov (but once again, look into what it presents).

To see what its all about, a scientist should have an OBE. I cant think of better proof than someone being there themself.

As far as proof goes, singular personal experience which cannot be reproduced by others is very poor.
Personal experience is fraught with ambiguities many of which might be self created from belief system, desires or self-delusion (confabulation). Just by reading many accounts of others astral experiences shows how radically different each person’s experience of the astral is - especially when they filter those experiences through personal belief systems and consequently build philosophies of self and reality based upon them.
The only way proof (outside of personal belief based upon experience) of the astral will come about is to study either direct results from projection (people meeting, reading things remotely, seeing actions of others remotely etc) or to discover the mechanisms behind projection itself. As James said above, science is moving into some very exciting areas, so we might have glimpses of such proof in the not too distant future.

Science doesn’t stand either way on OBE/AP as there are currently no tangible elements of this phenomenon to study outside of its psychological and philosophical implications. Science deals with what can be measured, and as yet, nothing in the OBE sphere can be measured directly.
It might not always be this way, but until whatever physical mechanisms involved in OBE can actually be detected in some way (anything which acts on the physical body or mind must have also have a physical mode of action – even if it is undetectable as yet) then we are stuck with indirect measurements such as number reading while OBE etc.
Scientists might have viewpoints regarding  these phenomenon, but science as it stands is purely impartial to it.

Something to consider is that our current categorisation of emotions, colours, sensations, concepts, basically everything we perceive, how we perceive etc might be a one time emergence from this current time and place. Even temporal and spatial locality might be properties of this time and place rather than innate facets of creation.
Our brains perceive in the only way they can; we percieve, construct, deconstruct, associate, dissacociate in the only way we can (which to a degree explains the structure we perceive around us). This leads to a very 'human centric' view of creation (iced with the current social and societal behaviours and viewpoints of the time).

The point of this rambling is, that even if things do start over and over again we might not even be able to conceive of our current mode of thought or perception - or we might not even have the faculties to conceive of anything at all.