Yeah I was brought up Christian and started learning many other philosophies as I got older so for me, it’s an interesting concept thinking about the nature of reality.

I like to think that we are like different rays shining out of the center of “the all”, “the creator” or whatever you’d like to call it and deep within is our true God-like nature that is one with everything.

But some philosophies also talk about being characters in a story that is created by the creator so we are part of it similarly if we created a masterpiece. Our thoughts and art has personality and a consciousness on its own. For some reason this second philosophy doesn’t sit as well with me, but I think there is much more to understand to comprehend these realities as our intellectual minds can only go so far.

Both of these philosophies may actually be true, and may be one in the same, maybe we just can’t quite grasp the commonality of them. I’m hoping to discover more pieces to the puzzle during my future astral travels. This topic is extremely interesting to me as it probably is to many of you.

The Kybalion talks about this last point similarly which I find very interesting. We are all within a dream or a thought as everything is mental. We are like characters within the dream. The dreamer is “the all” which is impossible to comprehend or explain the motive and the purpose of with our current faculties.

They compare it to a story book character trying to understand the author of themselves. Like Romeo and Juliet understanding Shakespeare.

It’s an interesting philosophy and way of looking at it.

I will do these visualizations! Thanks for sharing. It’s fun to use new techniques for discovering the NP. Keeps those creative juices flowing!

Perseverance is no understatement!! I’ve been practicing 80% religiously for almost a year now and have had only 2 LDs (obviously life gets in the way here and there). But they are so cool! It’s probably one of the hardest skills to learn that I’ve come across so far, but the hard skills are my favourite to learn!

Before this though, I’ve never had an LD/AP before, or at least I don’t ever remember having them. When I had those 2 experiences it was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. My wife has had 2-3 lucid dreams now too! Making progress!

Keep posting Shineling! I like reading your adventures!

Lumaza’s experience reminded my of my recent (second) lucid dream experience. I was in the hypnogogic state for a long time and for some reason I was trying to do a handstand in my thoughts. When I would fall, I would try again and again. After awhile, everytime I did it a part of the experience would get a bit more real. Like my hands on the ground, I would look at all the detail in the ground and then when I tried lifting my legs up for the stand I could all of a sudden feel the movement in my legs like I was actually doing it. And then I fell on my back and could feel the falling sensation. Trippy!

When I got up, the scene was built out. I was standing on a driveway on a country road and knew I was in a dream. (This must have been a Wake Induced Lucid Dream) I tried a reality check that didn’t really do anything and started to get bored as I didn’t know what to do so I decided to fly (first thought that came to my mind for some reason). I flew really fast up towards the clouds and it felt so real it scared the crap out of me and the dream ended.

That probably tops my experiences so far. Hearing about these experiences is one thing, but actually getting first hand experience is quite intense! It’s really cool!! You guys inspire me haha!

Been getting some new hypnopompic imagery in the last week or so.

Whole FOV filled with static, like on a old CRT TV with no signal, but with bigger pixels. Looked very digital and for some reason it made me feel uncomfortable.

A white light starting in upper left, getting brighter and brighter and bigger and bigger. It was as if the dynamic range had somehow gotten greatly expanded, the intensity of the light just kept increasing. It became to much so opened my eyes, took a few seconds for my vision to return to normal.

Whole FOV flashing between black and white (strobe light effect).

Solid light purple color on left side.

Vibrating head, felt like it was expanding and contracting at around 7Hz, felt a little nauseous.

Very interesting experience. A few years ago I popped my shoulder out of socket and went to the hospital to get it popped back in. Long story short, they put me on a morphine drip and then added ketamine to the mix. That knocked me out, but I was conscious the whole time just not conscious “of my body”. It started with the TV fuzz that got really pixelled. I could see, hear, and feel the texture of the static. It got really chunky too. And then after this I felt as if I was in the center of my chest. I felt like I was in my soul and that life was a tiny speck of dust compared to my eternal existence. This was probably one of the most interesting experiences I’ve had.

Thought Id share as this is the first time I’ve heard someone talking about experiencing “static”. At one point it felt like the static was crunching my or consuming me or something, hard to explain.

Also coming off the high, I didn’t feel any social pressure or all the subtle pressures and pains of this existence right away. It gradually all came back. Like the feeling of gravity pressing on you and the uncomfort and awkwardness of being in a body with all these uncomfortable sensations and pains. And then feeling the social pressures of judgement on how people perceive you and social expectations etc… it was a very profound experience.

Your post reminded me of this experience! Really cool.

In my own belief, I believe that we are all souls connected to higher and higher vibrations like the rays of the sun which is our connecting point to “the all”. So essentially we are all connected.

This is my thought process towards this topic: A projection is still energy in this reality stemming from “all consciousness” (at least in my belief). If my neighbour was a projection, is my partner a projection too? Are we all projections talking to each other? For me it doesn’t make sense. How would you differentiate between a projection and a soul? If everything was a projection, how would you come to realize this in the first place? You’ll be believing in one projection over the other based on how “real” the experience feels? I would rather look at things as “reality” rather than “non-reality” (maybe a more optimistic view?)

Time compared with photographs was a very interesting analogy. We have a string of photograph (or video) memories that we can cling to for our sanity of “knowing who we are”. But if we get too clung up on the photo memories, we lose the present moment focus which is our true nature.

But also, losing the photo memories and forgetting them completely, would this be a good path either? Being completely in the present moment is powerful, but will it cost our memories of our existence? Maybe that’s just a fear? I do think that modesty and balance is important though as in everything (in this reality frame at least).

Just my pondering thoughts lol! You guys have crazy ideas like me haha! It’s awesome…

My mind is exploding reading this thread. Very interesting.

So is what you are saying…. in PR we are not interacting with other souls? So would that mean my neighbour is a projection of the consciousness system? But in some NPR we are interacting with souls?

Thanks for the input EV.

Another interesting theme that I’ve been noticing in my dreams is that the dream characters tend to be watching my reactions to certain things I do in my dream. To put some context here, I’ve been making a habit every night to “pray” or talk to my spirit guides to assist me in becoming more aware/lucid during my sleep.

Sometimes I’ll have characters watching me from a distance or directly asking/telling/doing something that doesn’t make logical sense. I believe that these characters are trying to trigger my lucidity as I get moments where I don’t know how to react in my dream. Or I think to myself in my dream, “this is weird…”. So I believe my spirit guides are actively helping me by creating multiple lucidity triggers.

Very interesting. I also made it a habit to thank my guides for each experience as well as their help when I awake as gratitude is always good for building closer relationships.

Last night I dreamt that my best friend gave me some type of electronic device. Looked almost like an odd shaped flip phone or calculator with a flip cover, but looked more expensive than a calculator. I didn’t know what it was so I straight up asked. He gave me minimal non-descript answers to my questions. He said “it’s for you”. I asked again, yeah but what is it? He told me it’s an “online blogger” (or something like this description). I was confused so I asked why are you giving it to me? Because it’s your birthday. (My actual birthday is in April, but I didn’t realize this in my dream). So I said that he doesn’t have to give me presents for my birthday. He said I gave him a gift on his birthday (his birthday is in May after mine in PR). So I started thinking about this in the dream. I remember in my dream not giving him a gift previously and that it didn’t make sense really because his birthday is after mine. I was confused after this conversation. The whole time he seemed to be looking at me like he was watching my reactions to his answers. Very interesting.

I've only heard music once, it happened a couple of months ago after clicking out while trying to phase and having a non-lucid mini dream, the hypnopompia was accompanied by the most beautiful classical orchestral type music, it only lasted 15 sec or so and faded away with the hypnopompic imagery.

Lately I've started to recognize when it's a good time to meditate instead of doing it at a set time, I would describe that state as the body feeling a bit tired/sluggish but without being tired as in needing sleep, while the mind is sort of drifting. But if you only have one specific time of day to meditate and mental stress from work, then I would suggest using some binaural beats, I personally like the theta range (4-7 Hz). After physical exercise IMO is a bit of a double edged sword, in that it can leave you totally fired up with a natural high or slightly spent and relaxed. Maybe try a nice long relaxing hot shower..

And welcome aboard

Thanks Bob! Really appreciate the input. I’ll definitely try that out!

Yes I always get the music when I’m waking up during the hypnopompic time. This morning it wasn’t music this time. It was a mechanical type churning noise that was in a consistent loop over and over again. I also recall a strange dream that wasn’t really a typical dream. I realized that I’ve had this experience many many times over the past few months.

It’s like a defragmentation of me/my brain or something. It’s like my higher self knows what aspect of myself to focus on in myself and work on that area or connect it to new areas. I’m not sure if it’s like building new neural pathways or energetic pathways or something. It’s very hard to put into words because I barely understand it myself. But there is a deep understanding when I’m in the dream state. No dream characters, no environment to explore, it’s really rather basic visuals and more of a feeling/knowing… yeah hard to explain. And I remember being in this exact state many many times. I’ll learn to become more aware in this state next time.

If you ever had to defragment your Windows 98 computer that’s probably the closest way I could start to describe it lol!!! 

I personally think it is helpful to simplify this by taking things in the opposite direction. With this notion of infinity and eternity we are simply adding to the number of possible dimensions and potentially over-complicating things. By saying infinite and eternal we aren't removing the sense of time and space. Eternity means forever in time. Infinity means forever in space. We haven't removed space and time. We've just made them unending in this scenario.

You might say true reality is dimensionless. This eradicates time and space. And it's not so much that every possibility exists happening right now but rather that it lies unmanifest potentially waiting to arise in awareness. Not every possible eventuality has to be simultaneously playing out for true reality to be One.

One interesting consideration of our nature is by asking 'can there be an end to reality?' An ending to such a thing would require awareness of it having ended. And if there is awareness then it hasn't ended. Similarly, 'did reality have a beginning?' Well there would have to be awareness before it began to say it began but if there was awareness then it wasn't the beginning. So not 'eternal' or  'infinite' but everpresent.

So I, awareness/true reality (or whatever you like to call it) is everpresent. Without birth or death or existing in space or time. Dimensionless being.

I think your question about what came first depends upon your definition of 'reality'. This current human experience is largely thought based but pare that back and you still have awareness so in this regard 'thought' comes after. And after all a thought does not exist without awareness of it so it could never come first.

These are my thoughts building on classic non-dual teachings of the Vedantic and Tantric traditions.

Yes 100%. Logic and Thoughts and Intuition are faculties that we know and can master in this reality frame which allow us to partially comprehend “reality”. Time and Space also. But there are probably other perspectives different than Thought, Logic, and Intuition etc that can be experienced. It’s all we know so that’s all we think that exists. The fundamental baseline of who we are is awareness for all we can comprehend with the additional invisible faculties added on such as Rational thought, Emotion, and then you get the more physical: sight, touch etc in the perception of form.

Our language is limited in talking about these “out there” subjects. At some point it just has to be experienced. That’s also the blessing of experiencing physical-ness. We are experiencing unique faculties like rational thought, spewing emotions, subtle intuition, feeling planted in the body like we are our body… it’s actually really cool when you look at it from this perspective with all the different aspects to this reality frame.

Like literally the way we think is just one perspective. The way we perceive is so limited but very unique still. And then we learn the ability to consciously AP and get smacked with a whole other set of faculties. It’s no wonder we can’t remember some of our experiences/dreams. Super cool!!

I think im sounding a little nuts now. You got me going!! Haha!  

I also almost forgot to mention…. One book that really opened my mind as well to new pathways of thought was the Spirits Book by Allen Kardec. I always go into everything with a sense of open minded skepticism, but I was amazed at how interesting this perspective is as well.

Wow LightBeam, what a great first post. In a tilted sort of way your experience validates some of my own which I won't go into right now except to say that stories are told not out of things that have never or could never happen but because they did. So when a writer picks up a pen and begins a story they will 'tell' the story according to their own interpretation or understanding but the story (characters and places) already exist. That old saying, what goes around comes around comes to mind. We know existence is a circle. I do feel that there are indeed moments in any era in which changes to the story can be made. But they are few and far between and often over-looked and so in short the future can be predicted by the past.

That might not be a full explanation but it is the best I can do from my current position.

I envy your recall and your long practice and efforts.

Really cool initial post LightBeam! You were obviously very conscious to be able to relay all of that detailed information back to PR. (Miles and miles beyond what I relay back from my foggy dream experiences lol.)

As for the rest of the conversation of NPR and PR it comes down to a chicken/egg scenario. What happened first, the thought of the reality or did the reality exist before the thought. I think this concept would be impossible to understand with our limited faculties because time is a limited dimension in this reality. If infinity exists, than these realities would exist before an individual thought them up, but yet they are made of thought essence as we all are in this structured reality. You see it is unimaginable in my opinion because Time is the limiting factor here. We all think in terms of linear time and duality which distorts pure truth.

But this is just my thoughts on the subject. I’m a straight up noob and just read some books on various subjects regarding these philosophies. I enjoy this topic!!

Hello everyone!

I’ve never really thought about this before until this morning… it was a dreamless night (can’t remember a thing these past couple nights), but as I was waking up this morning I noticed a type of melody or song playing in my mind over and over and over again. Just before my alarm went off the melody completely changed.

I notice that I’ll have these mental melodies or unconscious songs in my head during many sleeps sometimes without me even realizing it. It’s like a song that gets stuck in your head and plays over and over. Sometimes the songs are actually real songs that I listened to the day(s) before or sometimes it’s completely made up.

Do you guys and gals have any experience with this? Is there any way to use this to induce lucidity or increase memory?

Another question I wanted to ask was about relaxation/focus.

My work is entering its extremely busy season and I’m starting to notice my mental state after work going nuts. It takes me awhile to realize I’m even meditating. Last night it took me over half an hour of meditation until I started to get into deeper focus. Usually it takes me 5 minutes to achieve this state. And I haven’t been able to remember my dreams most likely from the added mental stress. My work is very fast paced and multitasking oriented so my mind goes everywhere while Im there and continues bouncing off of ideas and thoughts by the time I get home.

Cutting to the chase here…

Do you guys know of any focussing techniques or practices that have helped you taper off the scatter brain mind jumping effects? I’m actually thinking now that physical exercise might help after work or something before starting meditation.

Thanks!

Hey GR,
Weird coincidence happened to me yesterday. I didn’t think anything of it until I put the pieces together this morning…

I was driving home last night and about a quarter way home “the art of dreaming” audio book just finished up so I started the Faerie Realm book. I remember when I was finishing Castinada’s book because I was turning a corner onto another country road. Once I started the next book probably about 2 minutes into the book on the same road I saw 2 deer running away around some corn fields.

Now I know I live in Ontario Canada (and I know the stereotypes around that lol), but I honestly haven’t seen deer here in probably about 10 years. And I’ve been going down this same road to my job for almost a year now. I’ve seen them when I crossed the border into the US about 3-4 years ago, but not in Ontario.

Just thought it is interesting as a book on nature spirits just started and I see 2 deer running…

Hope you enjoy that little story. It shocked me haha!

Perspective: you're welcome! You may also want to try connecting with nature spirits. This book on communicating with nature spirits and elements may be interesting for you:

https://www.amazon.com/Enchantment-Faerie-Realm-Communicate-Elementals/dp/0875420028

Also, the book, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype (by psychoanalyst and storyteller Clarissa Pinkola Estes) may help you connect with your inner wild Artemis (it's honestly a good read for all genders!)

Thank you for the recommendations. I’ll definitely check these books out. They are on Audible too. Bonus!

I find these types of movies fascinating!! Like the Matrix, every time I watch it I go into thought circles for the next few weeks.

There’s also an Anime series which is along these lines called SwordArt Online which is a virtual reality MMORPG that the main character plugs in to play by putting on a headset that plugs into their brainwaves. The video game developer traps everyone in this game which will kill them if they remove the headset or players can actually die if they die in the video game, so they have to be very careful.

Not quite the same as what your talking about here, but a very fascinating concept of a series. I feel like it’s very close to modern reality to be honest. Very interesting.

Two cards for you:



The Oracle card is a good sign for you - it's an affirmation and a reminder that you have the capacity to be in contact with the spiritual plane. So keep practicing. if you don't have a special area to be your meditation/ritual place, think about creating that sacred space/container for yourself. Be diligent about meditating or doing *something* as a daily practice. It also affirms that doing the kind of reading you've started is good - go back to ancient traditions, texts, etc, and immerse yourself in what they have to teach you.

Artemis, the Mistress of Trees, suggests that something that might be helpful for you is to spend more time in nature - this could include bringing a crap load of plants into your home! The natural world has something to teach you right now.

Does any of this resonate with you?

Hey thanks GR!!

I’ve been meditating once per day and this morning I spontaneously had the idea of starting my meditation practice with some visualization practices first. I always feel more grounded in nature, so that was good advice. During the week, I work everyday so I don’t spend any time in nature during the week. Some weekends I don’t either. I went for a nice hike today and it’s always refreshing. Feels like a reset for my mental state. My wife also started doing some physical exercising everyday, so I’ll start to incorporate this in as well for a better relationship with my body.

Thank you for the reading!

Welcome Kim!!

Your situation is an unfortunate one… I’ve seen these experiences make some people bitter against the world or they become very strong individuals. Its great that the situation has propelled you in this direction. From what I’ve read there seems to be many wise individuals here to learn from.

I’m new here too to the Pulse so your post inspired me to write an intro as well!

Looking forwards to going through this experimental journey with you and the others here!

Hey, I’m Levi!

New here! Thank you for accepting me on this fascinating forum! I’ve been reading this forum for the past 6 months or so after being introduced to it off of a Telegram AP group. Reading Frank Kepple’s stuff, Xanth’s book and a bunch of other priceless material on here. Finally pulled the trigger and joined about a week ago or so.

I’m 32 years old living way the heck up here in Ontario Canada.

Growing up in a Christian upbringing I was constantly asking hard questions to contradicting information that my peers didn’t know how to answer and didn’t like me asking. So I gradually started looking into other religions and philosophies for answers. Read many psychology and self-help books (my favourite book section).

I also grew up with weird paranormal things that have happened that are a reminder to me that there is higher powers that exist.

Now I have a mixed belief system and consider myself an open-minded skeptic. I never knew about being able to be conscious in your dreams until this past year, and this REALLY got my attention. My upbringing made me assume AP was evil or bad for you, so I never looked into the subject in my early years.

Thankfully that’s over…

I’m looking forwards to learning and sharing experiences with all of you great souls! This forum has already given me so much more knowledge than the many books I’ve read on the subject.

So far I’ve had only one lucid dream with semi-conscious awareness (I looked at the front and back of my hand attempting to do a reality check, but it didn’t work until I looked closely at the pores and creases in my hand and then saw ripples down my vision and felt my awareness enter the dream body. Felt pretty amazing!) and a couple dreams of OOBEs (I dreamt that I came out of my body and another where I got stuck half way out of my body, but wasn’t lucid.) The hypnogogic state fascinates me too and I’m looking forwards to more lucid experiences.

Thank you for the vast information and help!! And I’ll see you in there!!

Very interesting! Thanks for the advice Nameless and EV!

So I guess practicing staying in those “daydream” and hypnagogic states will progress the LD/AP practice.

I’ve altered my meditation position for the noticing exercise. I’ll try it like that and see how it goes.

Funny enough, my wife had her first Lucid Dream yesterday night that only lasted for a few seconds before it faded into darkness. She was so excited that her excitement brought her out of it. My first LD was similar only lasting for about a minute before the scene kept getting darker and darker. Really cool stuff! Reading about it doesn’t do justice even though it’s fascinating to read about too! Lol

I find it very interesting too the faint dreams that you can’t yet pop into yet, but almost. I’ve had a couple of those after the LD experience. It’s exciting to learn!!

Tarot cards are very interesting. I thought of buying a pack, but I don’t know enough about the meanings. I’ve read about them only a bit through Initiation into Hermetics and a few other readings.

I’m open to participating as well if you want some additional practice.

I’ve been reading/practicing Lucid dreaming and AP for about 6 months now. I seem to be making slow progress inching in the right direction. I’ve had 1 lucid fully conscious dream and a couple dreams about astral projection since starting. Is there anything blocking me or anything I can do that would hasten progress in this area for me personally?

I personally think I may be on the right track and to just keep doing what I’m doing, but I’m interested in what your intuition would say in this matter.

Thanks in advance!

Maybe consider a recliner that offers variable inclinations. I have read of others successes with this and considered it myself. One author that I am not a fan of did report that the Egyptians were keen on a 37 degree back angle and that has been of interest to me, but I have not explored it.

I had heard of something like this in an AP book too… wasn’t really a fan of the author either.

Can you AP from a sitting position? When I meditate in a sitting position, many times I will do the noticing exercise instead of focussing purely on darkness. I hit some hypnogogic states and when I go deeper I feel the falling sensation which signals my head falling/bobbing down. Catching my head automatically launches my consciousness to PR. Sometimes I’ll get to this state 5 times in a session.

I sleep easy so I feel that a sitting position I can get really deep but get kicked out of it each time my head bobs.

The bobbing is my actual head falling as I catch it half way it’s way down. (I thought at first that it might be just a sensation). But I think this point signals where my consciousness “taps out” so to speak. I’m not sure if I’m at the point yet of being able to maintain my awareness beyond a certain point. And I think that is the cut off point possibly.

Anyone else experience this or have any tips?

I’ve read this whole thread from beginning to end. These experiences are fascinating! Thank you for sharing your experiences here. Super cool!

Are most of your experiences done through following the guiding force? Or do you ever try going in a different direction?

Also, have you ever tried exploring the dark/scary areas? Or is this not recommended? I’ve read in LD books that embracing the shadow can be a good thing, but I’m not sure if APs are similar. I assume a big part of these experiences are about mastering fear and opening your mind.

But I’m also a newbie to this vast otherworld, so excuse my lack of understanding.

Hey thank you EV for your detailed reply! That’s a great idea to try different Times of WBTB. One thing I’ve been reluctant on first starting out was having to wake up in the middle of the night and go back to bed, but the past couple weeks I’ve realized that it is necessary.

The closest I’ve gotten to a conscious AP/LD was in the early morning doing the noticing exercise after listening to Monroe’s Introduction to Focus 10. I saw a pinhole that opened up into an extremely lucid type of portal. I could see into the fiery opening that there was a massive blue Sun or planet suspended in blackness. It looked so realistic and intense I could feel myself sweating. It got so intense to a point where the scene started losing its vibrant colours, went grey, and I stopped seeing anything. I can see the balancing act there of passive noticing.

That was the most realistic visual I’ve ever seen. More vivid than my LD experience. I wear glasses in PR, but the imagery was crystal clear more so than PR. It was so close to an LD/AP experience, but I still had ties to my body as I could feel it getting nervous.

I also like what you said about intent. I’ve recently been talking to my guides to give them permission to help me. I’ll try asking them for permission to experience these phenomena as well. I do have a deep spiritual intent based on helping the whole move forwards spiritually. I’ll express this intent moving forwards. I may not be completely over the more base emotions, but I feel like I’ve come a long way in self development over the years.

As my younger self I had an “overnight success” type of mentality. But I’ve realized that everything worth having takes dedicated practice, time and effort.

So far, the hypnogogic states have fascinated me. They are so random. And they have dramatically reduced my fear of the unknown. Definitely looking forwards to delving deeper. Thanks again for your help!

New here on the forum… I’ve been reading this forum for months, but never came across this technique until last night.

To put a context on my experience… I’ve tried many different techniques and have been meditating consistently daily for probably 2-3 months without any breaks. (I find when I miss a day or 2  in meditation, my hypnagogic imagery and dream recall decline substantially).

I’ve only had an actual lucid dream (where I was fully aware I was dreaming) once, and I did have Galantamine during that episode which may have helped. Other than that I’ve been practicing for probably 6 months for lucid dreams or APs. I’ve just gotten more serious about this the past couple weeks by putting in more effort.

The one thing I like about this technique is I get into the “stray energy” or hynogogic imagery faster than with any other technique I’ve tried, probably because the cycling allows my eyes to relax, I find my eyes “reset” after moving from visual to auditory cycles and find them swing back less and less everytime I move from sensory to visual and try to limit my eyes from responding.

I get into hypnagogic imagery many times before the pre-cycling is over and it gets really intense by the time I do my first main cycle that I start losing consciousness and find myself forgetting where I was. I also found with this technique last night that I couldn’t go to sleep after cycling. I tried reality checks but I was fully awake and had a hard time going back to sleep. I guess that is a good thing as you maintain more awareness which is what I find with most LD techniques.

Any input for a newbie in this space would be helpful. And great to finally be here. You guys have helped me hugely already!