Glad that you are able to return to the forum, Jeff. I also have been preoccupied with other stuff for the last year. I think what we go through in life, how we deal with it, and the relaxation time we have all contribute to the extent we are able to project and discussing these things are part of this forum.

I'm not sure it had anything to do with your eyes open, it was probably something in the astral or a hypnogogic image. What did you see after the ball of light?
Nay, did you keep aware of your surrondings for a while? I have had a couple times when i came awake with my eyes open, but what i was looking at was scambled into my dream or was rotated because i was laying down of course-it is hard to describe because of being in a dream state and my dreaming mind kind of recreated what i was looking at.

To expand on what Jeff said (is he back? where has he been? I don't have time to check every topic so i'm not sure if he was really gone) there seems to be a part of the mind that just won't let go, about the only way i can trick it is to fall asleep after getting very close to the obe state and i will be awakened by the vibrations and go obe. I'm not sure if it really is mind tension but there seems to be a need for the mind to just dissapear-body asleep mind awake needs to be modified to something like body asleep, mind dormant, awareness present or something like that.
As for the swaying technique, it seems to be somewhat like the falling technique, kind of like swinging in a swing or in a hammock.

I can't believe that no one mentioned www.milkandcookies.com , i think i found it through this forum

I have remembered other such facts as the day progressed-a dead ringer refers to the middle ages in england when they may have bureid people too soon so they put a string attached to a bell in their coffin and if they woke up they rang the bell. a loose cannon goes back to the days of ships with cannons, just think of the damage a cannon not tied down could do at sea. And sort of a side note if you put the word mother in front of the f-word it becomes a curse on the goddess, the goddess equivalent of god**mn. Don't know if this goes back to the time when they were trying to reduce the power of the goddess but I wonder...

Tisha, it looks like you have too much spare time. The f-word one seems a little bogus. The most interesting tidbit that i somewhat remember is that the first worldwide satalite broadcast was of the beatles singing all you need is love.

I have studied his stuff a little and my daughter has just finished 8 years of waldarf based schooling. To me his stuff seems too complex and I prefer an experience based esoteric knowledge.

I think lucid dreaming is a training ground for obe's since you have to have a certain amount of awareness to obe and lucid dreams are similar though less intense. Also Tibetian Buddhist Lamas say that developing awareness while lucid dreaming is good training for the time after one dies since many things can trick your awareness of who and what you are-which is also similar to obe experiences. I have not dwelt much on the sybolism of lucid dreams because it seems like it matters more about how aware you can become.

It almost sounds like you were past the sleep paralysis stage and actually out of body, maybe you should give us more detail. I also have had obe experiences were i just could not move, however i don't think they were actually in the astral. Maybe your focus was still somewhat on your body, I have had divided awareness and could see

well Alt0 the vibes are not really what you are after but just a precurser to the event, I think if you keep trying you will have more of theese experiences and they will lead to full blown obe's. I have been able to get into the vibe state but somehow the attention on them keeps me from going all the way to the projection stage. I was able to have projections by going to sleep first then awakening while it was happening which somehow fools the part of the brain that just won't let go. There have been a few posts in the past about projecting from lucid dreams that may be of interest to you.

i have also thought about this since i have had a year in which i have been way too busy, had my mother die and seemed to acquire a lot more tension than i had last year. Rather than will i think the keyword is "focus" meaning having a relaxed state before the attempt, keeping your sub\conciousness clear of garbage, and trying to acheive a deep trance state before the obe state.

it sounds almost like a typical obe state noise, how close were you to projecting? When you get near to the obe state there seems to be an increase in weird noises, don't think they can really be explained. My experiences are having normal sounds change into something totally weird, buzzing like you had while obe for the first few times, voices of my daughter and her friends appear in the hallway while i was in the in between state and random pops and clicks.

how to wake in the middle of the night-drink a glass of water before going to sleep or don't pee for a while before going to sleep-you don't need an alarm for this. you don't need to stay awake for awhile, at least i don't, just do some kind of energy work while falling asleep again and expect to have vibrations wake you as you go obe. At the least you should remember more dreams and have  more lucid dreams.

I have always been amazed that some of the stars we see are actually galaxies containing millions of stars.

Lower deminsions are probably only possible if that is what is in your head-fear, sense desires ect. Robert Monroe tells about traveling through such realms but he wasn't stuck there like the souls with the desires. I don't know if those places are actually a lower plane, just the beings there had lower demensional desires and created the place.
Once while going obe i started falling down into the earth but decided i was not gonna go there.

I think there is some connection between the stars out there and the astral universe. My most interesting astral experience was started by looking at the stars while obe, a few of them seemed to form a triangle and i entered through this portal and had a journey through this land filled with colored geometric patterns. Other times i have gotten to see the stars start to change but have not been able to go through the portal again. The last time it happened i sort of went part way, was floating in an astroid belt, saw one coming my way told myself not to worry, but woke anyway. after waking i could still sort of see floating objects for a while. I live in a place where there is not many lights in area so i go out to look at the stars a bit now and then.
One of the most interesting stories in AD is the experience robert had with the people on the ship and with the creatures in the water. I wish he would write more of those stories.

keep trying, it will get easier to reach the vibe state, then one day without trying you will have an obe experience. After a while it seems like the experience looks for you. Be ready.

I think experience helps, some people ask for or demand clarity but that never seemed to help me.

goingslow, i have the opposite problem-flying too fast to really stop to look at where i was going. when i became aware of the problem, i made myself stop and focus on one object. It seemed to work, however i don't have an answer to the opposite problem, other than to get yourself to stop and focus.An interesting question is what happens when you go into the sky?

Mine seem to come about aweek or so before the full moon, sometimes three or four in a night, so i don't know about a recovery period.the quality seems to relate more to my state of mind and awareness at the time they happen.If I feel overly tired or sick they don't seem to happen.

James, I don't really know if it does anything. About 10 years ago I started to feel the effects of civilization such as going into crowded stores and feeling anxiety, either from the people or the emf fields, so i was looking for anything that would help. I have worn it around the clock since i got it, which is unusual for me because I don't wear any jewelry-no watches, or wedding ring. Also interesting is it doesn't have a bad effect on obe's and maybe it helps because i never had one until i waore it. I think about not wearing it to see if it affects obe's, especially on a night where i have vibrations over and over but i have never done so.

I have worn a q-link for the last 5 years or so, I bought it at the reccommendation of a friend that is a chiropractor that does subtle energy work. It may help if you feel overwhelmed with other people's and devices energy

Training wheels? One of my first concious projections was similar, went through the process of seperation then found myself moving at a high rate of speed, this kept up for a few minutes and i felt like i came back to my body. I never did have any visuals during the journey.

This thread reminds me of one of my favorite books, Cutting through spiritual Materialism, by Chogyam Trungpa.Read it.

After listening to Buhlman I got the idea that it was a subconcious connection, the idea of a door or window being a 'portal' to the subconciuos. Actually you did not say how you get out of the house, through the wall or door or window? Probably the way around this is through focus, however i have not heard of any talking about retraining the subconcious.