Quote:
The "decision time" is getting closer. Unfortuneately it only deepens the conflict that I'm with myself for the past few years.

This sounds ominous, I hope you are not planning anything negative.
This makes the being relaxed part of OBE'S outdated because anyone with negative experences are the least bit relaxed.
It seems like you realize that the OBE is really a trip into the deeper regions of your being. Even negative experiences are helpful to our progress.  

Back to the nudist topic, I'm all for it. I moved out west in the late 70's and went to many clothing optional hot springs and beaches and I can report that there is still many places in northern California that nudity is accepted and normal. Haven't heard of anyone cited for it, you just have to go to the places that it is accepted. Lots of rivers have nude spots and I know of quite a few pacific beaches that are clothing optional. Not all are hard to get to- I was surprised a few years ago when I went to a popular public beach just north of san francisco, walked over the rocks and found people frolicing in their bithday suits! Unfortunately I don't think the younger generations are so much into it so when all the old hippies die off nudity may disappear too.

Maybe you should not follow your grandmothers spiritual path? This could be just a meeting with the guardian of the threshold, which just seems to be a device within your being that makes sure you are ready to explore other realms.
Maybe next time you have an experience you will find out?

Hannah, Do you actually have good obe experiences? From rereading your post it seems like a good experience is the lack of fear and paralysis? You mention not wanting to go too far but maybe by staying too close to your body your attention is devided between your sleeping self and your semi-projected self. The real time zone is a somewhat creepy place and I have had my share of time in dark places but for some reason it has never really  freaked me out too bad or when it has I seem to imeadiatly go back and wake up. You know there is nothing there that can hurt you and if you reread Frank's old post you will find that your subconcious creates a lot of the situations you find yourself in.

Do you have good experiences when you are at home and relaxed? I second the opinion that you should experiment and not fight it. Also it brings to mind the posts of Frank about having curiosity about the situation while being trapped.

Ooo la la!: Houston (overall No. 72) is among cities with the fewest lingerie shops per capita.
What does this mean? Women in Houston are naked beneath their clothes?

About a year ago I came across a website dedicated some girl who was seeking donations for a boob job. A creative move for such vanity. Maybe she should have joined the military.

Hmmm, don't know exactly what you are experiencing- Maybe you could program yourself to wake after an obe/lucid dream? Then you should write it down. I don't write anything down but I know that is bad. I can awake after something interesting happens in the dream world but I don't always remember all of it.
Since trying obe techniques I have been having more lucid dreams, dreams of obe's and even last night I had a dream where I had an obe within the dream. Unfortunately I did not remember all parts of the experience but that is what I get for not writing it down.
Don't know if this is any help.

I don't know what to say, on the one hand the forums are so big that I only have time to check out a couple on a regular basis, sometimes the same questions keep getting asked over and over(which I will answer if I feel like I can contribute something), people do seem to leave after a while, i'm not really sure why, but it would be nice to have serious people stick around.
Maybe the moderators could create a topic for people to state what they want from this forum?
I always thought that this forum was associated with Robert Bruce? Is he no longer a part?
One other thought- what if people could hang around free for 6 months or 6 weeks then they would have to join?

Jax, your experiences are similat to whar I have experienced over the last few years: not having good vision, having obe's after falling asleep after try to obe, hearing strange noises, having multiple obe's in one night, mixing obe's with lucid dreams.
Unfortunately it seems like few people have first rate obe experiences every time but if you keep trying you could have a few mixed in with the others.

I think sense info can travel beteen the astral and the physical. I have had pains while obe that i could feel then when i went back to my body i found my leg cramping. I also have listened to a constant motor sound change (in complexity?) as I got more relaxed and feel asleep.

more info-was the grandma in the dream yours and is she still alive? do you think she practiced black magic? Maybe she could be a guide for you, maybe she has some negative attachment on you. Do you know what doll it is? maybe you could research that?

Gaffer, you should check out some of the yogic info from yogananda or Muktananda. The blue circle could be the manisfestation of what they call the blue pearl which is the true energy of the third eye. This is not something to take lightly and could lead to a kundalini type experience. Also there were a few threads related to kundalini on this site that would have good info too.

This is a great topic to consider,unfortunately I feel like I am no closer to figuring anything out after having a couple dozen experiences of my own. I can only read stuff by the great people in this field such as the already mentioned RB, castreneda. steiner and try to intergrate what they say to what I have experienced. Maybe the best I heard was from a tibetian is to be practicing awareness whether awake or asleep.

My idea of phasing is developing an ability to just jump to the astral location that you are familiar with. Unfortunately I have not found such a locale, but I have noticed that when I obe I now tend to skip the vibes in the body, seperating, going through the wall or window and just find myself flying around outside somewhere. So maybe if this ability is developed one could just project their conciousness to wherever they want, however it looks to me that you have had to been there before.

weird stuff tends to happen in the obe state. My latest theory based on my experience and reading is the more energy/awareness you have in the RTZ state the more what you see correlates to what is actually there.
For the second experience you could also have the option of time travel-maybe these people were there at some past or future time? What I see never fails to amaze me and is never easy to label as obe/rtz/lucid dream.

For the interupted sleep some people stay awake for up to an hour(after 5-6 hrs. of sleep), but i just get up then go back to bed, do some focusing/energy work for as long as i can focus, then drift back to sleep then I am awakened in the vibration/exit phase. Somehow this bypasses whatever is holding you back when you are more awake. One time I was able to project without falling back to sleep, and I would have to say I felt like I kept just the slimest bit of awareness, in contrast to the experiences i had that seemed intense but i was very much awake and aware.

ady, I don't know why you were not able to project, I also have been in a  similar state for about an hour. The way I have got around the problem was to use the interupted sleep technique, somehow this overcomes the obstacles that occur when we are more 'awake'.

birm, thanks for sharing your experiences.
There seems to be different levels of the astral sex experience- the writhing piles described by robert monroe, genital level experiences and the experience of onneness  with another soul.
Maybe there is some of each in every experience, and the more the oneness the more satisfying the experience?

Where you obe from probably is not important, what is is how aware you remain and the control you have over the experience, since I have many experiences that degenerate into dreams and I'm sure dream images are coming into the obe experience.
Going through walls can become a creative experience. If I feel real energetic I can just think my way to the outside. One time I put my arms through and pulled myself through even as i was having the thought that logically this should not work.

An interesting aside-I once took a class in geopathic dowsing and it turns out that there are geopathic lines that are produced by the AC power grid called hartman lines, along with other negative ley lines that can be dowsed. It turns out that cats love to sleep on the intersection of the geopathic lines(now we know why cats won't sleep where we try to put them). I didn't totally believe it until I dowsed it a few times myself. I suppose since these are subtle energies there would be some kind of carry over to the RTZ.

I have had up to six cats but never saw one while obe. I live in the country so I see lots of trees. I wonder what experiences people have that move from one exteme to another-city to country.

Check out rb's article on the blue ray:
http://www.astralpulse.com/articles/robert/articles_5.htm
Maybe the vortex was a tunnel type of astral entry device?
Probably your experiences are just the early stages of projecting, I have experienced similar stuff-one time I went through the whole process of projecting to only have an experience of moving at high speed and nothing else. Maybe if you get past the 'almost' phase and really give it some effort you could have amazing experiences.

where is it this year? haven't heard about it for a few years.

michelle shocked? I have her first cd.