Astral Projection or inner mind experience?

[Astral-Trea]

Hi,

I have been asking myself a question that I wish you experienced projectors can answer. It seems like everybody who projects seems to have different experiences. I have heard some things described that seem to suggest that your mind can create reality in the astral, whether it be beings to protect you or beings that can scare you.  I have heard this described as that your fears and imagination can manifest these things. 

So my question is, how does anyone know whether the place they are or the beings they see, are real? How do they know it is not just a manifestation of their mind.. And for that matter.. How do they know that they ever left the body at all.  If your mind can create so much, what is to say that everything isn't created by your mind? That you are taking a journey inside of your own mind rather than actually leaving your body. 

I have read things on forums where people try to lay a playing card in a certain spot without looking and the look at it in the astral, only to find that the suit is correct but the number is not.  This seems to suggest to me that you are not actually seeing a real card, but a generated one. 

Please don't take this as being skeptical, I simply have been asking myself these questions lately and would like to have an answer from people who are experienced, and understand what they are doing and seeing. 

I do feel however, just like with other things, that there are people out there who like to pretend just to be part of something interesting and that there made up stories tend to confuse people and make the real stories and the fake ones hard to tell apart.  Please, if you read this take a few moments to give your opinion and thoughts maybe an answer or two.. Thanks.

[Xanth]

So my question is, how does anyone know whether the place they are or the beings they see, are real?

Honestly?   You can't 100% know for certain.
You can only use your own best judgment.

If you're looking for proof, the only way to find that is to personally experience it yourself.   

[Volgerle]

read this:

http://reconnection.lima-city.de/OBE-Verification/index.html

 

[i smoke and drink coffee]

I have been thinking that it is the mind that limits and actualizes reality.  Reality, after all, is mental perception of things which exist, feelings and memories, all the mental things.  Existence could be entirely subjective, no objectivity at all.

When you meditate, you have to get to the place in meditation where there is no thought, no fantasy, no fears, nothing.  When you are there, you can teleport in or out of 'reality' at will.  You basically become a planeswalker.  When I was a child, I meditated all the time, and now that I'm older, I see that it was my own mind that created every experience.

So if our minds are creating physical reality by limiting and actualizing the spirit, then when we astral, we are recreating reality.  I don't know about OOBEs, but I do know that when I dream, it is a desperate attempt to return to this reality with better conditions.  In my dreams, I'm different people, sometimes, and always in different places, different than where I am in physical reality.  But in my mind, fragmented as it is, I'm always thinking that those places are places that I know as myself in physical reality. 

So what I'm saying is... the mind generates it's own experiences.  If you want a bottle of wine, you will have it, so long as you are not inwardly fearful or anxious that you will not have it.  If you want a massive set of nuts, you can sit there and 'experience' growing them out.  Our minds are the problem, but at the same time, they are the solutiion.