Far too much emphasis on the physical. Time limit? If you are trying to do this with any restrictions it's not the best thing to do.
Ignore the physical as if it doesn't exist and never has. That's nearer the truth.
You are who you are as a point of conciousness in a sea of thoughts. Create a visualisation of a place away from your sleeping body.
Put yourself at that place and do your best to see it around you. Become part of it.
Add this to your list of things to do that work.
You can do it too. If you know the feel, this method gets you there in a second. No messing around with arms and legs. They dont really exist as such. No body to react with just a point of conciousness.
It took me 50 years to realise this one and I think Tom C does it too.
guess i should have explained more about the "time limit" what i meant was that there is a certain window of opportunity you have to get out of body.
got close yet again about 1 hour ago. reached a state of barely feeling my body, etc. visualized being a foot away from the ceiling raising my hands to touch it. rose up out of bed, but yet again in the physical. so damn frustrating.
but the feeling of being half energy body half physical remained.... i was awake and reading these posts, felt like my body could just float up out of this meat shell!!
so layed back down and did another attempt, yet it all went away...
but i shall put it on the list to try
Here's something I do on those occasions when my body just isn't 'in the mood' to make a conscious transition. And by that I mean the trance just won't deepen to the point of transition. Let yourself start falling asleep and just before you do, bring yourself back to the trance with a single thought and maybe a roll of your eyeballs. Do this again and again and again. If your're afraid of falling asleep, just keep the thought in the back of your mind that you are going to be OOB in a few minutes. This thought will keep you too excited to go into a deep sleep. This will probably deepen the trance enough for you to transition. If at this point you are still struggling, then after about 10 or so rounds of slipping towards sleep and refocusing to the trance, allow yourself to finally go to sleep. Chances are that your subconscious is so programmed for sleep, awake, sleep, awake, that you will wake back up in a few seconds on the 'other side,' lucid, and ready to go! Many times when I do this and wake up in the NPR, I'm still laying in bed but it will be in some other bed in some other house! lol. BTW, this is a good method for people that don't have very well developed visualization skills yet. As you can see, no visualization involved. It's important, I think to develop your visualization skills, but if you struggle with that like I do, at least this method will get you out there. Good luck!

This!!!
thank you.
been focusing way to much on methods, visualizations, etc. mostly what ends up happening is my body just tightens up on attempts to float out lol.
on my 2nd OBE about 9 years ago... it was this that got me out. fell asleep listening to hemi-sync only to re-awake half way out of my body, sitting up in bed. "It's so blurry, why can't i see? x_x" *brings legs around to the side of the bed and rubs eyes* "i did it! out of body!".... still have yet to rediscover which hemi-sync track that was... (i absolutely have to use headphones. my apt building is effing terrible for noise can hear everything.) from what i recall it was just the tones, with some whoosing noises...
anyway back to the reply!
i guess my visualizations aren't strong enough as it would seem to work great for 15 seconds or so then get distracted very easily. but i think this method will work wonders. have a written book with affirmations and techniques, going to add this in with the others

hopefully soon i'll have a story for you guys
*edit* what i'm looking for is astral binaural beats XD not hemi-sync
anyone know wher ei can get some that aren't for lucid dreaming but for astral projection?