Focus 10: Mind Awake/Body Asleep

[gil-galad]

 So I just have to continue observing passively the blackness in front of my eye, and my state will gradualy deepen by itself?Then, why does Monroe and other authors write that in order to get into condition C/D(focus 12), one needs to go down to a given level and return, going deeper and deeper each time and deepening the state in this way?

[CFTraveler]

So that you don't fall asleep.
In other words, going deeper in trance is not a thing you 'do', it's simply your brain getting closer and closer to a frequency that you usually fall asleep in.  So if you are in trance, and feel you are about to click out, you wake yourself up a little and then go back to doing the same thing- being a passive observer.  The earhiss is a way to get you synched quicker, but if you don't watch it you can go to sleep.  At some point you will find yourself in the right state, but it's not something you 'do' as in 'going somewhere', or 'moving the right way' but something you attain by letting yourself almost fall asleep without falling asleep.

[CFTraveler]

Since now I can't add to my own post, I'll add more to this-
When you reach a state (focus level, whatever you call it) you are not only teaching your brain to 'be there' without going to sleep, but you are teaching yourself how it feels to be in that state.  Sometimes you can deepen the focus enough to project, sometimes you fall asleep.  Obviously the more you do this- get to where you're almost out, yet bring yourself back, you teach your brain to stay awake while this has happened.  So the more you do this the deeper you get.  See?  But it's not a matter of 'doing' something.  Noticing and listening (and other meditative techniques) are devices to keep you from losing focus, getting bored and going to sleep.

[gil-galad]

 Thank you for the explanation. So, I just have to observe something passively( blackness in front of me,...etc), while letting myself into sleep state more and more, without falling asleep completely. And in this way sooner or later, I will reach a state deep enough to project.

[CFTraveler]

Yep. 

[manwesulimo2004]

Wow, this paper was a really good read. Thanks for such an in depth description of Focus 10.

[spacewrangler]

Great article, and it really rings true for me. It's easy to confuse what is described here with sleep paralysis...it certainly sounds similar, but in my experience (of both) this is a much more subtle state, and not associated with a loss of control...it's more like forgetting that there's a body to control in the first place!

Sleep paralysis usually hits me suddenly. If I'm trying for an OBE, sleep paralysis might last one second or sixty seconds before I can pull myself out. I usually don't notice it unless it happens unintentionally and I hit it with a really low 'energy' (in those cases, I generally just focus on wiggling a toe and roll over...) In a successful OBE it's just a "stage"...heavy roaring in my head, the body falls away replaced with weightlessness...and off I go. That's what I think of as a 'traditional' OBE.

What Monroe enthusiasts call 'focus 10' is something I experience regularily just through increased familiarity with my own internal states. From a very young age I've enjoyed just laying down and waiting to see what my brain 'spits up'--gently experiencing them without trying to grasp or direct the images. It's more like 'letting go' while retaining enough of myself to avoid just going to sleep or slipping into dreams. Do that for long enough and there's a fair chance I'll find myself staring through my eyelids at the ceiling, and with a really smooth energy, ready to go.

A good example of one of these 'focus 10' moments: I'm watching images go by when I see a small circular 'snapshot' of a roadside near the beach on the North coast, a place I've been many times. Instead of just moving on, I reached for the image and boom...I was instantly there. It was a sudden and intense embodiment. I was there on the grassy path by the road, between the golf course and a caravan site. I had no doubt--something had changed and I was literally there in that place. I could feel the chill of the wind, saw the grass shift with each gust. It was undoubtedly an OBE (identical intensity, sensations, clarity of mind) without the bodily transition stage--like I'd insta-travelled to an 'address' my brain had shown me.

[EEthmane]

Great thread, I think I just got to F10 for the first time.
I've been listening for some weeks to WAVE 1 ( mostly track 2 ) of monroe's gateway, from the first time I had some nice " new " feelings and I didn't bother insisting on them, as long as the feeling was new to me I was pretty happy with the experience.
As OP said, levels of focus are a pretty blurry notion, before reading this thread( like 2 hours ago ) I didn't know what FOCUS 10 actually felt like.
So after getting the idea of it ( Thanks to Op and everybody in the thread ), I decided I'd try again, since I only slept like 4 hours last night it could be different. The first time, I had the usual tinglings, some ( not lasting ) hypnagogic images and a nice feeling of content. Though this time I didn't feel the time passing, the track ended pretty quickly. So I take a 5 min break and try again and that time I couldn't feel a lot of my limbs, I couldn't tell where my arms and legs are positions , I was still feeling my head and shoulders though, stayed that way a while with some more images floating through ( I'm getting the crying baby a lot, which scares me a bit ) and then about 3 minutes before the end of the track I started vibrating ( If my definition of vibrating is the correct one, i'm still not sure ) , that was the first time I had that steady vibration going for more than 5 secondes, it went on for like 2 minutes with stop/restart vibrations everytime I lost focus.
Didn't go further than that, but as always I 'm really enjoying every experience of those whatever the result is, it doesn't bore me at ALL and i'm usually bored pretty quickly.

Thank you for taking the time to read, I also have a question if anyone could give some insight :

- On the monroe's gateway tapes, am I supposed to do a track then stop then do the next, or should I do one after the other ? I actually tried listenning to track after track , but everytime a new one starts, the 7 seconds sound which every track starts with startles me everytime, I can't stand that sound or understand what kind of value does it add to the tapes ? It's not even in the " mood ", it sounds too " electronic "  .

Thanks

[Contenteo]

Yup, EEthmane, that sounds like F10 signs to me. F10 is a broad broad state that in my mind, now, exist more of a long gradient until you hit a deep/mature F10(whole mouth feels like it got Novocained), which will then allow you to get to a F12 state (once things become 'vast') which again, is another long gradient until you are transitioning into that F15-F18-F21 progression into the lower levels of the 'astral'.

I, personally, find binaural beats, etc. annoying. If you just lay there relaxed NOT MOVING for 10 minutes, you can usually find yourself in, at least, a light F10. Again, you know when you can't really tell where your limbs are. That's the telltale sign.

Cheers,
Contenteo

[Major Tom]

Hi EEth,

I agree with Contenteo you were pretty far in.

If your aim is to induce an OBE, hwoever, I would a more flexible approach like the Vigil Method, which does not require stopping movements, nor a specific time frame dictated by any tapes with sounds that might disturb you (even though the ultimate goal is a total focus 10 state from which you can project).

Here: http://www.explorations-in-consciousness.com/vigil_method.html
 
MT

[EEthmane]

@Major TOm : Thanks for the link, im beginning to see why more experienced people go with other methods than the binaural beats.
I just finished reading, I'm having a hard time understanding this part :

let it all go and allow yourself to fall asleep naturally with the knowledge and conviction that you will wake up later on.

Does that mean that I'm supposed to sleep " normally ", then wake up at some random point of the night, THEN try to trigger the OBE state ?

The way I see/saw things is : The OBE state is triggered just BEFORE the " normal " sleep state, since I took the habit of going from focus 1  to focus 3 to focus 10 then focus 12...Not Focus 1 to sleep to focus 10 to focus 12...
I don't know if I'm explaining myself well enough, please don't hesitate to say if I'm not.

In a more general sense : Do we go deeper in focus levels from F1 to F+00  ( ) whatever the method is, or does each method have it's own " order " ?

Cheers

[Major Tom]

Hi EEthmane,

Yes, exactly as you said, fall asleep normally, and wake up later, and then go through the step sequence to trigger an OBE.

The reason is  simply that your mind will be fresher after having slept some. It is very difficult to induce an OBE at the usual time you go to bed because you have trained your mind for many years already to fall asleep at that time.

It can be done, if you go through all the steps, but it usually takes 2-3 hours, if you are succesful to begin with. Better to do it in the middle of the night when your mind has rested some.

The OBE state is triggered immediately before, or after the body falls asleep. You can call the transition into the out of body state going from 10 to 12 if you like, or any other number you want to put on it.

But it is simpler to simply look at it as the physical body falling asleep, since that after all is all that is needed for an OBE (Mind Awake/Body Asleep).

In that sense, the OBE would occur from focus 10, provided your body is indeed falling asleep.

I'm not sure whether going "deeper" is the right way of putting it. Your mind does not really go "deeper". It is simply awake.

It does move away from physical sensory input, however. So you could call that "deeper".

How far that goes, I'm not sure.

But I do know that you can move so far that sharp pain signals from the physical body will no longer enter your awareness while out of body. This seems to occur when moving beyond human consciousness, or what Monroe referred to as "beyond 27."

So there does appear to some sort of continuum there where you can move further and further away from the physical context.

MT

[Major Tom]

Hi all,

For those interested, I made a little update in the focus 10 paper in the last two sections, and linked it up a bit clearer with the OBE.

http://www.explorations-in-consciousness.com/focus10.html

For those who really want to get to the bottom of the transition process, I recommend you read my book which goes in far more detail (and not in terms of focus levels).

http://www.explorations-in-consciousness.com/book.html

[Major Tom]

Press "refresh" if you visted the focus 10 page before...!

[Stookie_]

Thanks for the update Fred!