My phasing effort: was this astral projection?

[Rastus]

Yes, phased AP.  Nothing like Traditional OBE now is it?  Harder to hit the same target everytime.  Goes real well with energy constructs.

[Frank]

The 3-dimensional world you speak of was, from what you say, the lower astral. Probably somewhere around Monroe's focus 24 state.

Phasing is like that, it gives you the feeling you are not actually out of body (not that anyone is ever in their body in the first place, I just use these terms in the way others tend to use them). Plus, you always have the feeling too that you can "go back" to your physical any time merely by focusing on it. These sensations are normal and correct.

Phasing to the astral in this way, is a whole lot less traumatic than suddenly finding yourself floating on your bedroom ceiling looking down at your sleeping physical. In the past, people have done this and mistakenly assumed they had somehow left their body. Then a load of people wrote about it over a number of years and the whole "out of body" idea was born.

Phasing, when done properly, should be one smooth conscious shift in focus from physical to astral, which should also feel completely natural. From what you say you are on the right track. Now all you need to do is practice.

Next time, rather than getting engrossed in your surroundings practice remaining completely neutral. In other words stop thinking and stop doing. Then, from this standpoint, release a feeling of mild curiosity about something and see where the feeling takes you. You will find that after a while of practicing doing this, you will learn to take control over your experiences rather than the experience controlling you to whatever degree.


Yours,
Frank

[Gandalf]

Does anyone have any tips for increasing awareness while in a dream, ie low level of awareness?

I have found that my attempts to phase from a fully awake situation have come to nothing and instead I am able to phase from within a dream scenario, when my awareness rises to lucid levels.

This has been quite succeseful, however, raising awareness from dream level is hard, I can usually get to lucid levels, but contrarty to popular belief, lucid is not actually 100%, its more like 90% awareness, you are almost all there but there is a niggling 10% which is missing meaning that you often don't end up doing those blatantly obvious things you think off afterwards.

So, is it possible to achieve full awareness (or above) from 'dream' level, and if so what is the best way?

Or is it the case that I should really abandon this method and work harder at trying to achieve the same results from a 'fully awake' state?

Cheers,
Douglas

[Aprentice]

Rastus: No nothing at all like the traditional obe scenario, I'm glad I've finally managed it though, I'm still a little in awe that I finally got their. By the way what are energy constructs, some kind of visualisation or magick technique?

Frank: Yes it did feel totally natural, a gradual shift that happend seemlessly. To be honest I'm amazed at how easy it finally was, I coudent do it last night but fell asleep instead, however I am now certain I will be able to return their again. It felt very much like gradually slipping into a dream from fully awake, accept that I was more consious than I ever have been in a dream.

I will try to be more neutral to my wnvironment at some point, to be honest this first time I just thaught 'wow, this looks like the astral plain!'. Also what caught me by surprise is I never imagined I'd start of under water the first time I made it to the astral.

Gandalf, I ca'nt really help with attaining full lucidity in a dream, as I always have the same problems. I become lucid, but not useually 100% as you say. I tried to project from lucid dreams for probably a year with results that were non existant or patchy at best.

However, I tried several unsuccessful phasing methods myself before I finally managed to phase to the astral. The method of useing hypnagogic imagery at www.saltcube.com really did seem to work almost effortlessly for me when other phasing methods failed. And unlike lucid dreams, I got to the astral with 100% lucidity intact. Hope you have some luck soon.

[Rastus]

Astral, where thought=reality, right?  So Energy constructs are thought with a little more permanance.  If you think about it, you can create your own little takeoff/landing airport for Astral voyaging.  You phase into it, then use more traditioanl Astral movement methods.

[funinfloating111]

that is most definantly an astral phase, congradulations! i myself have never done one like that, but i have fallen asleep then regaining consiouse in focus 21 many times. from that point it sounds alot like one. good job!

[Frank]

Rastus: That's the general idea, yes. Within the lower levels the constructs you make very quickly dissipate. But the futher in you go the more permanent the structures become. They are trickier to build and they take longer to do, but once made they remain. So now, for example, I can phase to my place in the Exchange Territories (Monroe's Focus 27) and use it as a base for further exploration.

Also, if things get a little sticky (which they still do now and again) rather than getting out of it by switching my focus to physical, I escape back to my place in the non-physical. Which saves me a lot of faffing about.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of having a place prepared, that is already familiar to you, is when it comes time to shed your physical you already have somewhere to head to; rather than just floating around aimlessly wondering what to do.

Yours,
Frank

[Frank]

Douglas: One of my favourite methods for a number of years was waking up in a dream. With practice I became fairly proficient at it. But I know only too well about the mysterious something that always seems to be missing. Then, when back in the physical, I'd realise I wasn't quite all there. Even though at the time it felt like 100%, it's afterwards when you realise otherwise. Most frustrating.

The thought crosses my mind you might be at the stage where your efforts would be better placed in your fully conscious attempts. Because then you'll have 100% awareness right from the start. Even though I did eventually manage to raise my awareness from a dream to quite a high degree, it's still nothing like having 100% awareness from the outset.

Thing is, also, coming out of a dream I always found it was like starting off on the wrong foot. In that not only do you have to raise awareness, but you have to try and find out where you are in the general scheme of things and decide how you are going to get to where you want to go, and all that jazz.

When doing it fully consciously, you simply phase to wherever you want to be. Like, you kick off on the right foot. In the days when I was somewhat less proficient, I found that a projection that started off well, unless I did something stupid (which I often did!) would continue to go well. But projections that were muddled in the beginning, for some reason I could never quite shift all of the crud and something would always tend to bug me throughout. Either there would be some kind of sound like a buzzing that just wouldn't stop, or perhaps I would have difficulty moving, or maybe my hearing wasn't all there, or I'd have a feeling like something was stuck to me, or whatever.

Oh, as an aside, I think that's where all this talk of "attachments" comes from with the PSD bods. Because it used to happen to me fairly often and it does feel exactly like something is attached to your "body". So maybe they assume there is and, because of the inherent nature of the environment, hey-presto so it becomes.

The other point I wanted to make, as you touched on it in your post, is when you start with 100% awareness it is possible to develop a kind of super awareness. Where you sort-of become aware of being aware. This is when your thinking begins to take on a more multi-dimensionality aspect.

At first, when people get some semblance of awareness to their normal physical awareness, they gain control over their non-physical experience (as a result) then they start walking around here and there, exploring in very much the same way people would do while physical. Like, say, taking a walk in the countryside. This is basically what I did.

Next a person might learn to fly. So they start flying here and there, thinking it's a whole lot more efficient than walking. Then comes the realisation you don't actually have to travel at all. You can simply manifest in whatever place. Problem is, it does take a while to rid yourself of physical-realm notions such as gravity, time, space, and distance. Following which comes the further realisation that you can not only manifest in one place, but can manifest in several different places all at the same time.

Basically, I doubt very much whether this type of super-consciousness could be developed from projecting by waking up from within a dream. It does seem very much like 100% awareness from the outset is a prerequisite.

Yours,
Frank

[Gandalf]

Cheers Frank, thanks for the useful advice.

your last comment was basically what I didn't really want to hear, but I have a feeling I already knew!

It seems that you really can't beat hard work!
phasing using 'dreams' is far easier, but the drawback is the quality of the result, which figures.


Looks like I'm going to have to get busy!

Douglas

[Aprentice]

I have tried to project into real time useing the rope method many times, with zero success. Untill coming onto this forum recently, I didnt even reallise 'phasing' existed, although I had read about several methods that envolved phasing, I just didnt know if they would really work. I basically used to be very confused about why some methods of projecting differed so much from others.

Anyway after finding this site and reading about phasing, I tried late at night several times and got no results. I then read one of the articals on cubes website about focusing awareness on hypnagogic imagis to phase onto the astral, and gave it ago:

It was about 2.00PM, I'd had less sleep than useual for 2 nights, and I lay down on my back in bed. All sorts of hypnagogic imagery occured which I focused on, leading to the following:

Interesting phenomena occurred which I focused on, lines of light and elongated river like clouds at the edge of vision.
I felt the need to blink due to a 'mistiness' over my field of vision, which I saw as a good sign as it indicated I was starting to almost 'see' something.
Images, hazy and indistinct, started to form, and their was still this 'mist' for a while. Then I eventually got 'submerged' in a visual, and found myself underwater in a river. I 'swam' with real swimming body awareness. I then emerged from the water, waded to the shore and sat down facing the water. Something (my vision was nowhere near clear enough to see what' shot up into the air in a tower of water and plunged back in, 2 or 3 times, and then a massive 'round' wave went down the river'.
Then the image dissolved and changed into several other images before I opened my eyes and returned to physical.

I managed to go from being awake to experiancing (although not clearly by any means) a three dimensional world which I was emersed in, with no awareness at all of my physical body in bed whilst this was happening (although I get the feeling I could have felt my physical body at any time if I'd focused on it, it wasent like I was 'outside' my body).

I feel that if I practice going from awake to submerged into an image like this I am at least making progress towards astral projection, but am interested to know from anyone more experianced if the above sounds like it actually took place on the astral.