Carlos Castaneda, lucid dream and OBE.

[Tom]

Some of those books are very good. In the book on dreaming, or one of the others, there is a doctor who lived in the north of Mexico and appeared every day for work in the south end of Mexico. He went home every night. He did not go physically. He went in the dream body.

[Tisha]

Yeah!  I think I have all of Casteneda's books, plus some written by his students.  Once I finish, I want to start over again.  So many of the  theories resonate well with the experience that other OBE-ers experience and write about.

The way I think of it, we are all One anyway, and all our theories (one body? several?  higher self? spiritual guide?) are just coping mechanisms.  We fit our experiences and our belief systems together so that we can operate in this world without going crazy with the enormity of it all.


Tisha

"As Above, So Below"

[Ensoñador]

Yes, you are right, but I think bilocation is a different fenomena. To "materialize" the energy body so others can see you at two places at the time is really something extraordinary. Probably you are right and we split in two, but we are not  two, we are just one. ¡Do we get out of body or we just percieve ourselves and make others percieve us in two? I still belive we are just one only body separating itself insidly. I know this sounds really crazy. Any way, my way or your way, they are just two descriptions of the same thing.

[Ensoñador]

I think you are right. The differnt ways we try to explain experience are just like guidings in the mysterious world. Word wont be ever experience!. Any way, sometimes we need some references to sart doing something, sometimes we dont.

[ralphm]

I always liked the saying that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. I sometimes think that Casteneta's books are fiction, but then I see something in them that tells me truth is stranger than fiction. Othertimes I trhink he is just trying to make it harder for us, cause the spiritual journey should be simple.

[Tom]

It has not been easy for me to use Carlos Castaneda's writings. None of the experiences seem to line up directly with what I read from other traditions. Even so, there are several things in the books which seem to be worth trying. One of my teachers seemed to think that gazing was very important. I asked about the difference between gazing and trying to see auras and was told that it was the intent which separates the two. I was told that I could see a cloud-like substance if I gazed at a plane of space, such as making a circle with my hands (tips of thumbs to tips of thumbs and tips of index fingers to index fingers). With practice I am told it is possible to extend it to a doorway and walk through it. As to what happens, I have no idea and could not get an answer.

[jason]

i also find castanada's writing fascinating.mainly because not only is it utterly unique and some of the experiences admittedly bizzare,but somehow in the back of your mind you KNOW that there is so much more to the universe than the extremely narrow viewpoint of most humans.from the moment we are born,we are taught how to percieve and act by: 1- our biological makeup,and 2-by those around us who already have a belief system and extend it to us as we grow older.in one of his books he talks about how the world is merely a PROJECTION of ourselves in our own incomplete way,and therefore because we have perceptual limitations thrust upon us by society,we see the universe as being "a certain thing", when in truth everything is rawenergy,and it takes conciousness and perception to mold it into what we believe the world is.OBEs,gazing,lucid dreaming,etc are a way of extending our perception and widening our reality,extending to a more complete version of"what is", into the nagual , so to speak.

[Ensoñador]

Do we really get out of body or its just the way we experience it? Toltecs believed that we have a perception point in our enery bodys that can move to percieve other energy bands. For them the astral body is just a diferent way of percieving ourselves, a movement of the point of perception IN our bodys, not OUT. We cant get out of our bodys.... because WE ARE OUR BODYS. Human beings, in the toltec tradition are energy spheres.  We have probably a wrong concept of our body, and probably all our feelings and thauoghts and spirits are a material or phisical substance vibrating at different frecuencies. OBE could be a new way of body perception, not a new body percieving. What do you think?