OBE and Astral Defence

[Tahnor]

I have one more quick question for you all.

While learning to Lucid Dream, I have overcome many nightmares by the use of dream powers, namely telekinesis. I have become extremely proficient at it. Anytime something frightens me or tries to cause me harm, I will just raise my hand and they will be thrown backwards (sort of like Force Push, a Jedi power    ) I know for a fact that dream characters can be stopped cold in their tracks with this method. It hasn't failed me yet.

Can you also use this power during an OBE on astral entities that intends you harm?

[Frank]

The dream characters you say you are protecting yourself from, are you in the first place. And why on earth do you believe anyone would intend you harm? With respect, it sounds like you have been watching too much Star Wars and the like. Those are just movies and are not meant to be taken literally. Jedi forces don't exist, someone just made it up and it caught the imagination of the public at large. In reality, the only influences you are prone to are the emanation of those energies that are within you in the first place.

Yours,
Frank

[fost500]

So in other words, your nightmares are manifestations of your own inner fears, and by realising this you can eliminate any evil entities in your dreams/projections, as they are just figments of your imagination

[Tahnor]

The dream characters you say you are protecting yourself from, are you in the first place. And why on earth do you believe anyone would intend you harm? With respect, it sounds like you have been watching too much Star Wars and the like. Those are just movies and are not meant to be taken literally. Jedi forces don't exist, someone just made it up and it caught the imagination of the public at large. In reality, the only influences you are prone to are the emanation of those energies that are within you in the first place.

Yours,
Frank

Don't get me wrong, I know "Jedi powers" are not real. I had been learning object manipulation for some time in my lucid dreams. I became lucid in a chase dream, taking what I had previously learned about moving objects in dreams I halted the DC and overcame the fear, turning a bad dream into a very nice LD to explore in.

Only reason I asked about protection is that I have read accounts of people encountering entities not so friendly while traveling and was frightened by them.

[Amber]

Frank,
quick question...something is bothering me here. When I practice astral projection, I often see beings that are not human. I don't interact with them, but I do see them. And even if I specifically command myself to see energy directly, therefore weeding out hallucinations or subconscious projections, the entities are still there. I can see them as energy.

There was one time in particular that I was lying in bed and my body had fallen asleep and I was staring at my room through my eyelids. I saw something shaped like a tall black door/window in my room. I shouted out specifically that I'd like to see it as energy instead, to verify if it was real or not, and immediately the room went completely black. The door shape was illuminated, but not a typical illumination, it is hard to describe. Across the door shape was this black piece of something that looked like a wing, and it was rythmically flapping back and forth, with the sound of a bird's wings.

The thing that was weird was that I instantly remember seeing this same thing when I was a small child, and being scared of it. The exact image.

Anyways, there are other instances of times when I've been in 'real time' and seen entities around me. They seem like they are curiously watching me, not interactive at all.

But in lucid dreams, the characters morph and change and are mostly projections of my own imagination, and they are also really rude, and don't like it when I tell them that we are both dreaming. lol

So, which is hallucination and which is real? Is there a difference between the wild life in your lucid dreams and in your astral projections? Unlike Tahnor, I am not afraid of them or wishing to push them away or anything, but I can't help but feel that we don't really know whether or not everyone we encounter in our dreams is just a hallucination...

much affection,
Amber

[Frank]

Amber: These kinds of questions come up all the time and it is precisely for that reason I decided to write my book. What I set out to do is simply tell-it-like-it-is. To give people all the basics they need to know then, in theory at least, there should be far fewer fundamental misunderstandings.

I have a strong feeling that misunderstanding the basics drags people down and slows their development just at a time, i.e. in the beginning, when they need some quick results to stimulate their interest; which, hopefully, will lead them on to making all kinds of discoveries about themselves, rather than keep going around the same loop.

I have consciously projected to the astral hundreds and hundreds of times. Never once did I ever come across anything that could remotely be called "negative" that was not either a thought-form of my own fear, or my own misunderstanding; or just a basic misunderstanding where my own thought-form of that misunderstanding was being overlaid onto the actual situation, or just nothing more than a misunderstanding.

Your reality is basically wherever you focus your conscious awareness, such that everything within that reality becomes "real" to you. Most people have their focus fixed towards the physical, so everything within the physical, therefore, is "real". With people who learn to focus within other realms of existence, they still have a tendency to think of the physical realm as being the "real" reality. They then use the experience of this as a kind of reality-yardstick against which their non-physical experiences are judged. Doing that doesn't work as it merely creates all manner of confusion.

People who make these kinds of comparisons, quickly tend to find themselves in a situation where their experiences no-longer support their beliefs. In most cases where I came across this, the person in question was trying to manipulate the circumstances of their experience(s) in order to - in some way - make those circumstances fit their beliefs; when a better solution is to try doing the opposite.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, this topic attracts a fair proportion of unscientific idealists who believe in all manner of notions to do with demons and dragons. It looks to me at times like these people would rather die at the hands of an axe murderer rather than give up their beliefs on how it should be; especially in the way they often appear to ignore legitimate information from people who are successful. Anyhow, I digress, that's their problem of course.

You ask what is hallucination and what is real? I've spent a long time studying this aspect and can conclude, without a doubt, every form you see is real regardless of the source of that form. In other words, whether the form you are seeing is produced from your own release of thoughts/emotions or whether it has been produced by other means, it is real, regardless of source. Likewise when people ask, was this real or just a dream? There is no such distinction. Dream reality is just as real as waking reality from the standpoint of the mind: which is where you should be looking from.

People do, of course, look from the standpoint of the physical consciousness and consider the dream consciousness to be unreal. I can well understand where they are coming from. But if you look to the physical from the standpoint of the dream consciousness, the physical looks equally unreal too. However, when you look from the standpoint of your mind, each and every circumstance experienced by all facets of conscious awareness, look equally as real as each other; and that is the true situation.

Have you ever had a false awakening? Where you dreamt you got up and went about your normal day, and then at some point you suddenly realised you had dreamt the whole thing? In the midst of that "dream" I bet you never questioned it. To the extent where, to all intents and purposes, you thought you were living in physical reality. Until some aspect of your consciousness jogged you out of it, maybe your alarm-clock went off, or something like that.

Believe it or not, many people get caught in this way, i.e. they die in the night and just carry on dreaming whatever it was they were dreaming about. Some dream they woke up and went about their normal day, and then keep going around that loop totally oblivious to the fact they are in a completely different sphere of reality. Several times I came across instances where people were caught in this dilemma, and in others too.

On seeing me, sometimes the person in question would begin to think they were dreaming or hallucinating! And they'd shake their heads in disbelief and get on with what they thought was their ordinary physical day. When in fact, everything they were experiencing was taking place in a realm that, when they were physical, they'd have considered dreamland, i.e. being in a place where nothing "real" exists. Yet to them, the place is now just as real as physical reality... because that is precisely what they think it is!

Within the non-physical there are all kinds of weird and wonderful phenomena on show. The first times you go there you tend to be attentive to absolutely everything that is happening: like a child walking through the gates of Disneyworld for the first time. But after a while the novelty wears off and with me, now, I just get on with what I need to accomplish.

I'm sure that is how you'll get after a while. At which point you won't be so aware of everything going on around you. Once you have a primary focus then all the background stuff tends to just fade more and more into the background.  

To be honest, I can't remember the last time I had a really good lucid dream. If I catch myself dreaming then I project. This is because I used to use the technique of projecting from a lucid dream as my main projection technique for a number of years. But yes, I basically get all the kinds of effects as people describe; all these morphing characters and such like. It can be highly entertaining, especially when they take on a life of their own and start answering you back! Ha ha, that made me chuckle.

Though not every character you meet while under the influence of dream consciousness will automatically be a thought-form created from your own release of emotion. Like attracts like to the extent where you might find yourself in situation when you are amongst all kinds of other people dreaming the same dream, for example. The possibilities really are truly endless. The key, therefore, is to know the basic rules that apply. This enables you to make sense of whatever is happening to you, or whatever circumstances you find yourself in at the time.

I have, for example, several times had what I thought was true astral projection from a lucid dream, when in fact the whole thing was merely a thought-form of my own making. This hasn't happened to me for a while now, but in the early days it was most disconcerting.

Ultimately, what I'm trying to get across to you within the limited space of this post is that anything and everything is possible. So it's no use trying to prepare yourself for any particular circumstance. The key is to have a solid understanding of the ground-rules. This is what enables you to make basic sense of it all. Also trust comes into it to a very high degree. The work I'm involved with at present keeps reinforcing this to me over and over again.

Like, where you saw the door shape, you shouted for verification and the room went black and the door was illuminated in some way. Okay, so you knew you are being listened to and your concerns are being met on some level. Problem is you didn't understand the significance, and nor probably would I. When I'm exploring there are still all kinds of circumstances and/or situations I come across that I do not understand. In which case the procedure you go through is to ask for more information and be open to what you receive.

From my experience, I now know that if I see a door or get the impression of some kind of opening like a window, it's an invitation to walk though or to look through. Maybe there was a specific question I wanted an answer to and, on projecting, I saw the shape of a door. So I ask for clarity and the door becomes lit up. To me, that's a definite invitation to walk through the door. So I do, let's say, and I then find myself in a completely different realm.

In front of me is a path. Now paths, in my experience, are invitations for me to walk along. So I walk along just admiring the scenery and all the while trusting that I'm on the right road to getting my questions answered. Then I see the figure of a man up ahead who smiles and beckons me towards him... and so forth.

Thing is, every time you project chances are the initial circumstances will be different (especially in the beginning). So you've got to always be on the lookout for an opening that will kick-start the experience. This is why it is always best if you project with a definite idea of some kind of question you want answered.

With me, I'd be so darned curious about the flapping wing across the door. Gosh, I'd want an answer to that before anything, especially if I'd seen it as a child and it had scared me and all that. My curiosity would be blazing.

HTH

Yours,
Frank

[kiauma]

Excellent post Frank!

How is the book going?   I simply MUST read it!  

[catmeow]

Frank,

Interesting post.  I have a couple of questions:

I can't remember the last time I had a really good lucid dream. If I catch myself dreaming then I project. This is because I used to use the technique of projecting from a lucid dream as my main projection technique for a number of years

I have had 1000's of lucid dreams, but how do you convert these into a projection.  In particular a RTZ projection?

I have, for example, several times had what I thought was true astral projection from a lucid dream, when in fact the whole thing was merely a thought-form of my own making.

How can you tell the difference between a "true astral projection" and a "thought form of your own making"

In my own case, I often wake up in the morning in a semi-awake state and go through an exit procedure (float up across the room and land on the floor) and then leave my bedroom and go outside, but whilst I have done this many many times, the environment I find myself in is I consider to be a "dream", even though it can be very realistic and usually quite beautiful.  But my experiences are not in the physical world that I know about.  I'm still waiting for a truly stunning RTZ experience in which my bedroom, house and outside world correspond exactly with what I see when I wake up!  Now that would convince me!

So do you have any tips on converting a lucid dream into a RTZ projection?

Thanks
catmeow

[Leo Volont]

I have one more quick question for you all.

While learning to Lucid Dream, I have overcome many nightmares by the use of dream powers, namely telekinesis. I have become extremely proficient at it. Anytime something frightens me or tries to cause me harm, I will just raise my hand and they will be thrown backwards (sort of like Force Push, a Jedi power    ) I know for a fact that dream characters can be stopped cold in their tracks with this method. It hasn't failed me yet.

Can you also use this power during an OBE on astral entities that intends you harm?

Many primitive tribes teach their children to acquire such skills in their dreams, THAT SUCH THINGS ARE INDEED REAL.

It is wonderful that you have intuited that you can project a repulsive force field.  I myself have noticed that my 'touch' enervates those Spirits who are hostile to me.

In one instance I was attacked by a Monster who grew more arms and heads as I tore off the old ones.  I only had to persevere until the monster weakened and turned into an ordinary teenage girl.   She was pregnant, and so we took her to get some icecream to cool her off and help her recover from her tiring ordeal.

In a second instance I was met by Hostile Giants.  Somehow I knew that all I need to do was to hold out my hand and touch them.  At my touch they shimmered and convoluted and then instantly shrunk down to normal size.  In context, I had come to this one Small Kingdom where the Giants had been oppressing the People.  When the Giants shrank down to size, I instantly thought that the people would turn on them and tear them to pieces.  But when I turned and looked, the people were simply delighted that the once intimidating Giants were no longer a threat.  So I called out "Let's all drink to a bright Future" and off they all went to the closest Pub.

[Frank]

Firstly, as I mentioned before a number of times, RTZ projections are not something in which I specialise. That is more Bob Bruce's cup of tea. I have had must be well over a thousand astral projections and only about a dozen RTZ projections and they came about after I tried the Rope method given in Astral Dynamics, in conjunction with my Phasing method.

Nowadays, I can project into the RTZ reliably without the Rope-trick, but can only do it from the Phasing method. I was using the technique of projecting to the astral from a lucid dream for a number of years but that was a while ago. Must be I would say around 15 years. I never once had an RTZ projection from this method. So I cannot help you on that, sorry.

Converting a lucid dream into a proper projection is all to do with bringing your physical waking consciousness into play and substituting this facet of conscious awareness in place of your normal dream consciousness. In another post, I explain how while physical we have two facets of conscious awareness, 1) our physical waking consciousness and, 2) our physical ego consciousness.

The physical ego consciousness cannot be introduced within a non-physical realm as this facet of consciousness can only experience physical events. However, the physical waking consciousness (collectively known as the intellect) can operate within any realm either physical or non-physical. Which is quite fortunate as the physical waking consciousness has a number of very useful mental tools such as advanced powers of reasoning and understanding together with an extensive memory capability, that also contains all the knowledge you have stored there either from books, web forums, previous experiences, etc.  

In your case, what it sounds like is you are slipping into dream consciousness out of habit. This kind of mental shift is ever so easy. Any projection whether it be RTZ or astral requires a high degree of focus. Think of it like driving at speed on a busy motorway. You have to concentrate on what you are doing and keep your focus. Problem is at first people get overwhelmed by the experience. What I used to do is make very SLOW definite movements. In addition, I would keep a verbal running commentary going all the time.

For example, first I would stand still and look left, note what I could see then look right and do the same. Then turn around and look left, so I should see the same as what I saw before when looking right. Then I look right and note whether or not things are the same as before when I looked left. Then I would turn around and take one-step forward, then look right and left again. Then maybe I would turn to the left. Now when I look left I should see what I saw before after I turned around. Looking right I should see what I saw ahead before I turned to the left. Then take one-step forward and note my surroundings again. If all were well then I would take another step and look again. Then take another step, and so one.

All this I realise will sound very cumbersome to many people but I found it was far, far better to have one definite experience about anything, rather than have many experiences about nothing. Like the typical experiences where people post saying, "I found myself out of body and next moment I flew out of the window... and... that's all I remember. Tell me guys was this an obe or was I just dreaming?"

Also, consider that the very act of focusing your mental awareness within any particular place causes you to realise that you do in fact exist in that place. Therefore, the moment you lose focus, you lose consciousness of your surroundings. What usually happens then is you slip back into dream consciousness and awake later with a vague memory of the experience.

Substituting your dream consciousness with your physical waking consciousness is not an "all or nothing" affair. Certain elements of your PWC can bleed through, such as your powers of recognition. When this happens you will realise you are dreaming. Problem is you need to get all the other elements of the PWC going as well. If you can raise a bit of memory, that will give you the idea of what to do next as you should have pre-programmed yourself with what to do.

When I was doing this, I would stop and look at any particular aspect of dreamscape and ask myself questions about it. This would cause my PWC to keep progressively bringing on-stream more of my memory, together with other faculties of consciousness, until I virtually had it all. While I was doing this, the dreamscape would progressively dissipate. Note: I say virtually had it all because I never could get to the stage where I felt 100%.  

I have had the occasional false projection where fell asleep during a projection attempt and did not realise it. The dream consciousness is highly creative and can replicate any scenario. However, there are limitations that do come about. For example, once I was in a false projection and I "came awake" within it just as if I had done so within an ordinary dream: was darned lifelike though, and certainly had me fooled for a while.

This has not happened for a while. I think because the past couple of years I have gone all out to increase my sense of conscious awareness within my projections to the max. But do make note that it can happen.

HTH

Yours,
Frank

[catmeow]

Frank

Thanks for the detailed reply.   You're correct when you say that I slip back into a dream consciousness out of habit.   I've done this so many times that I now just basically go with the flow of the experience, just enjoy it, but as you say I tend to slip back into dream consciousness.  And it is a habit now.

I think perhaps the key is to try to bring into operation, as you say, as much of the PWC as possible.  Perhaps the key to this is restoring our memory.  Within a dream, including lucid dreams, we have VERY little memory of our recent circumstances.  For instance in a lucid dream have you ever tried to remember what you did physically the day before the lucid dream?  ie what did you do at work? what did you do in the evening? who did you talk to? what did you talk about? what plans do you have for the next day at work?  What day of the week is it?  etc...

I suspect the key to raising consciousness in a LD is to attempt to remember all of these details.  If you can get into a state in which you can remember all of these details, then I think you will have raised your consciousness level pretty much up to normal PWC.  Perhaps this is the key to converting LD to AP.

Then of course there is the problem of retaining this alert state and avoiding a slip back into dream consciousness.  I'll try this memory recall trick next time, plus your advice about moving slowly and checking / rechecking surroundings.  Problem is I love to fly around at speed and just enjoy the scenery!

catmeow

[Gandalf]

Frank_ I was wanting to ask about the level of conscious awareness that we get upon physical death. Once we 'die' ie physical bodily death is it usual that we manifest our *full* sense of conscious awareness in the astral somewhere? (even if its at a low level, or some scenario where it hasnt twigged we've 'passed on', are we at least fully aware?)

I ask since the scenario you gave worries me, wherein someone 'dies' and is stuck in a dream level of awareness.

I would say that most of the time when I am asleep I am usually at normal dream level, so what does this mean for when I 'check out': am I likely once again to be at this sub-level of awareness? this seems unfair as it comes across like a bit of a lottery at physical death.

Its just that dream-level awareness is so crud I would hate to think that its likely that I'll be stuck in such a state upon end of physical.

Douglas

[Frank]

Catmeow: going with the flow of the experience, enjoying the ride as it were, is nice but you tend to get nothing done. In my early years, I would project to the astral several times a week mainly projecting from a lucid dream. I never thought for a moment that this was any kind of "afterlife". I thought it was just some kind of weird and whacky adventure playground.

Several years went by before the truth dawned on me, and it took about a year after that to rid myself of all the bad habits I had formed, i.e. just having a fun time and nothing else!

Within the mind are many facets of conscious awareness. A facet of conscious awareness is just a collection of mental faculties the mind uses to operate within whatever realm of existence it wishes to experience. All these are just basic tools, really, only mental ones. Each facet of conscious awareness has its own memory facility and memory banks are not necessarily linked.

This is why, with dream consciousness, as you rightly point out you tend not to have any knowledge of memories associated with the physical waking consciousness. The converse is also true, i.e. people do not remember their dreams, unless, some part of the physical waking consciousness bleeds through; and so part of their dream experience gets stored in the memory of the PWC rather than the dream consciousness.

If you can project and, all the while, do so with PWC only, then you will come back to physical with a clear recollection of the whole occurrence; as your ability to recall is directly linked to the sense of consciousness you were using during the experience.  

Yours,
Frank

[Frank]

Douglas: for many it can be a bit of a lottery. Perhaps that is why people tend to turn towards religion in later life as at least religions appear to give some kind of definite hope. Problem is, it is one thing talking about dying and it is quite another thing experiencing it.

From all the examples I have been shown, I can readily see that a person's biggest enemy at the point of death is fear. Because fear is what traps people more than anything I have seen. Again, this is related to the religion thing. In the sense of there they all are, in a congregation singing songs every week, and so forth, and each one supports the other; quelling their fears and helping them all come to terms with their feelings of vulnerability, guilt, regret and often anger. However, while this may be beneficial to certain types of people, it is not really the answer. Well, certainly not for me that I can say.

The easy way to guarantee you will pop out unscathed is to understand the process, and to be really stuck into it on an intellectual level.

As you shed your physical, your physical ego consciousness will dissipate leaving you with your bare intellect, which in physical life is what we call our physical waking consciousness. With many people, particularly people in western society, their intellect is a slave of the physical ego consciousness, when in fact it should be the other way around (in a properly balanced individual that is). The reason why it should be the other way around only tends to become apparent at the point of physical-body death.

Hold in mind, here, that the knowing of your existence, and subsequently your whole ability to operate within any particular plane, depends solely upon your ability to focus your attention within it. The driving force behind that mental focus is your intellect; or what was your physical waking consciousness before you shed your physical.

As the physical ego consciousness dissipates, it can have the tendency to leave the physical waking consciousness rudderless. In other words, your whole intellect then becomes screwed. Now mix this with a large helping of fear and you are not only rudderless on an intellectual level, i.e. the driving force behind your ability to focus is seriously weakened, but emotionally you are scared out of your wits: which is a recipe for disaster on any level of existence, physical or non-physical.

Chances are you will then slip into dream consciousness, more for your own mental protection than anything. Your dream consciousness will then attempt to ease you through your fears and you will eventually get to the stage where your fears dissipate to the point where your intellect can take over. However, that is fine in theory. Problem is an underdeveloped intellect is the last thing you want in this situation, as your ability to operate is severely weakened. Many people are just aimlessly wandering around the lower planes, as if they are looking for something but cannot get to grips with what exactly. Like attracts like, so you tend to get huge numbers of these people steadily drifting towards the exchange territories.

Bear in mind also, the process of shedding your physical body is very much the same as the normal process of astral projection. Only real difference being is you never get zapped back to physical due to some physical-body demand.

Ideally, therefore, you want a dominant physical waking consciousness that has been through the projection process oodles of times. In which case, locked firmly in your PWC memory will be all manner of ideas, formed from hands-on personal experience, that we do in fact survive physical-body death. Better still, you should be entirely familiar with the exchange territories (old Monroe Focus 27) and already have a home there. However, this is not strictly necessary. (The parts that do help considerably are the early stages of projection, and anything else is a bonus.)

In this frame of mind, there should be very little fear. Touch of nervousness, perhaps, but nervousness more in the sense of nervous excitement as opposed to blind fear, nevertheless, nothing that cannot easily be kept under control by a well-developed intellect.

Having a developed and informed intellect, i.e. a physical waking consciousness that is dominant over your physical ego consciousness, and is already familiar with projecting and operating within non-physical realms, is your guarantee of success. I cannot stress this highly enough.

People I have had non-physical experience with who fitted this profile just passed-over without a blip.

HTH

Yours,
Frank

[upstream]

I think perhaps the key is to try to bring into operation, as you say, as much of the PWC as possible.  Perhaps the key to this is restoring our memory.  Within a dream, including lucid dreams, we have VERY little memory of our recent circumstances.  For instance in a lucid dream have you ever tried to remember what you did physically the day before the lucid dream?  ie what did you do at work? what did you do in the evening? who did you talk to? what did you talk about? what plans do you have for the next day at work?  What day of the week is it?  etc...

I suspect the key to raising consciousness in a LD is to attempt to remember all of these details.  If you can get into a state in which you can remember all of these details, then I think you will have raised your consciousness level pretty much up to normal PWC.  Perhaps this is the key to converting LD to AP.catmeow

As I see the problem is that our memory pools are state dependent, therefore different in the case of waking and dreaming mind. The following exercise is my attempt to solve this problem. Based on to establish a channel through which information flows between the waking and dreaming mind it would give you clearer memory access from both direction. Basically, the purpose is to relive the emanation cone of the energy body in a backward manner.

First I stabilize the dreamscape and anchor myself to a nearby object. I'll feel and rub this object until the exercise is over. Next I recall the route I was coming from. Doing this recolelction in a regressive manner I'm going back from my current location to the spot where I felt myself separate (at the last time). It would be my bedroom or a previous dream layer of the twin dreaming system. The recollection of my path is very rough and takes only 10-20 seconds. I focus only on the cardinal points and basic spatial orientation. So I recall moments when I was looking on my palm, turned on a corner or changed the direction of my flight. At the end I should feel the general direction of my (last) body. It is like reaching back where I come from.

Before I restore my awareness on my current dream location I would concentrate the space around my laying body. Not directly on the body as it will increase the risk of waking up. At this point the channel is established and I start to feel my dream legs and the dream environment again. More greater the space I could feel more stable my dream would be. Distant sounds are helpful. I would slowly walk around as I start to remember who am I and what I want to. Date and time, the goal of projection, waking moods are amongst the most important drills. The waking personality is like an installation. Linking together crucial memories by forming a coherent easy-restorable system would be highly beneficial.

[catmeow]

Douglas,

It does seem that when we pass over, in certain circumstances we can become "stuck" in a type of dream consciousness, unaware that we have actually crossed over.

Bruce Moen has described his "retrieval" work (rescuing people from this situation and sending them on into "the light") in his books.  I have only read the first book ("Voyages into the Unknown"), but it's a very good book and well worth reading.  His web site is here:

http://www.afterlife-knowledge.com/

Interestingly, Moen continually questions the "reality" of his retrieval operations, in much the same way that people (myself included) wonder about the "reality" of our own expereiences.  But his general conclusion is that these experiences are real.

Reassuringly, he does say that the vast majority of people cross over with no trouble whatsoever.

I would say to continue your own personal AP/LD/OOB development.  I think this will make it much less likely for you to get stuck in a dream-state post-physical.  If you habitually question your dreams and habitually "wake up" in your dreams, I think the likelihood is you will do the same if you get "stuck" after you pop over.

catmeow

[catmeow]

Frank + upstream

Thanks for the advice.  I am going to concentrate now on raising my consciousness during LD and see what happens.  

upstream - I'll try the regressive recollection excercise you described.  But just to be clear, are you suggesting that by mentally retracing the route back to the physical, this establishes some sort of "link" between consciousness/memory in the physical body and consciousness/memory in the dream body?  and somehow this allows memory/thoughts to pass between them?

catmeow

[SpectralDragon]

I have consciously projected to the astral hundreds and hundreds of times. Never once did I ever come across anything that could remotely be called "negative" that was not either a thought-form of my own fear, or my own misunderstanding; or just a basic misunderstanding where my own thought-form of that misunderstanding was being overlaid onto the actual situation, or just nothing more than a misunderstanding.

Little problem with that logic here:

I have walked the big cities hundreds and thousands of times, yet I have never met a mugger. Does this mean they don't exist?

Saying something doesn't exist because you have never met it before is like saying you have encompassed all of creation through your experience, when in reality all you did was explore your town, though granted that town might be huge.

But maybe you have traveled around the world? I have heard from a lot of people that tourists who play it smart stick to the main roads and don't encounter muggers, yet they have, in fact, expanded their experiences. This doesn't mean, of course, that they explored every possible thing they could while at a new place.

In Hermetics, Demons are equated to the mafia. If you want some backup reading on this go here:  http://lava.net/~pagios/negative.html (Do keep in mind this man has his fair share of experience as well)

How many people have met the mafia? one out of five thousand? one out of ten thousand? perhaps less than that? one out of 500 maybe?

If you never encountered them does that mean they don't exist?

I do agree with your point that most individuals can wade through them, but I will say this: they are not you, you can wade through them, that does not mean they can. An experienced projector needs to remember his first steps in order to understand the fears brought around in some of these posts. Big scary monster is right in front of you, and someone is telling you to wade right through it.....yeah right, most will think your a nut.

Thinking happy thoughts doesn't always work either. All you are doing is a cover up of your fears. They fears are still there, they are still calling out to those negative beings, quite a bit like a lighthouse calling out to boats and quite as showing. You can try covering up that light with a tarp, but it will still go through the cracks and underneath the tarp and it is still quite visible on a dark night. If you could change your very being like that, then you would be seeing more people walking on water.

Still, for 90 percent of the negatives out there, the other ten percent which you likely won't ever see, yes perhaps this is the best advice.

Just something to think about.

[Frank]

SpectralDragon: your post touches on a phenomenon I have been talking about for years. A good example has not come up for a while but yours is a classic to the extent where I am going to use it in my up and coming book.

The phenomenon is what I termed Astral Anthropomorphism, and it is all to do with how certain types of people equate physical realm notions to the non-physical. When in fact there can be no such comparison. The two lines where you say in answer to your quote from my post, "I have walked the big cities hundreds and thousands of times, yet I have never met a mugger. Does this mean they don't exist?" sums up the phenomenon perfectly.

As for the rest, I admit to being stumped by your vernacular. I have always made clear that I do not have a mystical or religious bone in my body so any kind of talk about religious sects, etc. just goes right over my head.

I had a look at the link you gave and read the article. I am grateful to you for wanting to present your case, as it were, but all this talk of demon wars, Mafia hostilities, aggression and so on, just turns me off completely. To say it is not my thing, I am sure will turn out to be the forum understatement of the year!

I suppose it once made some kind of sense. Centuries ago, there was perhaps a genuine need for people to reason in those terms. However, to today's forward-looking, unwarlike, science-based practitioners of the art, its sell-by date has long gone.

Yours,
Frank

[kiauma]

Within the mind are many facets of conscious awareness. A facet of conscious awareness is just a collection of mental faculties the mind uses to operate within whatever realm of existence it wishes to experience. All these are just basic tools, really, only mental ones. Each facet of conscious awareness has its own memory facility and memory banks are not necessarily linked.

Frank, I have a question and I hope it isn't too academic and you indulge me.   While only peripherally related to the topic, I would really appreciate your perspective.

If the mind is composed of 'many facets of conscious awareness', which I find completely plausible, then which is 'me'?  Am I my awake self?  My dream self?  My astral self?  

What is the 'intellect' really?  What are persona and personality?  Underneath the fractured consciousnesses, are we all really just the same base awareness strolling around thinking we are all different, when really we are all just varying brightnesses of the same awareness?

What are we really?

[SpectralDragon]

SpectralDragon: your post touches on a phenomenon I have been talking about for years. A good example has not come up for a while but yours is a classic to the extent where I am going to use it in my up and coming book.

The phenomenon is what I termed Astral Anthropomorphism, and it is all to do with how certain types of people equate physical realm notions to the non-physical. When in fact there can be no such comparison. The two lines where you say in answer to your quote from my post, "I have walked the big cities hundreds and thousands of times, yet I have never met a mugger. Does this mean they don't exist?" sums up the phenomenon perfectly.

As for the rest, I admit to being stumped by your vernacular. I have always made clear that I do not have a mystical or religious bone in my body so any kind of talk about religious sects, etc. just goes right over my head.

I had a look at the link you gave and read the article. I am grateful to you for wanting to present your case, as it were, but all this talk of demon wars, Mafia hostilities, aggression and so on, just turns me off completely. To say it is not my thing, I am sure will turn out to be the forum understatement of the year!

I suppose it once made some kind of sense. Centuries ago, there was perhaps a genuine need for people to reason in those terms. However, to today's forward-looking, unwarlike, science-based practitioners of the art, its sell-by date has long gone.

Yours,
Frank

Experience tells me otherwise. You can think of the astral as being nothing at all like the physical, but in reality if it were absolutely nothing like the physical you wouldn't be able to go there in the first place. "there can be no comparison," IMHO, is bull. It is reported that the Indians could not see Columbus's ship because they could not imagine their existences in their own minds first, not until the shaman explained it to them. They had little to no reference of something that floats on that water of that magnitude until the shaman reported: "There are large canoes in the ocean coming this way." The mind will not see what it cannot understand. This is how illusion works. While the astral is quite illusionary, it all starts with familiarizing yourself with something you can equate with, and going from there.

also, to me, it seems logical that, since we spend most of our time in the astral after death, that there should be quite a bit of familiarity with it in the physical, which I have noted quite a bit, such as thoughts into action, which can be equated as thought into form. Two similar things, but different in practice if not in theory.

The astral takes on the form we can best interpret it as. This often becomes symbolic when dealing with emotions. Thus, it is fair, I think, to say that giving the astral reference terms from physical standpoint is quite fair, considering the only thing we have to go by is physical terms before our "awakening."

It would, I agree, be foolish to discount that individuals can accept something and perceive something completely new and bizarre. However, take the idea of snakes to a islander individual. The islander has no familiarity with snakes, so the snake when seen for the first time is completely bizarre. The first thing that goes on in the mind is a comparison: it's obviously quite like the other reptiles such as crocodiles, and similar to that of an eel. Some individuals will swear they saw an eel the first couple times they glance a snake, however this is their mind interpreting the snake into a form which can be better understood.

If you sit in the astral, with no reference points to understand anything, you are a sitting duck, not knowledgeable in anything, unable to comprehend. Thus when going back to your body the experience is completely lost.

If you stop to think about it, the comment that just because you have not seen any demons does disproves their existence has not been shown as valid as yet. You cannot disprove something: you can only prove it. By saying there are no demons, you are not proving, to me at least, that demons are in fact just in your head. You have your opinions and beliefs which I respect on religion and such, but astral projection is, by it's very definition, a practice in mysticism. Of course, it depends on how you dub the term "mysticism."

So, since it appears you missed my point entirely, I will rephrase my previous statement: Some individuals have not met angels in the astral, despite having projected hundreds of times...so does this mean, by your logic, that they don't exist?

Your experience is that demons don't exist, mine is they do.

I suppose it once made some kind of sense. Centuries ago, there was perhaps a genuine need for people to reason in those terms. However, to today's forward-looking, unwarlike, science-based practitioners of the art, its sell-by date has long gone.

Many shamans would disagree that dealing with inner demons and our own problems with demons is not the correct way: if you don't take care of the guy putting a gun to your head, you can't move forward. That is the way I think when dealing with psychic attack cases.  Barbaric some of the stuff I am presenting may seem to you, however dealing with such and learning from it is not throwing your money in the wrong pool for me. Strong experiences such as the ones I posted in the PSD forum has led me to conclude that there is a need to take care of not only the demons closer to home (the ones formed by your fears and negative qualities) but also the ones that try to manipulate from the human collective and other sources. A topic which I am spending a great deal on to write a book on. I would also like to point out that while seemingly barbaric, the ideas presented are to make a point only and not to suggest a "demon war." While I do find that demons need to be dealt with, including and most importantly your inner demons, which are your own making, I make no comment on a "demon war," as you call it, which was, you seem to misunderstand, not the point of that article in the first place.

(I find it funny how we are creating books on totally opposite ideas.. aha well.)

Also, every spirit I have talked to, positive or otherwise, does not deny the existence of such things. I am not sure how you deem information from them, however.

[Frank]

Kiauma: Apologies for the delay in replying.

You ask: What are we really?

A darned good question! And one I have been studying at length the past 12 months or so. The full answer is quite complex as it has to take account of many different factors, a lot of which pertain to the individual in question. However, what I will do is stick to the very basics and take it up to the point where a person has just separated (from their physical that is).

Once a person comes around to the idea that, as miraculous as it may appear, we do in fact survive physical body death, the next question which usually comes up is, well how do we survive? Or, more to the point, what mental part of me survives?

These are fair questions. After all, and I'm sure most people would agree, it is no use surviving physical-body death only to lose all our identity and become some amorphous ball of nothing in particular. However, the good news is, this is not the case at all (far from it in fact).

What we are, as an individual, is a collection of mental faculties bound into one facet of consciousness commonly called the intellect. Many faculties make up the intellect and everyone's intellect is in a different stage of development. Faculties are, for example, our sense of recognition, several various types of memory such as long-term, medium and short term, our ability to reason, to think logically, to think ahead, to plan, compute figures, and so on. In other words, our intellect is everything that gives us our intelligence.

While physical, the intellect is commonly called the physical waking consciousness. This facet of conscious awareness works in conjunction with another facet of consciousness called the physical ego consciousness. The primary function of the PEC is to ensure the physical needs of the body are met. As a result, this facet of consciousness dissipates on physical-body death; simply because, as there is no longer any physical body, there are no longer any physical-body needs.

While physical, the physical ego consciousness and the physical waking consciousness operate in conjunction with each other. Therefore, what you are left with on separation is your physical waking consciousness. All your memories of your experiences, your ability to think objectively, to reason, to rationalise, and all that... remains intact. In other words, everything that gives you your intelligence remains.

Sounds simple in theory and it should be simple in practice. Massive variables can take place, however. The basics I describe above are the same for everyone. Subsequently, for someone with a neutral emotional state, with a properly developed sense of intellect, should pass over without any problems at all... and many people do precisely that.

The reason why I say "properly developed" intellect is because a person's ability to function within any particular realm is directly proportional to their mental ability to focus within it. The driving force behind that "ability to focus" is the very facet of consciousness we call the intellect. In other words, the more developed the intellect the more aware the individual is of their surroundings. This applies to functioning within every realm of existence including the physical.

HTH and if you have any further thoughts you wish to add then by all means fire away.

Yours,
Frank

[eeb]

Hi Frank,

I have a question about the last part of your above post, where you relate development of the intellect to awareness of your surroundings.

Problem with me is that the impressions of the physical reality are so always omnipresent that that is pretty all that I am aware off. Well, I suppose that is because I'm so focussed here. But how do you change your focus if you don't know where to focus on, or if you are not aware of anything else to focus on?

[Gandalf]

This is all facinating reading, but what I was wondering was if our 'ego conciousness' dissappers at death but say the person is 100% ego driven what happens? It sounds like they would end up in one of the lower astral regions where the astral enviroment would provide their physical ego demands as before, so they would carry on with what they were doing before. In these cases is it likely that the individual would not even realise that they had 'passed on' as it were?

In these situations, which would be very common I would think, is it the case that most people eventially do wake up to this fact and leave this state?

What you describe does has implications for other areas of enquiry such as 'ghosts'. ok you might ask, what has this got to do with anything, but many researchers and retrieval experts such as Bruce moen and others understand 'ghosts' to be those individuals who are stuck in emotional loops or are still attatched to physical reality in some way.
However, from what you describe, since a persons PEC dissapates there is no way these people could actually interact with the physical realm at all, only with their own astral enviroment. But most reliable ghost and haunting scenarios which many such as Bruce moen and others have personally attested to DO seem to suggest that in *some* cases people who are absolutly focused on the physical realm can manifest there in limited ways.

My own theory of what allows this to happen: Usually you find that 'hauntings' are related to an extreme emotional incident in that area, such as a murder or whatever, I believe this leaves a significant 'emotional footprint' on the physical enviroment: this closes the gap between the physical location and its astral counterpart in the region occupied by the deceased individual and allowes some 'bleed through' as it were, including some quite remarkable phenomena such as the ability even to affect physical objects and so on.

Ok this is just my theory but it might explain how such things occur while still being compatible with the situation you describe.

Moen finds that once a retrieval has been succeseful the 'hauntings' and related phenomena cease.


Apologies for the alternate slant which i've taken this post, I'll let you get back to the topic in hand!

Douglas

[aleshah]

i have mostly RTZ projection in the beginning and the end of the *real*
astral projection.
i use this, as this projections are harder to master and do more fun for me.

i don't know how to tune in RTZ, it is like in physical  u tune not in, you wll born in... at the beginning.

RTZ projections are unliked by people, who think, when they do this stuff,
they will called spies or kind sort of voyeurismus psychos.
But who cares? ?  

I found out phasing method is very easy. Like to put your eyes up and in the center a little , causing creative visualisation/ subconscious imagination, as to use it as a super fast mental-image journey.Later, when worked it out, i just close my eyes and 1 second and i am in this state, if i want to.

The first time i born the RTZ conscously i have done this with the method of visualizing diffrent eyes very fast.Do it extra fast, as this kicks out the analyzing mind of you, just need to want see this by will and you subconscious do it for you. Don't create to see it, just want to see it.
I did projected in one of the eyes, after some time, voilà a RTZ out of body projection!

By colour imagination you kick out the analizing mind, too. as this activates the right brain hemisphere.



Maybe the left side of the brain is used for navigation  

.. and what's wrong with some extra *jedi* powers, after realize the demons  in you are you?Some of them work for me in the physical as well.