What made you get into AP'ing?

[Fortune]

I was curious. There are lots of AP'ers out there but I wanted to hear what caused some of you guys to actually research it and get into it.

In my case I was 22 yrs old I had a seizure, Ive never had a history of seizures and neither had anyone in my family. This was just 6 months ago or less, while i was having my seizure it felt like I was stuck in a continuous loop reliving the same moment over and over just kept reliving the same 10 - 15 seconds over again and again. Just a girl standing over me trying to get me to snap out of it < this was my girlfriend but I did not know who she was while having the seizure. I would eventually snap out of it, talk to my girlfriend who at the time was freaking out then I would go back into the seizure. This happened about 5 - 6 times before I snapped out of it for good and went to sleep.

The day after my seizures I had all these questions about time the mind and consciousness. Since then I have had a different view of the world a feeling of understanding without knowing exactly what I understood....if that makes any sense.  I started reading up on Complex partial seizures and came across this on a website for seizures

"Complex partial seizures affect a larger area of the brain than simple partial seizures and they affect consciousness.
During a complex partial seizure, a person cannot interact normally with other people, is not in control of his movements, speech, or actions; doesn't know what he's doing; and cannot remember after wards what happened during the seizure.
Although someone may appear to be conscious because he stays on his feet, his eyes are open and he can move about, it will be an altered consciousness, a dreamlike, almost trance like state."

After this I did a search on altered consciousness and came across astral projection. The rest is history.

Sorry if this is a bit long, just wanted to see if anyone had any similar stories.

[AmericanIdiot]

Well, I first found out about the concept from "spellsandmagic.com" and there was some thing that was supposed to "induce" Astral experiences or whatever. It appeared to just be a big colored spinny thingy, but I tried it for a long time (by sitting and staring at the screen, ) to no avail. Then I lost interest... I met this person who lives in my town online, and I asked her what she thought about it ... she was the first person I have ever talked to that had heard of AP! Then, we both got more interested... I've had a couple

[mactombs]

It's more than just one thing, it's like a lot of things in my life came together to crack my hard skeptic shell.

A few things that helped me along were martial arts, meditation/hypnosis, and then a random encounter with an article on astral projection at just the right time for me to be open enough to be curious.

The reason I stuck with it is, since you can do it yourself, it was possible to disprove. I tried all the techniques that I could find, really obsessed with it, and although I didn't believe it was real, it happened.

[oneiro]

Hey Fortune,

I had a lot of episodes of sleep paralysis as a kid so I had always been curious about how that happened. I thought it was a seizure of some sort. There are a variety of other factors that got me into AP, but I wanted to to off on a tangent and discuss the brain.

It seems to me that our brains have a mechanism to prevent us from having APs but it glitches for a quarter of the population, leading to seizures, SP, and going out of phase with what we call physical reality. It's as if we were programmed to a certain frequency, but some of us got messed up dials or dials that haven't been so restricted.

Maybe this state of fewer restrictions is actually more basic or natural. Unfortunately, it's usually disruptive to our everyday physical reality.

[Selski]

Hi Fortune

Interesting post and good thread!

I got into it via a dreaming website.  I've always been fascinated by my dreams and took them more seriously than most.  I was looking at a website and spotted a lucid dreaming link.  After reading a little, I realised that I'd had a few of those in my life, so I clicked on the link.  

On the lucid dreaming link was a piece about "out of body experiences".  I was very curious when I saw that, so clicked on that link.  This took me to an OBE website (not this one) and it stated that the easiest way to have an OBE was via a lucid dream.

Within a couple of weeks of reading that, I had a lucid dream, remembered what I'd read, and instigated an OBE.  I had big ideas of flying over the Grand Canyon or visiting Australia, but managed to get as far as the back door!!!  

Since then (3 years ago), I've been into OBEs almost to the point of obsession, and luckily, I've had (probably) hundreds.  

Sarah

[Kraven Obscuria]

Hi Fortune,

I first started inducing Lucid Dreams since 4 or 5 years old. Also,upon my father's passing when I was very young, I used to have very vivid falling thru the ceiling type experiences, being shown how to fly and also being pulled around the house by entities and false awakenings.

For many years this was forgotten, then about 3 years ago, I reread Journeys out of the Body, by Monroe and started searching further the claims and techniques, and the rest is history.

Jeff

[jub jub]

My first OBE was spontaneous and caught me by surprise. After the first one I decided I needed to learn more so I could have them more often!

[Vilkate]

I had my first OBEs at the age of 5 or 6, but later I simply forgot how to do it.
I always knew they existed, but this year I suddenly became obsessed with the idea I had to get out, so - I did!  

[Fortune]

Looking back I remember having the falling thru my bed feeling alot as a kid and jerking awake because of it. I always remember having many dreams and being able to fly but as a kid I just thought these were dreams and nothing more. I had a long period about 8 years or so btw 14 - 22 yrs old, where I couldnt really remember having 2 dreams in that time span. Then in the last 6 months I've been having about 3 - 4 a week. Not to mention a handful of OBE's. ....I just think my seizure knocked a couple of things loose again...Im glad it did.

[jalef]

i was interested with all kind of metaphysical stuff as long as i can remember. i was some kind of pseudo-beliver: i thought that it somehow existed but something like that could never happen to me! this was mostly due to the fact that i never experienced anything paranormal.
somewhere i read about the seth material that was channeled and that it contained amazing knowledge. i searched for it on the internet hoping to find some excerpts because i didnt want to byu a 20€ book without knowing anything about it. and indeed i found  an excerpt where astral projection is described and there was written that the person who channeled seth learned how to conscious project.
that struck me like a lightning because that meant that it was learnable! in the chapter there was a direct reference to oliver fox's book 'astral projection' i searched for it but didnt find it (it is very old) so i search on amazon other books about learning to project. i found robert bruce's book and immediately started to train. in the meantime i also read monroes and petersons books and both contained techniques so i did combine it all and after 4 weeks had my first projection in the morning of christmas eve.

[Takeda Shingen]

well my friend tryed to get me into in it when i was 16 thats like 1996 for me but i pass it up didnt even really dig it

2000 something weird happen to me i felt these vibrations all over me
i close my eyes and let the vibes go all the way up to my head

and presto i'm in what you would call the future
so ive been striving to get back there i know i will eventually but
i'm ready to go NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

[upstream]

High tension power lines, seriously.

[Im Joe HOE]

well i was like 10 and learned to meditate and was always interested in this stuff. but once i tryed magic mushroom Oo_OoO_OoO_oO i learned about OBE's and then astral porjections.