Advice needed

[Undying_Frost]

After discovering that the phenomina of Astral Projection was well known enough and widespread enough to merit personal study, I decided I would like to pursue and see if I could achieve Projection of some sort.

After some preperation, I began by using a technique I had read about, which failed utterly.  As I was in an experimental phase, I decided to try another method, relying on a self hynosis technique to bring me close to the projection.

Well, it all but worked.  I reached a point where I felt the vibrations very, very strongly, felt a feeling of disorientation, felt my heart pound heard a distinct ringing in my ears, and felt my eyes flutter.  I was a little alarmed, but kept trying.  Unfortunately, I believe my inexperience and lack of knowledge kept me from succeeding. 

I was able to retrieve the feeling of the vibrations a few times afterward, but over the period of a week or two, my effectiveness waned, and his been so in the months after.  I've had more success after discovering the Hemi Sync program, as it seems that the sounds do indeed facilitate the process, but still nothing near what I had originally achieved.

Having learned as much as I have, I think the crux of my problem lies with being unable to find an appropriate state of relaxation.  I've tried early morning, late at night, and everything in between, as well as working with step by step relaxation methods to bring myself to a better state of relaxation.

Of course, I've read through as much of these forums as I'm able and am more than aware of the difficulty in projecting from consciousness.  With this in mind, it is my goal to overcome these difficulties and achieve a full projection while my mind is fully awake.

I'm curious as to what recommendations are out there for how I can try reach the appropriate state of relaxation, or perhaps what other key factors I may be missing.

Regards,

Undying Frost

/edit - I fixed spelling and grammattical errors I'd left in my haste to finish the post

[Stookie]

Relaxation is a skill that takes practice. For some it's easy, but most have to learn it. It's not as simple as laying down and just wanting to relax. Your body and brain goes through a series of changes during relaxation, and learning to consciously create those changes takes a little time. For me, a combination of breathing and visualization exercises does the trick. You want to get as close to mind awake/body asleep as you can.

From there, it's about technique. You didn't mention what you were trying, but there are a lot of methods. Personally, I like "phasing". Like relaxation, it's a skill that takes a while to learn. But if you take the time (months and years), it can pay off in the long run.

Single pointed concentration is another learned skill that will definitely help. Staying focused on an exercise without intruding thoughts is important.

That's all I can think of now. For me, those were the keys to getting it going. However, it's still years of practice and it's never been easy. Just know you can do it and don't let yourself get frustrated - you have the rest of your life to learn.

[Undying_Frost]

Thanks for the response.  For relaxation, when not taking Frank Kepple's advice and just working with the first Focus 10 excercise, I do a countdown from 100, focusing on a different part of my body at every division of 5.  The excercise keeps me focused and allows me to relax muscle groups at the same time.

It doesn't seem to be quite working, though.  I've recently been working on concentration and breathing excercises, but I'm still a novice at this point.  I've been considering Meditation, but I'd probably need a primer on that as well.

I would be interested in your recommendations for breathing and visualization excerize.  I don't necessarily believe in copying a technique verbatim, but perhaps you have an excellent tip that'd work well for me, or allow me to build a better relaxation regimine.

[Lucky]

First of all, let me say I am impressed with your dedication and study.  Very well done!

I expect it won't be long till you experience some excellent rewards for your hard work and dedication.

Now let me rattle off some things that may hit or miss for you... just some things I have learned, and experienced myself over the years in my learning how to get out.

1.  Hemi-sync worked for me too.

2.  Theta wave entrainment - worked yesterday.  Simple drum beats at about 4 hz. It's on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL_kMTbS2xk) or search "theta wave", if you'd like to try it.

3.  There's relaxation of the body, and there's relaxation of the mind. (something to keep in mind... relaxing both is key)

4.  The whole point as you are probably aware is that "mind awake, body asleep" is one of the objectives. 

5.  In my own experience with getting the "mind awake and body asleep", after a few oobes that were induced this way (by getting relaxed and bringing on the vibs, then rolling out, etc.  ... after a few oobe induced that way, that approach stopped working for me.

6.  The approach that started working better was to simply go to sleep and wake up later in an oobe or in a dream state from which I could then shift to "out of body".

7.  This 'go to sleep and wake later out of body' approach mentioned above let's you concentrate or other aspects of the whole 'getting out' thing.  It's no longer an issue of being able to get relaxed enough to get the vibs going, and from there do the 'roll out' or 'rope thing' and what have you.

8.  In the above approach you can practice developing other things because you are going to go ahead and let yourself fall completely asleep.  So now the trick or emphasis would be on waking back up...without waking the body up.

9.  Without going in to details about how to do each thing at this time, here's a short list of some of the other things one can develop that facilitates 'getting out' or phasing.

a. The vibration of your astral body must be out of phase with the physical - meditating on the chakras, especially the heart chakra and on love (among many other things) can help make this happen.

b.  Increasing consciousness, awareness, focus and attention.  Doing little drills during the day that increase these qualities or attributes in you, will be more available for you in your dream state as well.  And from the dream state, you'll sometimes find it easier to snap more awake and realize you are fully awake, aware and conscious, yet not in the physical world.

c.  Sleep cycles:  There are certain times during the sleep cycle that one is more apt to have an oobe.   It's possible to have a great oobe but then forget you had it because you fell back into normal sleep right after.  Just the way we all have dreams and forget them, with no clue that we even had them.  With that said, practicing dream recall, and practicing waking up at certain times during the normal sleep cycle may help you remember an oobe you are having (that normally you would not remember).  The idea being to wake up during or right after the oobe, this way you are more likely to remember all or at least the last part of it.

d.  Subconscious fears:  Especially with the buzzing and the sounds and sights one can hear after the vibrations stop... these can be frightening and it sometimes happens that the student without realizing it, is shying away from getting back into that intensely aware "almost out" state again.  Subconsciously.  Consciously we are still working hard at it, subconsciously we might be sabotaging our efforts.

e.  Keeping dream journals are helpful because they help you remember your nocturnal adventures, and other things that happen when the body is asleep.  And memory practice of any kind will help.

f.  Law of Attraction stuff - The more you focus on the higher planes, with passion, strong emotion and or intention the more likely you are to attract an experience.  (keep in mind that fear and doubt will slow down the attraction process - so if there's any of that, release it, and practice feeling certain that you'll get what you want.  And feeling grateful as if you have already attracted and experienced some really great oobes, is important - that is, if you are choosing to consciously apply law of attraction, law of deliberate creation and law of allowing type principles to facilitate your 'getting out'.

You asked for recommendations on breathing and visualization exercises.

Monroe's Resonant Tuning tape/cd is not only hemi-sync/bi-neural beats, but it is also an excellent breathing exercise because you do the breathing/toning along with the tape.  And it's definitely a breathing exercise that facilitates the process of getting out... one big reason is that the exercise is causing the inner body/astral body to resonate at a different frequency than the physical.

For visualizations:  I have found the chalkboard drill to be pretty good.
Simply imagine a chalkboard or white board and write a number on it, erase it, write another, erase it, and so on from 1 to 100... usually you don' get all the way to 100, you just do the drill until you either drift off to sleep which is fine because the idea is that you will be able to wake up later from a dream state... or you do the drill till you start seeing hypnogogic imagery.  And from there you work with images until you shift or phase outta here.

Good luck my friend, with whatever things you try.  I am pretty sure it won't be long as you are such an avid student of this subject.

Lucky

[Neil Templar]

can i also suggest that maybe you just stop trying so hard for a short while.
i know that sounds counter productive,but i think alot of the time the trying is what's kept me from getting further.i've recently stopped trying to project,and simply concentrated more on energy work and meditation,with the only goal being to "see what happens",no agenda whatsoever.
now i find that most mornings(if i haven't had a drink the evening before )i wake in a trance/paralysis state,and am having far more interesting results then.(phasing in particular)
also i have far more lucid dreams these days,and find myself exiting frequently from them.

[Undying_Frost]

Thank you all for your assistance.  Last night was interesting.  I managed to achieve more physical relaxation than I am accustomed, and seemed to have drifted into a light state of trance as I began to calm my mind.  Unfortunately, my room mate decided that shouting was the best method of communicating on the phone, so my attempt was shot.

I will attempt again tonight.  I need to get into a habit of clearing my mind on a regular basis, to practice stronger mental discipline.

What intrigues me most are the possibilities of projection (and phasing, which I have a distinct interest in).  But, I need to walk before I run, so it's back to the drawing board!

[Blazewind]

I too tend to have times where it seems to be almost working for me,and then many other times when it begins to seem that I will never be close like that again.  I still have yet to have a fully conscious projection, but I have been surprised at times by how close I think I may have come.  I count these times as my little personal successes, small steps toward my overall goal.  There are many other times however, where I will settle down to practice, and I just can't get anywhere near being close at all.  I find I just can't visualize, or my body won't relax properly, or I fall asleep.  It has occurred to me to wonder if my close successes are simply luck.  I don't know what I do right sometimes, and wrong other times.  Recently though, in the last few days in fact, I have begun to think this over and wonder if maybe, on a subconscious level, I want to take it so slowly, and get a good feel for all the steps one at a time, which could explain the hit or miss type progress.

[Undying_Frost]

Last night was interesting.  I decided to begin with some energy work, per Robert Bruce's methods.  I'm not certain as to what the ultimate benefit of them will be, though if what is read is to be believed, it should help the projection process immensly.  I've been fascinated by the idea that I can recieve difinitive tactile response by using his methodology (awareness hands, etc), so it seemed like a good start.

I think the visualization was doing alot for my concentration and relaxation, as I had another near success.

I suspect I'm getting close to that point where I'll discover one key thing and everything else will be unlocked. 

This morning, prior to getting up, I decided to try another attempt while I was still relaxed.  I immediately began with the rope tequnique, and felt... pressure, for lack of a better word.  But, that faded and I eventually just gave up on that attempt and tried a few other things before passing out again.