does smoking weed help your astral projection?

[no_leaf_clover]

 If the object were to experience OBE (or think you experienced it) then the button would be pushed.  But to learn to OBE and achieve control of the experience, taking the shortcut would not help

How can you say that?  Would not the experience of an OBE itself sensitize me to what to "feel" for or "think" when attempting OBE in the future to some degree, given that the experience would also be remembered afterward?

it would  also (because of the nature of the shortcut itself (artificial mind altering) you wouldn't know if you're really projecting, you might know that your thought processes are different, but you'd never be sure- you'd have to have the unaided experience to compare it to.

And similarly one could not say the experience from any given drug is illegitimate unless they have tried it themselves.  I personally know for a fact that any chemical I put into my brain,  is definitely real.  And the consequences upon my experience of reality are real.  And the external stimuli that my brain continues to process with the aid of this additional chemical are still real.  And so everything about the experience itself is still real.  In fact many would make the argument that we are all already "tripping" on a chemical soup that naturally occurs in the human brain and is very unstable.  When we ingest the chemicals mentioned here the chemicals operating in our brains really do not change much.  There are only slight changes in the over-all chemistry and functioning neurotransmitters.  All the usual, natural neurotransmitters are still there.

So it depends on what you want to do.  Do you want self control and learning, or to have the experience itself?  Then taylor the answer to the question.

You could still have both.  That is what I was saying.  By jumping straight into the deep end you can still learn to swim; there is nothing stopping you once you are there and can interact with the water.  All is mind.  Even "astral projection" is a human construct that is illusory and not what we think it is.  What we really mean by "AP" is a deep exploration of the mind, consciousness, how they relate to reality, and what this "reality" thing is in the first place.  It all goes hand-in-hand.  If the best way to get a feel for your arm is to move it around and pay attention to how the experience of it feels to you,  then the best way to get a feel for your mind and how it relates to your consciousness is to slightly alter the chemical soup it operates on and see how exactly it changes your experience of reality.  It does not invalidate anything.  But if someone is not interested in this then obviously no one is going to push it on them.  But at the same time I don't think we should push on people that they should not do these things,  or that these things are completely pointless or even "bad" for you and to avoid them.

[CFTraveler]

I'm not invalidating anything, and I don't think you got what I meant.
If you have an experience without drugs, and you have an experience with drugs, you can compare them and decide.
If you have a drug-induced experience first, you cannot assume it is genuine until you have one without drugs, because you cannot know if the first one was genuine.
But if you have an experience without drugs first, then you can see if the drug induced experience matches the original one, then you can label it an OBE or whatever you can label it.
There are many experiences that seem like OBE (like cattle-prod induced autoscopy, for example) but only an experienced OBEr can tell it's not the same thing, because they have had the 'real McCoy' and can compare.

[Xanth]

To be brutally honest...
If you were to use the button, I'd call you "weak".

[kurtykurt42]

I would just like to say that using technology to astral project is not the same as using a drug. Especially if you are the one the develops your own personal assistive technology to help with the OBE process. I believe that the body is an extension of your consciousness and when we astral project / OBE / dream we are moving our consciousness through it. Moving your consciousness through a machine is similiar. The machine is also an extension. It can be tunned to a vibration you recognize until finally you begin to recognize any frequency. The machine is used to widen your exploration abilities beyond the bodies normal sense frequencies.

[AstralGoat2008]

Hi, I found this post which relates to the original question.

(source ----  http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=46009)

This is the experience of someone who did not provide their name. They are 16 years old and BODY WEIGHT:    120 lb
DOSE:     2 'bowls'    of smoked  Cannabis  (plant material)

he says:

"the more I talk to him [a friend he is smoking bowls with], the more I come to think that the things he is telling me is not just human communication, but there is a hidden meaning behind all of his words"
he has a smoke with other people but then goes to his grandmothers house to meditate

"I am into meditation, and I had vowed to myself the next time I used a drug I would meditate and try my hardest to have an oobe."

"my awareness became amazing, I had experienced it before, but sober is completely different than high, its that point in which you can perceive everything in the room, I know how far away the walls are and how far the end of the bed is from my body. Now keep in mind, about this point, my perception of time was heightened, basically its like a time warp where I can see every instance of time behind me, while the present one is at one end of the time warp. This continued until I got out of my body."

I am 24yrs old and can testify to experiencing the sensation i think he is alluding to when he says "I know how far away the walls are and how far the end of the bed is from my body"

Ive had experiences much the same (not using any substance) where my limbs also feel 'giant' compared to what they normally are.. and then can equally feel really tiny at the same time and it feels like i could almost reach out and touch a door or a wall that is (in real physical terms) too far to reach. In my mind tho as i focus on the sentation of my limbsit seems it would be easy to reach out and touch something very far away..

Has anyone else had any sensations like that?