quasi OBE ?

[pondini]

below, i will post two log entries in the hope of determining if the experience was a partial OBE, and also to discover a plausible explanation as to the connection between the two events. both events were rather strange and don't completely fit any category -especially when taken together. i apologize if the staff has to move this thread.


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02/17/2010
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after praying for friends/family i say my mantra. when i get to the part where i say 'i reject all fear' i feel what i perceive to be a 'finger' poke me just above my left temple! i snapped my eyes open and whipped my head around to the spot where the prankster should be standing, only to see nothing next to my bed.

NOTES:
on this particular occasion, as i recited the mantra i made a very strong effort to truly believe i would not fear anything i.e 'in life' or 'OOB.' after the initial shock of it i began smiling and thought to myself 'OK, you got me, good one.' i was still a bit nervous, but i was eased by the feeling that it was just a harmless prank, and that the prankster might very well be my sub-conscious or higher-self. whom ever it was I'm sure they had a good laugh at it.

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in my notes i alluded to -but didn't elaborate on- the fact that bob monroe had a few somewhat similar experiences that were perpetrated by his future etheric-self (only later did he discover this). likewise, my immediate thought was that 'I' was my own prankster.


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02/20/2010
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after 'waking' from a dream in which i neglected to avoid a fist-fight, i began pondering why i didn't make more of an effort to defuse the dream-world situation. as i laid there very drowsy in the dark of my room i felt a poke on top of my head! i thought 'who is in my room and why did they do that,' and during that tiny span of time that it took to determine there was no one else in the room, i felt the poke again. with my right hand i reached above my head to feel how close i was to the head-board of my bed, when my hand was grasped by another! initially alarming, the hand was warm and soft, and clasped more gently as i ceased resisting its grip on me. its fingers began to probe around on my fingers and hand, so i did the same, i don't know why, it was sort of automatic. my attention shifted as i felt the same probe-like examination being performed on my left hand that lay at my side. i then realized my left hand was in-turn probing around on my right hand. but how could this be! my right hand was clearly above my head, yet it was being fondled by my left hand that lay aside my body, and vice versa! it was like having two sets of arms simultaneously. i became very excited as i knew something neat was happening and i knew my next move should be to attempt my first full OBE (i had previous experiences that, in my view, were very exciting, but i never fully exited my physical body).
i began to focus on floating upward, and my room -from full darkness- began to brighten and come into focus. i saw the tiles of my ceiling in their grid pattern but they were very rough but shiny looking, just as if they had been dipped in baby oil. there were also draping snarls of larger-than-usual Christmas-style lights hanging down 2-3 feet from the ceiling. resembling a large dreadlock of tangled light strings, all with white bulbs and thick white cords. the fixtures were gold and about 1/3 of the bulbs were missing. white beads on white string were also in the tangled mix. i could see my entire ceiling as it was very bright. this tangle of lights, in a swag formation, was fuzzy and out of focus for a moment until i concentrated more, then they became crystal-clear, but they were quickly shifting a few inches from right to left, just as if you were to hold your index finger out at arms length and view it with only your left eye open, then close it and look with your right eye. if you repeat this a few times you will understand how i saw it, flickering back and fourth. the view quickly stabilized and the left/right shifting stopped. i then gave effort to floating upward and the ceiling approached slowly. i was up there closer to the lights, examining the details of it all, but then sparks began arching from a spot where the lights were attached to the ceiling and though i concentrated harder the scene morphed back into the ordinary, plainness of my darkened room.

NOTES:
when i woke from the fighting dream i felt awake and conscious, but pretty half-in/half-out. however, i became very lucid once i felt the poke.

i thought the poke on my head was from my brother or my mom, but why would they be doing that in the middle of the night.

had i not been poked on the head 3 nights earlier i might have panicked more.

the initial jolt of having my hand grabbed was not nearly as severe as the fear I'd create for myself in 'imagining' such an incident. the odd thing is i have imagined a similar scenario and i now realize such fear is unwarranted. it's as if my higher-self showed me that entertaining 'fear' is worse than the thing you are afraid of.
robert monroe's first book 'journeys out of body' explained how he had a somewhat similar experience when he woke up lying on his side to 'someone' tightly snuggled up behind him. he felt whiskers against his cheek and heavy breathing in his ear. this 'someone' was also sexually aroused! looking in the mirror that morning he noticed the stubble on his face. the next night -after shaving- the same 'someone' was back again, clean-shaven this time. mr. someone never appeared again after this realization. i think monroe's mysterious stranger, and my mysterious prankster from three nights earlier -as well as my 'extra set of arms'- are the same thing: the etheric body.

the experience of viewing the lights and approaching the ceiling contained an obscure discomfort more intense that the shock of having my hand grabbed. in contrast to the beauty and brightness of the lights, i can't pinpoint what this fear was, perhaps it might be due to the initial 'death-like' feeling of leaving ones body -or so i've heard. in 1959 western culture, robert monroe -and doubtlessly countless others who experience chronic spontaneous OBEs- didn't have the benefit of literature explaining what OBEs are. therefore they have my sympathies; with no instruction manual or road map, OBEs could be a scary thing. after all, the one unwavering similarity shared by OBEs, intense Buddhist meditation, DMT/ayahuasca trips is that you experience death of the body to get there. obviously an NDE is the epitome of experiencing the other side, but all these techniques share overriding similarities.

i am a C-5 quadriplegic. i always sleep on my back. my fingers and hands don't work and my arms don't operate much better. i am unable to lift my arms above my head, easily, as during this event. physically, my hands weren't on my stomach/mid-section, where my hands could touch each other, they were laying strait on either side of me, as always when i sleep. and my fingers don't work at all.

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everything above can be taken as 'literal'... at this point in my experiential evolution i view my consciousness level in the first log entry as being 100% and the second log entry as being very close to that level; i can't say i was 100% lucid, but that's only because it's very hard to experience something of that sort and not feel surreal, or even 'buzzed'! it's just so alien

hopefully someone can help me identify exactly what happened. and if anyone has read anything similar, i would be grateful if you could post links or info about it.

thanks for reading.

[pondini]

ah c'mon fellas, can't anyone provide verification one way or the other?

[personalreality]

i had to look up what C-5 was.  so your lower body is completely paralyzed but you have good control of your arms and limited control of your wrists and hands?  is that close?  i'm interested if having that kind of body paralysis is somewhat helpful in reaching a dissociated state.  I'm sure it's just as hard to project simply because of state of mind, but i really am curious about getting the body to the appropriate state.  Once you start successfully projecting I'd really like to hear about your technical experience, the actual process.

Anyway.  First off, i get pokes in the head all the time.  IMO it is an energetic center on your body being "activated" or energized.  For example, when I meditate on my third eye I get poking sensations in my forehead, temples and the back of my head where my skull and spine connect.  The same for the top of the head.  That's your crown chakra, which is said to be the link between your physical and non-physical awareness.  You'd expect that to be active in these transition states.

As for the hand bit.  I have had similar things happen before.  I noticed it first by doing RB's NEW work.  Many of his exercises involve the use of "awareness hands" as do some of his projection techniques like the rope technique.  I remember a specific time that I was trying to project where I felt my hands floating up and then it felt like my right hand was grabbed and pulled high above my head.  It was startling at first and so i opened my eyes to look, or so i thought.  i saw my hand above my head and also saw that it was being held up by my left hand.  then i looked down at the arms of the chair i was sitting in and both hands were still relaxing calmly right there where i left them.  i was simultaneously seeing my awareness hands and my physical hands. 

i really think it's as simple as that.  like you said, you were half in half out.  you saw both worlds i think.  i don't know why one hand grabbed the other, just like i didn't know why my left hand grabbed my right.  who knows why the non-physical body does what it does in those limited conscious control situations?

[Everlasting]

We have an "occult" engine in our heads called the pineal gland, when it kicks in weird stuff may happen.

[solarity]

We have an "occult" engine in our heads called the pineal gland, when it kicks in weird stuff may happen.

what is this weird stuff that happens?

[Psilibus]

Hypnagogic sensations. These, IMHO, are a relatively reliable signpost of impending sleep. This is a great time to work through to projection.

Fondling your own hand. LOL. I've done that. Fondled my foot once and it took me a bit to realize that it should have been impossible because I was laying stretched out.

Once, I felt my arm dangling off the side of the bed, I was gently stroking the carpet and feeling its texture, I suddenly realized I was laying in the center of the bed and I would not have been able to reach the floor. My "arm" was hanging down "through" the mattress.

Hypnagogic sensations can be startling at times. I have heard huge, loud and even frightening sounds. I have seen flashes of light or color (thought someone was taking a picture using a flash bulb), or even what appear to be entities. I have smelled odors that I knew were not there, ie. baking oatmeal cookies.

You will find many that many people will provide you with alternate conclusions. Such as "the poke on your head was an astral entity waking you up" etc. I'm not saying they would be wrong, just saying you will need to further investigate. Push on and explore. Sounds like you are making great progress.

[pondini]

these were awesome replies, fellas!

i've been a bit under the weather for the last few days and a service man is going to be here any minute, so i won't be able to give a response worthy of your replies today; i will post tomorrow.

thanks for providing the piece of mind has made me feel less 'weird' about myself:D

[pondini]

PR, thanks for the reply. you nailed something that i've already considered -that i'm rather lucky to have the benefit of being paralyzed from the chest down, which would presumably better facilitate body relaxation. also, i'm now accustomed to sleeping on my back, contrary to my pre-injury disdain for that sleeping position.

your theory about the poke on the head gives me good 'food for thought' but these were not energy centers being activated, well, there might be a slight possibility of it on the second occasion, but i was not engaged in pre-OBE preparation the first time. i was 100% in physical reality. my take on it is largely based on two events that happened to bob monroe. both times he was rescued in his OBEs by some unknown helper. two books later he discovered -while rescuing himself- that he was his own helper.* similarly, i think that first poke on the head -unmistakably a poke by a finger- might have been by ME, or at least i prefer to think so for obvious reasons. besides, in that particular scenario, it's exactly the sort of think i would do for a laugh:)

*it's noteworthy to notice that during one of monroe's events his reason for distress was 'two children he couldn't get off of his back' but to his future self these 'children' were his two cats; two subjectively different experiences from the same mind, albeit many years apart (by his perspective) and witnessed by two different levels of experience -one much further advanced in OBEs. just a thought:P

your 'hand grabbing' description is too identical to be coincidence. this must be fairly typical. i assume you are right-handed, too.


Psilibus, i had no idea that hypnagogia embodied tactile sensations. i thought hypnagogia only contained odd-ball images or light patterns/flashes and comparable auditory events...? if hypnagogia is a precursor to sleep paralysis, then this particular experience might not qualify (assuming that i was still in a lucid dream - transitioning into an AP). however, only just a few minutes ago i read the wiki article on hypnagogia...

Sounds

Hypnagogic imagery is often auditory or has an auditory component. Like the visuals, hypnagogic sounds vary in intensity from faint impressions to loud noises, such as crashes and bangs (exploding head syndrome). People may imagine their own name called or a doorbell ringing. Snatches of imagined speech are common. While typically nonsensical and fragmented, these speech events can occasionally strike the individual as apt comments on—or summations of—their thoughts at the time. They often contain word play, neologisms and made-up names. Hypnagogic speech may manifest as the subject's own "inner voice", or as the voices of others: familiar people or strangers. More rarely, poetry or music is heard.

i have a cool experience i need to type up about this. in short it seems to suggest hypnagogic sensory data can begin after the onset of sleep paralysis, and does contain all forms of complex sensory data.

the wiki article is a good read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia

i think i learned a few interesting things from your replies. i appreciate you guys taking the time to comment. i also enjoy how typing in my log or typing comments/replies often causes me to discover things i might have otherwise missed, had i not typed them!


be well, all:)

[Psilibus]

Apparently there is a person posting here who claims he can "poke" things in the etheric hard enough to break glass! (you don't have any enemies do you?) LOL.

[personalreality]

you must not be familiar with energy center work.

it's not exclusive to the trance state or OBE work.  

energy center work is an independent practice that just happens to help facilitate OBE.

but nearly anything can activate an energy center and you have a lot more than just the seven primary centers.



This is a diagram of nadi in the head.  Nāḍi are the channels through which, in traditional Indian medicine and spiritual science, the energies of the subtle body are said to flow. They connect at special points of intensity called chakras.

These are constantly flowing, but especially during times of personal growth and development (which is occurring if you are doing any kind of AP practice) you can have surges which can feel like chakra activation in many different places in your body.

[Psilibus]

Oh my Gawd! Diagrams! You constantly shock and awe me, Sir!

When finding the vibratory state I enjoy moving it to different areas of my body. Began this process many years ago after reading "The True Art of Healing" by Regardie. I always felt it was a good exercise. Had I took the enormous amount of time to study all the chakra or nadi points I would probably be a Master. (bows humbly)

[pondini]

(you don't have any enemies do you?) LOL.

i sure hope not! lol. i try to be respectful to everyone:)

PR, there's a lot i'm unfamiliar with in my new adventure. i took your first post to mean it only happens in trance/meditation. i misunderstood. please don't power-punch me in the etheric useful chart!

[personalreality]

my point podini is that it could have easily been energy flowing through one of these points that caused the sensation.  like one of the optic nerve ones or even the pituitary gland.  you may have some pituitary action happening if this whole process has been emotionally intense. 

how long have you been paralyzed?  how did it happen?  (if you don't mind me asking of course)

[pondini]

i've only had two highly emotional experiences; one was a KA in which i thought my spine was being healed, and i haven't yet spoke of the other. all AP-related phenomenon has been exciting, but not overly emotional.

i broke my neck in feb. of '95. my buddy fell asleep while driving and we hit a tree. my injury is technically C-4, C-5, C-6, but they called it a C-5 so i do too. my buddy broke his collar bone and the steering wheel tore a large area of his skin loose from his chin. he's all healed now.

have any other spinal-injured people posted experiences here?

[personalreality]

were you mad at him?

was he drunk?

[pondini]

no. and yes.

[personalreality]

I was fortunate and didn't wind up paralyzed, but I was in a car accident like that.  My friend wasn't drunk, we were both really high on heroin.  One of the most common effects of heroin is what we call "the nods" where you nod off/fall asleep for a minute or two at a time.  I used to drive home from my friends house and nod off for a second here and a second there and somehow I always made it home.  But one time my woman was driving behind me and she said that every like 10 minutes or so I would start to veer to the other side of the road and then I would jerk back to my side.  Well, one time me and my friend weren't so fortunate as I had been and his car went off the road, up and embankment and into a tree, upside down.  The fact that we were upside down is probably what saved out lives because of the way we impacted the tree.  I walked away with a broken wrist, he had a gash in his head, but nothing serious.  I understand what you mean though.  No one could understand why I wasn't ticked.  But I mean, we chose to be dumb.  I chose to ride with him.  We were both more concerned with getting high than driving safe.  Didn't stop me from driving on dope either.  Now that I'm sober and have managed to straighten out my thought process a bit I won't even drive if I've just had a beer (I don't do drugs anymore but I will have a drink with dinner sometimes). 

I commend your attitude.

[pondini]

thanks for your reply, pal:)

you understand exactly where i'm coming from; we were both drunk and it was a toss-up as to who would drive home -as the owner of the car threw us the keys and left the bar with some girl he met. i couldn't blame him, and i even wrote a heartfelt letter to the judge pleading for dismissal, or any leniency in his case. he still got six months and a lot of fines.

the odd connection here is that i wouldn't have even been in Boise, Idaho. if not for my own heroin addiction. i was living in the seattle area (where i was born and raised, and reside again) when i had reached 'rock bottom'. it was the most terrible time in my life. luckily, my brother called me one day and asked if i wanted to move with him to boise and get away from the drug. i had zero hesitation in accepting. it was like a life-line from god. i never did heroin again. to be free from the hooks of that drug was like nothing i can explain. unfortunately, i filled the void with heavy drinking, though even with all the drinking i still felt total happiness.

my doctors, nurses and especially my psychologists (all SCI injured patients get counseled) were perplexed as to how i was taking my injury so well. the truth was that i had seen much worse days -mental adversities can be as bad as physical ones.
just a few weeks ago i told my brother that i wouldn't reverse my situation if i were able to -the reason being that i just can't see myself finding the correct path without the accident. although i really miss playing guitar and the joy of sex

here
here's a pic of me a month before my accident:
http://tinypic.com/r/j0wos2/6

and six months, or so, after it:
http://tinypic.com/r/qodn9e/6

be well, all.

[Fourthdimension]

pictures did nt work pon

[pondini]

they should work now.

FB should allow it's users to select showing photos only, without bundling 'wall posts' into the same categories. either that or i'm just not manipulating the settings correctly.

[personalreality]

we can't see them if we're not your friend.  you have to copy the image location and paste it here.

like this.....

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs175.snc1/6572_1043524667642_1811383671_94426_7834980_n.jpg

see, that pic is from facebook, but the url is whacky.

[personalreality]

How strange life is....we're have tread very similar paths and yet look at how different things can be.

I had to leave home too.  Moved away.  Haven't talked to or seen any of my best childhood friends in a number of years.  It's kind of sad.  But since I left, 2 of them overdosed, one is in jail and all the others but one are still hopeless junkies.

[pondini]

fixed.