How not to project

[Ash]

personally i think my biggest obstacle is that whatever technique i do, i have too much focus on my body. if i do ROPE, for example, I will always be concentrating on trying to climb OUT of my body, instead of forgetting about my body completely. I can't seem to visualize or get taken away in a fantasy, so I can't forget about my body unless I just lose focus completely and start falling asleep. If I am successful it is usually because I drift off and then snap back to find the vibrations already in progress, but this is largely out of my control whether it happens or not

[lyn92]

Hi Ash, try not focusing on your body or fantasizing. Here's a thing that I do for AP. Try this for a week or so.

Close the lights in the room, preferably no noise. Lay on your back, with your eyes closed you should only see total darkness. If any light can be seen, cover your eyes with the palm of your hands. Do this until you are only able to see total darkness. The object here is to be able to close the eyes anytime and see darkness.(nighttime) This is called Palming from a book on Clairvoyance.  

This should help you to not focus on your body. Then when looking into the darkness think of looking far into and further into this darkness. Try to not focus on only one spot, look around. Do this maybe 10-20 minutes a day. This is relaxing and may put you to sleep but don't worry about it. This also opens the crown chakra, "the third eye".

This is one way to leave the body. Look in your book for a technique that uses the crown chakra for OBE. Haven't ordered my Astral Dynamic Book yet, I'm not familiar with the techniques you all write about. So hope you bear with me.  

take care, lyn[8D]
can't stay n my body.  I went ahead and tried to AP with control, and 4 times I was able to focus, be in proximity to where I wanted to be & then pull back and stay in my body. Also saw a big X, wonder if I put that there? or did ?

[Tom]

There were a couple of times when I was out of body. It was during attempts to meditate, sitting in full lotus with my eyes closed. I counted my breathing while concentrating on the air going over a point in my nose. It felt like my head expanded and then my whole body. Ignoring it, I found myself rotating left to right. It annoyed me. It felt like I was meditating incorrectly. When I floated to the ceiling I only knew that it was not correct meditation. It was actually very frustrating. Does anyone else compartmentalize this badly? This was long after my interest in astral projection began. It went unrecognized.

[fredhedd]

maybe my idea of trance is wrong.  i always thought that when you entered any kind of trance that the expansion feelings on your head and body were part of it.  i don't consider myself in trance if i'm not feeling them.  for me, those feelings are what let me know that i'm able to project.  i can't meditate for more than half an hour w/out feeling it throughout my body.  are these expansion type feelings part of your normal trance/meditation routine? or something that happened just that once?  

[Makaveli]

My main problem is most of the time when I'm about to split I just panick and try to stop it.

[Tom]

Meditation and trance are not the same thing.

I was trying to meditate and it involved concentrating on a body part and the air moving over it. It was meant as an example of not concentrating away from the body and still falling out of body.

[Pandemonium]

I feel the vibrations every time I lay down, even when I sit down. The problem is that they are too mild, and no matter how hard I try, I can't make them more powerfull. Altough I've had some projections in the past, I never started them from conscious state, but always from a dream, using the sleep-wake-sleep method.

[Tom]

William Buhlman (a famous author on the topic of astral projection) said that it is not possible to actively increase the vibrations when they come. He said that it is necessary to let go and surrender to the experience.

There are threads about how to cause the vibrations to begin when they have not, but nothing is really conclusive. The closest idea to a suggestion was to relax deeply and expect them to occur. Do you have any ideas on this?

[Pandemonium]

I don't know. As I have said the vibrations just happen to me, without any special relaxation. I do believe that one must be prepared and relaxed for the vibrations to come. They do get stronger when you relax, so...

[lyn92]

Hi Tom, a long time ago when I was first learning how to AP I remember I woke up and my body was touching the ceiling. I tried to push myself off, I was abit alarmed and seemed to stay there until I quieted my self and then I was back in my body. I thought this was funny because if this is all that AP is going to do for me I might as well quit. So I refocused and told my inner self or mind that I wanted to go past this ceiling and see what was out in the world.

Talk about astral trips, I really have seen many sights. Future events but no time frame as to when they would occur. I have since then been able to set up time frames. Not exact. I was working on exact dates when I ventured on a personal travel and this is when I lost control of what I had set out to do and had trouble staying in this body. Lots of time lost.

2 days ago as I visited the Magic section, I heard someone tell me to travel again and I would hear my answer. So I tested my RV/AP & I was able to close off and bring myself back. I told myself to "close off" as I have done many times. This time it worked. And I did "hear" my answer today.

So I may have regained control again. I will see what this week brings me. Thank you for the help. This is really a good website for learning.

take care, Lyn [8D]

[Tom]

From what I have read, it seems that most techniques for going out of body can be summed up "just do it". The books seem to agree that it is easier than most people make it, and that one of the most common mistakes is to try too hard. Of course, there are hundreds of techniques and dozens of categories to sort them into. Some techniques will be more effective than others. My guess is that this is because specific techniques (beyond "just do it") counter specific obstacles, and when enough of them are overcome the result is a conscious projection. The problem becomes one of identifying the specific obstacles and choosing a combination of techniques for those obstacles.

What I want is for people here who can project regularly to volunteer to speak with people who are less experienced. People who cannot stay in the body are especially needed as volunteers for this. The challenge will be to learn from people who cannot project at all or who can only do so infrequently why they cannot project. Ideally, this would be done without losing the ability to project regularly. That is why it is important that the people who volunteer to study non-projectors must be stable in their accomplishments.

The place to begin conversations will be this: When you apply projection techniques, how do you keep them from working?