What kind of a person is an astral projector?

[CFTraveler]

My answer would be (did I say it already?)  "A person who doesn't sleep well, and takes a long time to go to sleep".  The rest just evolves from it.

[justin35ll]

i dont know exactly what you mean by the question, but i am a 20 year old male who is a full time auto mechanic, i play paintball, and race my racecar on the track. used to practice obe a lot more, but with work it's hard now but still keeping up with my dream recall at least

[Rudolph]

The only difference is the lack of what I call a "waking awareness".

That would be like lacking a cup of milk in the muffin mix.

I've actually never experienced this "cloudy" or "impaired" vision that people talk about.  My dreams, when I'm actively experiencing them as they're happening, are always clear, just like my waking physical life right now.

We weren't talking about dreams... but full conscious OBE. Many strong and promising young projectors experience this partial blindness upon projecting into the "PHASE".

[Astral316]

That would be like lacking a cup of milk in the muffin mix.

Yup. Full awareness is (or should be) built into the definitions of "projection" and "obe." To make these terms synonymous with all non-physical experiences just complicates things.

[Xanth]

We weren't talking about dreams... but full conscious OBE. Many strong and promising young projectors experience this partial blindness upon projecting into the "PHASE".

I see no difference in the 'where' between a "dream", "full conscious OBE" or "Phase" though.
I equate the "partial blindness" to some sort of subconscious block, not a problem with the reality they're experiencing.

Yup. Full awareness is (or should be) built into the definitions of "projection" and "obe." To make these terms synonymous with all non-physical experiences just complicates things.

There are a lot of things that we'll never get everyone to agree to... terminology being one of them.
I believe an important skill to have is being able to read someones interpretation and match it up as closely as you can to your own metaphors.  It's not perfect, but it's all we have.

[Astral316]

^ Agreed.

[blis]

I see no difference in the 'where' between a "dream", "full conscious OBE" or "Phase" though.

Do you mean that in the sense that there is no such thing as location outside of material reality or that all those types of experience are located in the same place?

[Xanth]

Do you mean that in the sense that there is no such thing as location outside of material reality or that all those types of experience are located in the same place?

I try to break everything down into a really simple form.  I break it down into two "locations": 'here' and 'not here'.

"Here" = this physical reality frame
"Not here" (or "there") = any other reality frame that isn't this one.  This includes the area we dream, lucid dream and astral project into ("into" also being a not quite correct term, but for lack of a better word). 

But really... I'm starting to think that even this "material reality" (or as I call it above, "here") doesn't truly exist as a fundamentally objective thing.

These are all just my ideas and concepts, aka: Opinions. 

[Summerlander]

The metaphysical is a different dimension altogether. It is very difficult for us to grasp because we are so used to our three-dimensional world. when we enter the other realm, we even attempt to see it the way we are used to perceiving our world. Our minds start to boggle when we think about what the Plane of Thought is...if everything there is made of thought, or representational of thought, then space/distance itself is a thought and thus it can be changed with ease. Another way of looking at such realm is that it behaves similarly to the quantum world...one minute things are there, the next they are not. This is what we are dealing with here. It's another form of existence altogether and might as well be considered as an unseen extension of reality from the physical point of view.

[Rudolph]

 I wonder about that too, Summer. I mean... if I am OBE I am not using physical eyes so what is doing the seeing? There are no photons striking a retina. I must be translating 'energy' states into something recognizable to my brain. After one of Castaneda's inner journeys Don Juan asked Carlos what he had seen and Carlos replied, "you were there - didn't you see it?" Don Juan replied to the student, "I only see 'lines of intent'... I stopped 'seeing' they way you do a long time ago".

[blis]

if I am OBE I am not using physical eyes so what is doing the seeing?

You are doing the seeing. The same thing as in the physical. Eyes do not see. Does a camera see? Does a brain see? Can a brain invent something as wonderfull as colour?

[Rudolph]

You are doing the seeing. The same thing as in the physical. Eyes do not see. Does a camera see? Does a brain see? Can a brain invent something as wonderfull as colour?

ummm... I don't think it is the same. Eyes DO see. The brain processes the data that the retina passes to it along the optic nerve. Color, varying wavelengths of light, existed long before the human eye evolved.

Who is teaching this idea that the "seeing" is done by the "I" or inner Being? This is very misleading.

The incorporeal Self perceives energy, intent, etc. and the brain only processes it as a 'visual' or other familiar sensory event in order to translate it to a language the earthly human is familiar with.

[CFTraveler]

ummm... I don't think it is the same. Eyes DO see. The brain processes the data that the retina passes to it along the optic nerve. Color, varying wavelengths of light, existed long before the human eye evolved.

Who is teaching this idea that the "seeing" is done by the "I" or inner Being? This is very misleading.

The incorporeal Self perceives energy, intent, etc. and the brain only processes it as a 'visual' or other familiar sensory event in order to translate it to a language the earthly human is familiar with.

I gotta disagree.  Eyes don't see just like a camera doesn't see.  Eyes are the conduit for light to bounce off the retina, and the light 'picture' is then transmitted to the optic nerve, which is now electicity.  The electric signal goes into the visual cortex where it's interpreted and chemicals are produced to create a picture in the brain.  So if the 'seeing' is a physical activity, it is the brain that sees.
But that's a whole 'nother story, because the act of seeing includes scanning memories for comparisons, and concepts forming.  So who in the brain does all this?
You.  The "I" in you, whether physical or metaphysical.

[Rudolph]

I disagree.

The seeing is obviously a human artifact and it is the eye that 'sees' and the brain that processes the image data.

In certain realms I meet entities that appear to me as balls of 'light' and I am pretty sure that they do not perceive me as a human form. Physical, planet earth forms are NOT what the eternal Self is naturally attuned to. Simple direct perception is the modus operandi there and the image data that is processed from what the eye sees and the brain processes is unnatural to the eternal Self. What we call 'seeing' is not a function or process of the eternal Self. OBE excursions are only processed and retrieved as planet earth image type recall because that is what the corporeal form relates to.

EDIT; This is kinda interesting. Feeling is another one of the senses like seeing and most would readily admit it is the fingers or skin or whatever that is doing the feeling but I doubt anyone would even suggest that the brain does the feeling. It is the ears that hear and the tongue that tastes, etc.

Again, the 'seeing' twist that people attach to the Self is unique but more pervasive than common sense would allow so  I think some pseudo-teacher out there must have thrown this stumbling block out at some point and it seems to have stuck.

[blis]

No one's taught me it. It's just the sort of thing I ponder.

Could the brain, a physical thing, create an non-physical 3d image that doesnt actually exist anywhere(physical)?

When you die will you not be able to see anymore? Will colour cease to exist?

Obviosuly the brain has a role in the whole operation(pattern recognition and what not) but it just doesnt seem to me like a physical thing could "see".

[Summerlander]

The brain is merely a tool which oscillates according to the environment. It receives the data and interprets it its own way. Consciousness is something else. If conscious awareness identifies itself as being the brain, it will be focusing on the data that the brain has interpreted from objective reality. If this conscious awareness shifts away from the physical, it may still use the same modalities of perception that it got used to for so long while in the physical body because it knows not any other way. However, as it perceives "out of body" it may embellish this perception, hence, for example, the crisp hyper-real quality of the ambiences it encounters and the bright colours that outshine the physical realm.

Our true nature though is a radiant emptiness which is paradoxically aware of itself. There really is no observer nor observed. Just mental states and concepts that this pristine cognition clings to in order to acquire a sense of purpose and meaning. That's our intrinsic nature. There is no "I" inside the brain whatsoever. There is nothing there. It's just meat!

[Rudolph]

When you die will you not be able to see anymore? Will colour cease to exist?

Obviosuly the brain has a role in the whole operation(pattern recognition and what not) but it just doesnt seem to me like a physical thing could "see".

Yes. Once the Self separates and distances Itself from this physical earth reality completely enough.

I have a friend who is color blind. Completely. The world is literally black and white and shades of gray to him. That does not mean that there is no varying degree of wavelengths to the light hitting the rods and cones of his eyes. That data is just not propagated along his optic nerve.

There are physical colors that exist beyond what the physical human eye can perceive but other animals see them fine.

There are no photons in the Astral but there is an energetic aspect of Consciousness that our brain will process as a light and color correlation.

The eternal Self can have an experience in consciousness that It formulates as "light" in order to communicate the experience to the physical human waking awareness but it is not quite the same thing. It is possible to grasp the essence of a thing through direct perception without dumbing it all down to a collection of base humanoid sense characteristics.

[Xanth]

Well, the way I see it, and what makes the most sense to me is that our "brain" simply exists to provide limitations to how our consciousness perceives and interprets the data it's receiving.  If that brain gets damaged in some way, or simply isn't functioning properly (as in the color blind example), then that provides FURTHER limitations upon that consciousness to perceive and interpret the data.

Mind you, all that is just my opinion and I have no basis really for the reality of this.  LoL

[Stookie_]

It's a filter

[Rudolph]

It might be a sort of a filter in some ways but it is more than just that. Summerlander had another aspect of its purpose as a receiver that oscillates according to waves or vibration, like a radio or TV set. But it is limited and cannot reproduce even closely, in some cases, what the exteriorised Self may be experiencing.

And this is not something that I consider a matter of opinion like "which is better, pistachios or cashews?"

Some of this discussion seems like people talking about electricity and being of the opinion that it comes from fireflies. That falls outside the realm of opinion. A proper understanding of the human form, function, sense receptors, cognitive features, etc. and its relation to the eternal Self can be instructive in these matters.

[Summerlander]

I'd also like to add that blind people who have had OOBEs and NDEs suddenly acquired vision. Interesting...it seems that once free from the brain, our individual consciousness can pretty much do the impossible. It goes back to what Xanth was saying in his post. The brain narrows the capacity of consciousness, perhaps as a means to deal with this realty, while at the same time consciousness seems to want to improve the physicals models to their entelechy...evolution. So...we have the infinite, perfect, archetypal and unborn reality which could be trying to recreate itself in our dimension. Hence this physical universe, which, in essence, is just one in a plethora of ideas and on this mode of vibration, a finite one still.

[Rudolph]

I believe in the case of a blind person being able to see again when OBE, we find after a little digging that they were not blind from birth. They might have lost the vision at a young age and forgotten what it was like but the subconscious carries the memory clearly.

I knew a man who was blind from birth who said he did not see when he was OBE but that he had a knowingness associated with encounters in the phase.

[Summerlander]

I guess not all of them see but different minds may access different modalities of perception. It may be that if they are not familiar with certain modalities that others use, they may invent their own and this is great. The mind is good like that.

[ether2]

what kind of person is an astral projector we have people in jails in fact all people with sentences of 2 1/2 years or more project twice a day morning and night as it seems to the most economical time to do this as in energy wise (less), thats all jailers every where in the world, building a process so as all in a short time will be able to project to do... long story

I believe in the case of a blind person being able to see again

etherical vision i believe they call it, most have acquired it all except a hand full because of something...they had it... but...get it back again though
apparently they see in black and white from awake to sleep (when wanted) for now and color to come but for reasons i cannot explain as yet why, but soon will be color as an area are in the process of combining the realms?/plains? don't know the exact wording for it

good luck

love all

[Lizelle]

Most people who aren't properly initiated in this stuff do seem to think they are going crazy. 

That's funny, I was telling my therapist about my nighttime "hallucinations" a few years back, and she got a concerned look & asked me if I'd ever been diagnosed with a mental disorder.