Hello (& a few questions)

[Reyn]

          Hello. My name's Andrew and I've recently stumbled upon the information of OBE, and it attracted me so much, I felt tears of joy when I first heard about it. Wish I found out about it sooner!

          To be concrete I was first introduced to OBE a week ago, via YouTube(and since I've been more grateful of it's existence). Since then I've read a bit about it, but I have a few questions that are either too simple to be included in the FAQ, or do not appear there.

          My first try at OBE was a utter and complete failure, simply because the only thing I knew about doing it at that point(last Thursday) was meditating to reach a state of relaxation. Thus, Thursday night I did just that. Due to the impossibility to do it in complete silence, I used the sound of grasshoppers as a metronome in my relaxation chant. [Now, my probably silliest question is: how exactly do people relax their muscles? I've read "tense & relax" placed in the same sentence as "lying down eyes closed". This whole tensing & relaxing part, is it pure mentally? If not, then how?]. Due to the video I've previously seen, I focused and envisioned from my feet, to my shins, thighs, all the way to my head; about 40 grasshopper crickets per place(Somehow I managed to follow one cricket among the entire orchestra, and it was about once every 2 seconds) and counted upwards with each cricket. When I reached relaxing my thighs, I could feel my shins and feet in a floating sensation and was thrilled. I continued the process all the way to my head, then going down to my arms, at which point I felt most of my body was in a floaty state. Only the day after I found out that I was most likely in a light trance.
          Now a question about this floating sensation: besides floating, has anyone felt being pushed from below? I felt like this from my lower back and left thigh, if places are important.


          Friday night I couldn't do any experimentation due to the storm outside. To be more precise, there were 3 storms that passed by my window in the time-span of 6 hours. I love watching lightning, so I took a good half an hour in total to watch the show. After falling asleep[about 4am] I had a dream in which a storm suddenly came out of nowhere, heard a scream saying "run, someone is going to die", after which my heartbeat sky rocketed and I walked knowingly towards the lightning. Upon contact with it, I woke up in a different position than I was when I fell asleep, hair standing on end, heartbeat still being sky rocket, and feeling a strange pulse in both my hands. This pulse was strong enough to give the impression that my hands were trying on their own, with each pulse to close and open back up. I later found out that this was quite the predicament for a OBE, but at the time I didn't know it, and was quite scared of this pulsation feeling.
          Question regarding this: Are these the so called vibrations? Because in my case they feel like starting from the centre of my palms, going to the very edge, then coming back. I later managed to expand them up to my shoulders, but the epicentre still seemed to be the centre of my palms. And now that I'm accustomed to them, they are quite relax-inducing.


          Ever since Thursday night, I managed to get the floaty sensation via meditation, but not close to as powerful, and I seem to be troubled in keeping it constant over my entire body. However on Monday I think I managed to do partial separation. After reaching slight floating sensation on around 50% of my body, I had problems with knowing how my left hand was positioned. I knew for certain that it was palm down and sticking to my body, but it felt as if it was palm up and a bit higher than where it should be, and in no close proximity to my body. I could barely feel anything around it, it was a weird feeling, and hard to explain. I guess this was another good sign, but happening for the first time, even though by now I was knowledgeable about it, I was freaking out, trying to figure out exactly what's happening with and around my left hand, completely forgetting about concentrating. While my hand felt stranger and stranger, for the first time I felt that heavy blanket I've read mostly everyone gets above my shins. Whilst still concerned over my hand, the blanket came above my thighs, but stopped under my stomach. Around the time it stopped covering more of my body, the strange feeling from my hand became lighter and shifted a bit to my right hand. Problem is at the same time I felt a burning sensation over my right shin. This burning sensation can be compared to that of two hands rubbing together for well over a minute. Next thing the back of my head felt very heavy, and I had the need to lift it with my hands as if something wrong was about to happen. Guessing this was another way for my brain to check if the body's asleep or not, I fought the need of moving my limbs. Then all hell broke loose and itches started crawling over my body; my back was hurting, the need for water was like I hadn't had any for more than half a day, irritation irked up and about my body. At this point I forfeited.
          If someone would be so kind to point out where did I approach things badly, and how can I correct this.

This is more of a ask-for-help than an introduction. I apologize for this, but I am most eager to experience OBE. Hope to meet you one day, via OBE

[blis]

Hello Reyn.

With regards to progressive muscle relaxation, I'll quote Trancework by Michael Yapko.

The tense-release protocol works, in part, because physiologically,
when a muscle tenses, it must relax before it can tense again. The muscle enters a
"refractory period." You can even preface the "sure success" of this technique with this
explanation of muscle physiology to the client. (What you don't need to tell him or her,
however, is that the refractory period lasts only a fraction of a second.)

Welcome to the Pulse

[Xanth]

Hey there Andrew,

Welcome to the Astral Pulse. 

[NoY]

twitches and itches are very common you just have to learn to ignore them, you sound like your on the right path, maybe you just need a little more time.

Welcome to the Pulse 

:NoY:

[personalreality]

welcome.

just google progressive muscle relaxation.

its one of the most common techniques for relaxation.  it's not a mental exercise in that you are imagining the tensing and releasing, you actually tense up specific muscle groups, hold for like 10-20 seconds and then slowly release the tension.  you progressively move through all of the muscle groups in your body to relax your whole body.  if you take the time to do this and make it routine, it is very helpful and you'll find that by the end you're damn near asleep already.

[Greytraveller]

Hallo Reyn and welcome
Your enthusiasm is commendable. Just be aware that it might take several weeks or months before managing to get out of body. Good advice is to try as many different methods as possible. Try one for a couple of weeks and if that does not work switch to another technique. Be patient and determined and eventually something good Will happen.

Sincerely 
Grey

[CFTraveler]

Hi Andrew.  I love your name, btw.
Yes, the object of attaining the out of body state is to become very relaxed, but you have to go further than that- you have to reach the state in which you go to sleep, and stay awake.  If you are able to get to this state (aka the liminal state, or the mind-awake body asleep state) you can then experience a variety of things- visions, audio, or sensations of movement (or vibrations) will let you know that you're ready to use an exit technique- or simply float out, or shoot out.
The techniques section of this site has a variety of things to try for a successful practice.
Good luck.