Can anyone else relate to this?

[Blazewind]

I'm sorry.  I just couldn't think of a more fitting title for this topic.

Anyway I wanted to ask this group about something I've begun to notice and finally started to understand.  Basically I just wonder if it's the same for everyone and what if anything to do about it.

Related to OBE practice, I can start to notice starting to fall asleep and everything quite well.  As far as I understand, I'm well on the right track as much as possible with it.  I think I've come very close several times.  It's in those times of being very close that I notice something that hit me each time like a ton of bricks.  I've always assumed it would not happen again but of course it does.  Basically I will go through the steps and all that only to realize somewhere along the way that I just cannot actually comprehend nonphysical existence.  I just can't imagine being able to reach up with a nonphysical arm for instance, which is odd and quite frustrating because I've actually done that very thing already.  (Not actually trying the first few times I've reached up or rolled over in bed nonphysically, just the old familiar startled and confused as can be at first until it finally occurred to me to wonder if I could do it again on purpose, lol.)  I certainly can't fully wrap my head around the idea of stepping or floating completely out of body.  It's the oddest and craziest thing.  I can get to a point it seems I might be close and then suddenly I find myself thinking that I'm perfectly fine where I am and I'd rather just stay in bed and leave well enough alone.

One of my AP goals (I think it important to have a goal in mind to follow if you do succeed early on) was always to fly from my roof.  It seems nice and basic and simple one.  But each time I find myself in this kind of odd close but suddenly losing motivation state, I suddenly think the last thing I can imagine or comprehend is losing gravity.  Okay, so I'm used to a physical world and two feet on the ground.  Logically then I should just consider maybe walking through my apartment or perhaps up the street.  Thing is that seems strange to me too.  It's like each time I think I'm getting closer, I suddenly just can't actually let go of the physical world. 

I should write more on this, but for some reason I'm confused about how to word everything well enough that it makes any sense.  I wonder though in any case if anyone might have an insight or two.                      

[LightBeam]

I might be wrong, but perhaps you have a subconscious fear of the unknown. You know what to expect and how to protect yourself in the physical environment. What is dangerous and how to avoid it. For example not to jump from high buildings, because you can't fly and you can get hurt. But when you find yourself in a different, unfamiliar environment, maybe you can't be sure if you will be safe by jumping off your roof. Maybe you feel exposed and threatened by invisible forces? That's why your "auto protect" gets activated when you get the chance to project, and your motivation and excitement is overwritten. 

The solution for this problem is to research the OBE phenomena as much as you can, read about other people's experience and let your mind gradually get used to the fact that astral projection is perfectly safe, and that you have the absolute power to change your experience at any given point, to dissolve fears, to fly, to shape shift, to interact with other entities, but mist importantly to learn about the universe, about yourself and how to be of assistance to those in need, and to the global system as a whole.

[Szaxx]

Hi,
Im wondering if you have ever had a flying dream?
Thats a very common experience and a good starting point to try to resolve this problem.
You need to relate an experience to this one as a countermeasure you've already accepted. Half the problem is immediately solved.
Lightbeam and I  have come to the same conclusion on the cause. Letting go of the physical.
Familiarise yourself as suggested, its a brake on your development.

[Contenteo]

"reach up with a nonphysical arm"

There is not reaching, there is just letting go of the one you have.

Echo #2

Cheers,
Contenteo

[Pauli2]

I know it doesn't feel the same, but if you haven't been LDing you could
find some books or exercises to learn to LD, so you get some kind of
feeling of the non-physical. But OBE is not really feeling non-physical,
to me at least, it sort of feels like the physical, but just different.

If you can LD you're halfway in to OBEing.

Edit: Maybe some people have very great difficulties to OBE consciously.
I have for example, but have had success doing it from a random SP.

[Blazewind]

Im wondering if you have ever had a flying dream?
Thats a very common experience and a good starting point to try to resolve this problem.

My intention is to fly in a dream the next time I become lucid in dreamstate.  So far it seems I've been mostly focused on playing with time and 'restarting' or 'rewinding' scenes in LDs.  Then there's been a lot of odd learning going on in dreams lately too.  Like being taught or shown how to take control of the dreams while actually dreaming. 

I do recall a flying experience though from several years ago.  I suddenly became consciously aware of flying through the clouds high up in the sky with a small group of other people who I knew in waking life.  I knew it seemed all to real but I reasoned that it was odd since people don't normally fly.  I recall just looking down trying to see the ground below but seeing mostly only the clouds and little else.  I was not very good at flying either for whatever reason.  No good at turning or staying straight without losing some altitude.  It was amazing though in any case.

This whole incident got stranger though.  Since I knew the people I'd been with in my waking life at the time, and they happened to be a group of open minded spiritual people that I knew would see the humor in it if nothing else, I actually talked to them about this flying experience later in the week.  To my shock and utter amazement it seemed a couple of them had been discussing the very same memory they had not long before I'd mentioned it.  It seems unbelievable of course and had I not been involved myself I'd have shaken my head at it.  Clearly though this 'flying dream' might not have fully been a dream at all.