Memorable Projection

[TheGuardian]

Last night was another large milestone. I had several projection like experiences throughout the night. One of them I woke up to find my deceased dog's ghost cuddling me in bed and I could feel him very realistically. I then called my dad in to come as quickly as possible to see him, but he couldn't see him, only hear him. Of course, this was nothing more than a very realistic dream. My dad is currently out of town, and seeing dead animals in the physical world is not something that is likely to occur.

After that, throughout the night, I had other signs of OBEs. I experienced several incidents of vibrations, sleep paralysis and hypnogogia. I didn't manage to get past those states, sadly.

Finally, late in the night, I had another dream where my dog was there, as well as some other dogs which were supposedly my future pets. This time, however, I managed to gain conscious control. I then walked through the window and into a very distorted neighborhood. The physics felt weird for a few moments before I gained control over them, but afterwards I understood it. The neighborhood was in black and white and looked like Google Sketchup graphics. I pondered for a moment if I was in a lucid dream or actually astral projecting but then I remembered Xanth's wise words and dropped the labeling and decided it was a projection and left it at that. I asked myself whether I would be more comfortable if I was in my own mind or exploring something else but I didn't reach a conclusion. I flew around the neighborhood and a bunch of Google-like post-it notes appeared with 'thoughts' of other travelers. One of them said "Where do I go from here?" - A girl. I recognized that this was a quote from Pocahontus 2, which I saw the previous day which made me think I was in my own mind, but I didn't totally dismiss the possibility I was in a collective conscious.

I explored further and the world looked more like graphics from the video game Psychonauts than Google Sketchup. I flew through a series of buildings without my mind being fazed by the sight issues and then eventually I found myself in a red factory like setting. There was a bunch of blood, skeletons and gore which scared me at first but I knew I couldn't get hurt so I just kept on going. I flew up the factory beams and it seemed very much like Sonic The Hedgehog graphics, complete with the rings. I flew through the beams knowing I wasn't solid so I didn't have to try to aim my flight. I was worried for a moment that I wouldn't remember this experience, but with some odd dream logic, I knew that if I was experiencing it in the now, there was no way I could (not) remember it. Sort of as if time wasn't a factor in memories.

The next room I was in was a continuation of the factory setting but there were a bunch of monsters that didn't scare me. I had enough control to gain an energy gun that I just targeted each monster and shot at it and it went away. I then came across a door and I tried opening it, somehow knowing it would lead me to an arcade environment. There was a girl from my high school also opening the door, which in hindsight it's funny she appeared considering her senior paper was on Lucid Dreaming.

On the other side of the door, there was a birthday party for kids and there was an arcade shooting game that I was supposed to use my gun to shoot the animatronics to entertain the kids. My mother was there with a camera to take a picture but I told her I was in the nonphysical so there was no reason to take a picture as it won't last into the physical world, and if I came back to the non-physical, it would likely not be there, or serve no purpose. After that, part of me got a dark side and started to shoot at the kids instead of the animatronics, but the gun had no effect on them. This is where I think the distinction of being in my own mind or being in the astral makes a difference. Should I have been able to kill the kids with the gun, I think that being in my own mind would deem it to be 'ok' as no one but myself gets hurt, but if I was in an external place, someone would suffer and that would make my actions unacceptable.

Once I realized I couldn't shoot the kids, I then started aiming at the animatronics. I got a few shots in before I had to wake up. As I was waking up, I made extra effort into retaining the memories at least as long enough so I could write them down.

Any thoughts on this experience?

[vibration]

Awesome experience thank you for sharing.
I have not yet had any ld,ap,oobe again with the labels However I think you are on the right track and should just ignore the labels and if you are curious try to validate your experience in your own time.
Maybe you shooting the kids even was some kind of validation as to the extent that you are not playing around in your own consciousness but in the astral or whatever you may want to call it - its only for you to decide.