Lucid dream or OOBE? Just confused...

[bababababad]

I've been actively trying to project for the past couple months. Last night, I found obe4u. com and read a section on Indirect Technique. Well, low and behold, the first night of trying it, I phased! But I don't know if I phased into AP or lucid dreaming. I used the "observing images" technique, btw.

BTW, has anyone ever had a lucid dream that they were projected?

Anyway, as I did the "observing images" technique, images of the room became very vivid though I can feel my eyes were closed. I felt a vibration and took my time "coming out of my body." Eventually I was standing in the room. I walked through the wall and into the living room, which looked quite a bit different than usual. THIS is where things got a little weird and made me question whether it was a lucid dream or projection. Up until this point, I was sure I was projecting.

The living room was empty and nobody was around so I got excited and ran through the walls of the apartment building and into different apartments. After I woke up and wrote down the experience, I kinda recognized there is no apartment to the right of me... just left.
Anyway... so I ended up back in the living room... That's when I heard a piano playing in the bedroom so I went in and found an African American lady playing the keys (Note: I think I opened the door to look in). I wasn't sure if she was nice or not. I asked who she was and tried to be friendly but I quickly got the feeling she wasn't. I faced her boldly and she said she was going to hurt me and I said she couldn't. She reminded me of some type of African voodoo witch in 20th century clothes.
So then I decided to run out of the apartment and I fell a few stories down to the concrete. I was in a totally different environment. This wasn't my town... it's snowing in my town. It was sunny outside.
At that moment, I decided I wanted to visit my fiancé at work. Next thing I knew, I was standing across a female in Subway. She was blonde and pretty and I stood inches away from her and looked at her but she didn't look like my fiancé... but I felt like it was her. My fiancé doesn't work at Subway either!
So I left to go back to the apartment and i learned to fly on the way because I wanted to fly into the building instead of taking stares. But the apartment building was way taller now. It was like a downtown loft rather than a 2-floor regular apartment. Anyway, I learned to fly and made it to the apartment window.
At this point, the window was open with a yellow curtain covering it. I had someone with me but I didn't even realize it till I started writing this. It felt like my father but Idk why I didn't acknowledge it at the time. It just felt natural that he was with me.
There were weird human hairs on the curtain covering the window and my "father" gave me the impression they were something left by the bad lady from earlier. He opened the curtain and pushed it aside so I can go in... why I didn't just go through the wall, IDK. Then I entered the apartment but it wasn't my apartment at all. I entered the living room and called on my spirit guide or an angel to help me because I was a little stressed out. That's when I heard someone in a next room. I entered to find a little girl napping on a couch holding a stuffed animal. She was very sweet and I felt love from her. I asked her who I was and she told me I was a ninja assassin and I said, "I knew it!" HAHA I hugged her and decided to snap back into my body. I woke up exhausted.

In the beginning I thought I was projecting, but as things progressed -- especially after the ninja assassin thing -- I figured I was lucid dreaming. But I was phasing none the less... am I right?

Any thoughts can help...

[Lionheart]

 As the saying goes, "Same Difference"!  

This quote is from Edain McCoy from her book "Astral Projection for Beginners". She says "Astral Projection is defined as any state in which your consciousness is immersed in a different time or place from that of your physical body. By this definition the act of Dreaming is also a form of Astral Projection". She goes on to say that "It surprises many beginners to find that most regular Astral Travelers make little or no distinction between Dreaming and Astral Projection - rather, they have discovered that harnessing the "Power of Dreams" can become an excellent conduit for controlled Astral Travel".

Drop the labels for a while and just learn to experience it first. Keep a good Journal and after awhile you can go back to it and decide what's what from your own experiences. In the end, only you can answer this question.  

[bababababad]

Thanks. That's good advice. Looking forward to my next experience.

[Astral-Trea]

As the saying goes, "Same Difference"!  

This quote is from Edain McCoy from her book "Astral Projection for Beginners". She says "Astral Projection is defined as any state in which your consciousness is immersed in a different time or place from that of your physical body. By this definition the act of Dreaming is also a form of Astral Projection". She goes on to say that "It surprises many beginners to find that most regular Astral Travelers make little or no distinction between Dreaming and Astral Projection - rather, they have discovered that harnessing the "Power of Dreams" can become an excellent conduit for controlled Astral Travel".

Drop the labels for a while and just learn to experience it first. Keep a good Journal and after awhile you can go back to it and decide what's what from your own experiences. In the end, only you can answer this question.  

Great experience and it reminds me somewhat of my own that I just posted. The thing that I have heard though from some projectors is that their projections are so vivid that they seem more real than the physical reality, while I hear others say what you quoted. My lucid dreams at the time, can seem pretty real but then looking back seem hazy or sometimes get hazy during them. I guess maybe it depends on how much energy you have and your level of conciousness.. And the two may be directly related.

I also wonder if there is a difference in people who project intentionally from an awakened state and the people who project from dreams. Since your mind is in a different state during a dream (you will have been asleep usually for a while) maybe it is like projecting but being half asleep.

[Lionheart]

Great experience and it reminds me somewhat of my own that I just posted. The thing that I have heard though from some projectors is that their projections are so vivid that they seem more real than the physical reality, while I hear others say what you quoted. My lucid dreams at the time, can seem pretty real but then looking back seem hazy or sometimes get hazy during them. I guess maybe it depends on how much energy you have and your level of consciousness.. And the two may be directly related.

It's all in your LEVEL OF AWARENESS!  

With a LD, you are "becoming" aware that you are in the NPR. Many times you don't even have your bearings where you are or even what you are doing. It's kind of like being "plopped" right into a action scenario here in the physical. That would be enough to disorient any one.
Imagine this, you go to sleep at night and the next thing you know you are driving a car at breakneck speeds around a winding curved road. You don't know right away what's going on, you are just becoming "aware". The more aware you become, the more vivid the scene gets. The more vivid the scene gets the more you think that you aren't in a Dream anymore, but are in a OBE. It's the "same difference"! You can change your intent at will, because now you do have total awareness that you are in the NPR. You couldn't initially because you didn't know what was happening, you were disoriented and just coming into your awareness. Many times the problem with a LD is you can just lose conscious awareness again and lose all or most of your recall of the event. This is where the haziness comes from. You are just remembering bits and pieces, but if you could have just awoke up there and then, you would have total recall over the entire experience.

When you project from a awakened state, you are consciously aware all the way through the process. There is no awaking, unless of course you tend to lose brief consciousness as you are shifting, which does happen to some. You are shifting from here to there and because of that sometimes you have to experience a dark void between here and there. But, you are still consciously aware of it.