Help I can't get around in astral town

[Tom]

William Buhlman says to ask for clarity. It can take a few repetitions but it starts working better over time. Other qualities are available as well for the asking. I guess it works.

[Patty]

I haven't had luck with Buhlman's suggestions when I used them a couple years ago - I was specifically trying to bring more consciousness to the experiences for a while. I tried all sorts of variations on his suggestions - Anything to get from woozy-alert to fully aware. No luck, I would go in and out of dreams.  But a lot of people think his suggestions are on the money.  

Laura, the energy thing sounds reasonable to me. My most concrete experiences, with the most 'realism' in them including decent vision and awareness, happen when I haven't been at it for a while. Like the storage centers have re-fueled over time. For a while I thought that meant that I had to go for a long spell between OBEs to have any sort of decent experience.  But it occured to me today that if the system works in a similar way to other biological systems, then there might be a supply/demand thing going on and the more often I try to push it, the more energy my centers might begin to carry as a matter of course.

Laura, have you tried focusing your individual attempts on something small? Like if you are taking a nap, and you expect a travel, decide beforehand that the sole goal of the travel will be to see some specific item clearly. As soon as you are out, you try to accomplish your pre-set task, and then immediately return to your body with the intent of waking and remembering.

I don't know if this would work or not - but I do know that focusing on a pre-set single task often allows me to achieve that goal more easily, than if I flit around having fun on the travel. Maybe if it is a question of energy, you are putting what energy you have into a single focus so there are better results.

You know, this idea of what is real and what isn't; and the idea of how to see clearly, and all these questionmarks as we stumble along - Here's what happened for me the other night. It applies to the vision/realism question.

I had placed a playing card with the intent of identifying it while out of body.  (I did this with my eyes closed so I wouldn't know the card.)  I only had red aces and black face cards in my deck, and I intended to identify 'ace' vs 'face card.'  

So I find myself astrally strolling the house, and I go over to where the card is. It is a red ace. Looks like the ace of diamonds, but the diamond in the middle is almost translucent and wavering. (Identifying the suit would be icing on the cake, but not part of my specified intent.) After this OBE, I had several dreams, that the actual card was a black face card.

So when I finally wake up, with great trepidation I went to check the card. It was the ace of hearts. I am ecstatic that I identified the ace. But why did I see a diamond instead of a heart? Was the translucent/wavering quality of the diamond a tip-off that that particular aspect of what I 'saw' was not real? Are there easy ways to distinguish what is real and what is not? If my intent had specifically included identifying the suit, would I have seen a heart? Is my subconscious allowing me to have near-hits so that my belief system isn't stretched all at once by an irrefutable hit?

Grrrrrr.  Anyway, I'd love to hear more about your vision and capabilities while out of body.  Often I am unable to fly ---- actually it depends how aware I am. The more aware I am, the less I can fly. but I can jump like the dickens - all the way to the ceiling.  If the obe is more dreamy, then I can fly.  So I can identify with your feeling of being a toddler.




Patty

[Astrud]

My experiences have usually been afternoon nap induced and I have been having them for a while. While I have no problem getting out of my body, after years of trying I still can't get the hang of moving around and seeing. Today my astral body felt heavy and I pulled back to my body involuntarily. I usually try to go away from my body by going outside my astral house, but then everything gets hazy. Sometimes I can "run" and then other times it is like I'm a toddler in the astral world and I just bounce in to things and fall. I have tried many times to clear my vision, by telling myself to "see" and things like that, but have had no luck. Do you guys think it is a matter of believing I can, or is it maybe an energy thing?

Laura