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Ok, guys, so I was on the forum weeks ago when I was more actively trying to astral project. I've honestly been neglecting the practice most nights as my mind has been occupied with other things lately, but I've just had a very strange experience, and I wanted to share it and discuss it.

I was taking a nap (just woke up 15 minutes ago from the time of this post), and was drifting between being awake and being asleep again and again for minutes at a time, like I sometimes do on lazy late Saturday mornings. One of these times that I woke, I kept my eyes closed and stayed in thought, very near sleep. I thought to myself, "cool! right now I'm on the edge of the sleep state, i could make myself go back into sleep in just one moment if i choose". But I chose to do something else. There's this state that I sometimes get into, which I'm starting to think is sleep paralysis now that I examine its properties, where I stay conscious while I let all conscious awareness or my body and life slip away, and I get stuck into what I've been calling a "void". In this void, I very often experience sheer terror, because most times I'm not even trying to get there, and while there I seem to intuitively know that I'm in some way "vulnerable" or something. Perhaps this is because I no longer have control over my body at this point. Anyway, this time I willed it to happen, so I was calmer than usual. I had a sense of my body, almost like a vague 3rd person view of it, but not really visual more like a 3rd person detached sort of awareness of it. Suddenly the notion that I could astral project from this state popped into my head and I was like "ok! great idea!" So, I began to think about astral projecting at this time, and I could start to feel something happening. As soon as I started to "separate", I heard a voice. The voice...was that of my father. It was simply saying over and over and over, "Out, Tayler! Out, Tayler! Out, Tayler!" My name is Tayler, by the way. It was saying this again and again back to back at a consistent, rapid rate. It wasn't yelling loudly, but it was firm and clear, right in my ear. I was still fully conscious, so I thought my Dad had entered and was yelling for me to get out of bed or something of the like. It was either because I was afraid that the voice was some "astral entity" that I was too scared to deal with, or because I wanted to see if someone was yelling at me in the room for real, but I backed out and decided I wanted to 'wake up' or take control of my body over again. This process is always weird, I have to force it really intently sometimes to get back to waking consciousness and move. This was no exception. I would get close to having control then slip back then push a little further, then go back, then finally I managed to move my arm and BOOM. I was back. I had my body. So I uttered to my sister in the twin bed beside me, "wah...was that you bri?". She had no idea what I was talking about, saying there was no voice, and it must have been a dream, and she seemed a little disturbed. Then she asked me what I was giggling about. I had no idea what she meant. She said the for 15 seconds before I woke and asked her about the voice, I had been giggling in my bed. Not faintly, but loud and clear, I was giggling! The entire duration of my not having control over my own body, where I was sure I was solid as a rock, an empty vessel laying there like a ragdoll, I was giggling! What happened? What was the voice, why was I giggling, what just happened to me? I really don't know. I will try to induce the state again, soon, though.

The "dream" is a consistent and alternate life, complete with a different set of friends and family that I know and love (but not in this life), places that are familiar and connected to a whole new set of memories (that as far as I know don't exist and have never happened). Nothing overly special about this scenario, technology and architecture are different but not necessarily advanced, it is just different, yet seemlessly consistent from night to night. I've been seeing it for the past week. is it just a dream?

Hi loppoppy! Please do me a favor and read a short section of Robert Monroe's book, Journey's outside the Body. If you don't know, Monroe was a pioneer in Astral Projection and founded the Monroe Institute and Hemi-Sync technologies which have helped millions have spiritual journeys over the decades. This excerpt talks about Monroe himself experiencing something VERY similar to you.

Monroe found this new "realm" he could enter if as he reached the vibrational stage of having an OBE, but instead of instantly rising out of his body, he would do a barrel roll in place so his astral body was face down, still in line with his face-up physical body's axis. Once he completed the 180 degree turn, he could see a hole in the shape of his body which he could travel through into a realm he called Locale III, in which he seemed to temporarily live the life of another person. It's really interesting check it out:

2/27/59 Night
Determined to find some more (or even one!) answers about the hole, I
went through the vibration and 180° rotation pattern, and deliberately
went through. It was still black and dark, but not unpleasant, no hands,
no presence. I could feel something solid under me, so I tried very hard
to open my eyes and "see." I did, and everything came into view. I was
standing near a building (more like a barn than a house) on what was a
wide, meadowlike area. I thought I would try to soar up into the sky
(deep clear bluef no clouds), but I couldn't seem to get off the ground.
Maybe I had weight here. There was what looked like a ladder a hundred
feet or so away, and I went to it and realized it was a tower of some
kind, about ten feet tall. Like a bird needing take-off room, I climbed
the tower to the top, leaped away in take-off- and fell promptly to the
ground with a solid thud! I guess I was surprised as a bird with clipped
wings must feel.

I got to my feet, and realized how foolishly I was acting. I was not
following the proper procedures. Even "here," they had to be followed. I
held up my hands and arms in the stretch-out position, and went up
easily. I moved slowly over the meadow, enjoying the view and
exploration, when suddenly something flew past me. 1 turned just in time
to see it heading for the wall and the hole. I was afraid for some reason that this was something that would go through and try to enter my
body, so I wheeled in flight and dove for the hole. Too late, I realized
that what I thought was the hole was a window in the side of the
building-and then I was through the window and in blackness. I felt
around in the dark, and there was the outline of the hole. I went
through, rotated, and sat up in the physical.

Everything looked normal, and I was in the right place, the time passage
was O.K., so back I went! Vibrations were still strong, so I rotated
180°, went through the hole and out into brightness. More observant this
trip, I noticed two people, a man and a woman, sitting in chairs near
the outside of the building. I couldn't make contact with the man, but
the woman (no physical identification other than this) seemed to know I
was there. I asked her if she knew who I was, but I could get nothing
other than a sense of awareness on her part. The vibrations started to
fade, so I backed away, dove into hole, rotated, and sat up. Total time
of the entire episode was forty minutes.

...


Locale III, in summary, proved to be a physical-matter world almost
identical to our own. The natural environment is the same. There are
trees, houses, cities, people, artifacts, and all the appurtenances of a
reasonably civilized society. There are homes, families, businesses, and
people work for a living. There are roads on which vehicles travel.
There are railroads and trains.

Now for the "almost." At first, the thought was that Locale III was no
more than some part of our world unknown to me and those others
concerned. It had all the appearances of being so. However, more careful
study showed that it can be neither the present nor the past of our
physical-matter world.

The scientific development is inconsistent. There are no electrical
devices whatsoever. Electricity, electromagnetics, and anything so
related are non-existent. No electric lights, telephones, radios,
television, or electric power.

No internal combustion, gasoline, or oil were found as power sources.
Yet mechanical power is used. Careful examination of one of the
locomotives that pulled a string of old-fashioned-looking passenger cars
showed it to be driven by a steam engine. The cars appeared to be made
of wood, the locomotive of metal, but of a different shape than our now
obsolete types. The track gauge was much smaller than our standard track
spacing, smaller than our narrow-gauge mountain railways.
I observed the servicing of one of the locomotives in detail. Neither
wood nor coal was used as a thermal source to produce steam. Instead,
large vatlike containers were carefully slid from under the boiler,
detached, and rolled by small cart into a building with massive thick
walls. The containers had pipelike protuberances extending from the top.
Men working behind shields performed the removal, casually cautious, and
did not relax their automatic vigilance until the containers were safely
in the building and the door closed. The contents were "hot," either
through heat or radiation. The actions of the technicians all seemed to
indicate the latter.

The streets and roads are different, again principally in size. The
"lane" on which vehicles travel is nearly twice as wide as ours. Their
version of our automobile is much larger. Even the smallest has a single
bench seat that will hold five to six people abreast The standard unit
has only one fixed seat, that of the driver. Others are much like
living-room chairs, placed around a compartment that measures some
fifteen by twenty feet. Wheels are used, but without inflated tires.
Steering is done by a single horizontal bar. Motive power is contained
somewhere in the rear. Their movement is not very fast, at something
like fifteen to twenty miles per hour. Traffic is not heavy.
Self-powered vehicles exist in the form of a four-wheeled platform which
is steered by the feet acting upon the front wheels. A mechanism pumped
by the arms transfers the energy to the rear wheels, much like the
children's "rowing wagons" of some years back. These are used for short
distances.

Habits and customs are not like ours. What little has been gleaned
implies a historical background with different events, names, places,
and dates. Yet, while the stage of man's evolution (the conscious mind
translates the inhabitants as men) seems to be identical, technical and
social evolution are not completely the same.
The major discovery came soon after I gathered the courage for extended expeditions into Locale III. In spite of early indications, the people
there were not aware of my presence until I met and "merged" temporarily
and involuntarily with one who can only be described as the "I" who
lives "there." The only explanation I can think of is that I, fully
conscious of living and being "here," was attracted to and began momentarily to inhabit the body of a person "there," much like myself.
When this took place-and it began to be an automatic process when I went
to Locale III-I simply took over "his" body. There was no awareness of
his mental presence when I temporarily displaced him. My knowledge of
him and his activities and his past came from his family, and what was
evidently his brain memory-bank. Though I knew that I was not he, I
could feel objectively the emotional patterns of his past. I have
wondered what embarrassment I have caused him as a result of the periods
of amnesia created by my intrusions. Some must have brought him much
distress.

Here is his life: "I" There-at the first intrusion, was a rather lonely
man. He was not particularly successful in his field (architect/contractor), and not too gregarious. He came of what might be classified
as a low-income group, and succeeded in going to the equivalent of a
minor college. He spent much of his early career in a large city in an
ordinary job. He lived on the second floor of a rooming house, and took
a bus to work. It was a strange city to him, and he made few friends.
(The bus, incidentally, was very wide, seating eight abreast, and seats
rose behind the driver in successively higher tiers, so that all could
see the road ahead.) My first intrusion caught him just as he was
getting off the bus. The driver looked at him suspiciously when I tried
to pay a fare. It seems that none is charged.

The next intrusion came at an emotional crisis. "I" There met Lea, a
wealthy young woman with two children, a boy and a girl, both under four
years of age. Lea was a sad, wistful, and somewhat preoccupied person,
who seemed to have experienced some major tragedy in her life. This had
some relationship to her former husband, but was not clear. "I"
There met her quite accidentally, and was deeply attracted to her. The
two children found in him a great companion. Lea appeared only mildly
interested at this first meeting. Her greatest response lay in his
attention to and warmth for the children.
A short time later an intrusion occurred just as Lea and "I" There had
announced to friends-her friends-that they were going to be "married"
(this has a slightly different connotation). There was much
consternation among the friends, chiefly due to the fact that it had
been only thirty days (?) since some major event had occurred in Lea's
life (divorce, her husband's death, or some physical debilitation). "I"
There was still greatly attracted, and Lea was still sad and
introspective.

A later intrusion came when Lea and "I" There were living in a house in
a semipastoral surrounding. The house sat on a low hill, had long
rectangular windows, and very wide eaves much like those of a pagoda.
The railroad curved around the hill some three hundred yards in the
distance, the tracks coming in from the right in a straight line, then
across the front of the hill, then around to the back and to the left
There was deep green grass from the steps of the house, down over the
roll of the hill. Behind the house, "I" There had an office, a one-room
building where he worked.
On this occasion, Lea entered the office and came over to the desk just
as I had replaced "I" There.
"The workmen want to borrow some of your tools,' she said.
I looked at her blankly. I was not sure what to say, so I asked her what
workmen.
"The men working on the road, of course." She had not yet sensed
anything wrong.Before I realized what effect it would have, I said there were no men
working on the road. With this, she looked at me intently, with a
growing suspicion. I was thoroughly unsure of what to do next, so I left
his body and returned through the hole.

Another eventful intrusion came when "I" There had set up his
laboratory. He was not fully qualified to perform research, but he had
decided he could make some kind of new discoveries. He had (perhaps with
the assistance of Lea's wealth) taken a huge storage building, divided
it internally into small rooms, and was conducting some kind of experiments. In the middle of one, I displaced him in his body, but was unable
to calculate what was next in his routine. Just then, Lea came in, with
visitors, principally to show the kind of work he had achieved in the
renovated building. I (in "I" There's body) stood there unable to speak
when Lea asked me to tell them of the work I had been doing.
Somewhat embarrassed, Lea led the couple out into another room. I
hesitated when perhaps "I" There would have followed. I tried to "feel"
any pattern of activity that he might have been doing. The best I could
get was that he had been trying to develop new forms of theatrical
entertainment, designing theater stages, lighting, and sets, all in an
attempt to make watching a play a strongly subjective experience. With
only this partial success in his recall, I left his body when I heard
them returning so as to avoid further complicating his life.
A vacation in the mountains was under way at another intrusion point.
"I" There, Lea, and the two children were riding along a winding
mountain road, each on the self-propelled vehicle described elsewhere. I
"took over' inadvertently just as they were reaching the bottom of one
hill and had started up another. New to the device, I tried to make it
go up the next hill, and soon rolled off the road and into a small pile
of dirt. The rest waited while I tried to get back on the road, and I
muttered that there were better ways to get around than this. This
triggered something in Lea, and she suddenly became quiet. Why, I didn't
know. (I'm sure "I" There did.) I tried to tell her that I was not who
she thought, then realized that this was only making it worse. I
"left," returning to the hole and the physical body.
In later intrusions, "I" There and Lea no longer lived together. He had
met with some success, but some action of his alienated her. Alone, he
has thought of her constantly, and deeply regretted the weakness that
made him displease her. He met her casually once, in a large city, and
pleaded with her to let him visit her. She told him she would let him do
so, and see how things worked out. She lived in the equivalent of an
apartment, on the third floor of a residential building. He promised to
come.
Unfortunately, "I" There lost or forgot the address she gave him, and at
the last intrusion, was a lonely and frustrated man. He was sure that
Lea would interpret his loss of the address as indifference on his part
and another example of his instability. He was working, but was spending
his idle time trying to find Lea and the children.
What can be made of all this? In view of the less than idyllic
circumstances, it scarcely qualifies as an escape from reality via the
unconscious. Nor is it the type of life one might select to enjoy
vicariously. One can only speculate, and such speculation of itself must
consider concepts unacceptable to present-day science. However, the
"dual but different" life activity may lend a clue to the "where" of
Locale III.
The most important assumption is that Locale III and Locale I (Here-Now)
are not the same. This is based upon the differences in scientific
development. Locale III is not more advanced, perhaps even less so.
There is no time in our known history where science was at the Locale
III stage. If Locale III is neither the known past nor the present, and
not the probable future of Locale I, what is it? It is not a part of Lo-cale II, where only thought is needed or used.
It might be a memory, racial or otherwise, of a physical earth
civilization that predates known history. It might be another earth-type
world located in another part of the universe which is somehow
accessible through mental manipulation. It might be an antimatter
duplicate of this physical earth-world where we are the same but
different, bonded together unit for unit by a force beyond our present
comprehension.

I had a strange thing last semester of college where I would never dream at school, only at home, and it wasn't until I quit cigarettes that I learned the cause. At school, I would always smoke a cigarette a little before bed, and this caused me to never dream. Another thing that can cause you not to recall dreaming is if you always wake during a non-REM state. Try changing the duration of your sleep periods, for example sleep and extra hour, and see if anything changes. Also, I've found that setting intentions before bed helps a lot. Just meditate all day and during each meditation tell your self you will have clear, memorable dreams that night. Do this once more just before bed, this can help.

Wow, thanks for such a long post Selea!   

Thanks for taking the time to read my post. I really cannot say for certain if I believe that event was genuine or a figment of my imagination. In the past, I've had instances of sleep paralysis (waking up into the condition, never the other way around) where I have hallucinatory experiences, like hearing someone shouting my name or seeing splotches of color, as well as other sensations, so it very well could have been a creation of my mind. However, it would be irresponsible of me not to give a great deal of credibility to the experience considering the circumstances under which it happened and also considering that I've never spontaneous fallen into sleep paralysis with my eyes open and with little fatigue.

By the way, I do not believe in powerful, evil entities akin to demons. I do not believe in the bible as nonfiction, or stories of Lucifer and whatnot. Even if they exist, I do not fear them particularly, so that sort of detracts from their power anyway. I think I may continue to meditate on this and attempt to learn more through dreams.

I guess what I'm most interested in is the second story in my first post. I really want to know what's up with my guide and I want to speak with him face to face. I neglected to mention my first experience with trying to contact my spirit guide. This was after the sleep paralysis/entity thing by a month or two. I meditated before going to bed and set the clear intention to meet my guide in my dreams, because I wanted to ask him some questions. I had a flying dream which I love because they are rare. The dream isn't important, but at one point during it I picked up a phone to call my friend and as soon as I put the receiver to my ear everything faded away and I was suddenly nowhere. Suddenly everything became a little too "real". A masculine entity appeared right in front of me, totally black like a silhouette and appeared to be wearing a fedora tilted down so I couldn't see his face. He said slyly in a deep, powerful voice, with a small smirk, "What shall you be asking of me?". At this point I experienced great fear of the entity for no real reason. I was scared out of my mind, because this being didn't seem like a dream character, it seemed a little bit too clever and real, and for some reason this terrified me. After a moment, the fear woke me before I even had the chance to ask anything. It wasn't until the moment I woke that I realized that it was probably my guide.

I strongly suspect that my guide is not the warm, friendly type, but more of a sleek, sly, con-man kind of person who is on my side. I will revisit my attempts to contact him when I get through finals week and have some time to relax.

I ask this question because of an experience I had almost a year ago, but which I've never really given enough thought to. Here's what happened.

I have this friend who claims to have spiritual abilities, which I was VERY skeptical of at this time. I was sitting up in bed with the lights on, talking to her at around 2am on the phone quietly in my Grandmother's guest bed. She told me she was going to sort of project her perception to the room I was in (remote view?), and was going to astral kiss me or something like that. I lol'd a bit and said ok. Then suddenly she was complaining that she got pushed into the wall sort of violently, and I asked "your wall?", and she said, "no, yours." I asked what she meant and she said that there was some sort of strong, malevolent entity in the room right over me, and it must have shoved her out of the way. At the time she called this being "the old satan" (as opposed to the new? I don't know what she meant), and she said something about it affecting my energy so as to change my future in some way. She sounded awfully fearful, but I was still an avid non-believer, buddy-buddy with Carl Sagan and whatnot, and I just said "huh. Is he still here?" After a few seconds she said, "No...I think he left." Then we talked for maybe a minute more before deciding it was bedtime, and I hit "end call" and dropped my phone arm to the bed, still sitting up with the lights on and my eyes open, when suddenly I couldn't move. I was completely paralyzed from head to toe, just like sleep paralysis, but my eyes were wide open! I could feel something gripping my forearm, like a hand, and I suspected this was related to what was happening. At this time I experienced what I call a duality of consciousness. There were two minds inside my head, and I was very much aware of both of them. There was my mind, and then there was another. The other did not feel as evil as one would expect satan to feel, but it definitely wasn't too friendly. I knew it had no lethal intentions for me because I was inside its mind, to an extent. It sort of had a, "yeah I'll break the rules and step on a lot of toes doing it, I don't give a crap" kind of attitude. I fought this condition for a full 15 seconds before I broke out of this state just like I break out of sleep paralysis. I was extremely startled, because I've never spontaneously fallen into sleep paralysis, and this hasn't happened since. I've only had SP about fifteen times in my life, anyway. Has anybody ever heard of an astral entity spontaneously paralyzing someone and sort of entering their mind like this? Nothing like this has happened since. I certainly don't believe this was satan because even now that I have an open mind I don't believe in satan, and certainly don't think he would give two craps about me anyway. It really didn't feel evil, just not that friendly.

Since that time, I've become skilled at lucid dreaming, and have had my own somewhat mystical experiences and have changed my belief system drastically.

Another thing that happened is a month ago I had a lucid dream where I could fly. I usually would be wobbly and found flying hard to control or maintain but this time I seemed to have the greatest amount of control I've ever had. Since I felt, this time, like I was competent enough to explore the LD state further, I decided I would finally meet my spirit guide. So I flew to where I somehow "knew I needed to go" for this, which ended up being this "tree of knowledge" with a female caretaker or "oracle" of sorts beneath it. The tree seemed to me to be significant, not simply a creation of my imagination. At first it looked as though there was a book hanging from every branch and twig, and I understood that this tree contained knowledge of many, many things. I approached the lady under the tree and I asked her where my spirit guide was because I wanted to meet him/her. Her response was very clear in my mind right after I heard it but unfortunately I took maybe two or three minutes too long after waking to write it down, and so it's not clear ver batum. But what she said was nearly this: "Your spirit guide tried to enter your house, so he is banned. You cannot see him." At the time I immediately knew "house" to mean my body; strange way to word it. At first I was wondering, "what could it mean that my guide tried to get inside my house (body)?" This dream was very bizarre, and if it helps, it didn't feel like the most physical "real-world" realm. Things were a little more conceptual and impression-based than some of the pure sensory, sequential, stable LD's I've had of real places. But anyway, I wonder if perhaps the sleep paralysis/entity contact thing a year ago could have been my spirit guide trying to enter my body. I've been reading lately of an anthropologist from the sixties who studied cultures in which some people had friendly spirits/entities that would occasionally possess them as a means to communicate with them, so who knows.

What do you think?

Hello all! I've been attempting to astral project just about every night for three weeks now, in what I like to call my "astral meditations". During this time, I've experienced all kinds of strange sensory happenings, and cool things. I was wondering what kind of experiences others have had that are like mine, and if anyone who has success in separation could tell me if I'm close to success myself. I started these meditations simply working on deep levels of physical relaxation. I would get to points where I hadn't flexed a muscle for so long that I could no longer feel the orientation of my extremities, making it rather easy to mentally disassociate from sensations of touch, allowing excellent meditation. After a few more nights of this I got to a point where I would get this strange sensation that felt like my whole body was being oscillated back and forth along the axis of my body (head to toe axis) at a rate of perhaps 2 or 3 cycles per second. This felt very cool. It didn't actually feel like I was physically being pushed back and forth, it was more of a bodily sensation. This would generally come on quickly in a few seconds and then slowly fade over the course of five or six seconds, despite my efforts to make it continue. By the sixth or seventh night, this sensation stopped occurring entirely, and was replaced instead by a new experience, one which I've been consistently having since then to this day, and I can't seem to get that first experience again, consequently. The new experience I'm having generally begins once I achieve full bodily relaxation. What I do is maintain a strong conscious focus on my body as a whole, without making any attempt to move or flex. It's just directing my awareness fully on my body. At this point I generally begin to feel a greater sense of physical numbness, and then the new sensation begins. It basically feels as though a second set of arms and legs phase out of my physical ones, and begin to move of their own accord very slowly, while staying relatively near the corresponding physical extremity. It is a bizarre tinglyish sensation that allows me to feel this second body, and I've found that with an immense amount of conscious intention for it to move in a certain way, it generally will do so, very slowly. Beyond these sensations, I've tried everything I can to make myself separate. Visualization methods, intention methods, etc. No dice, yet. What are the two different sensations I've had, and what am I currently experiencing? Am I close?

Hi everybody, I'm new to the forum, but hopefully will be around for a while. So, I'm trying most days to astral project. Mostly, I'm working on getting into deep states a relaxation and meditation, but have so far been unsuccessful with leaving my body. What concerns me is that I cannot sleep on my back. I have never been able to fall asleep on my back in my entire life, it's almost like a mental block where I have to be on my belly to really let go of my active state of waking consciousness. That said, every single time I have ever accidentally rolled over onto my back during sleep, if I wake up in this position I will always wake into a state of sleep paralysis. I hardly ever roll over like this so this is a relatively infrequent occurrence. I was just wondering if anyone has had any luck projecting from laying on their stomach. Is this even possible, or am I just out of luck? I'm not going to give up trying to project on my back, but if there's any hope that I can project from other positions (on my side is also fine for me), then I would much prefer this. Does anyone know if I can do this?