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I can hear a light ringing sound during physical life if it's quiet and I listen for it. l've tried focusing on it, but it doesn't seem to help me.

Next meeting is Jan 15th.

http://bit.ly/2cLe8NG

[Do you live in the SF bay area? Do you want to hang out with like-minded explorers, sharing and benefiting from everyone's experiences?]

Do you live in the SF bay area? Do you want to hang out with like-minded explorers, sharing and benefiting from everyone's experiences?

I'm part of a meetup group for OBEs / lucid dreams that is looking for a few more explorers to join us who live in the area.

The next meetup is this Saturday afternoon, and we've been doing it every other Saturday. There's no agenda. We just have fun talking about recent experiences, techniques, and other metaphysical stuff.

Meetup link:
http://bit.ly/2cLe8NG

Sleepy Hollow from Sleepy Hollow ?

Sure, I guess that's me!


An update on this topic - Last night I heard a couple odd sounds, woke up, heard my breathing for a second in that weird way that sounds like someone else breathing in my ear, but then it stopped as it normally does and I'm just lying there awake. But I figured, sure, what the hell, as a matter of practice I'll go ahead and get up and see if I'm really awake like I try to practice when I remember. So I don't stand all the way up, but I sit up and confirm I feel physically awake. I lie back down to go to sleep and try again.

A couple hours later or so I wake up. I quickly realize what happened. This feels different than when I woke up earlier. I was dreaming before! Crap! I should have done my buzzing feeling test and I would have known right away I was asleep. Instead I didn't do any test. It was more like, "Yep,  I'm physically sitting up. Definitely awake That's good enough. I'll go back to sleep."

One thing I also remember was while sitting up briefly I also had some awareness of my body lying asleep, which was a bit of a tipoff, but I didn't give it enough significance.

It's strange how these things make sense once I'm awake, but when I'm asleep and lucid I don't have all my faculties and can't figure these things out even though I should be able to. Maybe eventually my awareness will improve and more of "me" will be there lucid so these things will be more obvious?

I've suspected for a while that when I wake at night and adjust my sleeping position it sometimes involves no physical movement and I'm projecting NP.

Last night I finally confirmed that something is going on there by catching myself twice while waking, standing up instead of rolling over. Both times I was non physical. Maybe the usual rolling over part is physical but standing up is a large enough movement that I move separately from my sluggish physical body and cause a NP projection.

On the first occurrence last night my physical eyes may have been open, as has happened like this a few times, as I stood up feeling the living room rug under me as I took a few steps without my visual view changing perspective. I ignored it and gave myself a moment to adjust, standing there. I felt something in my hand and dropped it, but then I thought maybe it was something that would prove useful shortly and that I had in my hand for a reason (), so I snatched it back up. I considered how I might blink and activate my NP vision without becoming too aware of my physical eyes. I blinked carefully but it didn't work. Finally I was happy to see a scene open up around me, as it meant my NP vision was activating. I began to lose awareness as I went into dream mode, running around finding big elephant like creatures but not any humans.

I woke again and stood up again NP, the same as before, with my physical vision seemingly activated as before. This time, however, I became aware of my breath and my awareness went physical.

So overall I'm happy that I confirmed what I suspected about it being a NP opportunity. Hopefully I will keep remembering to try standing up when I wake.

I'm a little unsure about how to avoid slipping into idiot dream mode. I'm so enthused about something happening that I dive right into it instead of... I don't know, just staying still and observing its meaning or stopping to ask for guidance or something.

Thanks for the book!

The distinction between dream, lucid and astral awareness is helpful. I've moved briefly between them and during those times I wondered if that proved it was "just a dream", so the assurance that we do move between them in any moment helps. That's pretty much what I was starting to understand anyway, that it's all about my awareness. It's always been funny to me that I usually lose some physical memories when dreaming. It kind of sounds like it's a matter of pulling the rest of myself into NP awareness, or being more fully there so I'm not all broken up with my memories left back in the physical?

What seems to help me is to listen to some soothing sound, like the ocean, and I kind of let that sound create a visual scene, and my NP eyes pop open and see something in stark detail. Sometimes I can get it to last a bit longer, such as walking out a door into a corridor, but I feel fear and snap back. I was doing this the other day briefly sitting in my car at the beach, and finally I had to roll up my windows, lock the doors, and open the sunroof so I could hear the ocean and still feel safe and protected. Still I felt vulnerable every time I heard a person or got startled by the intensity of the NP scene and snapped back.

I also get that thing where my physical eyes try to see it ant snap me back, but I'm starting to avoid that.

You mentioned there not being any such fundamental experience as a dream. I don't know exactly what you meant, but it got me thinking that our society dismisses things as "Just" a dream, when it's so strange that there would be any such lucid experiences where the mind isn't just thinking but actually fashions a whole fantasy reality to walk around in that seems real, for no purpose at all. It would make more sense that there actually is something there that it's touching on and having some kind of awareness of, or creating.

I'm checking out some of Frank Kepple's stuff.

I think I'm starting to get what you're saying here.

Last night I started in a room and kind of grunted in an effort to will myself to fly up out of the room, without success. When I woke up I saw the futility of trying to move like that. I remember a dream years ago where I learned to do big hops to fence tops and other objects, and it felt great to be in that kind of control and be able to do exactly what I wanted. Believing in the impending success of each hop was key.

I guess it's silly to say a dream isn't real enough and in the same moment try to escape it or discard it as if it IS a real thing! That's like trying to escape my own mind. If the dreamlike environment represents my own state of being or clutter or the noise that is preventing me from perceiving other things, then it's meaningful. I'll try looking at it with a mix of compassion, thoughtfulness and skepticism, with the idea of learning what I can from it and making the changes necessary to go beyond it.

Xanth, to answer your question about how aware I was, I guess I don't know how to compare it to physically awake to rate it. But I know I get more impulsive and less thoughtful, and I have almost no knowledge of my physical life in a current sense like where I'm sleeping or how old I am. It's interesting that I always forget all that and yet I still can retain other things like my mission of learning to explore it. I'm guessing that's a common thing.

I've been reading Monroe's books. With the way I am, I knew that reading about it every day would quickly cause me to have and remember some experiences.

Last night I started off in a lucid dream, looked around the room, and I sensed that it was just a dream. So I did a brief movement of some sort, kind of like what you do to wake up, but with the intention of going somewhere real out of body instead of waking. I didn't want to push it too hard or I felt like I would wake up, so I did it carefully. The environment became uncertain, but then it went back to the same as it was before, or similar. I figured I'd explore a bit if my choice was between that and waking, so I did and lost control of my consciousness or whatever you call that when you get caught up in the dream.

So, a few options I can think of to get out of the dream and to somewhere more significant -

- Fly up and leave the planet, with the theory that the dream is an actual "place" in the Earth system in the sense that it's a fictional place I'm creating in the same plane as others, and I can simply leave it by travelling up
- Abort the dream by dismissing the environment altogether and do a sort of moving or backing off (as I did last night) repeatedly until I find myself some other place acceptable
- Asking for someone to assist me out of there
- Wake up and try again, because I'm not going to get anywhere once I'm in a dream

One thing I think is helping is being constantly aware and conscious of sensations, sounds and images and not just konking out to sleep. I frequently wake up at night, and I would bet there have been tons of times I wasn't physically awake but I simply continued to dream of myself lying there sleeping. It makes me think of the dazed people in the inner rings Monroe talks about who are just standing there unaware. Monroe wrote about having continual consciousness rather than going to sleep and waking up out of body. When I had a questionable experience several months ago, it happened right after I laid down.

So I've wondered about why we forget dreams, but what about the other way around - Why do we forget the state of our physical reality?

Sometimes I'll wake up and can't remember where the heck I am until I look around and it all comes back to me. Ah yes, I live here, and I've been sleeping here most nights for the last few years. Or I won't have a clue what day of the week it is or how long I've been asleep, until in a moment I realize I had only taken a 30 min nap or so in the middle of the day.

Or like a couple days ago I become alert in an OBE and kind of thrashed around on my bed feeling REALLY groggy, found the edge of my mattress to make sure I knew where I was, propped myself up, and looked up at the TV i left on, that had some idiot on a news station. I don't remember what came next, but when I physically woke I was actually on the floor where I had laid down, the TV wasn't on, I was nowhere near my bed, and it looked nothing like the TV setup in my dream. I forgot virtually everything except that I had been listening to someone while lying down, but it was a Tom Campbell talk on my computer, which I switched off before falling asleep.

Why would I forget all that? It's interesting to think about what that means. Maybe we get so separated from our physical body that we lose our connection to there where so many memories are physically stored exclusively? That sure is bad data management, no backups, unless there either is a backup somewhere or it's best to lose most of it on death.

What kind of sleep pattern do you find results in more OBEs?

Seth suggested sleeping only 4 hours a night, and a nap later. Not specifically for OBEs, but for reducing the sense of separation between the waking and sleeping state.

I tried doing 4-5 hours for a while, and not surprisingly as I felt a little sleepy I was able to shift away quickly, if only fleetingly. But it was kind of hard to keep up the dedication to feeling sleepy all the time, especially in the morning when I would hop on the computer and get to work. I'm going to work on 4 again and see if I can will myself to get up. Otherwise I keep sleeping for a total of 6-7 hours at the most, fitfully, but still with a more "refreshed" feeling... But my understanding is that solid refreshed feeling isn't really a good thing if my goal is to interact with the non physical more.

I can see an instant hindrance here. All of you believe you need to write things experienced.
I've never done this, I'll wait until later and when the triggers occur make a mental note.
I had another of these last night. I was shown something about EMF creation and all I can recall at present is I understood most of it and orangy yellow odd shaped disc like scrambled eggs on a plate. This is enough to recall more later. Where the eggs came from I've no idea but the subconscious vault gave me this as a code of entry. No writing anything as I learned it doesn't work. Recalling a feeling helps far more, getting a key like the eggs, is what to look for. I hope the rest unfurls over time.

I'm going to work on recalling my dreams more as others have suggested, but I like what you're saying about not writing things down. I feel like it's the process of recalling while writing that is important, not the writing itself. It's kind of like the writing becomes like a log book of accomplishments, to be able to hold up and point to all these things I did, or be able to tell other people what I did, on this forum or elsewhere. But recording them and bragging about them isn't what it should be about, and for me I think I would keep falling into that trap if I'm not careful. I think I'd rather forget some of it than fall into that trap. And really, outside of the physical world, can we really write things down and dig them up later? Should we learn to be dependent upon writing everything down?

Oh, just to answer your initial post here. I use a AP Journal and a Dream Journal. Any conscious AP attempts get logged in my AP journal. Any Dream recall goes in the Dream Journal.

I do that because I find that each method of attaining my non local states shows me something completely different from the other. With my AP attempts I first log the time I start and stop, the method of achieving focus and what "tool" did I use, if any.  Did I use earplugs, Binaural Beats/Isochronic tones, a eye mask, etc.. Then I log my adventures and any other results of it like "signposts", etc..

My Dream Journal consists of my Dream recall and then I log what DTs (Dream Triggers) I find in them. My actual Sleep paralysis OBE experiences get logged in my Dream journal because they occur at night during my sleep and are spontaneous just like Dreams are, even though my OBEs have an entirely different awareness level then my Dreams. My OBE awareness is closer to my conscious AP awareness.

I have found though that both lead to entirely different locations or levels per say.

I thought dreams are just a kind of OBE, and it's mainly a matter of how much clarity and lucidity I have?

I'm actually not all that interested in logging my dreams except as they relate to becoming lucid like the one I wrote about a few posts above. I feel like there's so much symbology that isn't going to translate well enough for me to make sense of it here. The other stuff is more interesting to me, all the noises I hear and anything else totally lucid like that. Maybe I shouldn't ignore the dreams so much? Is dream recall that important?

Increase its pitch. Raising the frequency will give you a better chance of accessing a far nicer experience. You can will this sound to appear in some environments, it worked better in the not so nice ones as a means to get into a pleasant one.
Watch you don't wake in doing this, that's the hard part I found.

Oh maybe I should have clarified - I mean this is the sound I hear while awake, if I look for it, or sometimes it just comes on when I relax. While asleep maybe too, but I only remember looking for it once recently.

People have written other places about a high pitched ringing sound they hear sometimes. I can bring it on in a few seconds by looking for it. It eventually goes away if i ignore it. But I haven't really found a use for it. Any suggestions on what use it might be for helping me with anything at all? I don't know what. I mean, maybe it's something, so I don't want to just ignore it if there's some kind of potential there. Or has anyone concluded that it's just some kind of background frequency picked up by our physical ears that has nothing to do with anything spiritual?

Imagining myself swaying or spinning is something I'll experiment with. LightBeam also mentioned it in the other thread Lumaza linked to above. I have a vague memory of spinning sensations, and I sometimes wake up dizzy. I wonder if focusing on that will help me to be ok with letting go.

One thing I get 100% of the time when lucid is a feeling like a soft, warm vibration everywhere on my body. I don't notice it unless I check for it, but when I do it's always there.

I've experienced several of those other things without making much sense of them. A feeling of touching or a breeze, voices, images, knocks. Not much came of it most of the time, but it was passing things as I slept. Probably multiple times almost every night these things startle me awake, particularly sounds and faces.

I kind of wonder how often I wake at night and roll to my side, or scratch myself or whatever, without actually moving physically.

So tonight it started out in a dream where I became lucid.

First I was driving around with a girl I know, with pedestrians sitting in the road, not moving, forcing me to honk my way through them and dodge. Finally as we were on foot climbing a hill I asked her if she was real. She said she used to be. I asked again, no reply, and she was a water bottle. Then a friend called and he wasn't saying much and I couldn't figure out what he wanted. Then I was lost in some building and had to get to the third floor but had trouble. I ran and noticed I wasn't getting tired. I looked at my breath...

I stopped. My breath was slow and easy. I was asleep.

I sat down on a bench, closed my eyes and looked inside myself. I felt the soft vibrating of the dream state that always tips me off and heard the high pitched sound I sometimes get while awake. I heard a loud roaring, then a different roaring, and then silence. I asked a question, then just said I'll be open to get pulled where I should go. I heard another roaring, this time like a semi truck starting up.

And finally I felt only my breath, but this time it was the more subdued physical breath. I opened my eyes and was awake.

Well that's disappointing that it's all in my mind and these places I'm glimpsing aren't shared with anyone else in some way. But I guess that's ok. There's enough going on that I'm still happy enough to work with it.

Szaxx, I just read your linked post.

I've had dreams since I was a kid where I kept learning that my conviction of belief was what created things, whether it was having a potato appear in my head or being able to make huge jumps or fly.  I sure do feel that conviction a lot easier in a dream.

I've found that I can get into a light meditation in several breaths by feeling the stillness in my gut after each out breath. And soon after my head will start nodding as my body goes limp, or I'll notice sound is cutting out briefly, like the sound of my breath or any meditation music. I'll try being sensitive to where I'm being pulled and try going with it. I'm sure something subtle like that will make all the difference.

I've read stuff where people keep suggesting to do it at night before I sleep, or as I awake in the morning. Morning sounds a little better, but whenever I get a chance in the afternoon sounds the best. That's what I've done occasionally. I've got a pretty good chair for it when home, or the car seat will work.

Ok, great. I'll experiment with focus and see what happens. I didn't realize that I posted virtually the same thing in this thread back in May about this topic.

The thing that intrigues me is the instant clarity of a whole scene in front of me, complete with live movement. The details are so fleshed out that I can hardly imagine that I'm creating the whole thing in my mind as an illusion. I never recognize any place, and yet it consists of the types of landscape features I've been around and am familiar with, so I'm not sure what to think.

I guess I should keep a journal so I don't forget stuff. Why do we forget? What's up with that?

I keep hearing the sound of my cell phone ringing as I wake, clear as day. It's gotten to the point where I ignore it unless it rings twice.

Hey, thanks!

I'll experiment with looking indirectly at the scene to keep from losing it. In the past I found that being really passive with imagery, only softly thinking of it and receiving it, was effective. But I guess I never really got good at that consistently.

And in the moment it happens, I still feel hesitant in getting too absorbed in a scene, like I want to set an anchor here by interacting with the scene the way I would physically so that I won't drift off into a dream and forget it all like I normally do. But that's causing me to stay here. I guess the idea I have is the exploration will be productive if I stay alert and will be unproductive if I drift off into my typical meandering dream state where I keep repeating thoughts over and over and don't seem to accomplish anything. And yet I also can become alert later have a lucid dream, so I'm not sure what to think about that.

Well I guess this is as good a place as any to post after several months. I got busy with other stuff but want to post about this again to help get my attention back on it and make some progress.

The images that appear to me now are usually moving. I said above that they were static, so I guess that changed. A scene is alive for about a second, and then I put my attention on it and it stops moving and disappears. I think I need to adjust how I engage with it so I don't push it away.

I'm starting to experiment with asking questions when I get into the visualizing state. I only remember one I asked, whether someone on trial was guilty of a crime. I decided that two red stripes meant he was, and immediately I saw one red stripe. So I'm not sure what that means. I don't really care about the answer, but it was the first thing I thought of to ask, just to practice. I'm having a hard time thinking of questions that I'm not afraid to know the answer to. I guess I'll just concentrate on mundane questions.

I would really like to be more in control when I'm sleeping and be able to interact more deliberately and remember it.

One thing Seth mentioned is our dreams are sometimes a way for us to flesh out a concept, or the best approximation of it that we can understand. And I do get the feeling that I build a whole dream with a situation that stirs a particular shade of emotion in me that approximates what I'm trying to learn.

SleepyHollow,
It does sound like you are close to phasing. The images you get, are they black and white or in full color? Are the images static like photographs, or moving pictures like a video?

If the images are static, then you definitely need to wait and patiently observe. If they are moving, then you may still need to wait a minute longer until the scene "intensifies" and becomes more solidified, then you will feel more confident in stepping into the scene; there is a kind of attractive force that builds and can help in pulling you into the scene. This was not apparent to me the first few tries. You can actually get bounced back and forth as you try to transition completely from one reality to another...what fun! Lol

It's color. It's often landscape scenes, which I guess I like looking at most or find the most relaxing! So I think it's usually static, unless it's some scene with people. But anyway I'll keep being patient with it and see what develops. I'm also working on moving back and forth to Focus 1 multiple times so I can maybe do it easier and quicker over time. It's kind of annoying that it takes me several minutes to get into it. I feel like there's no reason I shouldn't be able to do it in a few seconds. That's a little ambitious, but it's something to work toward anyway. Set fifty goals and maybe I'll reach a few!

What fun! Stuff looks so real. I don't recognize any of the places or people though.

I think one reason I don't let myself get sucked in is I'm afraid of just getting lost in a dream, and I want to stay focused. But clearly pulling back every time and losing it isn't the way to do it.

Ok, I'll keep at it, thanks!

Today I had some success in imagining my breath as a pendulum, but going up and down with my breaths, to kind of dissociate it from a physical movement. I was slipping in and out of it. Sometimes I find myself suddenly making an out-breath, without remembering the last time I breathed in.

I had some success in extending the imagery several seconds longer by only lightly paying attention to the images, allowing them to fade and change. I wanted to look into my shoulder to see if I could gain some insight on an injury, but I think that's too advanced for me to try at this point. I kept shifting my attention physically as I thought of my shoulder. But for the heck of it maybe I'll try just setting the intention of examining my shoulder as I begin, and then not even think about it at all and see what happens.

First off, I like the idea of the dream journals in the Dreams forum, but what I think would be cool is more of an OBE journal where dreams are not emphasized, and it's more about the nature of my experiences meditating and exploring consciousness and how I do it. Should I just start an OBE journal thread here? Am I even in the right forum? I'm confused about the difference between the first three forums - OBE, AP experiences, and astral consciousness.

I think what I've been doing lately is touching the edges of phasing. I'll sit or lie down and eventually get some vivid imagery, but as soon as it appears I move my eyes around to look at it, like I want to examine it from a physical perspective, and in that movement I snap back to physical awareness and lose the image. Or I'll reject the image because I think it's physical and my intent was to see NON physical images, so I get confused as it happens, thinking I accidentally opened my eyes, and as I try to re-close my eyes I snap back to physical.

When doing that, sometimes I'll see people I don't recognize. Like yesterday I saw a beautiful woman who was just standing among other people, behind someone else, and I've forgotten everything about that scene except how beautiful she was and sort of what she looked like. I wonder if these are people we really knew in some other life?

Yesterday I was concentrating on my breath quite comfortably, and when I finally got up and became physically aware I realized that I had been hearing a sort of white noise "after-breath" after each out-breath, and that it had been much louder than my physical breath. This kind of thing has happened many times, but usually it startles me awake and I wonder who's breathing in my ear. One time I did remain in the state for a while listening with curiosity to the double out-breath.

I also will hear other noises that startle me awake, and it happens so much during the night that it has to be mostly non-physical because my neighborhood is totally quiet at night if I'm awake doing something.

So I'm trying to find ways to reassure myself of these images and noises and not jump away as soon as they happen.

I'm also working on going "deeper" as a matter of habit in my daily life when I have a moment. Maybe towards Focus 3 or 10, I don't know. I'm glad I'm doing it. I notice things. I have had precognition quite a bit, but usually I disregard it automatically, like I have programmed myself to throw it in the trash every time. So I think this is helping me stay focused in the place where those thoughts happen and take them more seriously so I can act on them.

Thanks for the replies! It doesn't seem to be so much a problem anymore. It has happened a lot in the past, but I took it as something that would go away over time and I guess it is.

I can't remember the last time I had one. I was just trying to meditate a bit before sleeping. As I drifted off I heard my breath loudly, startling me awake. I closed my eyes again and then quickly I was gone.

In the dream I started off where my physical body was, floating up to the ceiling and then back down. I was physically on my side looking out towards my patio, with my eyes open, but mentally I was standing there trying to make it to my patio, so I had a hard time trying to rotate my view so I could orient myself better. Finally I realized I wasn't going to be able to rotate my physical eyes' view, so I blinked, closed my physical eyes, and opened my dream eyes. That worked good, and I continued on outside.

I hung and dropped down from my patio to the street, and once down I was unsure whether it was still a dream because it felt real. So I jumped and found myself floating easily back up to my patio, which was my confirmation because of the way I had floated to the ceiling a moment earlier.

A few times I felt myself losing the dream and my eyes opening, so I focused on relaxing, keeping my physical eyes closed, and visualizing what was around me instead of trying to hold onto anything in particular, and that worked good too.

Funny part - At one point in the dream I was walking through a breezeway at the condo I used to live at, with lots of neighbors hanging out everywhere, and I had to pee, so knowing it wasn't real I went ahead and peed my pants (luckily I didn't physically do it), and I felt a thrill in how it seemed real but knowing it wasn't. But people were glancing at my big wet spot, and I started getting a little uneasy as I considered that maybe they were real projections of those people, like they would have the memory of this when they woke up, so I kind of lost my grounding of reality at that point. It's hard not to when things look so real. Even if I had done the jump test I would have been like, "Yeah but why do they look so real??"

I woke up and had only been asleep for maybe 30 minutes. It felt surreal as I stood up and walked around not even feeling like I had been asleep.