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In your case, you became aware while already sleeping.  Most people would just brush this off and simply call it a dream or a lucid dream... or even worse, a dream of a lucid dream (*sigh*)... LoL 

Ummm.............that's happened to me several times. Its hard to put into words. Recently, I dreamed I was going into a building with some other people. Somehow, I became aware it was a dream. I remember thinking "wow this is all going on inside my head" and testing things to see how solid they were, etc. It got really weird from there, with a woman morphing into a werewolf and chasing me. The thing is, to me it wasn't a lucid dream. I had no control or notion of it. My consciousness was still completely dreamlike and not like fully aware waking consciousness at all even though somehow I knew I was dreaming. So how does one build on that?

so if this physical reality is no different than any other, why is it so that:

we are physically born into it as a helpless infant rather than projecting into it as a "adult" consciousness from "somewhere else" as when astral projecting?

we grow and age and must meet certain basic physical needs in order to continue to exist here, does this happen in any other reality?

eventually we all die and exit this reality in our current form. Depending on what you believe, we may end up coming back again or many times. Is this sequence done the same way in these other realities?

Can anyone give me parallels?


Maybe these are dumb questions, feel free to pile on, but I'm seeing a big difference between this reality and what is experienced elsewhere. Call it what you will: a proving ground, grade school or whatever. It is different in those respects.

I came across this article today. I'd be interested to know if you feel it is saying much the same things as TC does, and based on your experiences, whether its on the money or not.

https://www.scimednet.org/content/quantum-shift-where-we-seem-be-now-life-after-death

Yes, the ultimate truth of reality IS different for each person.  The most you'll find are similarities between what YOU experience compared to what someone else experiences, but that's it.  That's the closest you can/will ever get to that.  Sometimes it's those similarities which help us to get over the next hurdle of understanding.  

So you're saying that what is the ultimate underlying truth/reality of everything is different for each person? Tom's might be his Big Toe and reincarnating millions of times into his Sims game, lowering entropy etc etc; what he says is only really for him? Yours and mine are completely different?

It all goes back to the title of his book (and his perspective): *MY* Big Toe.  It's paramount to understand why that word "MY" is in there. 
Lumaza mentioned it earlier in this thread.  His Big Toe is based entirely (100%) on his own experiences... and you can NEVER have his experience. Never.  Many people try to have the experience which someone else has shared, and you'll never do it.

I'm a little confused. A scientific hypothesis, as I'm assuming Tom is wanting to present, is based on falsifiable and repeatable experiments. For example, I can stand on a building and drop rocks all day long and they will always fall DOWN. I can have all 7 billion of the earth's population do the same thing and they will all have the SAME experience. This is how we know things, we conduct many experiments and get predictable results and make predictions.

I haven't had the experiences you all have, but I realize that the experiences are different for different people and probably much of it is a metaphor and gets filtered through one's own interpretation. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Here's my beef. From what I have seen, Tom presents his Toe as a fact more or less. Consciousness is finite. You are a bacterium in a gut. Love is a process to lower entropy. This is what happens when you die. Reincarnation happens this way. Sims game, Yada yada yada. If these experiences are not repeatable st some level, what's the point? You can't have it both ways. You can't say "this is how it is" and than say you can never duplicate my experiences - i.e. test my conclusions. Why even bother? Like I said earlier, there is other information from various sources that dovetails together and paints a different picture than what Tom is saying. Isn't it more reasonable to craft a Toe from the experiences of many rather than just one? To see what is repeated over and over again? Unless of course, you are going to tell me that the ultimate reality is different for everyone, in which case whatever Tom has experienced is only for him and what has it to do with me?

astralm; Thanks. That makes sense to me.

Second problem in particular that Robert Monroe and Tom Campbell (Who learned under Monroe) seem to have is a very tainted view of the models of reality presented by religion.  To the point of ignorance.  They seem to not grasp the idea behind religion at all.  Best example I can think of is Tom writes about how he dismisses the idea of God and the Holy Spirit and the notion they care about you or interact on your behalf at all.  I believe he says something along the lines of it is as silly as thinking you personally care about a single bacterium in your gut.  However in like the very same chapter he goes on to say how the greater computer or whatever he calls it, is open to and willing to help anyone who asks for it.  Wow an interface with what created us that can give us aid and understanding and help us, sounds like kind of a spot on analogy for the Holy Spirit.  It's not like 2000 years ago they would present the holy spirit as a computer interface, being they had no idea what a computer was.  Tom himself warns against having a predetermined bent against an idea and how that will limit your views, however he clearly has not taken his own advice and I believe this leads to a particular view of his experiences which are tainted by that.  But who knows since like I said he won't share the experiences which he makes his views based on.

astralm, having come from a Christian background myself, I'm curious to know what ways you think religion might play in all this. Is it simply an attempt by ancient peoples to quantify deep experiences they had? Or is there something more to it than that? Its interesting to me that much of what Jesus taught meshes with concepts people are learning from meditation and non-physical experiences. And I'm not talking about "Heaven is for real" stuff.

The biggest problem I have with Tom's TOE is that he comes from a scientific background and yet does not talk at all, except very briefly at the beginning of his first book about his experiences.  This essentially means he is presenting the conclusion of his experiments without letting anyone see or have any idea of the experiments or resulting data which got him there.  Without seeing the experiment that led the conclusion you really have no way of making a judgement either way on the validity of the conclusion.  I understand his explanation for why he does not share this, but still it weakens his TOE quite a bit.

Good point. I haven't finished the video yet, but I did notice early on that he takes great pains to emphasize that his conclusions are "logically derived". "Logically derived" does not equal "evidence". It was quite logical to believe 1000 years ago that the earth was flat and the sun revolved around it. I understand that he is going on much more than that, yet the point of peer review is probe for weaknesses in the argument and the "whys" and "hows" of how you got there. Being a "physicist" doesn't get you a pass.

That said, if he indeed considers this to be a conversation starter and jumping off point, I have no issues. Someone has to throw something out there.

The second is all we have are models, and MODELS ARE NOT REAL.  Tom doesn't believe his views are true, he just thinks they are best model.  But the real takeaway is whatever the model, once you believe it to be real and not just a model of reality you have put a limit on your growth.

Once again to repeat what the model, once you believe it to be real and just a model of reality you have put a limit on your growth.  (If you take nothing away from him than this I think he would be happy.)

So is there something that is out there somewhere that could be considered to be ultimate truth, or is that limiting?

Whatever happens to what remains after all that physicalness is stripped away... well then, I guess that's the real big question.  It's not really one I worry about though.

And this is the best attitude to have. What happens is not to be worried about.

William Buhlman seems to disagree with you two. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0isS9nC4dZ4

But I wonder, if he confirms everything you thought. Would you stop questioning it?

No. But it would be one more puzzle piece than I have now.

So with this in mind, I don't need to know the answer to to the question that Ricochet is asking.

But Ricochet needs to know!

Szaxx:

If you care to answer: based on your experiences/map, what do you expect to happen when you cross over? Is it advisable to expect something?

From what I have managed to cobble together, the "generic" view is that reincarnation is not linear and our separate personality experiences it relatively few times, unlike what Campbell says. Rather, it is the Higher Self that sends out more "copies" of itself. After we die, we move on and evolve through many more dimensions and eventually merge in some way with the God/Source. I can see with this the necessity of growing out of belief systems and the possibility of personal hells as we work through what we have experienced in this life.

I understand that is probably the "childs version" but is it in any way accurate?

   I'm one that would naturally have occasional dream recall. I can remember dreams I had as a kid and dreams from quite awhile back, although its quite fragmentary. Mainly impressions/feelings/scenes. I've tried off and on over the last number of months to get nightly dream recall by setting intention and it usually had results if I stuck with it. At the end of November I finally decided to start a dream journal. When I wake up, I use my phone to record what I remember and write it down later. I've been using affirmations before I go to sleep. "My dreams are vivid and clear" "I remember my dreams clearly" etc.

   It started out pretty good, I thought. For the first while I was getting 1-3 dreams a night. Then I settled into a pattern of sporadic and very fragmented recall during the week with better recall (usually only the last dream before I woke up) on the weekends when I slept in. I started getting up a half hour later during the week as it seemed this period was when I was getting the best recall. I even had a dream where I went out of body, complete with tearing sensations, blurring of vision, etc. Occasionally I'd get some recall when I'd wake up at night to go to the bathroom. These were much harder to retain though.

   On Dec 31, I decided to get a little sterner with myself. If most people have 5-7 dreams a night, why am I just getting the last one(s)? I changed my affirmations to "all my dreams" and that night I woke up at 2am, 3:30am and 6:30am with dreams or partial dreams. The middle one was the clearest.

   Well, its seemed to go downhill since then. I've noticed my recall has changed. Whereas before I'd wake up with a dream in my memory right there, thats not happening very often anymore. Now I wake up and my mind is blank and bits and pieces might come to me later or if something jogs my memory. My later dream recall is not there, even if I sleep in.

  The last good journal entry was on the 10th, when I had a couple pages. Since then it has been quite vague/fragmented or no recall at all.

   I'm trying to understand why this might be. If its a block, how do I figure it out? I don't really feel I'm frustrated and stressed about it. The only thing I can think of is that during/after the night of the 31st when I was up several times for a while recording dreams I kind of thought that it might be kind of tiring to be up for 10-15 minutes 4-5 times a night recording my dreams and then trying to go back to sleep. I've wondered if that "offended" my subconscious.    But I've tried to correct that. If getting lucid takes that, I'm ready for it.

   Any ideas on what I need to do to keep this going forward?

Thanks guys for a great discussion.

There's something to consider and that is the mind and body have different motivations but are linked. The body is the expression of life itself and is truth in motion. The mind cannot be that truth. If it stands still to be in unison with the body, it ceases to observe, therefore ceasing to be, and the body cannot function without the mind. I think the body is the feel good part of love. The body's function is to survive and procreate, it has no good or bad or selflessness, it is life itself. It is physical and in that sense, It is immortal, as long as there is a physical universe. There is no death for it, just change.

Bluebird, I'm not sure I understand your thought, maybe too deep for me!  I've been listening to an interesting podcast recently and I found it on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKXxg3tuCbI  Fascinating discussion of the material/consciousness issue from a little different perspective.

Answers? I was indoctrinated fundamentalist Christian and that has fallen apart for me. I'm trying to understand what is truth and where to go from here.

Great advice, thanks. I have noticed since I've been using the entrainment that I can close my eyes, mainly before sleep, and before long I am "seeing" things. I wouldn't exactly call them pictures or video clips- yet. Kind of like in the minds eye but in front of the eyes if that makes sense. Its new for me anyway.

Thanks, madmagus. Thats very clear. Have you ever tried brainwave entrainment meditation? I'm still trying to decide if it is a good idea. It tends to put me in a trancelike or semi-hypnogaugic state unless I fight to stay aware.

Didn't see these last 2 til now...thanks!

The only times I have had success is when I am deep enough to not be aware of anything, be it physical stimulus or controlled conscious thought. For now it seems to be necessary to replicate these conditions. I learned that it is necessary to physically disconnect yourself in the meditation process from book another user posted here, written by a Yogi.

I'm guessing you mean a trance-like state, correct? Or something different?

My personal perspective is that two types of meditation are useful for lucid dreaming/OBE.  Single-point meditation is what you need to develop to pierce the veil between physical awareness and NPR; it teaches you to silence all the noise from the physical awareness state, to reduce the signal-to-noise ratio as RVers like to call it.  Mindfulness meditation teaches you what is useful once you have achieved the NPR mental state; it will open your awareness to your surroundings in a mindful way to keep you focused and connected to the NPR condition and allow for longer LDs/OBEs.

Can you give an example of single-point vs mindfulness? I'm not sure I understand the difference. I Googled it but only got more confused.  Mindfulness meditation is usually given as focusing on/being aware of something, usually the breath.  They say it can be internal or external, like a candle.  One website says "Single-pointed concentration [samadhi] is a meditative power that is useful in either of these two types of meditation. However, in order to develop samadhi itself we must cultivate principally concentration meditation. In terms of practice, this means that we must choose an object of concentration and then meditate single-pointedly on it every day until the power of samadhi is attained." http://www.lamayeshe.com/article/developing-single-pointed-concentration But that sounds like mindfulness to me. Argghhh. I'm learning there are a billion different ways to meditate and I always thought it was just sitting in the lotus and chanting "Om"   

Try to prove me wrong, I am seriously intersted if you can come up with something that contradicts what I said above

I'm not really interested in proving you wrong, sorry

Every selfless act is motivated by something. Even when you do not directly feel elated, you kind of know it is the right thing to do and that makes you do it, because you then feel at least better if not good. If it was not that way, it would make no sense for anyone to do it. I am really not disturbed by that. Quite on the contrary. Imagine you did something really selfless and didn't feel anything after doing so. Would that not feel kind of hollow. So I do not see a motiviation fueling every single act of ours as a bad thing. That is, if the benefit you get out of it is mutual. Everyone is happy, so what is the matter.

I agree that every selfless act is motivated by something and that that is not a bad thing. However "selfless" is defined as "having little concern for one's own interests". I am seeing a difference between extending a kindness (or whatever) based on what I benefit from it, i.e. "feeling good" "knowing I did the right thing" vs compassion/empathy and love for the other individual being the primary motivator. I'm not dissing feeling good about it at all, just saying that in my view its secondary. Thats what makes it "selfless"

I can help a little old lady across the street because I know it will make me feel good or because I have empathy and compassion for her predicament. Many times its probably both, agreed. Win-win. But if my benefit is the primary driver, its going to be easier to look the other way. It has to jostle with all of my other self interests at the moment. Is "feeling good" worth being 5 minutes late to the important job interview? Not today! 

Furthermore, I see the term "unconditional love" as you define it as kind of a nonsense.

I didn't define unconditional love, I just asked a question, so I'm not sure what you mean by this. I would like to see your definition though. 

What does it mean to be altruistic? It is essentially helping other people in a selfless fashion, isn't it?. But why do you do that when you get nothing out of it? Well, you do it because you actually do get something out of it. And that is that you feel good doing it and so, by your words, it is "efficient" for you. You also love because it feels good, right? I mean, would anybody be altruistic if it didn't make them feel good? I don't really think so. And so, is it really selfless to love and be altruistic if you get a reward for it? So to say, is it really altruistic to be altruistic?

You make a good point, and I'd say that probably accounts for a substantial part of what we label "altruism". But if you are making the argument that nobody would "be altruistic if it didn't make them feel good" you are saying that we are incapable of truly selfless acts. That kind of sums up what disturbs me about the MBT. I read a lot about "unconditional love". Is it really unconditional if I (or the higher consciousness, whatever that may be) really do it only for a benefit?

We here at the Astral Pulse will help anyone that is serious to learn this "Art". We will give you tips to project. We will help you understand what you are seeing. You said you haven't projected yet, so this may be hard for you to understand. But once you do, you will realize what we are saying here. It completely gives you a different "mindset" on what is and what isn't. But you need to see it for yourself. Only then will you know. Please understand though my statement here isn't meant to "demean" you. It's only to help you understand.

I get it, no problem. I do appreciate the discussion. As I said in the opening post, some of the "nuts and bolts of how things work" make sense to me as well. I wonder though, for those of you who are "all in" with the MBT, how you square this concept of love as just the most efficient means to an end vs the concept of love being purely altruistic. Meaning, are you OK with that?

In the end, I think the statement "To each their own" sums all of this up nicely.

Do you feel that ultimate truth/reality/what really "is" is relative?

Let me back up just a bit and clarify for anyone who may be reading this.....I really have no clue what I'm talking about. I'm formulating from outside any actual experience as I've never consciously APed or OBEd. I'm working on achieving lucidity in my dreams and hopefully exploring from there. I came here to gain insight and learn.

That being said, I'm not free of opinions and there are some things I think I think.  

One is that there are more evidentiary sources that need to be taken into account. Much of after death contact, numerous NDE as well as OBE accounts seem to indicate that direct reincarnation is rare and/or the whole reincarnation process is not linear but rather all happening at once. What you are experiencing now is most likely a one-off. This directly contradicts Tom. Lightbeam's post factors in with this too.

I haven't ready any of his experiences and my understanding is that Tom doesn't share them. If true, why? That is definitely counter-intuitive.

What do you "want" to happen then?

That's difficult. I know it isn't about what I "want". Yet there are concepts we tend to naturally "receive" that "feel right". The MBT just doesn't resonate with me. Its easier to say what i don't want.  I don't want to be a consciousness packet shipped out to dutifully lower entropy for AIM and AUM and have my individuality discarded when I've served my purpose.

Let me ask you this then... why do you find that particular perspective "disturbing and depressing"?

I'll give room that I may understand his "theory", but the short answer is because, according to him, my individual point of awareness is being used as a means to an end for the greater consciousness. Continually being recycled until I "get" what I am supposed to. Love is not a grand idea, but simply the most efficient way to lower entropy. All this for what? So finally my consciousness packet can just be reabsorbed or snuffed out entirely if I don't cooperate? I guess I'm not seeing the wonder in that.

I'm not sure myself as to how I view this reality. I would like to think of it as part/the beginning of a grand (infinite?) journey of evolution of consciousness. I realize at some point the ego and sense of self must go, some find some of that here in the physical. But to have no choice, to be duped, to be used; no, thats not my ideal of reality.

I've noticed that Tom Campbell is referenced quite a bit here. Maybe I'm venturing into dangerous waters but......

I don't really have so much a quarrel with the "nuts and bolts of how reality works" of his videos, but I find the his overall MBT view very disturbing and depressing. How we check out, meet a hologram representation of our loved ones for 15 minutes, before we are patted on the bottom and forcibly shipped down the reincarnation chute for another go-round at lowering entropy for the great cosmic consciousness like some poor cows at a massive dairy farm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmkPBrHwQWI

It also goes against the views of others, such as Frank Kepple and Jurgen Ziewe, who paint (for me anyway) a far more possibly pleasant view of reality, reincarnation and what really happens after physical death.

How do you guys see it?

http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp

Personally, I find the whole thing a bit dubious. How can consciousness have weight? Secondly, its hard for me to give much credence to something that isn't realistically possible to replicate under strict laboratory controls.

Maybe we're all made of dark energy.