Messages

Sounds interesting.

Gonna check out the videos soon, thanks for sharing.

Don't "believe" anything anyone ever says to you.  As Tom would put it, simply keep an open mind about it, but don't judge it "correct" or "incorrect" until you have personal experience to back it up.

Good advice, especially when dealing with the metaphysical realm.

Ben Stiller 

Hope you had a great birthday, and may the one next year be even better 

Better late than never 

Welcome back, carolstar 

I also returned to the forum one month ago, after my first couple of OBEs. I had many more in the following days, and now I could project every morning if I wanted to. I got better at it with practice. There are some useful guides in the forum, I recommend these two:

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_out_of_body_experiences/how_to_have_an_out_of_body_experience_composed_by_summerlander-t34339.0.html

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_astral_consciousness/the_steps_to_success_in_your_first_projections-t33998.0.html

This existence is full of mysteries. The nature of OBEs is one of them. The nature of consciousness itself, is another. I consume a lot of spiritual material, but I'm completely OK with the theory that states "life is only this present moment, the brain is responsible for every single thing we consider spiritual/paranomal/supernatural, and there is nothing else after you die." Why? Because I'm not afraid of anything, and that includes death. I'm also not afraid to accept that there could be a Heaven and Hell, or even many types of realms and possible outcomes for consciousness, if it does persist after our physical body is dead.

The important thing is that we keep looking with an impartial disposition to experience the truth for ourselves.

That looks like a nice schedule.

I'm more lazy 

My morning plan involves just meditation, and then breakfast.

Yeah, the guy is actually more famous for Goat Boy 

Sure:

www.macalester.edu/psychology/whathap/ub..._brain/Behavior.html

"Split-brain patients have also taught us about dreaming. Scientists had hypothesized that dreaming is a right hemisphere activity, but they found that split brain patients do report dreaming. They found, therefore, that the left hemisphere must have some access to dream material. What was most interesting was the actual content of the dreams of the split-brain patients. Klaus Hoppe, a psychoanalyst, analyzed the dreams of twelve patients. He found that the dreams were not like the dreams of most normal people. " The content of the dreams reflected reality, affect, and drives. even in the more elaborate dream, there was a remarkable lack of distortion of latent dream thoughts. The findings show that the left hemisphere alone is able to produce dreams...Patients after commisurotomy reveal a paucity of dreams, fantasies, and symbols. Their dreams lack the characteristics of dream work; their fantasies are unimaginative, utilitarian, and tied to reality; their symbolization is concretistic, discursive, and rigid." (Segalowitz)"

Interesting, isn't it? Anyway, in relation to OOBEs, it is still a theory and the whole subject is still very much misunderstood. It could be that a split-brain allows consciousness a greater access to the "ethereal" while a normal brain has easier access to the "astral". Who knows!

That link was missing some characters 

But I searched the website and found the article:

http://www.macalester.edu/psychology/whathap/ubnrp/split_brain/Behavior.html

I like the theory because it sounds plausible. It's easy to forget about the complexity of the brain. There are many things about our organism (like the exact cause and cure of many diseases) that we have yet to understand.

Good job, man!

This will help beginners a lot, it's the best guide I've seen in the forum so far, nice illustration too 

Mode 1 OOBEs would be a product of the left hemisphere and hence the reason why they are 'more true to life' so to speak.

I always start my projections from Mode 1 and this sounds interesting to me. Where did you get this theory from?

LOL

That reminds me. Since you're a Metallica fan like me, you probably know the comedian Jim Breuer. He does a great impression of Joe Pesci 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljJoMKaLXrM

I see.

It does look like the Joker's grin, the martian's brain, and the eyes of Alex DeLarge.

Dunno what Bedeekin's mug looks like. Was he pleased with your depiction of it? 

Congrats and welcome to the forum 

As for the question in your poll. Some people are scared of sleep paralysis and hypnagogic/hypnopompic hallucinations. That's the main thing that prevents them from having an OBE.

So they first must realize it's ridiculous and pathetic to be afraid of those things. SP is there to protect our physical body, and the hallucinations are just that, pure fantasy, just ignore them and maintain awareness while you go deeper into trance with the intention to project.

That sounded like a cool experiment.

By the way, is your avatar an entity you saw in the phase?

I've *NEVER* encountered anything that I would label directly as a "negative entity", and I attribute it entirely to my positive mindset while projecting (and while physical for that matter).

Same here. I also believe it's useful to have compassion and be fearless.

Welcome, Tibor 

Great post. I'm also investigating the effect meditation has on OBEs. When I get valuable information I'll share it with the forum.

Yep. If you describe to someone your goal as the "cessation of being" they will think you're insane 

According to the Buddha, all beings have no real permanent self. Only 5 temporary constituents (form, feeling, perception, mental fabrications and consciousness) so rich and complex that they create a powerful illusion. It's amazing to notice he proposed this around 2500 years ago 

"An uninstructed, run-of-the-mill person [...] assumes form to be the self, or the self as possessing form, or form as in the self, or the self as in form.

He assumes feeling to be the self...

He assumes perception to be the self...

He assumes fabrications to be the self...

He assumes consciousness to be the self, or the self as possessing consciousness, or consciousness as in the self, or the self as in consciousness."

[ineffable freedom]

That's right. Nirvana is even beyond infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, and neither-perception-nor-non-perception (the 4 highest realms).

It can't be expressed/described, only defined in a very simplistic manner by what it is and what's not.

"Nibbana names the transcendent and singularly ineffable freedom that stands as the final goal of all the Buddha's teachings."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca3/nibbana.html

Reminds me of Inception 

Sounds cool to have someone help you gain lucidity, but I don't think they were real people also dreaming or projecting.

Poor guy!

What if his parents were bastards who deserved their deaths (excuse my sense of humour )? In a way Maudgalyāyana was unknowingly carrying out what was due to them according to Karma and at the same time accumulating his own. People can say karma is a grump but really, what happens to them is a product of their doing - you reap what you sow.

If karma is real and extends beyond this life (past and present), it also depends a lot upon how you look at it. Whether good or bad happens, the experience can be educational. The events in your life can make you wiser if you take them on board and apply what you have learned constructively. From the greatest suffering can emerge the strongest souls.

What you say in the beginning, taken as a joke it's funny 

But any sane person who's in the right path will tell you that killing generates bad karma. This could lead to slightly complex situations, like killing an active murderer. You generate both bad and good karma. But I don't think it "evens out" so to speak. You still have to pay for what you did. And the thing about some of the karma you have accumulated is that it could take a long time to take effect.

It is said that the human realm is the best one for learning/growth. In the lower planes the suffering is almost (if not 100%) relentless, so it's extremely difficult to grasp a glimpse of the truth. In the higher realms, beings tend to be distracted by the sheer bliss they enjoy there. And most of them believe "This is it. I'm in heaven now, for all eternity." But once their good karma is exhausted, they get reborn in some inferior place (i.e., get back here). In the future they could end up in hell, and the cycle continues.

Suffering is everywhere, but always remember that you can rise above it. You can even transcend
physical pain, of course that takes a huge deal of experience regarding right concentration, but it's still possible. Pain is not required in order to learn/grow.

Have you heard of a Buddhist story about a woman whose son died and how the Buddha helped her? The story starts by describing how she was boorishly treated by the locals for being poor until she gave birth one day. After giving birth, she was seen in a different light - she had created life!

Then, one day, her son became ill and died. She became depressed and the locals blamed her because they thought she hadn't looked after him properly. There were talks of a charismatic wise man who had apparently become enlightened and news about his insightful speeches travelled fast. Someone had found the woman crying over her dead son and advised her to go and see the Buddha as he was delivering a speech not far from there.

She met the Buddha and asked him what he could do to bring back her son. Buddha told her to go back to her village and get grains of mustard from every house with a history of prosperity and where nobody had ever died. Once she had the seeds, she was to take them to the Buddha.

She knocked on every house and found that, in every single one of them, there was a history of death and suffering. She also found that people empathised with her for her loss. Thus, she returned to the Buddha empty-handed but with a deep understanding about the nature of reality. She had realised that the mission the Buddha set her was one of self-discovery.

The answer was NOT in fulfilling her desire to see her son somehow miraculously resuscitated. This is an attachment which leads to suffering. The answer was in ACCEPTANCE. All things in samsaric existence come to an end. Accept, let go, move on - these are the qualities of a free mind. No matter what happens, your mind is serene. It doesn't mean she loved her son any less...

She was also impressed by the subtlety in which the Buddha handled her situation. Rather than bluntly telling her to get over the fact that her son was dead, which would have added to her suffering, he simply nudged her in a direction which allowed her to make this discovery for herself.

Yeah, I knew that story and I love it. The Buddha always looked for the right way to teach each individual according to their own unique background.

In the end she still loved her son but she was no longer attached to him. She was free. It is said she was the first woman guided by Siddhartha to attain Nirvana.

Yeah, if you're too alert you can't relax properly, but if you're too relaxed you tend to lose awareness and fall asleep. I find it easier to project early in the morning after a good night's sleep. Sometimes it helps to get out of bed and do something else for a couple of minutes (use the bathroom, read, etc.) before lying down again and attempting to project.

That's the way I see it too. It's pointless to debate if they're real planes of existence, mental states, or both.

Then again, after many years of constant vipassana meditation one could find out for oneself in this lifetime 

You're right about karma, of course. An example is the life of Maudgalyāyana, one of the greatest disciples of the Buddha who mastered pretty much every supernatural ability, but since he had murdered his parents in a previous life, he suffered a horrible death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maudgalyāyana

Don't get anxious. You need to relax more. Trying to force yourself out doesn't seem to work for most people. Let yourself drift away, but remain aware all the time. If a particular method isn't working, try it again later, only after going deeper into trance.

But the fact that you've been noticing the vibrations daily is great in itself, so congrats on that 

Thanks for this! I'm gonna check the Ajahn Brahm stuff and I'll get back to you on that!!!

No problem 

and yes, metal is phenomenal! I love thrash, the Big Four are amazing, I also love death and black metal. I'm also partial to other forms of rock/metal and I love blues and jazz! LOL

Hell yeah! But to be honest, the Big 4 have always been the Big 3 + Anthrax to me, if ya know what I mean 

Gotta love the blues. I also like jazz, but don't listen to it often these days. Mostly stuff from the 50s/60s: Miles, Herbie, Coltrane, Mingus, Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, etc. Fusion is cool too.

Buddha was the man!!!! I love Siddhartha Gautama.

Damn right! 

Actually, I would consider this a "dream awareness experience" because if it was "a dream" we certainly don't realize it. 

If we say life is a dream, then who is the dreamer?

God...?

Whoa... 

But seriously, I know what you mean. Life is only a metaphorical dream, not an actual one. It can safely be called an illusion. Concepts, ideas, names, etc... they're all man-made tools to make sense of this reality. But the essence of it all cannot be grasped by intellect alone, it has to be experienced directly without any of the wordly senses interfering. Now that's easy to say, but without a doubt the most difficult thing one could achieve.

The Phase state is all about amazing experiences. Btw, Lightning, I like Megadeth too! LOL!

Cool, I like tons of different bands, but metal is my fav genre 

Proto-metal, everything doom/stoner, progressive and early thrash.

I guess the statement implies that the physical world is a persistent dream. Thomas Campbell states in his big TOE that the non-physical is only non-physical from the physical perspective. A non-physical being, for example, might deem our reality as non-physical and his as the physical or even the only real one. The laws of this entity's world would be how reality REALLY operates while the rules of our physical reality would be nonsensical.

Anyway, it's only a different way of looking at things. "Physical", "real", "surreal", "unreal" are only concepts that we came up with from an anthropological perspective. Get rid of all your concepts and you wipe the slate clean - this is our true nature in my opinion - the empty mind, nothingness, the room for creation, the ground of all being.

I had this conversation recently with Ssergiu. Buddha was right. To become awake is to realise that there is no observer nor observed. They are concepts arising in consciousness which we identify with to reaffirm our existence but, intrinsically, we are empty. Nirvana is the cessation of being - this, my friends, is waking up to your true nature.

Now Buddha believed that we are so bound by the illusions of samsaric existence, through desire, which causes us to be trapped in a cycle of deaths and rebirths, and that, if we want to escape this, much effort is needed in order to reach nirvana.

I, on the other hand, still consider the possibility that this nirvana could be attainable as soon as we die. Just like fainting, we become unconscious, cease to be. It's funny that when people wake up from having fainted, they are usually a little confused and have no idea of how much time has passed. All they know is that they lost their senses one minute and came to the next. Then they act surprised when you tell them that they've been gone for an hour. LOL!

If death is the end of experience (or one type of experience until the deleted file is recycled and reconfigured so to speak - IF!) then the bomb squad can relax when they disarm bombs because, if they get the wrong wire...they'll never know that they did!

I've been into Buddhism for a long time now (mainly Theravada) and everything the Buddha said makes perfect sense to me. I often watch the Ajahn Brahm talks posted on youtube. They are very basic and the man has a good sense of humor. For more advanced material, I go to www.accesstoinsight.org - you will find the metaphysical stuff there, for example:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sagga/loka.html

Now... are there 31 planes existence? I don't know, but luckily the great majority of the places described are blissful realms 

I remember hearing a dhamma talk about how it's extremely important the state of your consciousness at the time of death. You have to remain focused on achieving liberation. It may not lead directly towards Nirvana, but you could be reborn in one of the highest realms with the strong conviction of finally awakening in that last reincarnation.

I'm not 100% sure about what happens after we die. Not sure if there is such a thing as reincarnation. I do believe in karma however, and I sure as hell don't like the idea of eternal punishment for people who didn't believe in certain dogmas.

Halloween is cruel to sugar addicts. 

LOL


By the way, here are some videos of Tom Campbell discussing the effect sugar has on consciousness:

Workshop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CFo5ubfNsg

Interview (Parts I-III)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e082jsIe0Ak
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcWGZXF89Ok
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIp8fjU7ItM

But I have to say, personally I try to consume moderate quantities. Taking absolutely all sugars out of one's diet sounds extreme to me, very complicated to manage (on many different levels) and probably not even worth the effort. Maybe the positive effect of a 100% sugar-free diet isn't that noticeable after all, and there could be some negative aspects also that Tom doesn't explain in detail.