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Fear manifests in most people when facing something completely unknown.  The only way I know to effectively beat it is to keep facing the unknown, become familiar with the unknown, until it is so well known to you that you no longer feel the fear, or have learned how to deal with it effectively.

Riddled Skies, I strongly suggest watching "the secret", reading books like Chicken Soup for the Soul, etc etc...  Unfortunately theres no instant cure for depression (that I know of).

If I could encapsulate the things that I've learned over the last 5 or 6 years;  You are strong and capable, full of infinite potential.  To realise the potential you need to let go of the past and stop trying to control the future.  Live in the Now.  You can't change the past, or control the future, NOW is the only time you ever exist in this lifetime, so get in touch with the now and just do what feels right.

Have a dream, its ok to dream, dreams give us something to live for.  People who don't dream seem content to cycle through the daily routine - something I can't personally do - but; whatever blows your hair back.  Spend every living and breathing moment of now visualising and speaking about and working towards your dream.

It keeps me out of trouble, and the visualisation stuff is very, very effective.  If I could explain it quickly, your thoughts attract whatever you're thinking about towards you.  You think you're depressed, you feel depressed.  You think you're happy, you feel happy.  Its a basic system, and with a bit of practice its easy to control how you feel by changing the way you think.

I hope that helps.

Skippy, the whole body shakes and tingles is a strong symptom of dormant or malnourished energy pathways being used for the first time.  I am not sure if it is the case with you.  If it is then your energy pathways are reacting to a sudden increase in the flow of energy.  If you continue to practice ROPE the shakes will diminish over time as your energy body gets used to it.

Any extra enregy stimulation you can do will boost your energy body.

Just my 2c.

p.s.  This can also happen if you are not fully relaxed.  Tense and relax all your muscles one by one, a couple of times over, just to make sure.

I'm not sure where Walsch got his ideas from but he presented some very important concepts in a straightforward manner.  I have all three of the CWG books,  I think the last couple tend to rehash the ideas from the first, book one is definitely the best.

Far Journeys is an awesome book in its own right.  Robert Monroe's style is less flash, more acedemic I guess, but his sources are fascinating and his descriptions show that he recorded every last detail of his research and explorations.

I'm not sure how the two books could be compared really - they both speak about the same things, but the delivery of the concepts is totally different.  This is good if it allows a wider reading audience to appreciate the subject.

And its cool, I didn't know there was a movie being made...  I'll add it to my wishlist

Siddartha is one of my favorite books.  I have read it twice and each time I found a new insight.  One of the main things I remember from the book was that everyone is looking for something.  Many people look up to a leader / guru figure, listen to all the lectures, read all the books, 'speak to buddha', but none of it will give you instant access to enlightenment - you have to look inwards for your answers.  Thats what I gained from it, and the knowledge has served me well.

I give it three thumbs up (out of two)

from http://www.adb.org/vehicle-emissions/General/inuse-conversions-5.asp

Biodiesel is produced by reacting vegetable or animal fats with methanol or ethanol to produce a lower viscosity fuel that is similar in physical characteristics to diesel, and which can be used neat or blended with petroleum diesel in a diesel engine. Engines running on biodiesel instead of or blended with petroleum diesel tend to have lower black smoke and CO emissions, but higher NOx and possibly higher emissions of particulate matter. These differences are not very large, however. Other advantages of biodiesel include high cetane number, very low sulfur content, and the fact that it is a renewable resource. Disadvantages include high cost, reduced energy density (resulting in lower engine power output), and low flash point, which may make it hazardous to handle. The effects of biodiesel on engine performance and emissions over a long time in actual service are not well documented.

Although there are no published field test data on engine emissions, performance and durability for vehicles using blended or neat biodiesel, there are some reports in the literature on short-term effects measured in the laboratory.

The general consensus of these studies is that blended or neat biodiesel has the potential to reduce diesel CO emissions (although these are already low), smoke opacity, and measured HC emissions. However, the studies show an increase in NOX emissions for biodiesel fuel when compared to diesel fuel at normal engine conditions. The higher NOX emissions from biodiesel-powered engines are partly due to the higher cetane number of biodiesel, which causes a shorter ignition delay and higher peak cylinder pressure. Some may also be due to the nitrogen content in the fuel. The reduction in smoke emissions is believed to be due to better combustion of the short chain hydrocarbons found in biodiesel, as well as the effects of the oxygen content. Other data have also shown that mixing oxygenates with diesel fuel helps to reduce smoke.

As for the HC emissions, research shows a reduction in HC emissions when biodiesel is used. However, the effect of the organic acids and/or oxygenated compounds found in biodiesel may affect the response of the flame ionization detector, thus understating the actual HC emissions. The behavior of these compounds with respect to adsorption and desorption on the surfaces of the gas sampling system is not known. Thus more studies are needed to understand the organic constituents in the exhaust gases from biodiesel-powered engines before firm conclusions can be drawn regarding the effects on HC emissions. There is controversy concerning the effect of biodiesel on particulate matter emissions.

The cost of biodiesel fuel is one of the principal barriers making it less attractive to substitute for diesel fuel. Since the heating value for biodiesel is less than that for diesel, more fuel must be burned to provide the same work output as diesel fuel. This adds further to the cost disadvantage of biodiesel.

So in current literature, it burns somewhat cleaner than normal diesel, but it still produces noxious gasses.  And I would consider the other points in my previous post regarding chemical use in the growing of the crops in the first place as being "harm causing" to the environment.

Biodiesel isn't 100% harmless.  It burns and produces smoke like any other fuel.  It requires the use of large tracts of land to grow canola or soy from which to extract the vegetable oils, which carries with it the usual environmental problems of any type of farm: fertilizers washing into watertables and waterways, raising the watertable causing salinity problems, destruction of forest and jungle as more room is cleared to provide fuel for ever increasing numbers of diesel vehicles...

just listen to your thoughts and try and relax, the sounds work automatically and you should be able to enter a deep trance pretty easily if you just meditate.  Thinking about the sound too much can get irritating.

Its not necessarily easier, in some ways knowing that it can be achieved removes the doubt barriers, but that doesn't stop other aspects of your life interfering and you really have to stay on the ball.  One thing that can interfere is knowing you've done it before and then getting frustrated trying to force a projection knowing you can do it, which is a trap I've fallen into before.

I remember being able to project regularly as a child, and the main thing that stopped that ability in its tracks was issues in the so called real world taking over much of my thought time, things like bills and not having enough money and worrying about everything.  Worrying about not being able to OBE is another thing that adds to the collection of blockages that need to be dealt with before OBE's can be able to freely occur again.  Thats my experience and 2 cents worth, hopefully of some use.  

Basically that can be summed up with clandestino's two points, for me growing up involved being put under a lot of pressure which kick started the worry mechanisms, and whether or not it was puberty and chemical changes or if it was just adult expectations beginning to penetrate my mind that caused the reduced ability, I'm not entirely sure...  But there are a lot of adults that can OBE, all of whom have presumably gone thru puberty at some stage, which makes me think that its probably the pressure to grow up and worry more about things in the real world that interferes with your mind's natural ability to relax and let go.

maybe its beacuse doom3 only ran at about 15-30 frames per second it must have enchanced the experience because by the time an ememy had spawned (and following the hard disk thrashing), it was already tearing my face off.  Admittedly after the first level or two it becomes kind of a ho-hum routine of "oh look a dark corner...  surprise surprise a monster has spawned, but shock horror another one has spawned directly behind me so that while my focus is on the one in front, I'm having my but chewed off... repeat"

Doom 3 might set ur pulse racing

If you do make the website, have seperate areas for serious study of the phenomena and another for fanciful discussion, and to gain credibility the research would have to be conducted methodically in an organised fashion, so rather than having everyone talking about different things, try to set up a few basic projects to start with, and call on people who claim to be skilled in those areas to participate.  A simple experiment to start off with would be like "A card has been hidden in my room with a word on it.  Try to find out what that word is and describe all the thoughts and feelings you feel are relevant."  Then run the study until a large body of people have had an attempt before releasing a report that details the method, the results with comparisons between people's responses and how strong the link is between their perception and what was really there, and possibly draw some conclusions from the results obtained like "This experiment showed that there is/ is not a connection between the test subject and the results obtained"

I think having a forum style approach would be the best way to go about it, with Project Facilitators taking the place of moderators, these people announce the project, then step back so as not to interfere in the results, and then close the research project after a sufficient length of time has passed.

---

I would like to help facilitate projects, I come from a more scientific background but I am open to all forms of spirituality, and I am good at evaluating evidence.

He fought for what he believed was a just cause, and for that he has my respect.  I hope palestine doesn't develop into feuding over the leadership, and I also hope israel doesn't take the opportunity to try an armed takeover...  Hopefully some peace will come of this.

Thats the whole reason I brought up the topic...  A paranoid person such as my self could almost come to think that they are doing it on purpose especially to give sites such as this one a bad name, by association.

just keep practicing and try not to think about it so much... the more you think about it the more it will annoy you.  Its like saying "don't think of the word elephant while reading this sentance", if you keep stressing about your eyes being open it will bother you more.  The eye open thing used to bother me heaps but I don't really think about it anymore, I suppose practice helps, all good things come with time, and 90% of all cliches turn out to be startlingly accurate (also, 83.67% of statistics are made up on the spot)

Hey Sam - with respect to Akira dubbing, I've actually seen 2 versions - one is very good, the other....isn't! I think its the DVD version thats a bit dodgy....

I love manga!!!!!!!!!!

Favourites (not mentioned so far) have to be Vampire Hunter D, its sequel Vampire Hunter D - Bloodlust and Fist of the North Star. Cyber City and Guyver are pretty cool too, even if Guyver is incredibly cheesy!

Yeh I got the DVD version of Akira...  I have seen the other version a long time ago and I remember it being much much better.  On the back cover it says "Digitally remastered and english version 2001, Produced by pioneer entertainment (usa) inc, In association with ZRO limit productions & animaze, inc".  My bet would be that "digitally remastered" means they've re-dubbed the entire movie.

-edit-

I just checked it out again, and in the setup menu on the remastered akira DVD, you can actually choose the new 5.1 surround english dubbing, the original 2.0 stereo dubbing (the better choice imho), or japanese 2.0 stereo.  So the original dubbing is there... but... the subtitles are still all screwy, they are 60% of the time totally different in meaning to what is being said, its as if two seperate translation teams worked on the dubbing and another on the subtitles.

Thanks MT I will keep that in mind next time I have a successful OBE...  Maybe your right that I've been so focussed on breaking the OBE barrier that upon succeeding I was trying too hard to break another barrier which my mind had convinced me must be there, or something, and the effort expended sort of triggered a chain reaction of alice-in-wonderland effects.

Just a side note...  I used to actively try very hard to OBE with little success...  now I don't even think about it much and I'm getting more rewards.  Reverse psychology seems to be the trick for me in achieving OBE, not sure if this is a universal thing though.

My experience with anime and manga has been touch and go.. not all of it is brilliant, but the good stuff I have seen and is a must watch for anyone who cares about depth of character and story depth are: Ghost in the shell, Animatrix, Akira (more on that in a sec) and Ninja Scroll.  I have seen others but the names elude me.

I purchased the Akira DVD the other week and got it home and its dubbed in english, and I put the english subtitles on to keep the volume down... and the subtitles didn't even match the dubbing.  The famous "You know we aren't meant to exist in the outside world" quote wasn't even there in this version of the dubbing, and despite the fact that I absolutely love this movie the english dubbing, combined with dodgy captioning, really ruins the experience.  Its like watching the matrix but making all the actors speak in the same flat monotone, except for the girls who have innapropriately excitable voices!

[undoubtedly]

Something I've observed, but never really taken much time to think of, is the proliferation of crackpot websites out there full of all sorts of crazy stuff which seems to be taking the mickey out of science and spirituality alike.  While I won't post any examples here, which would be unfair to the webmasters under scrutiny, here is a list of some of the things I have found define crackpot sites...

Mand of the websites go for shock value, characterised by the following:
Large text OFTEN IN CAPSLOCKS at INAPPROPRIATE moments
Italics used to emphasize every second word, so that you can almost hear the amount of stress that was put into writing it.
100 pages of text, all on the front page, in no kind of logical order.
Bright colored text on black or white backgrounds.  Yellow on white seems to be a favorite combination, perhaps it is to test the dedication of the reader who, after scrolling down 100 pages, must surely have sore eyes.
Flashing red text, often entire paragraphs composed of some

absolutely vital piece of information

that only stupid people could miss the importance of.
Every paragraph has a different font, font size and color.
Almost every second word contains a link to another page exhibiting similar charateristics.  Sometimes half a page of text if not more could be a link.
Disjointed quotes used as ABSOLUTE PROOF that whatever bs the site is promoting is undoubtedly true, i.e. "George W Bush said today.... that.... the.... fathers and sons in iraq....  are.... the axis of evil" IT MUST BE TRUE!!!

Sites exhibiting the above characteristics are often but not always the work of a crackpot.  Some genuine people just have no idea how to organise a document.  

On the other side of the coin, just because a website looks all polished and schmick, does not mean it is any more credible.  These type of sites are much more devious, as their guestbooks and forums have a following which is worrying.  There are a few things to look out for:
Long quotes from books that are a MUST READ, and if you visit the forums its all anyone ever talks about anyway.
Links to online resellers of holy relics, lucid dragon (8x, 14x, etc), astral projection tapes, etc.  Note that the sites linked to may be genuine, but be aware that the nefarious site doing the linking is merely trying to piggy back off the success of the others, and may even go so far as to take credit for the achievements of others...
...Which brings me to an important point...  NO original content on the site.  The site is all pretty and stuff but every single word is lifted from elsewhere, or a very close approximation.
Finally the crux of the whole matter, what makes these types of sites so evil, is that they then ask people to donate to their cause, a cause which is little more than quoting other people's work, selling other peoples stuff, and letting you hang out in their lobby talking about it.  They may even reward donaters with a special signature line so they can wear it proudly around their forums thus inspiring others to give up some of their earthly cash.  The usual excuse for having a donate button is generally that bandwidth and web space is expensive.  That is a lie, don't believe it.  Maybe for big sites like this one, but for smaller crackpot sites a small server is all that is needed.

Has anyone else made similar observations or would like to dispute some of mine?  This could become the definitive guide, if one doesn't already exist somewhere.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Tayesin.  Also I have read all the other posts with keen interest, but I refrain from commenting since its not my battle.  I will try the techniques you mentioned when I get a chance to, and see what happens.  Again, thanks for sharing your experience, I may be a bit of a lurker around here but these kind of threads are golden opportunities to open my mind a little more.

Maybe it was a reflection of my desire to find answers for everything, even if sometimes it is impossible.  I was definately lucid up until the whole diving into the bedsheets thing happened, at which point this kind of wacky determination took over.  So what you're saying is theres possible a subconscious link between what happened next and the way I'm living?

In hindsight I suppose my experience just sucked and had no bearing on anything whatsoever.

I would say its a good and bad sign in about equal parts...  Good because it shows you are getting close to that trance state, bad because you need to ignore it to continue.  I get the same thing with the noises and the talking and the buzzing, and also seeing weird people in my room.  Just try and ignore them, if you pay them attention they will only get stronger, in my experience.  The voices may engage you in a conversation, but try and remember that its a circular conversation which is trying to distract you from what you are doing.  The voices may try and claim they have important information that will help you spiritual advancement, but they are generally deceitful and just want to divert your attention.

The other day I had an OBE, with no real intent to, but I am happy it occured.

Anyway, I will recount the experience, before I ask my questions of anyone with experience in these matters, since a few answers elude me.

As far as I can remember I went to bed as normal, did a little energy work (I normally do), and went to sleep seeing the hypnagogic images drifting in front of my eyes.  The usual pattern for these images is to impersonate faces of people I know, or people I sometimes don't, but I look into the eyes and they transform into evil looking faces, which usually yanks me out of that state (its the fear element, not quite conquered yet).  Anyway, this time, the faces did the whole evil thing, and I managed to ignore them.  They tryed scaring me with a few tricks, which didn't bother me.  I think I was too tired to react to their shenanigans.  I believe this is a big part of my OBE success, being able to ignore the images.

Next thing I remember after going to sleep is tearing out of my body (no vibrations, funny sounds, etc).  First, I woke up in the astral, lying where my physical body was, and rotated so I was facing down.  There was this black ball that was pulsating and looked like it was sentient, right in front of me.  I registered its presence then ignored it.  I remember feeling a little stuck in the abdomen, I felt as though something was draining me there so I focussed a large (large for me) burst of energy at the area and felt it loosening up then *pop* I was standing vertical above myself on the bed.  This didn't seem to surprise me, I took it all matter-of-factly.  Anyway the room was dark and felt cold, so I willed some light on the area and this took some effort too, but it worked, first it was a dull grey but it slowly got brighter.

Testing my re-discovered astral body, for some reason I flew straight at the wall, to see if I could go through it.  The wall was spongy, and I kept bouncing back out because my intellectual mind kept on trying to say "you can't really do this".  Stoopid brain, thinks it knows everything.

So, then, for some other strange reason, I then flew to the bed and tried to dive INTO the blankets, as if I could fly to the atomic level and look at the molecules and stuff all flying around.  Again my mind wouldn't let me, but I was very determined and kept on trying.  Eventually I could see this black vortex forming in the sheets, which began to look like a hyperspace tunnel, and fell into this blackness.  

While in this blackness things got very weird.  There were these other creatures there who didn't exactly seem friendly.  There was also these two pipes.  One of them seemed like a "way out", the other was spitting bombs out at me if I got too close.  For a while I tried to approach the bomb-spitting pipe to check it out, but decided it was safer to head down the other pipe, which I kind of got stuck in since I dove in head first.  I could feel the other creatures taunting me, and this is when the OBE ended.  What was weird about this segment of the OBE was that I could sense these things but couldn't actually "see" them, if I try to remember what things looked like, its like saying it was invisible, but at the same time it was a couple of pipes, one of which was spitting bombs.

The weird thing about this experience, and perhaps someone could shed some light, is why was I so determined to get "inside" my bed sheets???  Also, that bit about being in the space with the pipe and the bombs spins me out.  Has anyone ever attempted to fly into a solid object at a molecular level, and if so what have you seen?  Is it possible?