Messages

Granted, I don't play a hellova lot on xbox live, but recently I have started to get into it a bit.
I was curious if anyone else here plays. List your gamertag if you do.

Mine is Nostic111

You were in the Astral moving around in your energy body.
Your physical body was lying in the bed all the time, knocked unconscious.
Not far removed from a lucid dream.

A couple of days ago, I had a dream about an ominous black and red sky. Last night I had a very violent dream about a post-apocalyptic world. 2 nights before I had another unusually violent dream. I'm thinking, why are my dreams so dark and violent all of a sudden?

If you're genuinely scared, don't go. Simple. Better safe than sorry.

I guess you could say I just recently had a NDE-like experience. It took place in a meditative state though, so my life was not at risk. In the experience I felt the presence of more than 1 being of light. Perhaps 3-5. They were exalted, holy beings and they were welcoming me. They actually felt more like my older siblings than anything. That's just the impression that I got. They felt like family.

I shave my head all the time. Doesn't seem to have an effect I'm afraid to say. But at least you're using your imagination. Which I believe is VERY important in this process. Try different things and see what happens. What can it hurt?

All of this has stemmed from OBEs and is a gift. I am also a very hard worker and do a lot of research, study, experience OBEs weekly. Not to mention, steadily for the last twenty years of projecting and working towards controlled vs. random experiences. You have to show up everyday and train for the Olympics if you want success in this.

Tvos

Can you expand on this tvos? Are your projections still frequently random? How difficult do you find them to control? Are there any specific ways you are trying to solve this problem? Other that just working harder?

SL looks like a very interesting idea, but it seems like a very roundabout way to achieve an OBE.
I mean, if you get really entrenched in it, I could imagine an increase in lucid dreaming... but OBE? Maybe short-term

I think many of you guys are selling drugs short. I used to think in the same way to an extent. I had no interest in trying any drug. But frustration with my practice became too much and I have taken the plunge recently. I should note that I've never in my life done any hard drugs. Most of my experience has been with Salvia tincture. I've also smoked Salvia and a few other legal herbal blends. In all honesty, when on these drugs, I've never experienced anything other than a amplified version of what I feel everyday when I'm doing my energy work or breathing exercises. I have really no desire to "trip", get high, or get spaced-out. But I feel I've genuinely been helped by these substances. They help to relax my body, which leads me to achieve a deeper breath and to raise my energy to higher levels. These effect do tend to wear off as the drug wears off. But at the same time, they can be recreated if you continue to practice without the use of the drugs.

It should be remembered that shamanistic use of drugs has an ancient history. It really depends on what your intention is and how you approach the situation. As long as you're using the [legal] drug of your choice as a supplement to your practice, and are responsible in your approach, I think it's really ok.

I've been practicing for 4 years now btw. So it's like I'm some newbie that's gotten frustrated and turned to drugs after a coupe of weeks.

Astral Dynamics changed my life. It was a revelation for me when I discovered NEW. But truth be told, I've never read the whole book- it's just too big. But I got what I needed from it, and I guess that's all that matters.

I do it because I don't like being a slave to my body, its desires and compulsions. Call me a control freak

I may fear pain and suffering, but not death. If I'm in a scary situation that I think I may die from, it's not the thought of death that's going to scare me. It's the thought of living and having to endure some type of trauma.

[It's not like it "opens", and then you have visions from there on out.]

1st off I'll say that I think the term "opening your 3rd eye" is misleading. It makes it sound like once you "open your 3rd eye" you can always see out if it, and I find it's not like that at all. It's more like a muscle that you have to slowly work on. It doesn't grow in strength over night. It happens over a period of time, like working out. You may catch a slight glimpse of something one day, and then nothing happens again for several months. It's not like it "opens", and then you have visions from there on out.

I think a good exercise for the brow chakra is simply practicing visualization. Pick an object or something simple, picture it as clearly as you can in your mind and hold it without any other thoughts or distractions. Do it for 5-10 minutes every day.

But isn't that the ultimate goal though? I believe it can be done. But yeah, definitely no easy task, and I'm sure only the rarest of individuals has done it.

After I graduate from college in December 2007, I plan on entering a Buddhist monastery to accelerate the process of becoming enlightened. I get the feeling that time is running out and the process of realizing my true nature is of utmost importance (if I can realize my true nature fast enough then I can assist others who are in the same position as I am now). Does anyone know of a Buddhist monastery that is oriented more toward the Western mind or is accessible by someone who is new to Buddhism? Is Buddhism the most efficient path to enlightenment? What is the fastest path? Does anyone know an enlightened teacher I can personally study under (in a monastery or not)? I am ready to give up everything to spiritually grow closer to The Creator and have taken some steps in this direction. Any and all input is greatly appreciated for I feel a sense of desperation yet know there is a plan in place for me and I just have to be humble, patient, and compassionate. Please feel free to contact me personally by email.

Thanks

I can understand where you are coming from. I also feel an urgency and a sense of desperation. The path is long and very difficult though. For 3 1/2 years now I've been practicing various techniques in order to transcend the body. And although my progress has been constant, it is just painfully slow. But I just feel like my mind has out-grown my body, and I feel a need to go beyond. It constantly amazes me though the monumental effort you need to give and extreme persistence you need to have.

Anyway, years ago, I thought about the same thing- joining a Buddhist monastery. I ultimately decided that it wouldn't be for me, because I just had the sense that the very things I'd be trying to get away from would present themselves to me in a greater degree than ever before. I really can't assume that all (or even most) of the people there would have the same single-minded goal as I have. Maybe the people there are more interested is studying and reciting scripture than actually trying to attain enlightenment in an actual way. Maybe they'd be just as intolerant to other forms of thought as the most rigid fundamentalist. You can never really tell where people are coming from, even if, from the surface, it may appear as though they have the same goals as you. And also, in a monastic setting, I can't imagine that you'd have very much freedom or privacy. The point is, in that type of setting, you may end-up having more distractions than would have ever imagined.

I just recommend reading as much as you can from many different sources, because I think it's important not to become too one-sided in your beliefs. Deep, quiet contemplation is also very beneficial. And some form of practice done consistently and persistently is of course essential. But, you never know, maybe a Buddhist monastery would, in fact, be the most appropriate thing for you. Maybe you'd find an excellent one that fits you perfectly.

he probably felt he had enough of the experiences this world had to offer and decided that's how he wanted to go. i don't get that part of hinduism though. i think most all world religions are in sync in some ways, as to what i believe, but none are completely true to what i believe. like here, the goal is to escape a never-ending life cycle of rebirth? well first i thought energy is neither created nor destroyed. (yes i know that's science but it may apply to life too.) maybe he is just truly more highly evolved as a soul than i am, but as the "I" that I am now, I would never want to not live, in the physical or afterlife. I just don't see who the goal is to escape and destroy life, like its a bad thing.

It's a matter of freedom. That's what the genuine yogi wants. Being in the physical isn't bad per se. The problem is being FORCED to be here, and only here. There is no choice. The yogi wants the choice to come and go as he pleases. He doesn't want to be forced or compelled to come back into life because of some obligation that he doesn't even consciously remember. So he dedicates his life to the pursuit of freedom.

I think poor Frank stressed himself out too much. Maybe he tried too hard to convince certain people of certain things.

I found this website today and it has some of the best info I've ever
read about altered states.

The site is http://www.biocybernaut.com/index.htm

And the article that really sparked my interest was the following:

Tale of Self Discovery Part 1
How Alpha Feedback Works
Part 1
[Published in Megabrain Reports, May, 1994, edited for the web]
James V. Hardt, Ph.D.
The Biocybernaut Institute

The following story is to give the reader a personal experience of how
Alpha feedback works. The physiological processes of Alpha brain waves
are strongly coupled to our experience of conscious awareness. Alpha
waves reflect even very subtle shifts in awareness or consciousness.
This story will help to share with the reader some of the insights
into consciousness which flow from doing Alpha feedback. As you read
it, try to note the development of the perspective of the "Witness"
and to imagine how such a perspective could be useful to someone who
knew in advance what would be happening to him or to her.

In 1968 I had been a subject in Joe Kamiya's Alpha feedback lab on
three prior occasions when our story begins. The three prior sessions
(part of an ongoing study) had been on three days earlier in the week,
and each day had featured about 50 minutes of actual feedback time. A
laboratory technician had affixed the scalp, ear, and ground
electrodes, escorted me into the sound and light reduced chamber, and
monitored the equipment from an adjacent room. When instructions were
given or the end of the session was to be announced, the technician
spoke over an intercom.

But this fourth session was to be different. Having been intrigued in
the formal experimental sessions by the warbling tone said to reflect
his brain's activity, I returned to the laboratory to find that no
experiments were scheduled, so I requested that I be "hooked up for
feedback" and allowed to explore, on my own, with the feedback
signals. The lab technician was agreeable, affixed the electrodes,
escorted me into the experimental chamber, and then left, closing the
door. She then started the electronic equipment, and, unbeknownst to
me, went upstairs and became involved on another project, since I was
not generating data for any of the ongoing studies.

Several hours later, apparently forgetting the trainee in the
experimental chamber, she went out to lunch with the rest of the lab
crew. While she was at lunch, she suddenly realized, 3 1/2 hours
later, that she had not checked on her subject. Everyone left the
restaurant in a rush, and hurried back to the laboratory. Then the
technician and 8 to 12 others came bursting into the feedback chamber
in some alarm and interrupted the last stages of an incredible adventure.

Tale of Self Discovery Part 2
Dr. Hardt's Adventure in the Chamber
Part 2 - continued from part 1
[Published in Megabrain Reports, May, 1994, edited for the web]
James V. Hardt, Ph.D.
The Biocybernaut Institute

To help the reader participate more fully in this adventure, I shall
tell the story in the first person, starting at the beginning of the
session as soon as the feedback tone came on.

As I closed my eyes, I sat straight and perfectly still, and I
relaxed, for I had learned in my first three sessions that this was
helpful in making the feedback tone louder and steadier. If I could
sit quite still for one of the automatically timed 2 minute epochs, I
would be rewarded by seeing a large score when the three-digit
illuminated display lit up as the tone briefly shut off. The scores
were derived from the integration of the amplitude of my Alpha
activity and represented the total Alpha energy I had produced during
the previous 2 minutes. If I had to cough or move or if my attention
wandered from the task, the tone would decrease, and that epoch's
score would be smaller. I was most interested to know what made the
tone stay on and what turned it off, so I listened very closely to the
minute fluctuations and tried to relate them to something:, anything,
... how I breathed, how I sat, what I was thinking.

And there were little successes along the way. When I breathed more
slowly, the tone was a little louder and the score a little higher. If
I relaxed fully into the emptiness of the bottom of each expiration,
that would sometimes help too. If I opened my eyes, even though it was
totally dark, the tone and scores were sharply reduced. So I had some
control. I could probably have produced statistically significant
differences between "enhance " and "suppress " conditions if I had
been asked to, but I still didn't feel as though I really knew how to
enhance Alpha. Pleasant relaxation helped, but there were tantalizing
bursts of very loud sound that I would have liked to have sustained. I
would even have been happy to know how to produce such bursts at will,
- even if I couldn't sustain them. When such a burst would occur. I
would mentally leap at it to analyze it, evaluate it, and thus, I
thought, understand and be able to reproduce it. But alas, it was not
to be.

A year later I was to hear Ram Dass say, "the burning gem was in my
hand, but when I reached for it, - boy, it was gone. " But for now I
was in a rut and didn't understand how to get out of it. The tone
would come on strong, and I would focus my attention on it, and it
would retreat into relative silence. It was almost teasing me. I tried
all sorts of maneuvers. I tried "reaching " for it slowly; it
retreated slowly. I tried to remember what I'd been doing just before
the tone burst began, and I discovered, to my considerable amazement,
gaps in what I had always thought had been a continuous and unbroken
stream of my conscious awareness.

Now I had two challenges instead of one: (1) The first challenge was
that I could not grasp, analyze, or fully control a tone originating
from my own Alpha brain waves, and (2) the second challenge was that I
had discovered gaps GAPS! in my stream of
consciousness, lapses of awareness, which I could not explain or
account for. Moreover, I suddenly noticed, while intensely considering
the implications of this dual (frustrating and disturbing) dilemma,
that there was very little feedback sound in the chamber, and my
scores were quite low. I realized that while my mind had been racing,
my muscles had tightened up, and I was taking fast and shallow breath,
instead of the preferable slow, deep ones.

So I started at the beginning again: I relaxed, I watched my breathing
to make it slow, deep, and regular, and I again noted the tone getting
louder and louder. I tried to puzzle out my problem while remaining
relaxed and slow breathing. When I finally succeeded in separating my
thinking process from an uptight body, so that I could concentrate
without noticeably tensing or shifting my breathing rate and depth,
then I began to notice that thinking itself was what was blocking my
Alpha and reducing the tone. Now I realized that the lapses of
awareness which preceded those interesting, loud Alpha bursts may
actually have been instrumental in evoking or permitting the emergence
of the bursts. So then I tried not focusing on the event of a burst
when it occurred. That was hard.

I was sitting in a dark, soundproof room, and there was little to do
besides listen to the tone. The tone would start one of its bursts,
and I would try to ignore it, but I could only do so for a fraction of
a second before my attention would swing around and focus on the tone.
When it did, the tone would shrink like a balloon being squeezed by my
conscious attention. But that fraction of a second was a wedge for my
understanding. By slightly prolonging each burst, I noticed that my
scores were getting larger, so I persevered. I didn't know it then,
but I was practicing the Witness, distancing myself from the processes
of my consciousness, and there was no mistaking success for failure.
If I failed to keep my attention from focusing on the event of a tone
burst, that burst would be dramatically and immediately squelched.

That kind of almost instantaneous feedback accelerated a most
difficult self-awareness learning process which might have gone on for
years with less success if it had lacked the feedback. As the scores
got slowly larger and the tone remained loud for a longer fraction of
each 2 minute epoch, I began to notice a strange sensation of
lightness. Where my body had pressed against the chair and the floor,
the pressure began to give way to the sensation of just a gentle
touching. When I "noticed " this and focused on it and began to
reflect upon it, I was at once alerted by the tone, which got softer,
And I had another clue: reflective or analytical thinking got in the
way of Alpha enhancement.

That clue helped enormously, because I hadn't fully realized up to
then that by adopting an attitude of "not-noticing, " I was suspending
rational and analytic thinking. I realized that I had, in fact, been
aware of tone bursts even when I didn't focus my attention on them.
The real work was in being aware of, but not focusing on the tone
bursts with the egoic, analytic modes of consciousness. A certain part
of me, that ego center which was concerned with DOING things, with
success or failure, suddenly realized, and I watched myself floating
above the chair, which was in the middle of a little room, which was
filled with the loud Alpha feedback sound. Floating above the chair?
Floating!?? My relaxed detachment evaporated, and I awoke back into
rational and analytical consciousness almost as from a dream. Of
course, as I did so, the tone volume decreased sharply from its loud
intensity, so I knew I had been awake and not drowsy or asleep while
experiencing this "floating ". If I had been asleep or drowsy there
would not have been a loud tone (indicating lots of Alpha) to vanish
as I "awoke " to rational awareness.

"I was floating above the chair, " I marveled to myself. I realized at
once that my mental focusing on what had been happening had terminated
the happening, so as quickly as possible I readopted the detached
attitude and the tone again started to increase. Before long, I was
again looking down on my body from a position near the ceiling of the
room, although how I could see anything in the total darkness I cannot
explain. It wasn't a normal kind of seeing.

I was almost afraid to deal with the fascinating situation because I
had learned that conceptualizing the situation I was in would catch me
and pull me down, and reduce the tone and my scores. So I merely
floated and observed, and tried to fend off the constant temptation to
evaluate, speculate, analyze, reason, congratulate. This last one was
especially troublesome. After a particularly sizable series of
increases in the scores, which left me feeling indescribably high,
light, mellow, clear and pure, I slipped on a fleeting prideful
thought. I permitted a conceptual thought to flash through my mind,
"Gee I'm doing pretty good. " And crash! I was tumbling back into my
normal consciousness. The conceptualization caught me and pulled me
down. While I was struggling to regain the disinterested composure of
the high Alpha state and its loud tone, I noticed the gradual
intrusion of the demand of my body for air. I wasn't breathing. I was
living sufficiently detached from my physical body, that there was not
enough consciousness left to run my respiration processes.

I then remembered seeing, as a child, a man on the Ed Sullivan TV show
who had breathed pure oxygen for several hours before the show, and
then was able to remain submerged under water in a glass tank without
having to breath for almost the entire show, which might have been 45
minutes or more. I longed for such a breathing aid so that I might
dwell more permanently in this high Alpha state and not have to be
concerned with breathing. I did the next best thing. I alternated
between periods of slow deep breathing and periods non-breathing with
enhanced Alpha. For a while, I would steal part of my attention away
from the detached state and use it to regularize my breathing.

As a child I had done extensive long distance under water swimming, so
I knew how to hold my breath. I would restore to my body an ample
supply of oxygen by consciously pumping my lungs slowly and deeply.
Then I would withdraw my attention from my breathing and enter into
the detached state in which I could just float and feel ecstatically
high. I had an image of this process of alternating between breathing
and enhancing Alpha: I saw the world through the eyes of a white bird,
and my pumping of lungs was like the bird's flapping its wings.
Flapping and pumping carried both of us to a great height. Then I
could cease to consciously breathe and the bird would stiffen its
wings and soar outward while wheeling and turning ecstatically and
gradually drifting downward in effortless circles while my body
gradually drifted downward to poorer blood oxygen levels and,
eventually, the necessity to begin to consciously breathe again.

During that drifting downward of the body processes, that which was
really me (for I had ceased actually to identify with my rational ego
self) would be off soaring in feedback enhanced Alpha. I could see
that the essence which was really me, was different from my body, and
was even different from my thoughts, for I had actually ceased to
identify with my rational ego self and with the thoughts in my mind. I
was off soaring in the bliss of feedback enhanced Alpha.

I was able to exist outside of time, which flowed past almost
unrippled by my presence. The only time-like phenomenon was the
alternation between willed breathing periods (which I entered only
reluctantly) and the detached states of pure being I entered so
joyously and eagerly each time as soon as I was oxygenated enough to
cease from breathing. Even the briefest and subtlest conceptual
thought which intruded into my mind during those periods resulted in a
faltering of the feedback tone. With this infallible indicator of
egoic thoughts, I was more and more able to non-think. But non
thinking did not mean non-awareness, contrary to everything my
education and experience had lead me to believe. I discovered thoughts
to be multi-layered constructions. - artifices of a certain egoic
relationship to the world, ...to myself.

A sheep is still a sheep after the wool is shorn. In many ways its
perception may even be enhanced by the removal of the insulating wool.
The warming sun and cooling breezes are probably felt more readily
after shearing. With thinking gone, the wool was removed from over my
eyes, and the new awareness seemed vast. Gradually, I even became able
to be aware that a person was in a feedback situation, and that a lot
of Alpha activity was happening. In an inner secret sort of way, I
even realized that if I were to think about it (which I now knew
better than to do) that person would be revealed as me. This was an
aspect of the multi-layering of thought I had seen earlier. Thoughts
could exist at different levels of egoicity and at different degrees
of attentional focusing. I am now aware that a whole science of
thought could develop around research into such experiential
explorations, but at the time, I knew only that an ego aspect was
lacking in the type of awareness which could exist in harmony with the
Alpha activity.

As this process of quieting the egoic rational processes began to
merge into a condition of ego dissolution, my ego, unprepared to
dissolve, countered with FEAR. Fear of falling is the only fear I can
clearly remember, but there were other vague and nonspecific fears
too,- - all of which reduced my Alpha activity or stopped its increase.

Slowly I learned to deal with these fears the way I dealt with other
thoughts: I fled my thoughts and filled my awareness with the feedback
tone, now an almost constantly increasing presence. The scores, also
constantly increasing, were like mileposts of my ascent. The chair and
the room were left below as I rose ever higher in what appeared to be
the front seat of a roller coaster car. I became aware of an
approaching summit, and inwardly delighted at the expected rush from
swooping down the tracks of the descent. The rate of increase of my
scores slowed and the summit was attained. The scores stood above 550,
- over ten times the minimum I'd seen at about 50 earlier in the day.

I felt poised for a plunge of prolonged ecstasy. My gaze followed the
tracks downward eager to see the succession of dips and hills I
imagined would follow the initial plunge. But I was startled to see
that the tracks, instead of veering upward again near the ground, bore
relentlessly downward, entered, and were swallowed by the blackest
hole I had ever seen. The blackness lapped like a liquid at the tracks
and at the edges of its pool.

As I started downward toward this engulfing, enveloping blackness, I,
my ego, understood through a flash of intuition that if it entered
this place that ego dissolution would occur and it would no long Be In
Control. So my ego told me the Big Lie and filled my mind with the
warning thought that if I entered this place, that I would never
emerge, and I would cease to be. Since I was a Physics major with a
Protestant fundamentalist religious background, I was totally ignorant
of mystical experiences, ego dissolution, transcendence, etc.,...and I
foolishly believed my ego's self-serving warning, ...and I panicked. A
soundless scream of fear and unwillingness filled my mind, ...and of
course my Alpha instantly disappeared, so the feedback tone
disappeared; then the whole scene disappeared, and I tumbled back into
he-who-was-sitting-in-a-chair in Joe Kamiya's feedback laboratory.

At once I felt sheepish embarrassment for over-reacting; then a vague
sense of loss and regret at having missed some kind of opportunity
began to grow. I tried to resume the attitude of Alpha enhancement,
but the doorway I was now seeking remained closed and unapproachable.
[The good news about Alpha training is that you can only get as much
experience as you can handle and integrate. The bad news is that you
can only get as much experience as you can handle and integrate.]

There were other experiences after that, also of considerable
interest, but the physical fatigue and the fear of the abyss conspired
to keep my Alpha levels well below those at which the most profound
experiences had occurred. The fatigue, which I had also felt in the
three earlier sessions about 5 minutes before the technician ended
those sessions caused me to estimate I had been there for about 45
minutes.

I was therefore not at all surprised when the door began to open; but
I was surprised when the technician burst into the room in a sudden
flood of light and a state of some alarm. In the background were about
a dozen people, most of the lab crew, who had all been at lunch
together when my technician remembered, [ "Oh my God! "] that she had
forgotten me in the feedback chamber, and they all rushed back
together in the VW camper bus to "rescue " me.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in telling and retelling the story
of my adventure. For two days afterwards, I walked around feeling
light and buoyant and not at all sure I was touching the ground, which
remained about 2 feet below the soles of my shoes. Four months later,
still moved by the realness of what had happened, and having heard
that similar things can happen in meditation, I started Raja Yoga
lessons to prepare for another encounter with the unmanifest, which my
ignorance and unreadiness had led me to fear and to avoid.

The following is from The Cloud of Unknowing, by an anonymous 14th
century English mystic

"... persevere in the work ... For, when you begin it, you will
find that there is at the start but a darkness; there is ... a cloud
of unknowing. No matter what you do, this darkness and this cloud is
between you and your God and because of it you can neither see Him
clearly with your reason ... nor can you feel him with you ... love.
Be prepared, therefore, to remain in this darkness as long as must be.
... For if you are ever to feel Him or see Him, it will necessarily be
within this cloud and within this darkness. ... you are to try to
pierce that darkness. ... You are to strike that thick cloud of
unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love: and you are not to
retreat no matter what comes to pass."

For the rest...
http://www.biocybernaut.com/about/discovery/part1.htm#nav1top

Awakened Mind,

Does the software tell you your HR/BP in real-time (as it's happening), or do you have to complete the game first in order to see your results?

Wow, wonderful stuff BadCookie. Thanks for posting!

My thoughts?
Lets just wait and see what happens.
Be prepared for the worst.
Hope and pray for the best, whatever your version of "the best" may be.

Actually, for August alone, I've heard 5 separate dates when calamities were supposed to happen- the 1st, 3rd, 9th, 19th, and 22nd. It was so ridiculous that by the time the 22nd came around, I completely forgot about it. On the 23rd I thought to myself, um wasn't the world supposed to end yesterday? 

At the same time though, I never take anything for granted. A million of these dates could be wrong. But only 1 of them needs to be right.

And BTW, I hear prophecies about peace all the time. How it usually goes though is that there will be some monumental calamity that humanity will have to face. And after we go through that, we will experience worldwide, lasting peace. The 2 (calamity and peace) are always connected.

Wow... really interesting. Thanks 4 sharing.

i saw this film a few weeks back. It really made me think. I enjoyed it greatly.

The 3rd eye can be used for projection. So I suspect that any chakra can be used.
I have experienced projecting through my 3rd eye. You mentioned Gandalf that your heart feels like it's going to explode when exiting through the heart chakra. I've never experienced that, but similarly, when you project through the 3rd eye, it can be a bit uncomfortable- like something in your head might just burst; somewhat painful, but not intolerable- at least not in my experience.
Maybe it's because I'm a such a mental person that I've been able to project through my 3rd eye. I'm always in my head, thinking, contemplating. Perhaps you are more of a "heart person". I dunno.

It seems to me that with all the conveniences of today it would be easier to find enlightenment. If only people would turn off the tv more often. 

... and read more books.