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I may be wrong, but those that say that never lost were lying, they wouldn't have developed any skills without losing or having difficulties.

You obviously have the belief you can lose, or at least be overpowered. It's understandable that such a position could be making you susceptible to failure?

I come from a viewpoint that beyond the physical there is no boundaries beyond our own inability to believe. Even as far to see that the form we create is an illusion and cannot be hurt/overpowered. So for others it may be a different reality, but for me they create their own rules.

Mantras are an effective way of positive thinking. Pretty much everything in the 'astral' is based around the idea of, "If I think I can do it, then I can." So if you tell yourself positive words of encouragement then you're much more likely to achieve your goal. It also gives you something to do rather than sit there and wait.

For my practices I listen to Monroe's audio files. There's nothing special about what he says, they just keep my mind on what I'm doing, and keep me from drifting off. I don't need them, but I like Monroe's voice, it's very calming to me.

Point being, mantras aren't like magical spells which will activate your soul or anything. They're not specially formatted for activating the chakras or whatever. A mantra is simply words of encouragement. However it's obviously nice to think they do something special, and putting our faith in other people. Thus why they're so popular.

Make up your own mantras instead of looking for other people's. It can be anything, like repeating the word "Relax" or going in to great detail about how you are not limited by your physical body yadda yadda. As long as you're positively thinking, and you KNOW you can do it, then you'll be successful, no matter what you say.

Excuse me for being bland, but why would you want to fight in the first place?

I've had conversations with people who describe fights with insanely horrid demons, and other astral travellers and Satan itself. When I ask them if they ever lost, they said no. I ask them if at any point they were even in a position where they felt like they couldn't continue, they said no. They didn't want to lose, so they didn't.

I personally believe that the 'astral' forms and even the ability to see/hear/touch is all percieved reality, no different than a dream. These forms you take and the swords you hold aren't real, so you wouldn't be able to be hurt, or even inflict pain. However if it entertains you, then you can literally do anything, weild anything, fight anything, and only lose if you wish to lose.

In that case my advice is enjoy yourself, make it entertaining. You have no limits.

Gavin,

Your viewpoint on the 'astral' and its workings are like a breath of fresh air for me. There is so much on these forums that make our practice look like a farce. Keep up the logical thinking, you'll get far. Everything you experience can be explained as a manifestation of your own mind and energy, just like creatures in a bad dream are just you. Best of luck to you.

Here's a good tip: It has no comparrison to swimming. Or riding a bike, or blowing a bubble with gum, or even learning to whistle.

The issue lies within your mental conceiving. It's more like being in school. Some people ace tests without ever showing up to class, and others struggle hard for a C+. I don't know if you ever got this, but I had teachers say things like, "Remember what you were taught? Well forget it, they lied." It's a constant struggle of redefining, and coming to conclusions, then changing your conclusions, and changing them once again.

The hardest way is to take a 'technique' and practice it over and over again. You calm your body, visualize the rope, and pull. Night after night, you see the rope and pull. It isn't until after a long time of failure and frustration that you finally ask yourself, "Ok, what am I doing wrong? Nothing, I'm doing everything exactly as I'm instructed" and you get discouraged and wander off. Then one night, you get this feeling like somethings there, like you can reach out and touch it with your mind. You concentrate on that tingle, that feeling that excites you, and you go with it. You realize it has nothing to do with the rope, or how hard you pull.

Anyways, I'll leave you with that. To summarize, if you want to pull a rope then you can quite successfully pull a rope. If you wanted to explore the outer reaches of your mind, well then that's a different story. How long will it take you to understand the inner workings of your mind better?

It usually takes me about 10-20 mins to settle down, adjusting, squirming, scratching my nose or butt

I would just like to excentuate this detail. Basically, if it itches, scratch it. It's not about keeping perfectly still lest you upset the temporal vortex (gibberish) as opposed to you don't move because you're too distracted with what's going on in your head.

Sure! You are going to die early. In fact, you're going to die tomorrow. Something painless will happen, like a car will hit you, or you'll be decapitated suddenly from a falling sheet of glass off a tall building. So, now that you know you're going to die, what are you going to do about it?

Despite a long, or short life, you will die eventually. It's not worth even thinking about. The reality being that if you died tomorrow and you didn't die in grace about it, then you've possibly got an issue in your hands. Because really, if you died suddenly and you didn't feel like you were happy with life, then you're kinda screwed.

Personally I don't think that anything truly dictates when/how we are supposed to die because it's no more important than what you had for breakfast this morning. In fact, what you had for breakfast is much more important than when you will die. Remember to eat healthy, drink lots of water, and get your exercise.

Leave the dying up to time. Just use it as a reminder to enjoy what you have in the meantime.

I guess I'm looking for more motivation to decide whether conciously leaving my body is a path that will bring me closer to the Divine.

Depends what kind of Divine you're talking about. If you want to visit a big shining light that eminates purity and everything good, and that which you can look up at and go, "Hey God, how's it hanging?" Then you can do that pretty much any time you wish. Your imagination will probably come up with some representation suitable to your interests.

Otherwise if you ask me, there is no path better to become a more prosperous person than that of our waking, living world. It's in the 'astral' that we discover how precious and amazing life really is. It is not where we make the great advancement.

You know, I think there is only one word I can use in this case:

Finally!

Thankyou very much, you've given me a sense of hope for other people

It seems that everyone has the eye problem. Actually as far as I've found, your eyes moving around or blinking isn't so much a problem. Stop concentrating on being completely still and relaxed, just let relaxation become you. Do you concentrate on being completely still and relaxed when you go to sleep? Rather you just lay back and know that sleep will become you. Everything relaxes by itself, and sometimes you move to accomidate comfort.

Unlike chemistry, meditation or trance does not have to be precise. In fact, I sometimes will meditate in awkward, strange positions. Especially when I do so on my couch. It's a love seat, hardly big enough for me to lay down on at all. Although one leg dangles over an arm rest, and my head is shoved in to the corner, I still relax and fall in to meditation

The holosync and hemisync have very little command over you at all. Don't consider them to be a doorway, as so much an assistant.

If you don't feel confident in the sounds they will do nothing for you. In fact, if you were to hook an ignorant yet blissful man up to those things it would do nothing for him except amuse his ears. Use the sounds to get you in to the mood, they're not good for much more than that. I use them, but mainly to block out noise outside of cars and the such. Also the pulsating gets my mind in to a rhythm, which does help me get in to the mood.

To be blunt nothing in this world will make you do anything, but anything can assist you if you want it. Listening to your breathing, heartbeat, heavy metal, agonising screams of pain could assist you in to trance. It all depends what you want to work for you. There isn't any mp3 that if you listened to it will automatically put you in to any state. If it were that easy it wouldn't be as fun. It has to start with you, and however you go about it is your business.

For me, I don't do anything to do with the energy body.  Or chakras for that matter.  I sit on the fence regarding these matters.  

I meditate occasionally and gets lots of sleep.  Oh, and live, eat and breathe astral projection.  And think about my dreams a lot.  

And I'm particularly good at relaxing, even though I say so myself.  :peace:

And I'm modest about it all.

That's it really.  

Sarah

Well said, Sarah.

As for energy bodies and the like, I personally consider what you believe to be as true as you want it to be. For those who want chakras to exist, things will move to accept that reality for them. For the rest of us, we don't have to give it a second thought.

In other words, if you believe in something strongly enough, it's true. Although because an intoxicated man can see a bunny doesn't mean there is actually a bunny.

Im not sure i agree with this, on many occasions ive had dreams, lucid and normal, where ive remembered what seemed like an entire hour of adventures. Many of the dreams are as much bizarre and extraordinary as they are everyday scenarios so i cant see how a pathway could already exist for that.

Ok, so I'm no scientist. Specifically what I ment was not exactly crazy weird things equivilant to a bad trip. I mean beyond the concepts that a room has depth width and height. When we experience things that neither exist with substance or dimension. Where there's no colour, no sound, no events. In other words, the 'astral'. Sure, you can remember a freakin' weird dream, but when we travel in to thought beyond what we as humans understand, then you probably won't fully remember it.

To best question your theory you must ask yourself: What is memory?

To the brain, memory is (inconclusively) when certain nerves of the brain are stimulated and in turn stimulate other nerves which sets off a chain reaction of forming and connecting different nerve pathways.

In other words, when you see a dog your brain will percieve 'dog', then that sets off a reaction of recollecting many different dogs you had seen recently, any interactions you may have had with them, any strong long-term memories, certain emotions will be triggered, and finally a new memory of the encounter with that dog will be logged.

Forgetting something is when the nerves and pathways connecting them are so unused they deteriorate and are re-assembled elsewhere for different memories.

Now how can we apply this knowledge to your theory?
Unfortunately I cannot fathom any possibilities, so I suggest a different idea.

Let's say every night while falling asleep, you actually forget reality. Being that much of the brain goes in to a relaxed state, the ability to strongly recollect memories from the brain is inhibited to whatever random sparks happen between nerve endings. In a sense, your 'astral' self has little ability to recall what physical is.

So while you're off and about dreaming, the real world is limited to whatever the brain can spark up in its condition. Creating strong nerve pathways isn't exactly an ability while you are sleeping. By the time you wake up, all that remains for your physical self is what has connected or reinforced the already stronger nerves in your brain.

To actually remember the psychadelic no time/no space/no limit experiences the brain must be alert and ready to observe. This does not happen while you are asleep.

So in short, when you sleep you are not inhibited by reality because you cannot remember it. When you awake you cannot remember very well because it was beyond the realms of physical comprehension and therefore while sleeping your brain was not able to rely on already strong nural links to remember it by.

Any questions?

Sounds completely natural to me. I find myself lost in thought and before I know it I'm grinning ear to ear with no idea I had changed expressions. I always think of funny things, so I always wonder what someone would think watching me. One moment I'm stone faced and suddenly smiling for no apparent reason.

If you are an astral projector, you know that the body you use is made of energy, and you also know that you can zoom across the universe with just a thought in less than a second.

If you were to look at a rock by your feet, then to look at a tree on a far away mountain, have you travelled from the rock to the tree? Same applies here.

Sometimes the best questions come before you know anything. With the world of our mind, this is very true. When I started, I asked questions that I haven't fathomed how to phrase until today.

On a popular science show 'Nova', I once heard a scientist describing the technique used for examining the form of an atom similar to "Throwing a piano down the stairs and listening to all the noises to see what's inside." A lot of what we do to understand the world not seen with the eyes. It's terribly difficult to find out everything about it.

So I make a challange for your mind: Why does this thing some call the Astral exist?


When most people start, the impression we get of the inner conciousness is somewhat like the coolest game on the interweb. EVAR. You can do anything you want, be anyone you want, see anything you want, and not pay a penny in service charges. Why would we have such an endless world at our disposal? What purpose does it create past our own entertainment?

For those of you who believe in chakras and auras and planes and such limitations, why do you believe those limitations exist? Why can evil forces hurt you? Why do those things you know you can't do stay unavailable?


I know I'm asking a lot, but I'm running out of ideas and I need some brainstorming. Secondly, I don't think it quite right for us to absentmindedly accept it as it is, that takes all the fun out of it.

It's simply a feeling of disorientation. Consider the concequences if you can't hear, see, or feel. You'd probably fall over. That lack of balance is what you're experiencing. I feel it too, and all you do is get used to it. Don't be afraid, relax, and let it happen.

Although I can tell you, for the longest time your senses will ignite the moment you start feeling it. The sensation is different, so all your nerves will be alert. Just get used to it, make it boring, and don't think about it.

You wanna know the ironic part? Trying is what makes it difficult. You gotta remember, you're working in a mental state, not a physical one.

I have a hunch, because I used to do it, that you're trying to move from where you are to somewhere else. You're thinking in distance, time, space. Try thinking on a mental level. Do you have to press your eyeballs against a wall to see it? No, you can view it from a distance, all you need to do is turn your eyes to see it.

Absolutely not. The mind does not exist in three dimensions. The only thing to take note of is the fact you will realise you're not on the ground. That's about it. Otherwise you could be floating in a capsule around the earth and there'd be no difference.

Because this is the Astral Conciousness area of the forums, I'm going to be a lot more forward than usual.

Negs don't exist. They're a creation of your mind. The reason anyone believes in them is they are a personification of your own fear of the unknown. They 'feed' off negative emotion because it's your own imagination that creates their existance.

Realise they're just like a tree against the window, or a loose floorboard. Sometimes when you open your mind to allow a broader perspective, you get more than what you expect.

I have similar experiences as to what Ben descibes. It's interesting when you dream without pictures or action. Although I can't say I've been aware while doing this. That is something yet out of my grasp.

Stookie, you are so on the right track. Just keep going with it, ok? Be on top of all that like butter on a baked potato. Trust me, those understanding factors are key. Most people never come to realise it.

Matacombs:

If you ask me, elephants and chakra's are two different things. Elephants are something that scream and jump on a stool when they see a mouse. Chakra's are an idea that a lot of people like.

Look at it this way; The physical is bound by a lot of rules, a lot of regulations which cannot be broken. If you take the step beyond that, you get to a realm in which many people will agree have tendancies of breaking the rules we set for it.  We don't even have the luxury of being able to poke and prod these things and to know we're even in control of the thing we're poking and prodding with.

Frank will tell you himself that it's possible to create anything in your mind. Why not specific things that will cultivate results? The intent is the root of everything.

In a way, chakra's exist. They are as real as anything else all of us do. But like anything else we do, no-one can really agree on one structured base for everything. Maybe it's because it's all really in the eye of the beholder. If you like it, you can have it. It works exactly as you want it to. Pick and choose your accessories

I find I get the weirdest results when I'm tired. So in the evening before you sleep isn't the greatest time. Rather when you are most relaxed. After doing something that takes thought and effort isn't the best time. Shoot for a period when you're awake but not alert.