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Ok, guys, so I was on the forum weeks ago when I was more actively trying to astral project. I've honestly been neglecting the practice most nights as my mind has been occupied with other things lately, but I've just had a very strange experience, and I wanted to share it and discuss it.

I was taking a nap (just woke up 15 minutes ago from the time of this post), and was drifting between being awake and being asleep again and again for minutes at a time, like I sometimes do on lazy late Saturday mornings. One of these times that I woke, I kept my eyes closed and stayed in thought, very near sleep. I thought to myself, "cool! right now I'm on the edge of the sleep state, i could make myself go back into sleep in just one moment if i choose". But I chose to do something else. There's this state that I sometimes get into, which I'm starting to think is sleep paralysis now that I examine its properties, where I stay conscious while I let all conscious awareness or my body and life slip away, and I get stuck into what I've been calling a "void". In this void, I very often experience sheer terror, because most times I'm not even trying to get there, and while there I seem to intuitively know that I'm in some way "vulnerable" or something. Perhaps this is because I no longer have control over my body at this point. Anyway, this time I willed it to happen, so I was calmer than usual. I had a sense of my body, almost like a vague 3rd person view of it, but not really visual more like a 3rd person detached sort of awareness of it. Suddenly the notion that I could astral project from this state popped into my head and I was like "ok! great idea!" So, I began to think about astral projecting at this time, and I could start to feel something happening. As soon as I started to "separate", I heard a voice. The voice...was that of my father. It was simply saying over and over and over, "Out, Tayler! Out, Tayler! Out, Tayler!" My name is Tayler, by the way. It was saying this again and again back to back at a consistent, rapid rate. It wasn't yelling loudly, but it was firm and clear, right in my ear. I was still fully conscious, so I thought my Dad had entered and was yelling for me to get out of bed or something of the like. It was either because I was afraid that the voice was some "astral entity" that I was too scared to deal with, or because I wanted to see if someone was yelling at me in the room for real, but I backed out and decided I wanted to 'wake up' or take control of my body over again. This process is always weird, I have to force it really intently sometimes to get back to waking consciousness and move. This was no exception. I would get close to having control then slip back then push a little further, then go back, then finally I managed to move my arm and BOOM. I was back. I had my body. So I uttered to my sister in the twin bed beside me, "wah...was that you bri?". She had no idea what I was talking about, saying there was no voice, and it must have been a dream, and she seemed a little disturbed. Then she asked me what I was giggling about. I had no idea what she meant. She said the for 15 seconds before I woke and asked her about the voice, I had been giggling in my bed. Not faintly, but loud and clear, I was giggling! The entire duration of my not having control over my own body, where I was sure I was solid as a rock, an empty vessel laying there like a ragdoll, I was giggling! What happened? What was the voice, why was I giggling, what just happened to me? I really don't know. I will try to induce the state again, soon, though.

I ask this question because of an experience I had almost a year ago, but which I've never really given enough thought to. Here's what happened.

I have this friend who claims to have spiritual abilities, which I was VERY skeptical of at this time. I was sitting up in bed with the lights on, talking to her at around 2am on the phone quietly in my Grandmother's guest bed. She told me she was going to sort of project her perception to the room I was in (remote view?), and was going to astral kiss me or something like that. I lol'd a bit and said ok. Then suddenly she was complaining that she got pushed into the wall sort of violently, and I asked "your wall?", and she said, "no, yours." I asked what she meant and she said that there was some sort of strong, malevolent entity in the room right over me, and it must have shoved her out of the way. At the time she called this being "the old satan" (as opposed to the new? I don't know what she meant), and she said something about it affecting my energy so as to change my future in some way. She sounded awfully fearful, but I was still an avid non-believer, buddy-buddy with Carl Sagan and whatnot, and I just said "huh. Is he still here?" After a few seconds she said, "No...I think he left." Then we talked for maybe a minute more before deciding it was bedtime, and I hit "end call" and dropped my phone arm to the bed, still sitting up with the lights on and my eyes open, when suddenly I couldn't move. I was completely paralyzed from head to toe, just like sleep paralysis, but my eyes were wide open! I could feel something gripping my forearm, like a hand, and I suspected this was related to what was happening. At this time I experienced what I call a duality of consciousness. There were two minds inside my head, and I was very much aware of both of them. There was my mind, and then there was another. The other did not feel as evil as one would expect satan to feel, but it definitely wasn't too friendly. I knew it had no lethal intentions for me because I was inside its mind, to an extent. It sort of had a, "yeah I'll break the rules and step on a lot of toes doing it, I don't give a crap" kind of attitude. I fought this condition for a full 15 seconds before I broke out of this state just like I break out of sleep paralysis. I was extremely startled, because I've never spontaneously fallen into sleep paralysis, and this hasn't happened since. I've only had SP about fifteen times in my life, anyway. Has anybody ever heard of an astral entity spontaneously paralyzing someone and sort of entering their mind like this? Nothing like this has happened since. I certainly don't believe this was satan because even now that I have an open mind I don't believe in satan, and certainly don't think he would give two craps about me anyway. It really didn't feel evil, just not that friendly.

Since that time, I've become skilled at lucid dreaming, and have had my own somewhat mystical experiences and have changed my belief system drastically.

Another thing that happened is a month ago I had a lucid dream where I could fly. I usually would be wobbly and found flying hard to control or maintain but this time I seemed to have the greatest amount of control I've ever had. Since I felt, this time, like I was competent enough to explore the LD state further, I decided I would finally meet my spirit guide. So I flew to where I somehow "knew I needed to go" for this, which ended up being this "tree of knowledge" with a female caretaker or "oracle" of sorts beneath it. The tree seemed to me to be significant, not simply a creation of my imagination. At first it looked as though there was a book hanging from every branch and twig, and I understood that this tree contained knowledge of many, many things. I approached the lady under the tree and I asked her where my spirit guide was because I wanted to meet him/her. Her response was very clear in my mind right after I heard it but unfortunately I took maybe two or three minutes too long after waking to write it down, and so it's not clear ver batum. But what she said was nearly this: "Your spirit guide tried to enter your house, so he is banned. You cannot see him." At the time I immediately knew "house" to mean my body; strange way to word it. At first I was wondering, "what could it mean that my guide tried to get inside my house (body)?" This dream was very bizarre, and if it helps, it didn't feel like the most physical "real-world" realm. Things were a little more conceptual and impression-based than some of the pure sensory, sequential, stable LD's I've had of real places. But anyway, I wonder if perhaps the sleep paralysis/entity contact thing a year ago could have been my spirit guide trying to enter my body. I've been reading lately of an anthropologist from the sixties who studied cultures in which some people had friendly spirits/entities that would occasionally possess them as a means to communicate with them, so who knows.

What do you think?

Hello all! I've been attempting to astral project just about every night for three weeks now, in what I like to call my "astral meditations". During this time, I've experienced all kinds of strange sensory happenings, and cool things. I was wondering what kind of experiences others have had that are like mine, and if anyone who has success in separation could tell me if I'm close to success myself. I started these meditations simply working on deep levels of physical relaxation. I would get to points where I hadn't flexed a muscle for so long that I could no longer feel the orientation of my extremities, making it rather easy to mentally disassociate from sensations of touch, allowing excellent meditation. After a few more nights of this I got to a point where I would get this strange sensation that felt like my whole body was being oscillated back and forth along the axis of my body (head to toe axis) at a rate of perhaps 2 or 3 cycles per second. This felt very cool. It didn't actually feel like I was physically being pushed back and forth, it was more of a bodily sensation. This would generally come on quickly in a few seconds and then slowly fade over the course of five or six seconds, despite my efforts to make it continue. By the sixth or seventh night, this sensation stopped occurring entirely, and was replaced instead by a new experience, one which I've been consistently having since then to this day, and I can't seem to get that first experience again, consequently. The new experience I'm having generally begins once I achieve full bodily relaxation. What I do is maintain a strong conscious focus on my body as a whole, without making any attempt to move or flex. It's just directing my awareness fully on my body. At this point I generally begin to feel a greater sense of physical numbness, and then the new sensation begins. It basically feels as though a second set of arms and legs phase out of my physical ones, and begin to move of their own accord very slowly, while staying relatively near the corresponding physical extremity. It is a bizarre tinglyish sensation that allows me to feel this second body, and I've found that with an immense amount of conscious intention for it to move in a certain way, it generally will do so, very slowly. Beyond these sensations, I've tried everything I can to make myself separate. Visualization methods, intention methods, etc. No dice, yet. What are the two different sensations I've had, and what am I currently experiencing? Am I close?

Hi everybody, I'm new to the forum, but hopefully will be around for a while. So, I'm trying most days to astral project. Mostly, I'm working on getting into deep states a relaxation and meditation, but have so far been unsuccessful with leaving my body. What concerns me is that I cannot sleep on my back. I have never been able to fall asleep on my back in my entire life, it's almost like a mental block where I have to be on my belly to really let go of my active state of waking consciousness. That said, every single time I have ever accidentally rolled over onto my back during sleep, if I wake up in this position I will always wake into a state of sleep paralysis. I hardly ever roll over like this so this is a relatively infrequent occurrence. I was just wondering if anyone has had any luck projecting from laying on their stomach. Is this even possible, or am I just out of luck? I'm not going to give up trying to project on my back, but if there's any hope that I can project from other positions (on my side is also fine for me), then I would much prefer this. Does anyone know if I can do this?