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I was hoping for a little help.

I have been trying to find some specific information on religions and cultures that believe in out of body experiences and maybe use them as common practice.

I have been told by a few people that there are areas in India where it is quite common practice, but no one can give me specifics.

I don't want anyone to go to any trouble to research this for me. But if anyone knows any specific information or can point me to some good resources, I would greatly appreciate it.

All I have been able to find out so far, is that perhaps practitioners of Kundalini Yoga teach the belief in the ability to leave your body, but have not been able to find much information on this.

Thanks in advance  .

Ok. This is absolutely blowing my mind.

I think that I met my animal spirit guide. It was during a dream...

Night of March 25, 2008

I think that the dream begins here, but I am not absolutely certain. I walk into a house and down a set of stairs. Immediately as I get to the bottom of the stairs is a massive black panther. I start to back away from the panther and it growls at me a little bit. I make my way back up the stairs to the landing by the door. At this point, I am glad that the panther has not yet started after me because I am sure that if it starts now it will not be able to catch me.

I go up another set of stairs and almost immediately across the hall into that bathroom. I shut the door to the bathroom, but just as I am about to close the door there is a push and I am scared that the panther will overpower me. It does not. I manage to close the door and engage the lock.

As soon as the lock engages, I become lucid. Everything changes. The wall between me and that panther dissappears, but it is now as if I am looking at him in a black and white television screen (a little bit staticy) and it is a frozen picture. I think to myself something like, "Now that I am lucid, I am going to stand up to this panther and see if I can kill it."

I put my hand out and try to shoot lightning into it's head, but it did not work. I tried again to really believe that it would work and something happens, but then I wake up.

Immediately, I am dissappointed that my first instinct was to attack the panther and not to AP or go to the Lucid Crossroads. I wish that I had spun in a circle because that had allowed me to stay in the dream longer the last time I was lucid.

I got up, went to the washroom and then went back to sleep.

Later the next morning, I was still stoked that I had become lucid again and decided to thank my spirit guide, in case they had helped me. That was, of course, when it hit me.

Oh sh*%. Did I attack my spirit guide?

When I went to bed the night before, I had asked for help from my spirit guide to help me become lucid. I had also recently been thinking about what type of animal my animal spirit guide would be. I absolutely swear that black panther never even remotely crossed my mind. First of all, I am a dog person. So I assumed that there might be a chance that it is a wolf (but this seemed to be wishful thinking). I also thought that maybe it would be a horse, as I really like them and I was born in the year of the horse. A black panther just seemed a little too random (and surprisingly awesome!) for it to be made up in my mind.

At lunch that day, my friend told me that a black panther was a very powerful shamanistic guide and I decided to look into it. I suddenly found out that the black panther is a very common animal guide and was very surprise to find out it's main powers:

* Astral travel
* psychic sight
* the power of silence and patience
* Symbol of the feminine
* Reclaiming ones power
* movement in darkness without fear
* Death and rebirth
* guardian/gatekeeper of the void.
* gracefulness

The only thing that did not seem right, was the "Symbol of the feminine," as this panther seemed decidedly male. It had a larger head, which in the animal kingdom and especially big cats, is a strong sign that it is of the male sex.

I place strong meaning to the aspects of Astral travel (which I have been trying again for a couple of months now), Reclaiming ones power (I used to be able to OBE when I was younger, but have been having more difficulty lately. I also used to remember all of my dreams and I used to became lucid all the time), and guardian/gatekeeper of the void (was he the one that allowed me to become lucid during this dream?).

I am not 100% certain that he was still there after I became lucid, because of how everything changed at that point and because he was more like a picture than a realistic object at this point. But, I am really really hoping that I did not, or am unable to hurt him. I have also apologised to him many times, in my mind and hope that he gets the message.

A few questions:

Do you think an animal guide would be angry at a misunderstanding like this?

Why is it that animal guides are always cool animals, like panthers and wolves and eagles? Why not cows or pigs or stranger animals like kangaroos? Is it possible that these spirits have adopted these traits because of man's projections? Did man pray to these creatures and therefore elevate their status in the spirit world? I raise these questions because of my absolute surprise that mine turned out to be a black panther and that this turned out to be a more common animal guide. I just could not have seen that coming.