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I have a slight problem with exiting and staying focused on the astral body. I think that my consciousness is overly-bound to my physical body. I can start feeling the vibrations, but shifting the focus from the physical to the non-physical is near impossible for me. Something else that I've noticed is that when I am in dreams or out of body, I can still feel my physical body, sometimes more so than my dream/astral body. This becomes problematic because it sometimes causes the dream/experience to end prematurely.

Any advice on how I can overcome this issue?

I was just curious if anyone has done this, and if so, how exactly would you accomplish this? Would you just hold the thought of the person in your mind when you're out of body?

After my first out of body experience last Friday, I have come to the conclusion that not only is it very real, but that the descriptions of it are uncannily accurate.

So I've had the whole "seeing through closed eyelids" multiple times before, just never could really progress beyond that. I honestly never had anything to prove to me that it wasn't just a dream.

But on Friday morning, when I was floating around my room, I decided to feel the silver cord to see if it was there. Not only was it there, but it was vastly different than what I expected. I was expecting something like a ribbon or a thick string. Instead what I felt was a fibrous rope, about two inches thick, composed of many individual cords bundled together, going into my back in multiple different places. I wrote this description down as soon as I woke up.

Later that day, when I was reading from Robert Monroe's "Journeys Out of Body" I came across this about the silver cord:

"I felt the base, and it felt exactly like the spread-out roots of a tree radiating out from the basic trunk. The roots slanted outward and into my back down as far as the middle of my torso, up to my neck, and into the shoulders on each side. I reached outward, and it formed into a "cord," if you can call a two-inch-thick cable a "cord". It was hanging loosely, and I could feel its texture very definitely. It was body-warm to the touch and seemed to be composed of hundreds (thousands?) of tendonlike strands packed neatly together, but not twisted or spiraled. It was flexible, and seemed to have no skin covering."

When I read this, my jaw dropped. This is a completely perfect description of what I experienced. Now a skeptic might say, "Well your subconscious mind was just bringing something up that you heard before, not what you expected". The problem with this idea is that I had never read this before.

Actually, every other e-book or online source that I have read since then has given an identical description.

I think the probability of me coming up with the exact same description of the silver cord is unlikely to the point of being impossible.

Before this Friday, I was still somewhat skeptical that out of body experiences are not just strange dreams. I now 100% know that this is real, and that we really are more than just physical matter.

For those of you that have witnessed the silver cord, how would you describe what it looks like? If you've touched it, how would you describe what it felt like?

Has you ever had this, and if so, how would you describe your experiences with altered vision?

Just curious. I came across an e-book called "Conscious Dreaming and Controlled Hallucinations" by Claude de Contrecoeur aka Claude Rifat.

http://www.shaman-australis.com/~claude/dreams.html

The reason why I'm asking for Psychologists, Psychiatrists, or Neuroscientists is because I don't know a lot about the technical terms he uses here, and I would like to know if what he's saying is valid. As a Psychology major / Cognitive Sciences minor, this book seems quite amazing to me if what he's saying is accurate, but I currently lack the knowledge to determine that.

In trying to find out more about the guy, I found almost nothing. One website suggested that he's a crackpot of sorts and that his ideas are nonsense, but that was in response to something he wrote on GHB. Anyone know more about him?

I'm just curious as to what other people do while projecting, as stated by the title. Last night I had a projection, but I had no clue what to do, so I was just hovering around while trying to think of something more productive to do. There's a lot of guides on how to project, but not much is out there about what to do after you've already projected. I personally would prefer to do something deep and profound, instead of just hovering around and looking at stuff.

Although I don't smoke often, sometimes I go out and smoke hookah with friends (clarification: referring to tobacco here... not marijuana). Whenever I do, my usual order of numbing/vibrations/out-of-body-feeling gets a mixed up or they take way to long to happen... Anyone else get this after smoking? I know smoking is bad for health in general, but does it affect OBE's that much? And what about alcohol?

Just wanna be sure to maximize my chances of getting OBE's... had a few in the last few weeks and I'm REALLY getting into this.

After experimenting with trying to induce OBE this week, I've been trying to compare the sensations I get from my attempts to what is scientifically known about how sleep works. What I've seen so far is there seems to be a definite order to the sensations. It is as follows:

Begining of relaxation -> Slight Numbing. Vibrations occur. -> Feeling of my body becoming infinitesimally small and the room around me expanding. Sense of being disassociated from the body -> Numbing until complete body disassociation. Vibrations continue. -> REM/Projection

I noticed that it ALWAYS happens in this exact order for me. Seeing this I thought that maybe this has something to do with sleep phases and brain waves.

This is what the brain does when you sleep:

(Check this out if you don't quite understand what these terms mean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-rapid_eye_movement_sleep)

Awake relaxation -> Stage 1. Normally causes wandering of thoughts, and relaxation of the body. -> Stage 2. Normally loss of consciousness begins here. Sleep Spindles and K-Complexes show up on EEG's. -> Stage 3. Deep sleep begins here. Delta waves show up on EEG's. -> Stage 2 again -> Stage 1 / REM

Is it possible that the two correspond like this? :

      AP                                 EEG/Scientific Understanding of Sleep

Numbing & Vibrations              Stage 2/Spindles
Begining of Disembodiment       Stage 3/Delta Wave
Numbing & Vibrations              Stage 2/Spindles
Projection                             REM Sleep


If that's the case, then could that mean that sleep spindles are the neural representation of vibrations, delta waves and stage 3 represent the beginning of disembodiment, and REM represents projecting (this part is quite obvious).

Something that would seem to support this is that later in the night you stop having stage 3 sleep. If you are already disembodied you would not need to do it again, so this would make sense.

I thought this was very interesting. I've always seen the study of sleep as the bridge between science and the supernatural, and from what I've seen, this seems to confirm it for me. What do you all think about this?

Also, if anyone has something that would refute or challenge anything I am saying here, please feel free to post it in here. I always like to see things from a different perspective and prove myself wrong if I can in order to see the truth. Links to websites with related material or research would also be greatly appreciated.

After experimenting with trying to induce OBE this week, I've been trying to compare the sensations I get from my attempts to what is scientifically known about how sleep works. What I've seen so far is there seems to be a definite order to the sensations. It is as follows:

Begining of relaxation -> Slight Numbing. Vibrations occur. -> Feeling of my body becoming infinitesimally small and the room around me expanding. Sense of being disassociated from the body -> Numbing until complete body disassociation. Vibrations continue. -> REM/Projection

I noticed that it ALWAYS happens in this exact order for me. Seeing this I thought that maybe this has something to do with sleep phases and brain waves.

This is what the brain does when you sleep:

(Check this out if you don't quite understand what these terms mean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-rapid_eye_movement_sleep)

Awake relaxation -> Stage 1. Normally causes wandering of thoughts, and relaxation of the body. -> Stage 2. Normally loss of consciousness begins here. Sleep Spindles and K-Complexes show up on EEG's. -> Stage 3. Deep sleep begins here. Delta waves show up on EEG's. -> Stage 2 again -> Stage 1 / REM

Is it possible that the two correspond like this? :

      AP                                 EEG/Scientific Understanding of Sleep

Numbing & Vibrations              Stage 2/Spindles
Begining of Disembodiment       Stage 3/Delta Wave
Numbing & Vibrations              Stage 2/Spindles
Projection                             REM Sleep


If that's the case, then could that mean that sleep spindles are the neural representation of vibrations, delta waves and stage 3 represent the beginning of disembodiment, and REM represents projecting (this part is quite obvious).

Something that would seem to support this is that later in the night you stop having stage 3 sleep. If you are already disembodied you would not need to do it again, so this would make sense.

I thought this was very interesting. I've always seen the study of sleep as the bridge between science and the supernatural, and from what I've seen this seems to confirm it for me. What do you all think about this?

Also, if anyone has something that would refute or challenge anything I am saying here, please feel free to post in here. I always like to see things from a different perspective and prove myself wrong if I can in order to see the truth. Links to websites with related material or research would also be greatly appreciated.

I had what seemed to be my first OBE a few days ago. Had all the typical body exit sensations. But then suddenly I found myself in what felt EXACTLY like a lucid dream, which I've had several times before. Additionally, this happened just as I slipped into REM sleep from what I could feel. From what I've read the steps for achieving wake induced lucid dreaming (WILD) and astral projection are the same, minus the body exit part for OBE. Are WILD's and OBE's essentially the same thing?

Anyone read this? I think that this is the only source of info that I've had tangible success from. I would highly recommend it. 

I've never achieved OBE yet, but last night I finally felt vibrations and a spinning sensation. The spinning became very intense and I knew what was about to happen, so I didn't resist it. After about what seemed like about 10 seconds, there was a sound like someone screaming. It was the most horrible and disturbing screaming I can possibly imagine. I decided to persist through the vibrations and spinning so that I could OBE, but after a minute or so, the screaming became too intense for me to handle, so I stopped. I've read about hissing, popping, and other weird sound while in vibrations, but has anyone ever experienced screaming like this???

Over the last few weeks I have managed to become lucid in dreams. However, within a minute or two of becoming lucid I lose it and completely forget that I am in a dream, so I slip back out of lucidity. Anyone know how I can fix this?

Anyone ever heard of Vitamin b6 helping dream/OBE vividness? For the last few nights I've been experimenting with it (at safe levels of course). Sunday night is when I first used it. I had read that 75-130mg yielded best results in most people, so I took 100mg. That night, I could sleep for about the first 4 hours (11pm-3am) and then I could not sleep at all., until 7am. I felt restless, alert, and terrible. However, I did notice that the vividness of the dreams that I had during those 4 hours that I was asleep was much more than I usually have.

I took 25mg last night 4 hours before going to sleep (7pm). I was able to remain conscious all the way to a point that I've never reached in my OBE practices: My body was acting independently of my mind. I've had a slight cold for the last few days, and have been sniffling quite a bit. I could feel my body sniffling on its own as I was in this state, without my mind telling it too. Additionally, I felt like I was not breathing at times. When I checked to make sure that I was (don't want to die yet! lol), I dropped out of this state. I stayed in this state for hours, but was not able to achieve an OBE. I did not feel any vibrations, but I did hear random sounds every now and then that were coming from inside my mind. Eventually, after about 5 hours of no progress, and feeling like I hadn't slept, I decided to give up and fall asleep unconsciously. It took longer than normal to fall asleep because I had the same restless feelings that I did Sunday night, though at a much lesser magnitude. This morning when I woke up, I felt as if I had very little sleep last night.

I feel as if I'm either taking the wrong dosage of Vitamin b6, or taking it at the wrong time, seeing as how it seems to be acting like a stimulant that is preventing me from sleeping normally. It does seem to help, since I've never had that sort of experience before, but I don't want to destroy my sleep cycle or schoolwork because of it. Any ideas/suggestions/comments?

I'm fairly new to this... so i have a few questions ... I would really appreciate it if someone could answer my questions. Let me describe the situation I had today and yesterday before I list the questions:

For the last few days, I've been attempting to have an OBE. Yesterday afternoon, I managed to remain conscious until I reached REM sleep. However I was still had auditory and tactile perception (could hear the air conditioning and my computer fan, and could feel my eyes moving uncontrollably). I began to feel a tingling sensation and a rush of energy over my whole body. I realized I was coming closer to having an OBE, which caused me to become extremely nervous. My heart then began beating rapidly out of nervousness which woke me up. I felt slightly dizzy after I woke up.

This afternoon, I attempted the same thing.

My first attempt I managed to hold onto my consciousness through the entire hypnagogic imagery. After a few minutes, the imagery disappeared and I felt as if I was fully awake, and just lying in my bed. I was just getting ready to open my eyes and look at the clock when the muscles in my neck went limp. My head drooped over to the side and my eyes started twitching, indicating I was in REM sleep. Once again, I was still fully able to perceive auditory and tactile sensory. After what seemed like 30 seconds I felt a rush of energy and tingling. Once again, my nervousness and my rapidly beating heart brought me out of this state. I was able to re-enter REM a few seconds after that, but it lasted only a moment. Immediately after that I decided to get out of bed and check something up on an IM that I received while I was asleep. These events happened in a period of about 25 minutes.

While I was at my computer, I still felt as if I was asleep.

After about 10 minutes at my computer I decided to make another attempt. On my second attempt I reached REM much quicker than on the first attempt. Just like in the last two attempts, I had full sensory awareness through the whole event. This time however, I was able to prolong REM without waking up. The energy and tingling feelings came and went every 15 seconds or so. After a few minutes, I noticed that I no longer had any normal feeling of my arms or hands. They felt as if they weren't part of my body, but were still there. What was odd, was that I felt as if my right hand were on the side of my body, when in fact I had both my hands on my stomach. This annoyed me greatly, because I knew that was not where it belonged. I focused on having my right hand in the correct location. After a few seconds of concentrating, it felt like it snapped into place over my stomach. The energy I was feeling seemed most concentrated on my hands. I started trying to focus on building up the energy more. The more I focused on it, the more it built up. Eventually I got to a point where I wanted to see if I could lift up my disembodied hands. I started lifting my hands, but could not tell if it was my astral hands or my physical hands that were moving. My hands felt cool, as if I had dipped them into water. I came out of REM sleep immediately after this and looked at my hands, which were still on my stomach. For some reason I think I was actually lifting my physical hands, which caused me to wake up.

Ok, now that you've read my rather in depth story, here are the questions:

1. Does this sound more like sleep paralysis than the beginning of an OBE?
2. If it sounds more like sleep paralysis, how can I prevent myself from having sleep paralysis instead of an OBE?
3. Is it normal to still be able to have physical sensory perception of things around me before an OBE?
4. Does anyone else reading this see anything similar to what they've experienced?
5. Does anyone have any suggestions for getting my astral body out of my physical body, without moving my physical body?