Topics

Let me tell you, I am incredibly jazzed right now because after a lifetime of passive attempts, and a solid three months of resource-devouring, daily meditation and energy work-ing active attempts, last night, I just had my first intentional projection from a lucid dream.
Yesterday I had created a sigil with the intention to lucid dream, and boy did I ever. After a mad flurry of eight or nine individual dreams last night, at least half of them lucid, I finally came to a place in one of my final dreams where I realized I was dreaming, but no matter how hard I tried, I was unable to manifest the vivid, crisp dreamscape detail that is usually present in my lucid dreams. Frustrated with this, I enacted something I'd read on this forum: that falling backwards in a dream could trigger a projection. And it worked! Contrary to what I expected though, instead of triggering a projection right from the dream, falling actually woke me up very slightly, to where I was pulled back to my physical body finding it right in the exact state where I could project. It happened very naturally with only minimal effort, and then I immediately found myself hovering at branch-level, facing a tree that was just outside my room in the dusk, which was about what time it was in reality.
I'll not go into too much detail as I'm sure most of you already know what astral projection feels like, I just wanted to share my happy success and report back on the falling backwards technique.

I wish you all well!

On one particularly lengthy road trip in my mid-teens, it spontaneously occurred to me to try a 'visualization exercise' where I'd throw my point of awareness down each street we'd pass for a short amount of time before drawing it back. What I found was that I was able to see from the point of view which I willed my awareness to go, and not only that but the point of awareness itself had it's own body that, trifold, I could see through it's eyes, through my own open physical eyes, and just outside it so that I would be viewing it's body in the third person. I could feel the sensations of the wind on it's skin and the movement of the things it touched vividly, but I knew I was not astral projecting as I was not at all detached from my body. It wasn't until the car turned down one of the streets I had been 'etherically' (for lack of a better word) looking at to find that it physically looked exactly the same, that I realized I wasn't simply really good at imaginative visualization.

Ever since then, this is something I have been able to do at will, without meditation, without even closing my eyes. As simply as focusing my eyes from foreground to background. And yet, I have no idea what it is, how to more fully control it, and potentially, I'd really like to be able to astral project from this state if possible. Does anyone know of this, or have any experience with it?

A strange title, I know, but bear with me here.

While the reason a cat purrs, surprisingly, still remains largely a mystery to modern science, it is known that a cat will purr to lull a creature it perceives as a threat, as well as to itself when it is hurt or injured. I've read books including various studies on the effect hearing, or being in close proximity to, a cat purring has on humans; studies tend to find that hearing a cat's purr lowers blood pressure, reduces pain, and propagates overall feelings of relaxation and happiness.

On the more subjective, spiritual side of the matter; while it is well known that cats were spiritually sacred to the Egyptians, and cohorts 'witches', cats are also sometimes believed to protect their human partners in the astral realm. Cats 'sleep' 12-16 hours a day, but upon being monitored, it was found that less than half that time was spent during literal sleep, and largely their time was being spent in an intensely relaxed, yet alert, state-- personally, I find it to be more than just coincidence that what is often regarded as the most spiritual animal should spend so much time in a state that humans aim to project out of.

Regardless, I find that I fall into the trance state much more smoothly and quickly with a happy, purring cat curled up near (who am I kidding, on) my head. For those of you cat owners who haven't experimented with expanding your consciousness in the company of your furry, sharp little friends, I suggest you try a bit of trance meditation with and without the purring--make sure you pet them a bit first before delving in-- and see the difference.

I'd love to hear back on your thoughts and experiences!

Hi there,
I've always been able to see the existence of auras, but to me they appear not as colorful surroundings that I can 'read', but rather I can see them based on how they effect the way the environment looks. I see that they have many layers, which are distinct but meld into each other, but the way they actually look I'd describe more in terms of 'noise' (The kind of noise that is on 'fuzzy' tv channels, if you do graphic design, you know what kind of noise I'm talking about) and the layers are dictated by the density of the particles.
I really quickly sketched what I'm talking about around a terribly mouse-drawn hand in a photo editing program, just so it makes a bit more sense.

Sometimes the outer band has a tiny bit of color, but it's not that I'm seeing any color, it's just the idea of color that I'm perceiving.
Does anyone else see them this way? How can I view them in color?