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I'm just curious about what people think about this here.  Post your opinions.  Fire away...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKGtcVoBhBQ&NR=1

[30/08/2011:]

30/08/2011:

I went to bed at 1.40 am and had a series of vague dreams.  I became lucid in the last one before waking up at 6.45 am.  In this dream, I recall socialising with friends in a school environment.  Lucidity manifested when I decided to use the toilet.  I am not sure what caused this dream-induced phase entry, but, I suspect that the strangeness of the cubicle where I became self-aware had something to do with it. 

I exited the cubicle and encountered a corridor.  The surroundings reminded me of my former residence in Portugal.  This made me wonder if the phase setup was partly created from memory.  The phase displayed a dismal ambience and the air felt denser than water, or at least there was friction in its spatiality.  Gravity kept me grounded and made me as slow as a walking aquanaut. 

As the front door of the house was open, I walked out for the sake of exploration and came upon a flight of stairs illuminated by daylight coming from a huge stained glass window.  I rubbed my hands against each other, in order to brighten up my surroundings, in vain.  The environment would not change and I was apparently invisible as I could not see my hands despite having a vivid tactile sensation of rubbing them against each other. 

Someone came up from behind and walked ahead of me.  When I looked up to see who it was, I made out a character quite similar to Tahir, a former schoolmate of mine.  Although the phase version of Tahir seemed to have a life of his own, I was not acknowledged by him in any way.  He simply went downstairs, faster than I possibly could, and trying to catch up to him only frustrated me and made me wonder why my motion was so restricted.  I looked on as the phase inhabitant walked out of the building and out of sight.  I gradually returned to wakefulness and got up to use the toilet. 

A few minutes later, I went back to bed in order to re-enter the phase.  In my relaxation, it didn't take long for a pulsatile hiss to ensue in my head.  In order to separate from the body, I swiftly sat up and grasped the wall bend to pull myself out.  I felt heavy as I bent over backwards to escape the perceived magnetism of the bed location where I had been lying.  At one point, during my struggle, I wondered if I was really awake and trying to balance myself in a groggy state. 

I finally managed to stand away from the bed and had more time to focus on the slightly misty vision of what appeared to be my bedroom.  I had tactile perception of my hands but no visual confirmation just as before.  For a fraction of a second, however, there had been a transparent flicker of something.  A foul (an accidental or undesired exit from the phase), to adopt Michael Raduga's terminology in "School of Out-of-Body Travel", occurred and I felt uncomfortable lying in bed.  After tossing and turning a few times, I finally settled on a position facing my sleeping wife. 

I felt primed to return to the phase, and, in less than a minute, my head hissed rhythmically and my body tingled.  Separation is a struggle again but I managed to reach the wall bend and extracted my legs out.  I could only see through my left eye as the right one felt droopy and my fingers felt massive sagging eyelids.  I could hear the song "Pet" by the band A Perfect Circle as I strived to move forward and towards the hallway.  Come to think of it, I had been listening to that song repeatedly while I exercised yesterday. 

I could feel the walls but did not see my hands touching them.  I shifted sluggishly in phase space as a force seemed to counteract my every move.  As I stood by the bedroom door and peered at the hallway, I noticed that the walls were lapis blue when in reality they are light green.  The house interior looked a little molten and wrecked.  It was as if the place had been vandalised.  The banister was missing and there seemed to be debris everywhere.  Not far from where I was, a giant lump of white mass blocked the way and impeded my view of where a mirror should be.  The hallway seemed stretched or extended beyond the white heap and more debris could be seen.  Beams of light oozed from gaps in the ceiling and almost gave the impression that the abode had been left in ruins by a storm. 

I pressed forward towards the white heap in front of me and was confronted by two choices.  I could either jump over melted debris on my left to land on the stairs and continue exploring, or, I could try to reach a black door to my right (where the bathroom would have been in reality).  I noticed that the floor was weird because it wasn't flat and felt bumpy.  I saw two downward steps in front of the black door which was slightly lower than the floor level anyway. 

An abrupt foul occurred but vision of that environment was retained.  I could feel myself lying in bed, and yet, the molten hallway scenario was visible.  The music faded as I came to an astonishing realisation.  The droopy right eye in the phase was my physical eye pressed against the pillow.  Slowly things started to make sense as the waking state took over.  The strange mass blocking the way in the phase, turned out to be Stacey's arm partially illuminated by daylight oozing from the blinds.  The contours of the covers and its many folds also reinforced the optical illusion of another reality which was increasingly becoming less apparent.  The mysterious black door to my right, in the phase state, was nothing but a dark gap between two pillows on which my wife's head rested. 

Had I been sleeping with my eyes partially open and receiving visual input from the waking world?  Did this visual input stimulate my imagination (which was active in the phase state)?  Was this type of phase unusually closer to the waking state?  Is this the phenomenon that confuses people and makes them believe that such things as remote viewing and Locale I projections (separation into the physical realm) are possible? 

Pressure in my head was felt just like the other times when I had brief experiences which almost convinced me that I had separated from the body and perambulated as a floating point of consciousness in reality and not in the phase space.  As this experience strongly suggests, the mind can play tricks on you and make you believe in all sorts of fantasies.  The mystical halo of OOBEs slowly fades the more we explore this phenomenon and the dawn of a new scientific era emerges.

[13/08/2011:]

13/08/2011:

In the evening of the previous day, there was a family party for my sister-in-law Sharon, who had come down from Cornwall to attend mine and Stacey's wedding, and is now about to leave.  I drank a whole bottle of Rose table wine and felt tipsy.  Back home, I made love to my wife, fell asleep and had a series of dreams.  The latest two dreams were vivid and the most memorable. 

In the first vivid dream, me and my wife were preparing food for Christmas and our residence was different.  The fridge was full and Stacey told me not to worry because meat was being kept in a cold storage room outside the house.  I went outside to check on the meat and saw houses surmounted with snow.  I was worried about foxes contaminating the meat so I voiced my concern to Stacey.  She assured me no foxes would come but that's when we saw one approaching the house.  Unexpectedly, two wolves appeared and killed the fox by tearing it apart. 

Muzzily, I got up around 7 am to use the toilet and went back to bed.  Despite being groggy, I decided to try entering the Phase.  Instead, I fell asleep and had the second vivid dream.  I was being accompanied by a guru in India (or my idea of India because I have never been there).  After showing me around, he took me to a small temple to meditate.  We sat on a rug with images of Hindu deities and mandalas on it.  During my meditation, the wise guru asked me what I thought being enlightened meant.  I gave him my best guess by saying that enlightenment is the realisation of oneness, of being more in touch with the whole, and that one does not need to seek any profound truth in the objective world as everything can be found within us. 

He told me to look deep within, and, when I closed my eyes, I felt at peace.  Then, he asked me if I could feel the stillness within.  The world seemed to stop and I experienced an inward stillness.  I felt empty and free.  No concepts burdened me for a brief moment before an overwhelming joy filled my heart.  The enlightening sensation caused me to levitate.  The guru shared my exhilaration as we both had realised what had happened.  I had become enlightened in my dream.  Exultantly, I stood up to look at myself in one of the temple's mirrors.  My jaw dropped when I saw that my reflection possessed a dozen eyes, and yet, I remained ignorant to being in the dream state. 

I was eager to tell people about my experience so I ran out of the temple.  Outside, my mobile rang and it was Stacey asking me to meet her at a stadium.  I was there instantly, and saw a lot of Indian people playing football in the pitch.  There were chairs for spectators and drinks were being sold at a sheltered bar.  Stacey showed up and I told her about becoming enlightened but she wasn't interested.  My mobile rang and someone wanted to speak to her.  I watched the game while she spoke on the phone. 

One of the players invited me to join his team.  I also heard someone mention that my stepfather Sergio would be playing but I never saw him.  During the game, I kept thinking about my enlightening experience and didn't even pay attention to where the ball went.  I approached the stadium walls which were decorated with mandalas.  I noticed a gradual loss of sight and became lucid. 

Immediately, I rubbed the pale blue bricks in front of me in order to remain in the Phase.  As I touched chairs, tables, and the shelter's pillars, I witnessed the decorated walls becoming more defined.  Time seemed to have stopped when I glanced at the footballers in the pitch.  They resembled motionless zombies.  As vision blurred again, I felt that an exit from the Phase was imminent if I didn't perform a technique to maintain the state.  I noticed a Phase inhabitant right next to me and grabbed his arm.  I rubbed the character's shirt sleeve and vision was pristine once more. 

I glided towards the bar, and, on noticing some bottles, chalices and glasses, decided to smash one of them to see what would happen.  I threw a wine glass against a pillar and it shattered.  The way in which the shards of glass scattered on the floor seemed odd to me.  An Asian-looking lady asked me if everything was okay.  I didn't engage in conversation, opting to feel her hair and body instead.  She stood still and did not react to what I was doing.  Suddenly, I returned to wakefulness and heard myself snoring loudly.  I thought that the alcohol must have caused it. 

Then, I remained motionless and recalled the inward stillness I experienced in my dream prior to my lucidity.  I started to relive it and felt myself levitating.  I exited the body by floating out and assumed a different position in order to prevent being pulled back.  I stood on the floor of a hazy version of my room after my successful separation.  I rubbed my hands together and blew on them.  The Phase gained a little depth, but, objects displayed ghostly contours. 

A red dice I picked up from the TV stand, which spun constantly between my thumb and index in a way that would have defied the laws of physics had it been actual, showed no sign of stopping.  The spinning was fast but fragmented and unlike the continuous diamond-shaped obscuration observed when a dice is spun in the physical realm.  A window ledge and a wall were out of focus as I rubbed them at arm's length.  There was no improvement until I observed the objects at a distance of about six inches while perceiving their solidity with my hands. 

Michael Raduga's tactic worked as the Phase environment surpassed the waking world in quality.  In my bed lay two bodies under the covers, and, above them, on the wall, were posters of Walt Disney characters where my art about the Phase should have been.  The colours of the posters were vivid and stood out against the cadmium blue wall, particularly the reds and the indigo.  The posters resembled the pictures of Disney characters I drew as a child.  The closer inspection of one of them revealed Donald Duck and his nephews furiously chasing Uncle Scrooge out of their house.  Some objects were being hurled at the old miser, who held on to his hat as he sought refuge.  I laughed at the fact that I was looking at cartoons in the Phase. 

I walked into the hallway after that, and saw that my reflection was missing in the mirror.  I entered the mirror to find myself in a different house where the interior was mostly lime green and exuded surreality.  There was a corridor leading to other rooms and daylight oozed from a spatious kitchen.  I shouted "hello" several times but the sound I gave off was closer to that of a whisper.  As I approached translucent doors leading to the back of the house, I returned to wakefulness and could hear myself snoring again.  It was poetic.  I didn't even feel rough at 9.05 am, which makes me wonder if the Phase state prevents - and is a remedy for - hangovers.  Returning from the Phase is usually invigorating for me anyway. 

I made some notes in my journal and thought about the guru character in my dream.  He could have been a wise aspect of my personality.  He seemed to be getting my attention to an undeniably blissful stillness which can be accessed deep within the psyche once all distractions are discarded.  Perhaps it's a good idea to contact this element of my subconscious again.

[02/08/2011:]

02/08/2011:

I went to bed at 12.30 am and fell asleep.  I dreamt that I went to a rock club with my friend Stephen.  It happened to be in a hall, and the majority of the people there were teenagers.  A group of men started pushing everyone aggressively and I was forced into an underground car park.  As I was being pushed around, I noticed that each assailant stood near pillars that supported the floor above.  They surrounded me and escaping seemed impossible.  A tall Jamaican man, who rapped constantly, seemed to be the leader and made sure that I did not escape.  I felt desperate about the situation and thought that something needed to be done.  I felt trapped in a living nightmare where men, who appeared to be under the influence of drugs, were having fun by holding me captive.  Somehow I managed to escape and the men chased me.  I recognised the fact that I was running from something as a recurrent dream pattern and became lucid.  Furthermore, the fact that I was gliding, rather than running, was a firm cue that I had entered the Phase via dream consciousness. 

I flew from that underground space into the light of day of another metaphysical setting.  I rubbed my realistic hands together, in order to deepen the state, before taking a good look at the surroundings.  Outside, I encountered an urban landscape under a pale sky.  There was a massive pillar supporting an external structure of the building I had left.  I felt the pillar with my hands and scratched the surface as I noticed that my fingernails were dirty.  The sensation of scratching the cold marble gave me goosebumps.  I shifted over the city, like a balloon, and occasionally rubbed my hands when I thought vision was getting blurry.  A highly defined hyper-reality appeared to settle. 

Night fell and I landed on a snowy path.  I had been exploring the place from many different angles, like changing the view several times in a video game, and felt the need for a set location lest I accidentally exit the Phase.  Gliding through the streets at a reasonable pace revealed many marble statues and monuments.  I felt the dark surface of a cubic slab which was the base of the statue of a feline creature.  I continued to discover features of big cats everywhere in the architecture that surrounded me.  The whole city displayed a red glow, which grew stronger the darker the sky got, and its spherical street lamps were the only objects emitting yellow light. 

I stumbled upon an inhabitant who turned out to be my next door neighbour Helen on approach.  We briefly talked about how unusual "the red cat city" was before she pointed at a crimson castle near the horizon and told me I ought to check it out.  I shot upwards, until the rooftops of nearby houses could be seen, and zoomed towards the castle - which appeared to be the tallest structure in the city.  During my flight, I rubbed my hands again to keep myself anchored there. 

As soon as I landed, nighttime was replaced by daytime in the blink of an eye, and, despite being in the Phase, I realised I had a vague dream running alongside it.  This subconscious narrative was somewhat familiar to me but I wasn't focused on it.  I was also under the impression that the Helen character might have been a part of it.  It was a parallel dream which also included members of my family.  I found myself avoiding the dream - by aggressively performing palpation in the Phase - as I somehow knew it was a recipe for losing my lucidity. 

Looking away from the castle now revealed an entirely different environment that appeared to have replaced the red city.  Now, there was a rural plain bathed in sunshine.  My children (from the parallel dream) were excited and eager to explore what they referred to as "the haunted house".  I turned to look at the castle but found a sombre house that resembled a tower instead.  Inside, I found a spiral staircase and examined the banister in order to maintain my lucidity.  The parallel dream had now vanished, but, an element of it seemed to have followed me into the Phase space and settled in.  It was my four-year-old daughter who accompanied me everywhere I went. 

On the first floor of the house, I peered into a couple of rooms where I found furniture, beds and television sets.  I proceeded further up the stairs to the highest floor.  I gazed at sunbeams coming through a window and decided to take a peek.  The view from the window took my breath away.  Outside, and surrounding the house, was an incredibly vivid garden that appeared to belong in a fantasy world.  It can be best described as a multicoloured still-life environment existing in hyper-reality. 

As though noticing how mesmerised I was, my daughter (surviving remnant of a neglected dream) asked me about what I had seen.  I picked her up and held her against the window so she could see for herself.  She appeared to be enthralled by the flowers outside and I could feel a smile on my face.  We admired the beautiful garden together until the metaphysical realm faded. 

I was satisfied with the experience and made no attempt to reconnect with the Phase as I needed to get ready for my wedding.  I woke up at 5.20 am with a sizzling head and feeling invigorated.  The Phase state seemed to have lasted a long time, but, by looking at a clock and reliving the whole thing in my head, I estimated its duration to be one and a half minutes long.

28/07/2011:

For some time now, I've been exercising before bedtime.  This seems to have decreased my opportunities to enter the Phase using the deferred method (sleep first, induce an OOBE later).  The reason why exercise before bedtime is not a good idea is that it gets the body's adrenaline going despite making the muscles tired, and this can make it difficult for one to fall asleep.  I've had trouble sleeping, and, when I finally manage to do so, it is very late and I don't get up until the time when I'm supposed to get ready to deal with waking life affairs.  It's true that I can always enter the Phase in the morning, but this only happens when I can afford to do so.  At the moment I feel a little bit out of touch with that world. 

Due to the apparent failure being linked to exercising late,  I decided to exercise around 5 pm of the previous day instead - plenty of time for my adrenaline levels to decrease before bedtime.  This seems to have facilitated my plan to enter the Phase, because, despite having gone down at 1.45 am, I slept for three hours and went back to bed at 5.10 am to induce my experience.  My stay in the Phase was short-lived but at least I succeeded in entering it this time. 

I started by relaxing and it didn't take long for me to experience a familiar shift in consciousness.  No vibrations were perceived on this occasion.  Instinctively, I rose from the bed and realised I was in the Phase as soon as I saw my hands gradually forming and becoming.  Rubbing my hands together and feeling up the rest of the body was my anchorage.  The tactile sensations I experienced, as I proceeded to touch nearby objects, seemed to have fortified the Phase. Vision had become pristine too.  I remembered all my plans. 

I was to go through the hallway mirror, in the belief that, on the other side, I would encounter Stacey in a different dream-world.  I would then translocate to a wedding environment and dance with her.  Despite my plans, I only got as far as going through the mirror to discover a house extension that doesn't exist in the physical realm. 

Finally, I glided through a window and found a scenery which was quite different from what should have been my back garden.  I closed my eyes in order to translocate, but, after a second of darkness, I lost consciousness.  I woke up at 10.45 am with no recollection of anything else but that brief experience.

[Mode 1 OOBEs]

I am interested in seeing what most Astral Pulse members think about this.  In my opinion, I have used the same method (using a pre-nap/sleep as a primer before induction) to experience that which I call:

Mode 1 OOBEs - Where environments appear to match the objective world and no anomalies are spotted.  This would be a more advanced version of remote viewing because you experience the sensation of being out of body

and...

Mode 2 OOBEs - Where the environments can display structural anomalies, where reality can outdo the physical one in appearance, and also where things can turn entropic. I consider DILDs and WILDs to be included in this category too.  Again, you can also experience separation here or, in the case of DILDs, you suddenly realise that you are not laying in bed (at least your perception tells you so).

For more distinctions between the two:
http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_out_of_body_experiences/how_to_have_an_out_of_body_experience_composed_by_summerlander-t34339.0.html

In BOTH, you may experience various degrees of focus.  They can either be fuzzy or crystal clear.  Neither concretely prove that one really leaves the physical body or that there is a separation.  I consider them to be the same in that they are two sides of the same coin, and, possibly, expressions of the right and left brain hemispheres.  But the entrance is the same whatever method you use.  I call it the Phase state.

Some people don't see any distinctions and the "Modes" above don't mean anything to them.  Some might even have accepted it once but decided to make such view redundant and argue that, even my belief system is clouding my judgement and making me perceive two types of experience where there is none.  After all, considering the nature of the metaphysical realm, anything can pretty much be created there (and usually from belief and expectation).  It could all happen in the same state of consciousness where the environments that manifest can closely match the waking world or be completely alien in appearance.  We could also be manifesting belief constructs deeply lodged in the subconscious mind.

In the end it could all be the same.  Just the Phase...where our imagination comes to life and, apparently, the possibility of telepathy could present itself.  It could just be a trip to the realm of thoughts which could be translated by the brain as though it is some sort of physical reality.

VOTE and post your opinions!!!  Try not to be biased by what your favourite author might have written to get people excited and make his dough.  Post and vote from experience only!  What do your experience and instincts tell you?

Thank you!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2980578/Scientists-study-out-of-body-experiences.html

26/06/2011:

Me and family went to my in-laws' on the previous day for a sleepover. Stacey and my youngest son slept in the spare room on the upper floor of the house, and my other two kids were on the floor in their grandparents' bedroom. Initially I was supposed to sleep with my partner and youngest son, but I couldn't get comfortable so I opted for the sofa in the living-room downstairs. I fell asleep around 1.30 am and woke up at 5.30 am to use the toilet. A few minutes later, I went back to the sofa with the intention of entering the Phase. The hypnagogic state was marked by glimpses of unhuman faces engaged in virtual surroundings. Soon, I was completely paralysed and a mild pressure in the chest area was felt. Hissing and rushing noises ensued before I turned to my left side and floated out of my immobile body.

I had tunnel vision that can be best described like seeing through binoculars in reverse, where the rim was silvery and kaleidoscopic. As I motioned through the air, I turned to see my body on the sofa. It wore the same pyjamas and looked like me peacefully asleep. I tried to touch it, but, despite feeling a hand go right through, none was seen. This made me realise that I appeared to have an invisible body at that stage. I looked around and noticed that the house interior - despite being devoid of colour - appeared accurate (as far as I could tell). I drifted upwards, going through the ceiling, in order to explore what was on the upper floor. A flurry of black and grey patches invaded my field of vision until black was all I could see. I stopped in my tracks and demanded light, but to no avail.

I felt stuck for a brief moment before it crossed my mind that I was having a Mode 1 OOBE - where conscious awareness theoretically separates from the body and is free to explore the physical realm or a level of reality closely associated with it - and that I might be embedded in some wall or enclosed in a large physical structure. I shifted upwards a little more and got a close-up of my youngest son's face. His eyes were open but he didn't look at me. As I floated away from the bed, I saw my partner, apparently asleep and cuddling the little boy. Apparently I had been seeing inside the mattress prior to my decision to move upwards. My tunnel vision was gone but the environment was still devoid of colour.

The manifest reality was eerily still and silent despite displaying no apparent anomalies in its structures. It gave me the impression that it wasn't a proper reality, as the atmosphere conveyed the notion of a lifeless blueprint. I wanted to explore the surroundings further, but, the experience was cut short by an emerging darkness and the sensation of giant hands gripping my torso. I removed thick fingers from my ribs with ease before regaining physical awareness in the vibrational state. I heard voices and thought of them as being hypnopompic hallucinations. I let the vibrations dwindle until I could only perceive an internal pulsatile hiss and my head resting on the cushion.

I decided to make a swift attempt to re-enter the Phase getting up without straining the muscles. This led to a separation into a more colourful and brighter ambient setup. I heard people moving upstairs and I wondered if my family was getting ready to go out. I glanced at the sofa and realised that my body was missing. I wondered if I had just got out of bed instead of 'out of body' so I decided to test this by touching a black drawer unit nearby which, in actuality, holds my in-laws' DVDs. It's surface was firm, but, when I pushed my fingers through it, the solidity gave way. I could sink my whole hand into the unit as though its make had magically changed. This was all the confirmation I needed to reassure myself that I was in the Phase.

The front door was open and I walked out. I felt the brick wall of the house with my hand. It seemed to be made of stone at first, and then, I was tearing chunks away from it like it was gooey cake. The external world had a surreal quality to it. It looked like a playground painted by Salvador Dali. As I walked down the road, I witnessed more aspects of metaphysical reality or properties of a Mode 2 OOBE. The more I explored, the more my mind accepted the madness. A vagueness began to creep in as I was loosing lucidity. The experience was now a non-lucid dream where my friend Mark, who lives in Malaysia, had come to England for a visit. We went to a pub for a drink and we discussed what we were doing with our lives. Finally, we discussed politics before I woke up refreshed and remembering more of the Phase experience than the dream that it had turned into.

21/06/2011:

This experienced started off in a dream about me visiting my mother in East London and staying the night. She prepared the little bedroom for me which overlooks Canary Wharf. I falsely awoke in that room, unaware that I was dreaming, of course, and decided not to move in order to induce an OOBE from the hypnopompic state. One might say that I dreamed up the vibrations that ensued and the separation, which, by the way, were no different to that experienced at the start of a wake-induced Phase entry.

Once I was out, I knew I was in the Phase - as I noticed that the vivid room interior wavered briefly - and yet, I still believed that I had really gone to my mother's for a sleepover. I glided through the window to the outside to find a substantial city under a captivating sky. The more I explored the city, as I flew over it, the less it looked like Canary Wharf. It didn't take long for me to realise that I was really asleep at my house and that I had become lucid in a dream by deciding to enter the Phase. This discovery seemed to have reinforced sustenance of the Phase state.

Soon, I set out to visit Stacey's deceased grandmother Marge by propelling myself in a particular direction with the thought of her firmly in mind. I felt a curious force taking me somewhere, guiding me through the city as it verged on dusk, and making me perform unconventional manoeuvres such as shifting sideways at which point I beheld different roads in a row like a slide-show. Eventually, I came across a fenced in Tottenham Court Road station next to a sign with the name "Copple" - as far as I could retain - which doesn't even exist in London.

I looked for Marge in the area and encountered a rather little phantasm of her accompanied by a tall woman who was holding her hand. She looked younger and her hair was different to what it was like when she was alive as I remember it. We engaged in conversation and I discovered that she did not recognise me. She remembered me when I told her who I was and asked me if I was still marrying her granddaughter. I confirmed that I was and asked her if she also had someone. She turned to the woman next to her and smiled before telling me that she was with "Josh". She never met any Josh that we know of while she was alive.

As much as I wanted to get a piece of information from her that would later validate the authenticity of the encounter, I allowed myself to get distracted by what was going on around us before phasing out of the experience. There were bystanders looking in our direction, and, a giant wearing a black tuxedo stood out from a crowd silhouetted against a setting sun. I woke up at 8am and made a few notes.

[HOW TO ACHIEVE AN OUT-OF-THE-BODY EXPERIENCE]

HOW TO ACHIEVE AN OUT-OF-THE-BODY EXPERIENCE


GETTING PRIMED FOR INDUCTION:

Wake up earlier than usual and keep active during the day. Have a nap or sleep in the evening when you are tired. Preferably, the nap or sleep should be dreamless. For example, you can nap for two hours in the evening and then stay awake for an hour and a half before induction, OR, you can go to bed late and sleep to wake up between 4am and 6am to induce. This doesn't have to be followed strictly but it may serve as an initial guide.


INDUCTION:


Relax:

Lie down comfortably and close your eyes. Your eyes are to remain closed throughout the induction. Relax as deeply as you can and take your time. Be patient and don't rush it. Make sure that you are not disturbed. There are many books about the various effective techniques you can use to acquire a deeply relaxed state, but, because you have biologically primed yourself for the experience, it should be fairly easy for you to do so without having to read up on it.


Focus on something:

It could be a mantra or a familiar object (the latter does not have to be visualised to perfection). Do this as you sense that you are drifting off to sleep or when your mind starts to wander. Keep bringing your mind back to focus whenever it gets 'lost'. Keep still and relaxed and do not fall asleep! Whatever you focus on may start to take a life of its own as you relax deeper and deeper. Focus on your 'something' until you reach the hypnogogic state.


The Hypnagogic State:

This is the state between waking and sleeping. You will know that you have reached this state once its imagery or potential dreams begin to invade your point of focus. Being aware in this state is already an achievement. Prolong this state by passively watching its imagery, and then, slowly begin to clear your mind until you see nothing but blackness. When this happens you have gone beyond the hypnagogic state and are still conscious.


Sleep Paralysis / Vibrational State:

Remain still and relaxed. Let go of any worries relating to the physical body. The trick is to let your body 'switch off' as your mind is still very much aware of itself. This may involve resisting any urges to move or scratch itches. Your body will start to feel extremely heavy  and there may come a point where you will be aware of not being able to move it. Remain relaxed nonetheless and don't panic. The perceptions of vibrations may or may not ensue. If they don't develop, then the sensation of slipping and falling is experienced which may lead to an apparent separation from the physical body or a hypnic jerk. The vibrational state can be mild or strong. It can vary from mild tingling, warmth, and the sensation of low voltage electricity flowing through the body. Strange sounds are reported during this stage. We know that the ear converts sound waves into signals that the brain can interpret through the firing of neurons. The Tensor Timpani muscle in the ear can serve to dampen external sound and may cause rumbling as it spasmodically vibrates during the state of sleep paralysis. The perception of vibrations could be the feedback one may get from neurons rapidly polarising and depolarising but this is only speculation. The 'radio effect' during sleep paralysis, where I have experienced many auditory hallucinations with shifting or sudden musicals intervals, could be due to the possibility that the pineal gland may act as a receptor of electromagnetic signals at this point. We can only speculate this to be the function of calcite crystals found in the gland which appear to be piezoelectric in nature. The sensation of paralysis alone may occur when cells at the pons send inhibitory signals to the motor neurons in the spinal cord eventuating muscle atonia which is necessary to prevent individuals from acting out their dreams. So what are these sounds in sleep paralysis? It can be characterised by hissing that seems to pulse in your head, sparks, thunder-like sounds, rumbling, wind, electronic sounds, a person moaning (I have likened it to a woman giving birth), ocean waves, something like a train running, a helicopter etc. - people tend to describe the same thing in different ways but the state itself can vary too. It tends to peak before it gradually fades. Vibrations are strange but remain calm and don't overanalyse what is happening to you. Just act as a beholder or go with the flow. The level of sleep paralysis seems to determine the mode or type of experience you'll get or at least they appear to fit in with the classifications I've come up with according to certain distinctions I've made. Still, I couldn't be 100% sure.


Separation:

You can try partial separation first as practice before attempting full separation. Partial separation is optional. There are many ways of achieving a successful disassociation from the body. Here's a couple of examples:

- Imagine that the ceiling above you is a huge magnet that counteracts gravity and pulls you upwards. Alternatively, imagine yourself being catapulted or cannon-balled out of body.
- You can slowly roll over and out of the body. Do this subtly and as though you are moving physically but without using muscles. It is best to start by rolling over from the head and the rest of the body will follow. If there is a perceived resistance, be forceful. This movement is not imagined, it is done with intent. Once you have succeeded, you will realise that you have moved incorporeally.


What happens next?

Once you are out, explore! Do not get overexcited and have no fear or doubt. Stay out for as long as you can and don't worry about getting back because you always do in the end. A variety of experiences are open to interpretation. From inter-dimensional travel, space exploration, alien encounters, meeting strange spiritual entities, visiting the living and the dead, time travel etc. etc. Remember: whatever the nature of your experience and however profound it may be for you, try to look at it from a viewpoint free of preconceived ideas. For instance, seeing a luminous being who starts singing the most beautiful melody you have ever heard does not mean that you have just met an angel. Consider all perspectives. Record your experiences in a journal. Feel free to carry out experiments of your own to try and determine the nature of your experiences for yourself.


Mode 1 OOBE: belief-centric name: Ethereal Projection

Your awareness seemingly remains in the physical realm, or what could be interpreted as an accurate simulation of the waking world upon separation, and, therefore, is able to see the physical body (autoscopy experienced). There is, of course, the possibility that one never really leaves the body as the experience could be an illusion created by the brain, and that, while dreams and imagination could be a product of abundant activity in the right hemisphere of the brain, Mode 1 OOBEs would be a product of the left hemisphere and hence the reason why they are 'more true to life' so to speak. Experiences conducted with split-brain individuals where dreaming is concerned seemingly strengthen the feasibility of such explanation as their dreaming was found to be unimaginative and often tied to reality. On the other hand, perhaps consciousness is capable of  acquiring a viewpoint outside the physical body as the mind may extend beyond it. In Mode 1 OOBEs, sometimes the colours of the physical world will appear duller, as if the world is being observed through a faint mist, and other times the colours will be clear. Vision can be hard to describe here, almost mixed with a feel of the environment and appears somewhat different to vision in the waking state. You can obtain information in the physical realm which was previously unknown to you, or information of events which at the time you couldn't possibly have known about through your physical body. This statement, of course, has to be taken as conjecture if one considers the nature of coincidences and cryptomnesia. Nevertheless, in this type of experience you are usually a floating point of consciousness and movement seems constant and gradual as though one moves through 'frames of space' or "mouse-trails". At times, the experiencer may consciously or unconsciously manifest a transparent or shadowy body. One can phase into a more metaphysical type of experience from here. In other words, from Mode 1 you can shift into the realm of thoughts.


Mode 2 OOBE: belief-centric name: Astral Projection

You may find yourself in what appears to be an inaccurate emulation of the real world. Familiar objects may be out of place or absent, sometimes unfamiliar objects are seen, and other structural anomalies may be observed. This can be referred to as the metaphysical realm where dreamland and anything that the imagination can conceive can manifest. I often imagine that the Phase can provide access to a limbo where concepts are not yet physical or actual but manifest nonetheless. This limbo could be where we as a consciousness can 'sketch' ideas for actuality so to speak. Considering that the Phase state may allows us to travel extra-dimensionally, and we may do our sketching of possible worlds and events, we may also access the personal and the collective. You can visualise an environment of your choosing as everything appears to be representations of thought, or even visit what appears to be the worlds of others, the latter being that which you believe you have not imagined. The environment can seem extremely real, sometimes displaying a crisp and bright hyper-real quality that outshines our waking reality. Some experiences here seem to indicate that one is also capable of perceiving what's on the minds of people who are awake, thus this type of experience would enable telepathy if the experiencer peruses the minds of the visited. Hypothetically, this sort of telepathy could be an aspect of quantum entanglement (where particles such as electrons develop the same quantum mechanical properties no matter how far apart they are), and, in this case, the original physical interaction of all things in our local universe would have taken place at the start of the Big Bang. One may also perceive a slightly inaccurate replica of what the person is doing in actuality because, even as we think during the day, we are constantly projecting thought forms in that frequency as the theory goes. Mode 2 is easier to achieve than Mode 1. My experiences suggest so as well as indicating that there is a whole other reality or more appropriately, perhaps, more to reality than meets the eye.


Why "Mode"?

Mode 1 and Mode 2 are distinctions made from having experienced the Phase over a period of time. Mode 1 isn't necessarily a projection into the physical realm as such experience could still be simulated regardless of whether it's connected to, or a direct 'translation' of, physical reality. Likewise, Mode 2 isn't necessarily always a projection to the metaphysical realm, but, perhaps more appropriately, the experience of that which is apparently not here. The application of the word "Mode" here is appropriate because of its implication that something is experienced in a certain way and  subject to change. The word is also used to describe a pattern of vibration of an oscillating system and goes hand in hand with the theory that the Phase is brought about by quantum fluctuations influenced by whatever it is that we really are. This is not to be taken as gospel as much as the statement that nobody knows what the Phase state is apart from the fact that it's a label and a property of consciousness.

[Some time around 2009:]

Hi! This is the reason why I decided to call myself "Summerlander" in forums like these:

Some time around 2009:

"I entered the Phase post vibrations to find myself in an erratic replica of my house where I entertained myself by creating some thought-form objects. There was a clock on the hallway wall which was different to the one in actuality. I touched this metaphysical device, wondering if it contained some sort of mechanism, and felt its solidity. Then I noticed light coming from the large hallway mirror. I went through it and encountered a being who stood as though in the transition between two worlds. This being was humanoid in shape and I could not determine its gender. I wasn't able to look at this character for long as I apparently shifted through the division marking the apparent dichotomy of two worlds after having entered the mirror-portal.

The entity smiled as I went through the mirror, and, on the other side, I found an unbelievable world! It had a serious emotional impact on me because it was so attractive and vibrant in colours. I also remember thinking: "I didn't imagine this". There were cottages and well-groomed trees that I was seeing from bird's eye view and I wondered who was inside. There was a vast magical forest adorned by rainbows and strange creatures flying over it. In the distance there was a golden city which seemed to blend with a multicoloured sunset sky where a vast river met the horizon. The smiling entity who stood between my illusory abode and this new and more settled mystical realm was nowhere to be seen now. It wasn't just a visual experience. As I beheld it I felt love, harmony and so much happiness. It was a fairytale land, magical and mysterious and so alive. I still can't find enough words to describe it.

Then I felt myself being pulled back as though I didn't belong there or like something had teased me with it. When I woke up I felt extremely sad because I was no longer there. I opened the windows in my room to look at our world. The trees, the houses and the sky of our world is nothing compared to what I'd seen. In comparison, our world looks somewhat like a decayed version of that vibrant wonderland. At the time I hadn't yet heard of the term "Summerland" which is used to refer to an afterlife world by Spiritualist traditions. Weeks later I flicked through a book about the afterlife by David Fontana at my local library and found descriptions of beautiful cities, forests, rainbows and cottages (this struck a cord with me) by both the living who experienced OOBEs and NDEs, and the dead who allegedly came through mediums to tell their loved ones all about where they were.

According to the book, not all souls were in a happy place, but "Summerland" came up a few times as the appropriate name for the harmonious colourful worlds that were being described. I've never been one to like or think of cottages and it struck me that I saw them before coming across similar descriptions of Summerland. After that, I pondered over the idea of having come across another plane of existence populated by non-physical beings as much the possibility that I accessed an imagined world from my deep unconscious - possibly a thought-form construct that thrived from childhood after having been exposed to fairytales. This profound Phase experience made me fond of cottages and trees. It was an ideal world of many wonderful things which could have easily come from an innocent child's imagination and developed ever since, especially in an artistic mind such as mine, rather than becoming obsolete."

- Summerlander's Journal

It has been reported by a CERN team in a scientific journal called Nature Physics that antimatter (more precisely antihydrogen atoms), were created and held in stability for nearly 17 minutes - considerably longer than the previous 172 milliseconds! This time extension may allow scientists to gather more information about antimatter's behaviour and the study may even shed some light on the nature of the universe. Questions such as why antimatter is so rare and the fate of post-Big Bang antimatter may soon be answered.

http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nphys2025.html

Our brilliant minds are making progress, folks!

This kid plays the blues better than me!

Son of a...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGTfDf4b5oE&NR=1&feature=fvwp

31/05/2011:

After having gone to bed around midnight, I woke up at 4am to use the toilet. A few minutes later I went down to induce an OOBE. My head hissed and violent vibrations ensued. At their peak, I felt as though something was drilling into the back of my head and immediately I thought about the possibility that I was perceiving activity in the pons and medulla oblongata areas of the brain. Congruently, mild rattling, like a constant raspberry, accompanied this. Soon, I became aware of what felt like waves of warmth flowing through my body. I could control this energy kinesis with my mind and set out to appease the vibrational state. After deliberately spending time playing with this state, I decided to separate from the body only to find that I was deeply paralysed. I couldn't even turn my head let alone employ a method of separation. A moment of contemplation was needed before a brisk motion sufficed.

I stood in a pitch black spatiality and I knew I was in the Phase. I rubbed my hands as this had previously been an effective technique in, not only 'anchoring' myself to that state, but also, bringing about sight. This act proved to be ineffective on this occasion. Despite the blindness, I could feel the structure of my home interior. I glided downstairs and, unexpectedly, the power of sight came to me. Either everything looked the same as in actuality or structural anomalies were inconspicuous. I touched the banister but didn't see a hand there. I flew up the stairs and looked at the hallway mirror which was not reflecting anything. As soon as I plunged into it, lights were out again, and, after a few seconds of motioning into the void, I was back in my body.

Vibrations were ongoing and I took this opportunity to re-enter the Phase. It was dark again and I picked a random direction to plunge into. After a speedy voyage into the dark void I came to an opening of dim light, or perceived as such, which led me to stand at the bottom of a staircase. A quick scan of the new surroundings revealed a vast and well lit basement where I was ushered into a full-blown party by people wearing porcelain masks and sporting what appeared to be 18th century fashion. Everything in the basement looked appealling as I swayed in all directions with those pale-faced characters. Oddly, there were chandeliers and disco balls hanging from the ceiling to add to the madness.

To spice up the piquant nature of the experience, I floated up to the ceiling in order to ricochet among the hanging spheres like in a pinball game. Moments later the party died and all the weird 'porcelain people' were gone. I found a bauble on the floor and made it levitate. I wanted the bauble to remain in mid-air but it kept coming down as though there was a moon-like gravity exerting its influence. I imagined a string tied to it and connecting it to the ceiling in order to prevent it from coming down. The imagined string manifested before me and the bauble was now in mid-air and hanging from the ceiling.

I felt a presence there with me and I couldn't tell whether it was behind me or next to me. I thought of it as my mother in that place and I'm not sure if this way of thinking was a psychological 'mechanism' to prevent me from being afraid, although, in retrospect, I suspect so. I do remember feeling that the presence was trustworthy and that I could ask it anything and I did: "Why do you think thoughts appear to manipulate reality here?" - The reply came: "I don't know, it's just the way it is." - I continued to converse with this unseen entity which could have been an aspect of myself, and, as I began to lose lucidity, might have turned into the product or element of a dream. I woke up content because this had been one of my most interesting experiences as of late.

I'm getting old!

17/05/2011:

On the previous day, I was so tired that I took a nap at 6.45pm. Three quarters of an hour later I was up and feeling refreshed. I hadn't done this in a while and I guess I could have projected in the late evening but I had responsibilities. Me and Stacey had gone to bed earlier than usual that evening too. We had pretty much broken our routine and messing with my sleep schedule might have contributed towards the induction of an OOBE later on. I'd risen in the night to use the toilet and a few minutes later I went back to bed with the intention of projecting.

It only took a couple of minutes until hissing palpitated in my head. Subsequently, an abrupt flood of warm waves pervaded me in that deeply relaxed state. As rumbling ensued, I started to slide involuntarily. I had relinquished all control and expected this feeling to lead me completely out of body but ended up back where I was originally. Then, I got out of bed and realised it had been an act of disassociation from the body as I couldn't see whatsoever. I rubbed my hands in order to engross myself on that level and bring about vision. Doing so, I could feel the tactile sensation of the hands but they never manifested visually. After a short while of rubbing, a burlesque version of my house came to light. Feeling exuberant, I went into the hallway and noticed that the mirror there, which displayed an exquisite white frame, was much wider than it should have been. Its size was remarkable because it was as wide as the hallway itself, from the wall by the staircase to the bedroom where both of my sons sleep.

My daughter's bedroom was non-existent there. The abode was ridiculously inaccurate, and, later upon waking, I was to realise that even the colour of the walls had been off. In actuality, the hallway walls are pale green, but, in that travesty of reality, they were lapis blue like in my bedroom. I grabbed the banister and felt its solidity. I relished in testing how sturdy the structure was by hitting it repeatedly. No sound accompanied the hitting. My next plan of action was to get to a random location by using the mirror as a portal. The surface looked like fluid and was completely non-reflective. Going through that silvery portal was like dunking my head in water. On the other side, I examined a darker extension of the house where features were less familiar. The scanning of that environment, which was inside the mirror, only lasted a few seconds before I found myself laying in bed again with an ongoing crackling in my head.

Separation wasn't as onerous as previously as the intention was enough to make me glide out. I made towards my sons' bedroom and felt hypnotised by the windows there. I went through them, as a ghost would, to find myself hovering about fifteen feet off the ground in my back garden. A gargantuan landscape was exposed before me and I beheld the lights of houses in the distance which contrasted a night sky. Looking behind me I saw that mine and my neighbour's house on the left side were fuscous. The house on the right side, however, had its ground floor lit. The dogs were missing in their garden. I descended into the lit area inside the house. There were furnishings galore which appeared to be misplaced and made the house look somewhat messy or as though the residents were in the process of moving.

I was in what I understood to be the living room but there was also a bed there with a patchwork quilt that was strangely familiar. I remembered that my mother used to have one just like it back in Portugal and I wondered if my thoughts were imposing on that ambient setup or influencing my perception in that state. I continued to study my next door neighbour's house in diligent fashion and noticed a television screen on one of the walls. The house was devoid of people. Suddenly, I was back in my body, laying in bed, just as I felt Stacey's foot retreating from making contact with my leg. She'd kicked me in her sleep and caused the culmination of my OOBE-state. It was time to get ready to take the kids to school.

Hi! I subscribe to Newscientist and some of the information I was sent caught my eye and interest:

This is the big one. The notion that we have free will - the ability to exercise conscious control over our actions and decisions - is deeply embedded in human experience. But the more we learn about the physical universe and the human brain, the less plausible it becomes (New Scientist, 16 April, p 32).

One argument goes as follows: the universe, including the bits of it that make up your brain, is entirely deterministic. The state it is in right now determines the state it will be a millisecond, a month or a million years from now. Therefore free will cannot exist.

Neuroscience has also chipped in. Around 30 years ago psychologist Benjamin Libet discovered that if you ask people to make voluntary movements, their brains initiate the movement before they become consciously aware of any intention ...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your senses are your windows on the world, and you probably think they do a fair job at capturing an accurate depiction of reality. Don't kid yourself. Sensory perception - especially vision - is a figment of your imagination. "What you're experiencing is largely the product of what's inside your head," says psychologist Ron Rensink at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. "It's informed by what comes in through your eyes, but it's not directly reflecting it."

Given the basic features of your visual system, it couldn't be any other way. For example, every 5 seconds or so, you blink. Yet unless you're thinking about it, as you probably are right now, you don't notice the blackouts because your brain edits them out.

Blinking is just the tip of the iceberg. Even when your eyes are open they're only taking in a fraction of the visual information that is available.

In the centre of your retina is a dense patch of photoreceptor cells about 1 millimetre across. This is the fovea, the visual system's sweet spot where perception of detail and colour is at its best. "When you move away from the fovea, visual acuity falls away really quickly, and colour vision disappears," says Rensink. About 10 degrees to the side of the fovea, visual acuity is only about 20 per cent of the maximum.

What that means is you can only capture a tiny percentage of the visual field in full colour and detail at any one time. Hold your hand at arm's length and look at your thumbnail. That is roughly the area covered by the fovea. Most of the rest is captured in fuzzy monochrome.

And yet vision doesn't actually feel like this: it feels like a movie. That, in part, is because your eyes are constantly flitting over the visual scene, fixing on one spot for a fraction of a second then moving on. These jerky eye movements are called saccades and they happen about 3 times a second and last up to 200 milliseconds. With each fixation your visual system grabs a bite of high-resolution detail which it somehow weaves together to create an illusion of completeness.

That's remarkable given that during saccades themselves, you are effectively blind. Your eyes don't stop transmitting information as they lurch from one fixation to the next, but for about 100 milliseconds your brain is not processing it.

Look in the mirror and deliberately flick your eyes from left to right and back again. You won't see your eyes move - not because the movement is too fast (other people's saccades are visible), but because your brain isn't processing the information.

Given that you perform approximately 150,000 saccades every day, that means your visual system is "offline" for a total of about 4 hours during each waking day even without blinking (Trends in Cognitive Sciences, vol 12, p 466). Yet you don't notice anything amiss.

Exactly how your brain weaves such fragmentary information into the smooth technicolour movie that we experience as reality remains a mystery. One leading idea is that it makes a prediction and then uses the foveal "spotlight" to verify it. "We create something internally and then we check, check, check," says Rensink. "Essentially we experience the brain's best guess about what is happening now."

In conjuring up this "now", the visual system has to do something even more remarkable: predict the future. Information striking the fovea cannot be relayed instantaneously to conscious perception: first it has to travel down the optic nerve and be processed by the brain. This takes several hundred milliseconds, by which time the world has moved on. And so the brain makes a prediction about what the world will look like about 200 milliseconds into the future, and that is what you see. Without this future projection you would be unable to catch a ball, dodge moving objects or walk around without crashing into things.

There's another huge hole in the visual system that can render you oblivious to things that should be unmissable. The jerky movements that shift your fovea around the visual scene don't happen at random - they are directed by your brain's attentional system. Sometimes you consciously decide what to attend to, such as when you read. At other times your attention is grabbed by a movement in your peripheral vision or an unexpected noise.

The problem with attention is that it is a limited resource. For reasons that remain unknown, most people are unable to keep track of more than four or five moving objects at once. That can lead your visual system to be oblivious to things that are staring you in the face.

The most famous demonstration of this "inattention blindness" is the invisible gorilla, a video-based experiment created by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Viewers are asked to pay close attention to a specific aspect of a basketball game, and around half completely fail to see a person in a gorilla suit walk slowly across the screen, beat their chest and walk off again.

In Chinese Buddhism, there is story that illustrates Ch'an teaching, whereby the master tests the disciple's ability to intuit the truth, really well. The Fifth Patriarch Hung-Jen asked his pupils one day to examine their own minds and then write a verse.

He said, "he who is enlightened use his perfect vision of self-nature and write me a verse. When I look at his verse, if it reveals deep understanding, I shall give him the robe and the Law and make him the Sixth Patriarch..."

Hui-Neng was to become his successor. He wrote two verses:

"The tree of Perfect Wisdom is originally no tree.
Nor has the bright mirror any frame.
Buddha-nature is forever clear and pure.
Where is there any dust?"

and...

"The mind is the tree of Perfect Wisdom.
The body is the clear mirror.
The clear mirror is originally clear and pure.
Where has it been affected by any dust?"

The robe of Sudden Enlightenment was given to him at midnight without anyone knowing. The former Patriarch said: "Let people achieve understanding through their own effort."

More in-depth in "Sources of Chinese Tradition" - Theodore De Barry

Now...

I want people to write me a verse here. After three pages, the one that shows me deep understanding will be given the "Enlightened One of Astral Pulse" title. In fact, every three pages there will be an enlightened member. I think it will be a lot of fun. Hurry, hurry...

This guy has turned out to be a messenger of truth and his words were a revelation in America. He certainly dropped a Godly bombshell in the faith healing community. I thought he was terrific and he looks like our lord Jesus Christ. He could be the Second Coming. After all, the lord works in mysterious ways...

http://www.giftsofthespiritministry.com/

29/04/2011:

I woke up at 7.10am and used the toilet. I went back to bed a few minutes later and decided to induce an OOBE. Separation involved the simple movement of sitting up and getting out of bed. Vision was fuzzy as though I had sheets of cellophane over my eyes. I looked back at the bed and could make out Stacey's sleeping body but mine was missing. For a moment there I thought I had simply got out of bed in the waking state and that perhaps my eyes were a bit wet but I noticed that nothing happened when I rubbed them and I knew then that I was in the phase state. I went through the window like a ghost in order to see what was outside. The sky was white and the landscape, which resembled the area I live in, shimmered. A fear of getting lost in that shimmering scenery and waking up caused me to go back in the house through the front door but I didn't go through it, I pushed it open instead. I glided into the living room where I found a quasi-Stacey wearing a blue nightie and we engaged in intimacy before I regained physical awareness.

I got up, used the toilet again, and went back to bed. I fell asleep and had a dream about taking a walk with my children. A starry night sky was prominent over a mountainous and dismal landscape. We walked along the edge of a tarmac road and I realised I had someone else with me whom I recognised to be a friend of mine, but, in actuality, it was a complete stranger. In the dream, I had the memory of having killed someone in my house and I was telling my dream friend all about it. He was shocked but eager to learn about details. I requested that we walk ahead of the children in order to discuss such dire deed and that he should not tell a living soul about it. We came up to a point where the road split into two and we turned right where the road led up a mountain. Suddenly the kids called me to say that we should have turned left into the other route. We all turned around and did that. The other way led to a barren plane lit by a silver moon in the horizon. Vision became tarnished and I woke up. I wonder if the dream memory of having killed someone comes from the fact that several times I've imagined what I'd do if burglars broke in my house.

I took another attempt at entering the phase state and a shift in conscious awareness was experienced before the perception of brief unconsciousness. When I came to, I was lucid on the upper deck of a doubledecker bus. I was wearing an annoying long coat which I discarded before taking off through the windscreen to fly over a sunlit village. The view was fantastic and the blue sky was intense. In my astonishment, I thought how the environment could have been imagined and how amazingly complex my mind must be. I flew over a river with a bridge, and, apart from thinking my excitement, I decided to shout it out too. I noticed I couldn't exactly do that as my voice sounded somewhat stifled. I saw an ocean and landed at a nearby bay, by a row of shops that reminded me of my holiday in Portsmouth years ago.

I went in a kebab shop and an Asian-looking man asked me what I wanted. I told him I was dreaming, that everything around me was mine and that he could stop with that façade. My revelation seemed to cause a brief reality fluctuation, like a glitch in the dream matrix whereby the character's face vitiated and subtly transmuted in a split second and he suddenly stood further away from me. This apparent glitch presented a brief but massive contrast against the elaborate appearance of the ambience. I felt that the time sequence there had skipped a few frames and I wondered if my claim that it was all a dream had somehow triggered it. Mr. Kebab (as I've dubbed him for the sake of addressing him here) was now ignoring me and doing something behind the counter. I confronted him about his evasive manner and asked him what he had to say about my claim. He gave me a wry smile and continued to go about his business. I carefully examined his face and recognised him. Suddenly the place seemed familiar too. I realised I had been there before, earlier in the night, in another dream. I told him so and he ironically remarked that I was finally coming to my senses.

He also had a story to tell, something about a problem with the management of his shop which he now felt more confident about telling me since I stopped being silly. He told me the manager was acting strange and I was allowed to trespass behind the counter where he then led me through a doorway and into a massive kitchen where others worked. Everyone was dressed up as cooks and, while they toiled away, a colossal middle-aged man that I took to be the manager, had both his arms around two females and seemed to be enjoying it. Mr. Kebab continued to mumble about the problem and I moved closer to his face and asked him to come again because I was now way more conscious than before and I couldn't afford him to be vague. He seemed to get a little annoyed and raised his voice to state that there was something ominously wrong about the manager and his affairs. The women looked groggy as the manager dragged them by their necks. He gave us a contemptuous look as he walked past and led the women into another room where me and Mr. Kebab had time to glimpse at a group of naked women before having the door slammed in our faces. I wondered if the manager was trafficking women and turned to Mr. Kebab. "What is a dream then?"- Mr. Kebab just shook his head.

I heard what sounded like a gathering outside the shop. I remembered that the place had been desolate when I arrived and now there was a crowd of bystanders and walkers. The bay was now seemingly fraught with life. Where had they come from? There was a naked woman with an abnormal pink complexion, like a rash all over her body, standing outside the shop. She looked unwell and disorientated. She had bubbles in certain areas of her body and her partially corroded right bosom alluded to the possibility that she had been exposed to an acidic substance. She moaned, seemingly in pain, and I moved in to comfort her. Mr. Kebab walked away indifferently in the opposite direction to where his shop was. The scenery turned insipid and I phased back to physical awareness.

I felt energised and excited as I got up. I checked the time and it was 9.15am. I jotted down all I could remember in my journal and made myself a cup of tea.

22/03/2011:

DREAM 1

I was with my friend Mike at his house which didn't look anything like his actual house. We talked about UFOs and then I decided to stay the night. Mike turned the blinds down when we heard some sort of trouble taking place outside. It sounded like gunshots and people screaming. We slept in the same bed and I felt cold because Mike didn't want to share the cover. This is not a trait of his that I've seen and we have never shared a bed before either. In the dream, I fell asleep. I woke up in the morning of that dream and Stacey had come to meet me there so we could leave together. Me, Stacey, Mike, Donna (his girlfriend), and another character who was supposed to be Mike's brother, all watched the sunrise in the backyard. Mike's brother didn't like me being there and we clashed. The scenery began to change and I remained non-lucid.

DREAM 2

There was a long row of pairs of people waiting to go to war. Each pair was given a bucket full of clocks and stones. These were to be thrown at the enemy or to be used as weapons in general. The buckets would occasionally arrive in wheelbarrows. Hitler was at the front, barking orders in what sounded like German. He was being addressed as the "Fuhrer" by a few individuals. A man in front of me decided to steal some of my stones. I threatened to hit him if he did it one more time. My words triggered a fight and I realised that he was extremely strong. Guards came and broke it up. People protested against the one row strategy because it was not productive enough. We needed to expand and try something new because the people at the back were unable to throw stones past the people at the front and they would never reach the enemy. We started pushing the walls that confined us further apart until we had enough space to reorganise ourselves and quickly form numerous shorter rows of fighters. The scenery changed but it still felt like the same dream. Me and army were now in a massive training ground. Hitler stood as a referee and ordered us to fight against each other for practice. I hated the fact that he was the leader, but I also felt that I didn't have a choice but to follow orders. The training was violent and made me experience a mild fight-or-flight sensation but the hits I took were painless. I was being thrown about in the tumultuous crowd but I also punched and kicked as many bodies as I could. I woke up at 3.52am feeling very tired and took a couple of calcium carbonate tablets for my heartburn. I made some notes in my diary before going down at 4.35am to induce an OOBE but fell asleep instead.

DREAM 3

It was daytime and I was a floating observer over the area where I live. Motorcycles were speeding in and out of the close. Inevitably, one of them crashed into a car parked outside of door number one. Derek, the man who lives there with his wife, came out of the house to inspect the car and he looked angry. I woke up and didn't even write this dream down because I didn't think much of it. I surmised that it had been triggered by the discussion me and Stacey had the previous day about the possibility of an accident taking place every time the yobs from next door perform their motorcycle stunts to and fro. I was to review this dream days later when it came true...

30/03/2011:

WAKING LIFE EVENT

Stacey had gone out with our friend Emma during the day while I looked after the children at home. In the evening, Stacey sent me a message to say that she was getting off the bus and walking home. I opened the front door in order to let her in, not expecting to see what I saw. There was a police van parked in the middle of the close. Officers were talking to both Derek's daughter and the people that live next door to us. Derek soon came out of his house and started inspecting the car parked in his space. At this point, Stacey came into the close and was stumped at the scene. She noticed a motorcycled on the tarmac floor and a dent on what she recognised to be Derek's daughter's car. When she got my attention to these details, I recalled my dream on the 22nd. I was flabbergasted as I tried to work out, in vain, whether it had been precognitive or coincidental. The striking similarities between the dream and this waking life incident are undeniable. Perhaps the personal unconscious mind isn't all that dreams deal with. Or maybe, our subjective worlds relate to the objective reality far more than what we think.

02/04/2011:

I had a dream about a friend of mine whom I haven't seen in a long time. His name his Mark and I think he is currently living in Malaysia. In the dream, me, him and other friends were intruders in a big house where we found things that we liked. I was finding things that related to interests that me and Mark shared, especially to do with music. Then, Mark said that the owner of the house was coming and that he would not like to see me there so I left. Once I stepped outside, I became lucid. I was in a town full of casinos houses, arcade games and other entertainment. The scenery was no different to the waking world in quality. If I hadn't become lucid, I would have believed it to be physically real. I knelt down to feel the ground beneath me. The tactile sensation I experienced was realistic. I could still see things clearly in the dream even when I experienced a hissing pulsation in my head. I closed my eyes and opened them again to find myself in darkness. I decided to go somewhere random as I didn't have anything in mind and experienced motion before regaining physical awareness. I remained still in bed and it didn't take long for a strong vibrational surge to ensue. I rolled over and floated upwards and out of the body. Vision came not long after that. I hovered near the ceiling directly above the bed where Stacey lay, and, oddly, where I should be was my sister Vanessa tossing and turning as though she was having a nightmare. It didn't make any sense. Vanessa lives with my mother all the way across London from me. I started to explore the environment and glided into the hallway. I was in a metaphysical replica of my house. The atmosphere was sombre but the colours were sharpish and structures were well defined. I stepped into the hallway mirror slowly and went through it as though it was a portal to another world. On the other side I encountered what could be regarded as an small and darker extension of the dream house I was in. I scanned the room and found my deceased stepfather Sergio in the corner next to a luminescent mirror-entrance. He looked as young as a pre-teenager but he possessed a manly adult voice when he spoke. We greeted each other before he offered to play an acoustic guitar that was propped up against the wall. I noticed that the floor of that room was as soft as a mattress and was covered by blankets. As Sergio started to strum the guitar, I heard a funky bass line in my head which sounded like Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough". Then I heard the acoustic sounds which seemed to compliment the bass line well. I was overcome with emotion and started crying. He stopped playing and stared at me with his child-like face. He grabbed my arm and a tear escaped from his eye. We embraced and I felt that reality evanesce to be replaced by the awareness of laying in bed coupled with mild sizzling in my head.

Recently, the people at the LHC at CERN have captured antimatter.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/antimatter-captured-in-major-scientific-breakthrough/article1803302/

Antimatter, according to team member Jeffrey Hangst of Aarhus University in Denmark, is the "mirror image of normal matter" – in theory identical but opposite. (Thus, if the universe – human beings included – was made of antimatter, it would look and feel the same.)

Maybe for every matter universe that is created there is always an antimatter one. Matter and antimatter are not compatible as they annihilate so at "the beginning", they literally became non-local to each other. Perhaps in the antimatter version of our universe there are scientists who are trying to study and understand matter particles. Remember Monroe's Journeys Out of the Body? Perhaps Locale III really was an antimatter universe...

There could be like a symmetrical effect between our universe and the anti-one. We already know that when matter and antimatter come into contact, they annihilate. What we haven't mentioned here is that when they annihilate, photons are produced. Photons are strange in physics as they are considered to be "virtual" particles. They come into existence briefly but long enough to reflect or carry the energy fluctuations that have taken place.

It is thought that the 'uncertainty principle' in quantum physics allows them to come into being briefly as the outcome of an energy interaction. Photons are not the only virtual particles. Also, an infinity of virtual particles appear and disappear all the time no matter what we do and have to be considered when making calculations. They also make life more difficult for the physicist!

Antimatter has an opposite charge to matter. In other words, for every particle, there exists an antiparticle. While we have electrons in our matter universe, the antiuniverse has positrons. Positrons were first discovered in 1932 by Carl D. Anderson while he analysed cosmic rays. Before that, their existence had been theorised because the quantum theory of the electron was noted to be incomplete.

I don't think antipeople can ever physically meet people in the same space and shake hands, for example. I think there must be a law that keeps the particles of their universe almost non-local to each other. However, OOBEs may make contact possible and perhaps it has already been done - read about Monroe's Locale III in his first book and the theories. Maybe as a disembodied consciousness we may make contact with these antipeople possible. For now, if you ever meet one of them physically in some neutral space (if there is such a thing) avoid touching them.

At our present level we can only speculate about the things that are presented to us from a limited, present, finite and current human perspective. From this perspective arises aspects such as the uncertainty principle when we study quantum physics and a plethora of theories are born. We don't get to see the full picture of the known physical universe, let alone the confirmation of the existence of other physical realities. The recent experiments that have confirmed to scientists the existence of antimatter have only made me speculate that for every matter universe that is created, an antimatter one will arise out of a symmetrical principle.

As far as I'm aware, I have not visited "Locale III" yet. Also, besides the non-locality of other realities which may compose a multiverse, there is also the possibility that our universe exists within a larger universe. I have often imagined that the reality we know is the quantum level of a larger 'universe' and that we may in fact exist inside an organism of unimaginable proportions who interacts in its rightful dimensions. This theory is purely born out of the fact that the macro world seems to imitate the micro world or even the subatomic realm in many respects.

Now... Let's take a look at the quantum chromodynamics which is the quantum theory of the atomic nucleus and the particles that make it up. The atomic nucleus is composed of particles larger than electrons called nucleons. Nucleons are types of hadrons, which means that they are highly interactive subatomic particles. Hadrons are made up of smaller particles called quarks which are held together by gluons. There are two types of nucleons: positively charged protons and noncharged neutrons. Protons and electrons are identically charged, but the proton is positive and the electron is negative.

Hadron colliders were used to find out what was inside protons. The quantum properties of the quarks that they are made of are mass, electrical charge, and spin. In quantum mechanics, a spin is not an actual spin but rather, the interaction with other particles. The two types of numerical value in a spin are: integer and half-integer. The six types of quarks that have been observed in experiments are: the up quark, down quark, charm quark, strange quark, top quark, and the bottom quark. A proton charge is reached by adding up the electrical charge of the three quarks inside it. Every proton is made of two up quarks and one down quark. Neutrons are composed of one up quark and two down quarks.

Theoretically, quarks have another quantum mechanical property: colour charge. This is similar to the electrical charge in principle but it is distinct in quarks. The three varieties are red, green and blue. They are not colours but rather names for the different types of charge. Quarks are actually smaller than the wavelength of visible light. The gluons that bind them are also known as gauge bosons for the strong nuclear force. Photons are the gauge bosons for electromagnetism. As you have probably gathered, bosons are seen as mediating forces of nature and they have an integer spin. It is speculated that there are bosons called gravitons which make gravity happen. Composite bosons can also exist by the combination of an even number of different fermions. Fermions are particles with a half-integer spin and a multiple number of them can't exist in the same quantum state according to the Pauli exclusion principle. Fermions are also seen as being a bit more "solid" and thought of as matter particles. A quark is an example of a fermion. Mesons are bosons made up of only two quarks. A lepton is a fermion. As far as scientists can tell, leptons are elementary particles that can't be broken down into smaller particles. The electron is an example of a lepton. There are also neutrinos which have almost no mass in terms of energy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECkG_JdodMA&feature=related

The forces or interactions in physics can be broken down into four basic types: electromagnetism, weak nuclear force (these two combined are also seen as the electroweak force which, combined with quantum chromodynamics defines the strong nuclear force), gravity, and strong nuclear force. Gauge bosons work for these forces in nature. The photon for electromagnetism; the gluon for strong nuclear force; and the Z, W+ and W- bosons for weak nuclear force. Now, there is a theory in the Standard Model of particles physics which states that particles get their mass from a field that permeates all space and creates the Higgs boson. That is known as the Higgs mechanism and the field is known as the Higgs field (yet to be discovered). It takes a lot of energy for the field to create such boson and physicists have so far been unable to do this. On the other hand, gluons and photons are massless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9nk2BVedxM&feature=related

The Standard Model, however, fails to resolve the hierarchy problem. How do we connect the quantum to the macro in physics? Perhaps string theory can provide answers that can later be verified through experiments. The macro world may 'mirror' the subatomic world in terms of interactions and productivity. When massive stars explode in giant supernovas, elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, such as zinc, copper, and uranium are produced. These elements amongst many other heavy ones can be used to produce planets as gravity takes action. Supernovas produce enough energy to fuse protons together into heavy atomic nuclei.

Dark matter in our universe is as mysterious as the behaviour displayed by certain particles on a quantum level. Dark matter can't be observed, but, according to scientists, it has to exist in order to account for the fact that the gravitational effects of the universe don't match the amount of matter observed. There is actually more dark matter than baryonic matter, the matter which is visible and makes up us, the Earth, the other planets and the stars. Either that or the laws of physics are not following the patterns that we expected and we have grossly misunderstood how reality really works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqWbwPoNLSw

24/03/2011:

After an eventful day at the park with our children, me and Mrs Summer went to bed around 12.30 am. I'd had a glass of milk and a couple of chocolate digestives before going to bed. I was so tired that it didn't take me long to fall asleep. I woke up at 3.50 am to use the toilet. My sleep inertia symptoms were strong and felt like the perfect opportunity for an out-of-body excursion. I went down feeling like a dead weight and just relaxed. I sneezed a few times and Mrs Summer stirred in her sleep. I looked at the lamp hanging from the ceiling for a few seconds and then shut my eyes. I imagined it with my eyes closed. After a while I got random hypnagogic visuals. I had been observing the imagery for a while when my one-year-old son came in the room crying. He must've had a bad dream.

I got up, calmed him down and tucked him in his bed again. I went back to bed and started again in my attempt to bring about an OOBE. When I finally reached sleep paralysis, I heard a pulsatile hiss and my son's voice resonated in my head. "Dad, dad...", it said as I felt a tiny body climb up on top of me and creeping me out. It was unreal because my son would not do that and certainly not in the way in which I felt that body crawling on my chest. I twitched and snapped out of the paralysis and the hallucination ended. I had a sigh of relief and remained still. Soon I entered a familiar state of clarity and the hissing pulsation returned. I remember thinking that perhaps the 'pineal engine' had ignited and was revving up to a rollercoaster of rushing sounds. What followed was a sensation of detachment from everything but I was still conscious of lying in bed without visibility.

Suddenly, I could hear voices as though a radio had been switched on in my head. I couldn't understand what they said but somehow the audio focused on a particular female voice who spoke as though it was delivering a lecture. The subject appeared to be consciousness and a sentence stuck out to me: "The I is the centre of consciousness therefore we are all centres of consciousness." The voice then proceeded to divulge a deep secret about reality which made me experience an epiphany and yet I don't recall what was said. The voice turned surd and was drowned by orchestral music and clapping. This was followed by a vibrational surge and subsequently I appeared to have separated from my body solely by willing myself out. Vision was hazy but I could distinguish my bedroom environment. I shifted in midair  into the hallway and towards the mirror on the wall, which looked grey and absolutely non-reflective. I glided through it as I wished to see Marge, Stacey's deceased grandmother.

What is unusual about what followed is that I was not travelling through a dark void as is typical when I plunge into the hallway mirror. Instead, I was zooming past treetops, rooftops, roads and vehicles. When I came to a halt, I saw that I was at ground level, skittering through an alley littered with rubbish in broad daylight. The colours of the environment were dull and I tried to make them brighter with my mind but to no avail. Involuntarily, I teleported to another setting. Initially, it was hard for me to see where I was because I kept laterally zapping from surface to surface unable to fixate on a particular location. I managed to slow down my movement near the ceiling of what looked like a large bathroom. I saw a little girl, who appeared to be eight or nine years of age, in a tub full of dirty water, and her groggy face was barely sticking out. I could see her swallowing water and lots of hairs until her head was completely immersed. A scowling man entered the room. He was tall, stocky, and his hair was short, dark and spiky. Wide-eyed and in a frenzy, this character drowned the child by pressing her head further down using a plunger. Neither characters took any notice of my presence.

The intensity of the experience was alarming and I was literally in fight-or-flight mode as I witnessed that crime. My perspective changed galvanically and I appeared to be in the tub now. The room was the same but the lighting was different. The same scowling man came in and proceeded towards me. In a reflex action, I ascended to the ceiling and, when I looked down, I observed a naked boy in the tub, screaming in sheer horror. Mercilessly, the man drowned the boy, and, as he did so, he blamed the child for what was happening to him and accused him of being the reason why he was a monster. He growled and shook the boy underwater. The child's efforts to break free were futile. I moved about the room uncontrollably as I attempted to see what else was going on. I regained physical awareness in sleep paralysis hoping that what I had experienced was imagined. My head hissed again.

I heard more voices in my head as though they were engaged in dialogues with classical music intervals. I separated again, but this time, into a dark void. I wished to see Marge and felt hands gripping me on either side and leading me somewhere. I saw light ahead and found myself in a crisp environment. Sharp colours defined a surreal scenery composed of what appeared to be Roman ruins in a forest. I set out to look for Marge there but encountered a bald black man instead. I asked him who he was and he told me his name was either Simão or João Figo. We spoke in Portuguese. I asked him where we were and he told me that we were in the same place all the time. The conversation then became more vague and dreamlike. At times I had the impression that he could say what I was thinking and vice versa. It was as if we were somehow connected. I was unsure whether I could at times control his speech or the fact that I thought what he said at times was coincidental. As I regained physical awareness, I heard mild showers in my head and my body felt cold. It was 7.30 am.

I researched the names "Simão Figo" and "João Figo" online. What I found on the latter proved to be interesting. I came across the profile of a black man who looks very much like the one I saw in my experience. As I looked closely at his picture, I noticed that he was posing in front of paintings depicting Roman ruins. Either I had a coincidental wake-induced lucid dream where I met a very elaborate aspect of myself which exuded the illusion of sentience, or, I managed to access someone else's dream. The latter hypothesis would imply that we may be telepathically connected to strangers or that some of our dreams may intertwine with theirs.

Here's the man's Facebook profile:
http://www.facebook.com/people/Joao-Figo/100001194966351

I might send him a friends request and see where that goes...

05/03/2011:

DREAM 1

This morning, after using the toilet, I went back to bed and ended up having two visually splendid dreams in which I eventually gained lucidity. I guess the fact that I've been recording my dreams and my evening cheese and milk (tryptophan) consumption contributed towards acquiring a great focus in the metaphysical realm.

It starts off hazy but with a distinct feeling that, in the dream world, I was looking and applying for various jobs. I remember talking to groups of people in a supermarket. After having been filmed and tested by supervisors in cleaning a kitchen and making it immaculate, I gave myself a break and went to a beach.

This beach was vast and crowded with adults and children. The moment I gazed at the sky was when I realised there was something peculiar about where I was. The atmosphere consisted of dark blue clouds partially concealing a magenta void in an unnatural contrast. I questioned the reality surrounding me and decided to investigate.

As I observed the people at the beach, I realised that they were slightly amorphous. Their swirling faces reminded me of the illusion of melting faces perceived during a good psilocybin trip. The children now resembled giant shape-shifting amoebas and all traces of their humanity were gone. I made the funny observation that everything seemed normal when the knowledge that I was dreaming was absent, and now, in the lucid state, I was confronted with a highly defined erroneous dreamscape as though I'd been drugged.

Instead of pushing the dream content away in order to induce an OOBE, I decided to explore the dream. I wanted to find out if there were still traces of the storyline where I was 'gullible' and looking for jobs. Perhaps this very thought is what continued with it, though on a milder level. Suddenly, I appeared to have teleported to a hospital where I sat with others behind a massive counter where documents and a few telephones were found. Taylor (tpelling), my work colleague in waking life, was  sitting next. His features were perfect, his face did not swirl like the clouds of Jupiter, and the environment could have convinced anyone of its authenticity.

Upon waking, I would muse on the hospital scenario and speculate on its possible connection with my mother recently asking me if I could ever work in a hospital and me expressing indifference at the idea. The characters at the dream hospital reflected indifference towards me and bore less pizzazz than the ones in the previous dream working environments. Either this was a result of my lucidity or, the characters, as representations of my personality, were expressing their rejection at the idea of working in a hospital environment. This idea, of course, had been proposed to me in waking life. A question arises: if I don't like the idea, why did my mind decide to review it? Perhaps I contemplated what it would be like to work in a hospital, even if it was for a nanosecond before expressing my indifference to my mother.

The characters also seemed to avoid me and some even ran away when I approached them. When I turned to Taylor, he said hello, shook my hand, wished me good luck and smirked as he left. This kind of made sense when I woke up as I compared it to what I've been thinking lately. It was like a review of past thoughts of working somewhere which would allow me to use my slight interest in biology and chemistry and Taylor reinforced the idea of "work". Another observation I made as a possible association is that the real Taylor is fond of science. Overall, this part of the dream seemed to convey the message that I would not like to work in a hospital environment.

Strangely, even though it was a lucid dream, I felt slightly paranoid at one point. I briefly suspected of a conspiracy amongst my dream characters in that they were not being truthful to me. Perhaps I am not being truthful to myself but I'd like to think that it was the symptom of a possible fantasy that reflects talks of conspiracy theories I had with certain individuals in waking life. I approached another group of people and they laughed at me as they went down a stairwell.

There was a brief pause before I decided to go downstairs. When I reached the bottom, it was no longer a hospital, it was a café in high definition which appeared to be right next to a crowded supermarket. There were mirrors and paintings on the walls, and the name of the café on one of them: "Homme: Café de Forte, London".

I decided to repeat the name continuously in order to make sure that I would remember it upon waking. I went outside and saw that the café appeared to be next to a bank. Instead of a sign with its name, there was some sort of structure designed to resemble three ships that displayed massive sails. I went back inside the café to remind myself of its name. The inside was the same as before and so was the name.

I went back outside and saw characters celebrating Christmas. Carols were sung and there was an array of entertainment for children. I observed a highly decorated funny-looking vehicle carrying lots of presents and moving slowly as people crowded around it. As night fell, people started screaming and I soon found out why. What appeared to be London was being majorly flooded. Me and Mrs Summer, who appeared out of nowhere, waded through dark and misty streets. Somewhere along the way I lost my lucidity. As we looked for a safe place, I remember seeing the London Eye near the horizon. I woke up, jotted down what I could remember in my journal and went back to bed.

DREAM 2

The environment was a nice pub and the storyline was that I was an old man accompanied by two women who appeared to be alcoholics. We were drinking and talking to a barman that we knew. I seemed to have a different memory which gave me the perception that we were regulars at that pub. It was like a parallel universe where I was an alcoholic.

The barman wasn't happy and expressed his dismay at our antics. Apparently we were too loud and often inappropriate. One of the women, of average build and long curly hair, told him that we'd go to another pub if we were to be banned. We sat down as the other older-looking lady said that we had until "ten to one" to drink and have a good time.

Somehow I had the key to the pub in my hand, as though I'd stolen it previously, and I told the women that we could return to the pub after closing time and nobody would find out. The dream began to fade and I regained physical awareness. I felt a key in my hand which I thought was impossible because I was awake. I soon realised that what I had in my hand was part of my pillow.

I remained still and re-entered the same dream from the hypnopompic state, only now I was looking at it from a lucid perspective. Me and the women walked the streets as we looked for another pub. They talked to each other ahead of me and seemed oblivious or ignorant to the fact that I was now lucid and possessed only memories of a waking world. Before we could enter a pub together, I woke up and added more notes to my journal.

[DMT, The Spirit Molecule]

DMT, The Spirit Molecule

DMT, The Spirit Molecule by Rick Strassman is a book which documents his research and experiments with this psychedelic whose endogenous properties are still quite elusive. Not many people have conducted such an extensive research on DMT as Dr. Strassman. He also explores its association with near-death experiences and other mystical states of consciousness and the possibility that the pineal gland may in fact be the "seat of the soul" as once postulated by Rene Descartes, the philosopher who supported dualism and the famous phrase "cogito ergo sum" (I think therefore I am). Here's a quote from the book which gives you a taste and many of you OOBErs out there may find this familiar:

"A resonance process may occur in the pineal similar to that of the shattering glass, although not quite as destructive. The pineal begins to "vibrate" at frequencies that weaken its multiple barriers to DMT formation: the pineal cellular shield, enzyme levels, and quantities of anti-DMT. The end result is a psychedelic surge of the pineal spirit molecule, resulting in the subjective states of mystical consciousness."

The pineal gland contains all it needs to produce DMT. It has the highest levels of serotonin than anywhere else in the body and it produces melatonin and tryptamine, the latter being a major step towards the formation of dimethyltryptamine (DMT). What's more, certain enzymes that are known to have the power to convert the tryptamines into psychedelic compounds were found in the pineal.

Taking this into account, we can see that in the human body, the pineal gland is the most reasonable place for the making of DMT. The gland also produces beta-carbolines which inhibit the breakdown of DMT in ayahuasca and, once ingested, prevents the monoamine oxydases in the gut from destroying it. It would be reasonable to speculate that in the pineal, the beta-carbolines would enhance and prolong the effects of DMT, especially during meditative states, dreams, OOBEs and NDEs.

Give this book a shot. Seriously, it won't disappoint! It will also educate you and give you a better understanding of what may happen in your body when you induce your OOBEs.

[CARRY OUT YOUR OWN STUDY ON OOBES AND ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS]

CARRY OUT YOUR OWN STUDY ON OOBES AND ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

About two and a half years ago I came across Robert A Monroe and a method to bring about out-of-body experiences (OOBEs/OBEs) in a book called "Mind Games" by Michael Powell. I was curious and decided to try it to see what it was all about and placed great emphasis on having a nap or sleep prior to induction attempts as I found that they helped me to become physiologically 'primed' for the experience.

Soon, I found that I was able to be consciously aware during hypnagogic and sleep paralysis states and at times was able to experience what Monroe termed as the "vibrational state". During this state I was seemingly able to separate from my physical body by rolling over and out or by floating out. Most of the time I entered hallucinatory versions of reality and perceived them through an illusory body, like entering a hyper-vivid dreamworld. On rare occasions, I'd separate into what looked like my bedroom and the rest of the world and no anomalies were spotted - when this happened, there was no illusory body and I was nothing but a floating point of consciousness. This type of experience usually happened after intense vibrations or the vibrations were absent but the sleep paralysis state was extremely deep and often prolonged.

I also began to practice on having lucid dreams by getting used to the idea of being a 'dream detective'. I also found that I was able to access more abstract states of consciousness, once I even seemed to have lost all human logic and that's as best as I can describe it. I had managed to have strange and interesting experiences without even using psychedelics or binaural beats.

Soon, my experiences led me to dig deeper and look for answers so I turned to science rather than religion (I've always been that way inclined anyway - although I'm a bit partial to Tibetan Buddhism). I began to research the different types of brain waves, the sleep cycles, the pineal gland and DMT. Looking at the info on the pineal and the latest discoveries such as the piezoelectric calcite crystals inside struck a cord with me because, a few times during sleep paralysis, I heard voices. These voices seemed to be engaged in dialogues, and almost made me feel like a spy. Sometimes I could understand them, but most of the time they were incoherent.

This made me think. Was I listening to sound frequencies beyond the human range of hearing via the auditory system? Or perhaps I was listening to thoughts (mine or other people's) if one considers the possibility that the metaphysical is existent as a frequency beyond the ultrasonic and yet to be detected and officially recognised by science. Or a more far-fetched note, perhaps I detected sound waves from parallel universes...

I am currently writing a book about OOBEs and altered states of consciousness. So far it documents my experiences and records interesting observations I've made. It is my journey and study. It also includes some speculation on the phenomena. My aim is to have a book that tells it like it is...no bull! I've seen a lot of astral projection books that make wild claims but such claims are not substantiated and are usually deliberately included to make an impression on the reader. I sift through the bull straight away and only take what I deem to be valuable info.

There is, of course, more to consciousness and the mind than meets the eye and that is so obvious that it is the very thing that keeps me motivated in continuing my study. I think the OOBE is a very powerful tool we have for this. The book is still in progress by the way. I'd also encourage others to make their own studies/observations on this phenomenon from a fresh perspective and perhaps we can also learn something valuable and possibly unravel answers to questions that remain unanswered.

Regards,

Summerlander

Hi! Like I said, I'm a mod in Astral Viewers and I have my own journal there full of experiences. Here they are:

http://astralviewers.com/summerlander-journal/

I'm Summerlander and I'm a mod from Astral Viewers. I'm liking what I'm seeing here. By the way, I've been projecting since 98 using a 'Monroesque' technique and I can tell that your Kepple was on the right track. I am glad Xanth has preserved his work and continues to help many people here and on Viewers. Nice to meet u all!