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I had a series of interesting lucid dreams and/or possible projections early this morning, interspersed with (unsuccessful) attempts to roll out and separate from my body. 

For some reason I was no longer able to do Raduga's roll out or sit up, even after cycling through various techniques such as swimming or arm wiggling.

I WAS however able to have several lucid and very vivid experiences by just imagining myself standing somewhere in my room and then trying to 'materialize' my senses and deepen my experience. I tried Robert Bruce's rope technique one time, and although I could not really imagine the rope or the climbing sensation, I spontaneously gained vision hovering over my bed.

Most of the 'projections' were very dark, that is the best way that I can describe them. My vision had a very low level of lighting that I could not improve with deepening techniques or requesting 'awareness now'.

I continued trying the traditional separation techniques every time that I returned to my body, but I would either get real physical movement which disrupted my paralysis or I would just get nothing at all. Other times I seemingly just willed myself out and ended up in the 'dark' version of my room that I described before. Is this wrong? I want to also mention that I have not felt a vibration since I started having 'successful' separations. 

The second problem I have is a complete lack of control. When I'm in my room or try to float through my house I can kind of control myself, but once I try and fly out through a window or jump into a mirror it is as I'm being flown into a million directions and just quickly jump between different scenes. Some of these scenes were very vivid and fantastical, at one point I was in space and fell into a swirling vortex/portal, at another point I felt like I had intruded on an alien home world and had begun to attract the attention of the inhabitants. However, when ever I tried to transport myself somewhere I was  unsuccessful and in most cases I could not even control my flight path.

A few times I was transported to scenes that did not have the 'dark vision', these seemed more dream-like because I was having conversations with people and pre-involved in certain situations. I still did have vivid sensations and full consciousness at these times. Once I was swimming through clear blue water and as I made an attempt to deepen the sensations and make it feel real, it became very real as if my physical body was swimming in real life. Most of the conversations that I had during these times involved AP. I felt like I was asking everyone 'Is it real?' and a few people I asked 'what do you represent?'. One guy gave me a long speech about how it was very similar to a lucid dream, and in that way it was not real, but that did not mean that it wasn't real to me or that it wasn't amazing that I had figured it out. I felt like he was giving me a lot of information but I started to lose my focus and couldn't hear the message after a while. Other people that I talked to said it was absolutely real, and that they were real people that were projecting. I tried to pry for more information, and when they did not respond I started yelling out my full name and home address in the physical...the people faded out from my awareness soon after. The swimming scene I described earlier involved a beautiful woman in some sort of body of water calling to me to join her. I was a little hesitant to take the bait so for some reason I blurted out "are you evil??", her response was "do you want me to be?" as if to say that I was in control and the experience would only turn negative if I chose.

There were a series of guys in white suits who appeared during the 'people' experiences who referred to themselves as 'helpers' or 'support'. I felt like they had a lot of wisdom to share but I was not able to absorb much of it. There were a few times that I called out into the sky asking for my spirit guide or higher self, but no such spirit ever came to meet me.

One time I was in my house in 'dark vision', I tested a light switch remembering I had read somewhere about that. I felt the physical switch in a very real way, although the lighting did not change. I did not pass through it like a ghost. I don't know what this means. Another time I was in my room but I was completely trapped, the walls were very real and I could not jump through them and fly out of the house.

I'll wrap it up, since it felt like I had a ton of experiences and it would take forever to list them all out here. There was a dichotomy between the dark vision floating around my house/floating uncontrolled through the universe, and more traditional type scenes where there were a lot of people around me and I was asking them about astral projection. There were times during both where I felt everything was very vivid and lucid, and that I had my full consciousness that I had left my body and gone somewhere else.

I haven't really had an opportunity to experiment with the 'indirect' method since my last post. For the last couple of weeks I haven't had many lucid dreams, and I've been either fully asleep or fully conscious and never in between.

I always keep somewhat of an intention to try to get out of my body, if I get a chance. I usually think about it especially if I wake up in the early hours before it is time to wake up. I think that it might have finally happened again this morning after a while.

I remember trying several times (and remember, whatever I describe now is just based on a memory so take it with a grain of salt). I remember 'rolling out' of my bed a few times, with varying degrees of success.

The first time I rolled out to the right side of my bed and hit the floor. During the first few seconds I am always blind, as my physical eyes are closed and the experience begins with me coming out of a dream realizing that I am in my bed. I hit the floor, on my hands and knees as usual, and could barely see anything. I quickly remembered to apply some of the techniques that I learned. I started to rub my eyes together in front of my face, and as I did so my vision became clearer. I yelled out the command "clarity now!" (although I did not really yell as I had no voice), when I did this I got a MUCH clearer vision of my room, although not as clear and vivid as 'real' life. I kept rubbing my hands and I repeated the command...however I could not make the vision more vivid after a certain point. I looked over at my bedside table, which was next to the side I landed on. I saw pictures that I had up there. At this point I kind of lost control of my movement, and started to slowly float up and over my bed. My vision was fixed straight upwards, and I felt like I was losing control as well as visual clarity. As I slowly floated across my bed, I started to see some black cloudy stuff entering my field of vision from the left side (meaning it would've been floating over where my physical body was lying). I got a little scared, as I did not want to see anything scary, and I was instantly back in my body and awake, ending the experience. Before going back to sleep I looked to the side of my bed where the bedside table was...those pictures are no longer there, I moved them a few months ago. Weird. So at least some aspect of the experience was not 'real'.

During the next few hours of the morning I was in and out of consciousness, occasionally becoming lucid during some of my dreams. When I did realize that I was dreaming, I would try and think of myself back in my bed asleep to try and get out of my body. A few times this woke me up fully, a few times I would become aware of myself asleep in bed, but then drift off and lose consciousness before I could make an exit attempt.

The second roll out felt physically very real. I remember thinking "I might actually hurt myself", thinking it was my physical body rolling out and I would crack my head on the floor and wake up fully. No such thing happened, as I felt myself hit the floor this time on the left side of my bed. I repeated the techniques to try and get my sight and senses, and I found myself looking at my room once again. This time I turned to look at my bed where my physical body was supposed to be. I did not see myself lying there, in fact I saw my pillow where it should be but the bed itself was empty. Weird. I walked out of my room and across the hallway to the next bedroom. I did not see anyone in this room either, which is strange because someone was in fact sleeping there. I looked at the window in this bedroom and decided I was going to try and fly out of it. When I tried to do so, things started to get more fuzzy and dream-like, and I felt like I was starting to lose vision and control. I repeated the hand rubbing and 'clarity now' and regained my senses...it seemed like I had not left the second bedroom at all and was still staring at the window. The experience that I thought I was starting to have by flying outside was still outside the window, and it felt like the window itself was a giant flat screen tv. There were scenes going on through there, but I apparently could not get out. It was just a projected picture.

I walked back out of the bedroom and looked down the stairs at the downstairs landing. I noticed that there were shoes there, as there usually are. I jumped from the top of the stairs, thinking I would fly down, but instead it seemed like 'gravity' kicked in and I just fell and landed downstairs. It seemed like daytime, and it was not dark at all. I looked at the dining table as I passed by it, there were a few plates out on the table with cookies in them (strange). As I turned to the kitchen I saw someone standing at the sink, with their back towards me. This is the first 'person' that I have seen during these few experiences. It appeared to be a woman, but I did not recognize her. I could not see her face, but she had black hair and appeared to be relatively young and attractive from behind. As I describe this now it feels pretty creepy, but I do not remember feeling fear at the time. I decided I was going to try and see her face, and as I walked towards her she did not turn around to face me. At this point I started to get a little bit scared and apprehensive, not wanting to see something out of a horror movie turn around and reveal itself to me. Acting with trepidation, I reached out to tap her on the shoulder and braced for the worst. Boom, as soon as my hand touched her shoulder I was back in my bed and conscious once again. At this point I should have forced myself awake and written down the experience immediately while it still felt vivid and real. Unfortunately I did not have the discipline and I dozed back to sleep. I remember the details I have described of these two 'projections' relatively clearly, although the experiences themselves now seem kind of hazy and distant.

Overall I am having difficulty with prolonging these short experiences, and I seem to return to my body rather quickly. I think there is an aspect of fear that is involuntarily waking me back up. I'm ok with this since I do not want to have a bad experience, and hopefully with more practice I will overcome my fears more and be able to venture out farther and for a long period of time. It is interesting that the two times I have tried to fly out of my house (this morning, and in my post from a couple weeks ago), I have triggered some sort of 'error' which reset me back to an earlier part of the experience. 

Again, thanks for reading for those who do. I am mostly trying to journal some of these experiences so that it will excite me enough to keep trying. Putting this down into words seems to solidify everything more, so I can come back and realize these things actually happened and it wasn't just a couple of weird dreams I had once and then forgot about. I'll try and visit this board more often, but again I haven't really had an experience between my last post and now. I'm enjoying reading some posts of other people's experiences, but lately all the 'horrible experience' titled threads make me think I should not be getting someone else's scary thoughts in my head and I should just experiment on my own.

[*This post has become rather long, as I have made an attempt to describe some of my background. You can skip down to the second part for the experiences if you want.]

*This post has become rather long, as I have made an attempt to describe some of my background. You can skip down to the second part for the experiences if you want.

Hi,

As this is my first post I will try to stay as concise and brief as possible. I apologize in advance, because I will probably fail to do this and end up rambling incoherently.

I have always considered myself an intelligent and rational person. I have held contempt for the superstitious beliefs that still haunt humanity, and feel that people believe strange things due to their ignorance of science and due to religious brainwashing from their parents and culture. I have been drawn towards figures such as Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, and James Randi who educate people about science's understanding of the physical world. I feel a strong emotional resistance to 'magical thinking' and superstitious beliefs, most of our modern human problems seem to stem from irrationality, ignorance, and medieval models of reality.

At the same time I have never outgrown irrational childhood fears of the dark, spirits, aliens, boogeymen, etc. My rational mind cannot abolish these primal fears through logic alone (even though I've done extensive reading on material which seems to debunk nearly all paranormal phenomenon.) The science in me tells me that perhaps these 'irrational' fears come from the animal part of my brain.  My entire life I have been plagued by the fear of death...of ceasing to exist...of oblivion. Logically I 'know' that I am just an animal, who has gotten too smart for its own good, and has created an ego and consciousness which exist only inside of the brain. Obviously the chimpanzee inside of me does not want to die, as no other animal does, and the thought of not existing terrifies me. I do not know how everyone is able to deal with this looming reality, they seem to distract themselves from it, but I cannot. I am 27 years old at the time of this post, still considered relatively young, but I have watched my life fly by so far and cannot seem to push the thought of oblivion out of my head. I have a tremendous fear of death, which is now interfering with my ability to enjoy life.

I have now come across the idea of A.P., and I admit when I first heard of it I thought it was as crazy as anything else that I perceive to not be real. What has struck my interest is the message to skeptics that anyone can do it (with sufficient effort and practice), and that it is a subjective experience that you can only 'prove to yourself'. I still do not believe it, I am not convinced, but I am willing to be open minded for once in my life because I want to believe that I am more than a mundane physical being that will rot in the ground and cease to exist. I want to believe that consciousness can exist outside of the body. At this point I am willing to even delude myself or believe a lie, if that means that I will no longer fear death and be able to live the rest of my life in peace.

I have had lucid dreams my entire life. The majority of my dreams are not lucid, but every once in a while I come to the realization that I am dreaming. The epiphany will seem to emerge suddenly, when I am doing something in the dream... I will be speaking with someone and then proclaim "this is just a dream, this is MY dream, none of you are real, you are part of my reality". I seem to feel some empowerment at this point. Many times I will wake up shortly after this (or maybe just lose lucidity, I wouldn't really know), other times I have been able to steer the dream in the direction I choose... I will go flying, or more likely act out some vivid sexual fantasy as I know I am safe and free to do. 

Sometimes I will be overcome with fear. The realization that I am in the dream comes with the realization that it could turn into a nightmare. Often when I feel this fear I will wake myself up. I have actually become good at returning to my body and jolting myself out of sleep paralysis. I am familiar with my body feeling paralyzed and heavy and too tired to move, and I am able to will myself awake with a jolt. This actually happens to me a lot, now that I think about it, and this lucidity together with sub-conscious fears often interferes with my quality of sleep.

**
Now that I have been researching Astral Projection, I have had some strange experiences. However, I am not entirely convinced that these are not vivid dream-states that have been influenced by what I have read.

First of all, the LOUD vibration, which shakes my entire being. I am no longer in the dream, and I am aware that I am lying in my bed asleep. Every time that it happens, I think to myself "this IS real"...the sensation is so physical, and almost violent. I do not know how to describe the sound, but every time that I have felt it I think 'oh yes, that's exactly what it was like last time'. I guess it would be similar to a motor, or motorcycle noise but not quite. It shakes me to my core, and seems to accelerate and speed up as I feel myself floating. This is where it ends however, I do not feel like I have floated far from my body (if at all), and I cannot see a thing. I am in total darkness, hearing and feeling a very loud and very real (at the time) vibration.

This is about as far as it has gone, but it has happened several times now. A couple of times I have come into lucidity during a dream and thought to myself 'ok, you're dreaming and you are in your bed...come back to your body, feel your body in your bed'. This has usually done the trick, and I have gotten into the vibrational phase trying to will myself out of my body, before waking up soon after. A couple of times it has happened spontaneously, without the lucid aspect, I have come to the realization that I am asleep in my bed and tried to will myself out of my body. For some strange reason it happens more often when I am hung-over, or sleep deprived, or if the tv or something else is interfering with my sleep.

One time it happened during a daytime nap. It was SO REAL, because my mind felt fully conscious. I forced myself awake after the vibration became too intense. I still could not see anything, but I did not really want to. I remembered what I read about how I might see some scary things, and even if they cannot harm me I did not want to be scared. When I forced myself up, I was paralyzed for a few seconds and I still felt the vibrations. They were as real as pins and needles when your limb falls asleep, but more intense and all over. I remember being fully conscious and convinced of what I had just experienced...even scared to close my eyes and drift off again. However, as I describe the experience to you now it seems as distant,cloudy and ethereal as a dream.

Herein lies my problem. I am not able to separate these recent experiences from dreams. There was one experience early on where I DID see myself floating in my room, I walked downstairs and found myself in a party of other people I believed to be astral projecting. I remember thinking how vivid and real it was, and how my life would never be the same. However, upon 'waking', I realized that it was just a dream. When I walked downstairs, that wasn't even really my house..it was some crazy alternate version of my house.

Once I was convinced that I could feel myself paralyzed in my bed and that I was in the vibrational state. However, upon waking I realized I was lying on my other side (when I thought I was conscious and trying to leave my body I was on my left, but I woke up I was actually on my right.) So I had imagined the whole thing.

Perhaps I did begin to separate, but then lost consciousness and returned to the dream state. Anyway, I'm at the point where I'm interested enough to keep experimenting, but I'm not anywhere near being a believer especially with what I know about lucid dreams, false awakenings, hypnogogic states, auditory hallucinations, etc...

I realize that my biggest problem at this point is fear. I cannot see anything during the vibrations, and usually awake soon after they start. I am aware of a sense of fear while it is happening, first because of the intensity of the vibration increasing, and second because of all I have read about 'entities, shadow people, etc...'. I do not want to open my astral eyes and see something scary. I guess that means that my consciousness is not ready to see something outside of physical reality. But going back to earlier in my post, I do feel ready because I want to know if this is real or not and if there is consciousness outside of the body...and if there is life after death.

Anyway, this post is long and rambling, and in hindsight doesn't really have a clear point. I just wanted to organize my thoughts so far, and talk to someone about this. Obviously I would never talk to anyone in my real life about it since it is totally and utterly crazy.  Thanks for anyone who did take the time to read, and thanks in advance for any insight that you may have.