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I've had some thoughts on this recently and it occurs to me that the forum might be the best place for a long-form discussion of the matter.

I'm talking specifically about that inner voice that pipes up during OBEs (or during the pre-OBE state) to give suggestions, instructions, or occasionally answer those questions that you shout out to nobody in particular. Functionally it is similar to an actual embodied guide, except that it has no astral avatar of its own, and the voice seems to well up from within.

I'm deeply interested in other people's experiences with it.

Here are some of my encounters with this inner intelligence:

I was young at the time, fairly new to AP. I flew to a nearby road underpass to have a look at the graffiti. In my youthful hubris I asked "take me to someone who needs my help!", as if this inexperienced human teenager was in any position to help permanent astral residents. A voice answered me from within: "are you sure?"

I said yes, and I was immediately lifted into the air by an astral wind and carried about five hundred yards to the junction in front of the regional hospital. The same astral wind then pushed me into the ground at that junction, and several feet under the tarmac and rubble I became aware of a terrible dark grasping thing, and a sound like twenty people screaming at once...I reeled away like a scalded cat and returned to my sleeping body in a perfect ballistic arc, with this inner voice laughing the whole time.

There was something beside me in bed. A humanoid figure, glowing a pale green, hugging my right side. It wasn't entirely human-shaped as it had some kind of branching tentacles instead of arms, and these were draped over my chest.

A voice casually directed my attention to my own left hand. "Take those chopsticks and stab that thing, would you?" Sure enough there was a bundle of sharp and broken black chopsticks in my left hand. I thrust them to my right and the thing started thrashing around violently. I felt fairly unemotional throughout this process--20 years ago this sort of sight would have bounced me right out of the state and left me shaking afterwards. Still this is definitely on the upper end of weird pre-AP experiences.

Then it was just me again, alone in both bed and head, and I was ready to exit.

After a little while I began to feel the pull of the body, too soon as usual. But then my inner guide spoke up. "Eat something," it said. I reached out and took the tip of a piece of dry grass, and placed it in my mouth. As soon as I did so, a kind of relaxation came over me, a sense of being unhurried and settled in my new environment. The sensation was a bit like that first drink after a long week...

Some observations about the nature of this inner guide/voice:

• It speaks from within, with a voice like my own inner vocalizations.
• It has the ability to carry me on an astral wind, delivering me to new locations with great power and accuracy, in a way I can't generally do myself.
• I have gone years at a time without (consciously) hearing from it. It does not take requests.
• It provides advice and instructions, but otherwise isn't much of a conversationalist. It definitely has a sense of humour though, and what feels like a chaotic neutral attitude to the world--like it's about as divine as I am, just more experienced in other areas.
• I may have met it once or twice in an embodied state, where it presents itself with my body and my face, just looking particularly youthful and physically perfected. When I suggested he should go meet my wife in my place, he laughed and pointed a finger at the sky, saying 'I don't think they would approve of that'.
• I have met several astral 'friends' who I don't recognise, but who react in amusement when they realise they are are meeting the Earth-me. They say things like oh it's you...oh you're doing *that* now... It could be that these are relationships maintained by this autonomous astral self. I have also received extremely powerful hypnagogic visions that seem like gently taunting postcards from elsewhere.

I'd like to hear about similar experiences as well. Theories even. My current working theory is that this is some astrally-aware element of my self that I am usually walled off from. I sometimes get the feeling like I'm borrowing the body for a while, like a teenager taking the car out for a spin. I've even taken over while it seemed to be working on something deep in my own neck.

Another thought (entirely speculative now!): we often talk about kids knowing how to AP from a very young age, and then they inevitably forget. What if this 'forgetting' is actually a kind of mind split, the construction of a memory wall, and this astral-competent aspect of you continues to build experience and mature along its own path? The next time you 'meet' this part of you is when you've taken over the AP mechanism yourself, as your waking personality. Then it advises, seemingly amused at its Earth-half having control of the astral body. The 'astral wind' and other forms of automatic travel would then be the result of this other aspect of you taking direct control to get you out of trouble or show you something of interest.

I wonder what re-integration would look like, if it's even possible. Would its memories and its mind simply be incompatible with a normal life on Earth? Is there some evolutionary advantage to this memory wall, such that it actually grows in during a specific point in brain development? What if this memory block failed to form correctly, what would that look like for the individual?

Is it blocked from communication when I'm outside of the vibrationary state or OBEs, or is it simply respecting my right to a quiet mental landscape? Perhaps it is entirely disinterested in what its Earth-self gets up to. Perhaps we have simply evolved to have this split (both as a human animal and a wider consciousness system) as it delivers some kind of unfathomable evolutionary fitness. Perhaps this astral self considers himself to be primary, and he has a sort of Venn subset of himself that he uses to maintain a life on Earth, which I experience as me. (Why, then, does astral projection work at all, why are we guided to learn things while we're out there?)

Strange that people don't run into this aspect of the self more often, though, even via deep meditation. Strange that it is so under-reported in general. It's definitely an area where I have more questions and speculations than answers.

Hey folks, you might already know me as /u/sac_boy over on Reddit, I post quite frequently over on /r/AstralProjection.

I posted here as 'spacewrangler' when I was in my late 20s, and I'm pretty sure I had another name years before that. Now I'm in my 40s with more experience and new areas of interest, primarily the structure of the self and our place (as in, the place of our Earthly human selves) in all of this. I'll pop in now and then to see if I can give advice!

Had a pretty good OBE this morning, thought I would share.

Conditions: 12-1pm. Slept 7 hours last night, was up for a couple of hours (with a mild hangover!) had breakfast, did some writing, then felt tired enough for a nap. Grey and rainy day outside. Rain on roof. Stretched out on the recliner in our sun lounge (...rain lounge). Loose clothes (pyjama bottoms, t-shirt). Cold feet, no socks. Cushion on belly, hands over chest.

OBE: After about fifteen minutes of chilling out, I realised that I was weightless. No vibrations. Moved astral hands out of my hands, felt heavy but was able to gradually increase separation by rocking back and forth. With some effort I was out, standing in the sun lounge.

This OBE was mostly blind. I was occasionally able to see with something like blurry tunnel vision if I made an effort--decided to forget it and go ahead blind. Walked out through the patio doors (slight resistance, glass sensations).

I felt my way along the decking outside. Felt the grain of the wood. If I stretched, I could feel both sides of the deck at once--it's four metres wide. I felt my way to the end of the decking, felt the edge. Tried an experiment--tried to convince myself that there was another wooden runner beyond the end of the deck, and felt for it--it wasn't there. I took that as a good sign. 

Jumped off the end of the decking and drifted slowly into some grassy waste ground behind the house. Knelt down and felt the grass. At this point my vision kicked in for a while, and I was able to see the house from that point of view, spots of sunlight moving across the waste ground. Looked up at the clouds, tried to stretch out towards them but I wasn't going anywhere today.

Jumped back up on to the deck and back into the sun lounge. Knelt down and looked at a tiny insect carcass in the dust by the patio doors. Playing with the infinite zoom of the OBE is a lot of fun.

That was it, more or less! Nothing reality-shattering!

Note: The tiny insect carcass was there where I'd seen in it--it was a fly. To be fair, though, tiny flies get trapped in the sun lounge all the time, and inevitably die trying to escape, so finding a dead fly down by the door is a pretty sure bet.

I had a really smooth exit experience followed by an unusual trip this morning, thought I'd share.

Woke up at about 11 (bank holiday!) and played some sudoku in bed. My girlfriend got up to make some breakfast, and I turned over for a snooze. Just lay on my side with my arms outstretched in front of me, which recently has given me a couple of really quick and easy exits--like it regulates my breathing, puts me in exactly the right frame of mind, or something. Naturally I was already pretty relaxed, just chilling out listening to music from the kitchen. I heard a 'pop' inside my head and realised that my body had fallen asleep. From there it was only the barest effort of will to float up out of my body--it has never been so easy. No blindness, the world was vivid, full of light and colour. I had complete control, all running on instinct. It was amazing! The rarest of things...quick, spontaneous and powerful. I remained calm and floated out through the bedroom window into the front yard. So bright, so vivid. I felt no need to rush...no draw back to the body...this was better than even my 'peak' experiences years ago.

If I have all this control, I thought, why not explore? So I willed myself to go 'somewhere interesting'...as simple as that. Clapped my hands (I find it helps to 'punctuate' thoughts like that) and I found myself above a park, in a very well-kept, vaguely futuristic city. It was just as bright and vivid as the garden, maybe moreso. It was lit by a bright yellowish sun, felt like midday at the height of summer.

I swooped down into a wide street, flying at ground level (cheerfully 'skimming' along). This was the most populated place I've ever seen (all of my previous travels have been in the sparsely populated real-time world). People everywhere, milling around, going about their business. No road traffic as far as I could see. I found a wide plaza where a group had gathered with suitcases. I stopped beside them to question them (knowing that I wouldn't have long before my girlfriend woke me up!) I spoke to a thin, swarthy man with short-cropped black hair and a grey/black beard.

"What are you all doing?"

"Leaving."

"Going where?"

He shrugged and turned away.

I flew on. I passed a figure I recognised as a policeman or a guard...only this was a policeman by way of Moebius and Tron, a uniform and full-face helmet of yellow blue and white, swirling and interlocking shapes. His head followed me as I passed.

Then my girlfriend called me for my coffee and Rice Krispies and I was back in bed. "Okay honey, I'll be right out!" But I had every intention of flying right out the window again...I felt that I still could...and I did! I willed myself to return to the city, and I did.

This time I was over a market that ran along the sides of a narrow street. It was a bustling place...I dropped to ground level and walked. At the end of the street was a flight of stairs, and at the foot of the stairs I was met by a short man who handed me a square wooden token. The token was embossed with an image of the Buddha, and below it was a first name and a surname. I told myself I'd remember...of course I didn't...the first name began with B, the second was Myrtle or Mortyle or something like that.

Shortly afterwards came the breakfast call again, and I had to get up.

30 years old, from Northern Ireland, I'd categorise myself as 'fairly experienced', but it's been years since my last out-of-body experience--until I found myself bouncing around my bedroom a few days ago. Determined to get back into it and see what there is to see.

Contrary to my dumb username, I do not 'wrangle space', I only occupy it.

I've made a couple of posts in the permenant topics--technique and a validation experience, if you're interested.

Until later! I'm more of a lurker by nature generally, but I'll share any new experiences here if they are worth recording, and I have a huge body of written experiences from the days of yore, some really very odd and interesting.