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Rupert Murdoch's MySpace has been caught in another act of alternative media censorship after it was revealed that bulletin posts containing links to Prison Planet.com were being hijacked and forwarded to MySpace's home page. MySpace has placed Prison Planet on a list of blocked websites supposedly reserved for spam, phishing scams or virus trojans.

It has been apparent for at least two weeks that all bulletin posts containing links to Prison Planet were being censored but we decided to wait and see if it was just a technical error before drawing any attention to the problem.

Now there is little doubt that MySpace has deliberately filtered out Prison Planet, preventing anyone from accessing the site via the social networking giant.

Read on for the evidence...

Website

Dreamed up phone number leads man to a bride

LONDON (Reuters) - A British man has met and married a 22-year-old woman after, by his own account, dreaming of her phone number and then sending her a text message.

David Brown, 24, says he woke up one morning after a night out with friends with a telephone number constantly running through his head. He decided to contact it, sending a message saying "Did I meet you last night?."

Random recipient Michelle Kitson was confused and wary at first but decided to reply and the two began exchanging messages. Eventually they met and fell in love.

"It was really weird but I was absolutely hooked," Kitson told the Daily Mail newspaper. "My mum and dad kept saying 'But he could be an axe murderer', but I knew there was something special about it."

After a long courtship, the oddly matched couple -- he's six foot seven inches tall and she's five foot four -- have just returned from their honeymoon in the Indian resort of Goa.

A love-struck Brown said: "I've no idea how I ended up with her number in my head -- it's only a few digits different from mine."

Getting dirty could help mental health

PEOPLE who suffer from depression could benefit from getting "dirty", according to new research published today.

A "friendly" bacteria found in soil has the same uplifting effects as those produced by anti-depressant drugs, the study found.

A study of mice found they altered their behaviour and appeared more relaxed after they were treated with the Mycobacterium vaccae bacteria.

Scientists at Bristol University and University College London found the bacteria stimulated the immune system and activated a group of neurons in the brain which produce the mood-enhancing chemical seratonin, a lack of which has been linked to depression.

Dr Chris Lowry, of Bristol University, the lead author on the paper, said: "These studies help us understand how the body communicates with the brain and why a healthy immune system is important for maintaining mental health.

"They also leave us wondering if we shouldn't all spend more time playing in the dirt. This soil that carries the bacteria is found almost anywhere.

"But we now need to find a way of getting it in our system, which we haven't done yet."

The study appears to support the "hygiene hypothesis" which argues that a rise in conditions such as asthma and allergies could be linked to a lack of exposure to various micro-organisms.

The emphasis on cleaning and hygiene, particularly in urban western environments, could be adversely affecting people's immune systems, according to the theory.

The findings, published in the journal Neuroscience, support the idea that increasing the release of seratonin in parts of the brain regulates mood.

Further studies are now planned to see if the bacteria stimulates this process.

'Flying' in your sleep may be a paralysis

People who have out-of-body experiences, such as flying along a tunnel towards a heavenly light, are more likely to suffer a strange effect called sleep paralysis, according to a survey that adds to mounting evidence for a biological explanation for the experience.

During sleep paralysis, people experience a kind of breakdown between states of consciousness which takes place on the fringe of sleep, either when falling asleep or waking. Because the brain turns off the body's ability to move during dreaming, muscles can lose their tone, or tension, causing paralysis.

The details of sleep paralysis vary from person to person. Some hear vague sounds, indistinct voices and demonic gibberish. Others see hallucinations of humans, animals and supernatural creatures. There is a striking inability to move or to speak, or a weight on the chest.

Also common are feelings of rising off the bed or flying. In addition, people report out-of-body experiences, sometimes accompanied by "autoscopy" when they look down on themselves. Not surprisingly, these moments are accompanied by fear.

Throughout history, there have also been accounts of people having visions on the brink of death - what are now called "near-death experiences".

Today, the two odd effects are linked by a study that backs the idea that the near-death experience is a biological experience, rather than anything to do with a spiritual dimension, a glimpse of heaven or the existence of the soul.

People who have had near-death experiences are also likely to have suffered sleep paralysis, according to the survey published by a team in Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neurology, by Prof Kevin Nelson, from the University of Kentucky, Lexington.

In a survey of 55 people who had a "near-death experience" - defined as a time during a life-threatening episode when a person experienced a variety of feelings, including unusual alertness, seeing an intense light, and a feeling of peace - he found three quarters had an out-of-body experience and half of them had also felt they had left their body during the transition between wakefulness and sleep.

"We found that 96 per cent (24 of 25) of near-death subjects having sleep paralysis also had an out-of-body experience either during sleep transition or near-death," said Prof Nelson.

In a control group of 55 people, three reported an out-of-body experience. Two of them also suffered sleep paralysis. Prof Nelson says this suggests the same brain circuitry plays a role.

The sleep paralysis linked with out-of-body experiences was thought rare, but may strike between 40 per cent and 60 per cent of people at least once.

They report sensations of floating, flying, falling or leaving one's body. It ranges from relatively tranquil floating experiences to horrible feelings of falling or rising at high speed.

Excerpted from sci-con.org:

Could anomalous perceptions, which have persisted across societies and throughout history, have a [biological basis]? And, if so, what would we stand to learn about perception itself, or memory, or imagination, or empathy, or any of the myriad of other factors that make us human?

My thesis came together gradually, and from a most unlikely source. In the course of my job at the time—which involved developing indoor air quality guidance for the nation's commercial building owners and managers—I was researching so-called Sick Building Syndrome and another poorly understood condition called Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. (In the former, groups of people feel unwell inside buildings for no immediately discernable reason; in the latter, people claim to be allergic to trace amounts of chemicals, aromas, even electricity.) I read various accounts and went on to speak with people who said they were affected by these conditions. Rather than chalk up their complaints to a hyperactive imagination or some shade of mental illness, I suspected they might have a threshold sensitivity much lower than average. When several individuals confided to me that they'd had apparitional experiences, the wheels started turning. Since then, I have delved deeply into the possibility that a variety of odd sensitivities may have a common neurobiological foundation—stemming at least as much from the body as the brain.

The survey I constructed drew 62 self-described 'sensitives' along with 50 individuals serving as controls who did not profess any outstanding forms of sensitivity. Persons in the former group were 3.5 times as likely, on average, to assert that they'd had an apparitional experience (defined as perceiving something that could not be verified as being physically present through normal means). Sensitive persons were also 2.5 times as likely to indicate that an immediate family member was affected by similar physical, mental or emotional conditions.

Overall, 8 of the 54 factors asked about in the survey were found to be significant in the makeup of a sensitive personality:

   1. Being female
   2. Being a first-born or only child
   3. Being single
   4. Being ambidextrous
   5. Appraising oneself as imaginative
   6. Appraising oneself as introverted
   7. Recalling a plainly traumatic event (or events) in childhood
   8. Maintaining that one affects—or is affected by—lights, computers, and other electrical appliances in an unusual way.

'Dream Detective' puts video evidence on Internet

UNITED KINGDOM. Chris Robinson's unusual psychic talents have earned him the title of "Dream Detective". An office cleaner by day, Robinson – who lives in Bedfordshire, north of London – turns into a psychic at night, when he goes to bed. His premonitions about the future come to him in dreams, which he records meticulously in his dream diary.

Over the years they have predicted air crashes and IRA attacks on mainland Britain. He also claims to have foreseen the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the Lockerbie plane crash, and also the murder in London of TV presenter Jill Dando.

Much of this has been featured on British, American, Japanese and German television programmes, often with Robinson allowing his abilities to be put to the test. Prof Gary Schwartz at the University of Arizona has also conducted a series of experiments with the British psychic. Now Robinson has posted his video collection of these remarkable interviews and evidential tests to the Internet.

It was on 11 August 2001, while at the University of Arizona, that Robinson told Schwartz, during their morning debriefing, "I don't even want to talk about what I saw last night."  Asked why, he replied: "Because terrorists crashed planes into those twin towers."

The video clips include his involvement in a case involving a missing Japanese girl, his attempt to warn the organisers of a British air show (at Fairford, Gloucestershire) that two jets would collide during an aerial display – the psychic became an eye-witness to this event – and the successful live experiment he did for TV chat show hosts Richard and Judy which involved him being taken, blindfolded, to a target site, which turned out to be Tower Bridge on the Thames.

Richard and Judy then opened a sealed and signed envelope containing the "clues" that were picked up by Chris Robinson during his dreams the night before. He spoke of a hospital or a bridge with windows – an excellent description of Tower Bridge – near a river and described other things that the TV presenters regarded as highly relevant.

Earlier during the same Richard and Judy TV appearance, the presenters made a live call to Prof Schwartz and asked him for his verdict on the results of 10 days of experiments he had conducted with Chris Robinson, taking him to a different location, chosen at random after the dream had been recorded, each day.

Prof Schwartz replied: "Using a technical term, I was blown away by the accuracy!  I was completely surprised.... Day after day, he received highly specific information that was related to the process of going to the site, information at the site, and information about the rest of the day, even though the experiment was officially completed."

Schwartz added that it would have been impressive if he had accurate in five out of the 10 experiments. In fact, he was correct in 10 out of 10.

These and many other TV clips, as well as his own video diaries of the Arizona experiments and an interview with Prof Gary Schwartz, together totalling over three hours of recordings, can be found by clicking here.

Some of these clips will be better understood, or be put into context, by a visit to Chris Robinson's own website.

The Nature Incidence and Impact of Paranormal Experiences

"My name is Rosemary Breen and I am conducting a student research project at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. This research forms part of my Master of Education (Research) degree and it is being supervised by Dr Beverley Jane, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Education. This study has been approved by the Ethics Review Board of the University.

The aim of the research is to gather more information about people's experiences of the paranormal. By paranormal we mean those events that cannot be explained using the current laws of science. Included in this group are out-of-body and near-death experiences, premonitions, telepathy, and apparitions. We are interested to know more about these paranormal experiences, how often they occur, at what age they start, and the impact they have on those who experience them. Your answers are important to us, regardless of whether you have or have not had such experiences. We especially invite people who have had paranormal experiences but have been reluctant to talk about them until now.

...

The study is organised as an online survey which, depending on the amount of information you offer, will take around 10 minutes to complete. The information you give will not have any identification tags attached to it when it is received, stored or sent, in summary format to the researchers. Being in this study is completely voluntary. Your anonymity and the confidentiality of your statements will be protected. You will not be asked to give any information that may identify you and we will not attempt to contact you in the future. Only code names will be used in the writing of the research report. The information collected will be stored as raw CSV data in our database for 5 years in accordance with Monash University's regulations. In addition to the results of this study being presented for the Master's thesis it is anticipated that related articles may appear in professional publications and the data gathered may form the basis of future research projects. However, no individual will be identified in any way."

I haven't taken this survey yet. If possible, you might want to note that you found the survey via this website.

[Slow brain waves play key role in coordinating complex activity]

Slow brain waves play key role in coordinating complex activity

By measuring electrical activity in the brains of pre-surgical epilepsy patients, the researchers have found the first evidence that slow brain oscillations, or theta waves, "tune in" the fast brain oscillations called high-gamma waves that signal the transmission of information between different areas of the brain. In this way, the researchers argue, areas like the auditory cortex and frontal cortex, separated by several inches in the cerebral cortex, can coordinate activity.

"If you are reading something, language areas oscillate in theta frequency allowing high-gamma-related neural activity in individual neurons to transmit information," said Knight. "When you stop reading and begin to type, theta rhythms oscillate in motor structures, allowing you to plan and execute your motor response by way of high gamma. Simple, but effective."

The findings are reported in the Sept. 15 issue of Science.

Tuning in high-frequency brain waves

The researchers found that when people are asked to do a simple task, such as listening to a list of words, the slow, theta oscillations in the hearing area of the brain become coupled with the fast, high-gamma oscillations in the same area. When two different brain areas then oscillate together at the same theta frequency and phase, it becomes much easier for these regions to tune in the high-gamma oscillations that transfer information between them.

Philippines: Saved By Jesus

MANILA: A 10 year old boy from Luzon in the Philippines miraculously came back to life 17 hours after being declared dead. He told his family that Jesus woke him up.

The Manila Times reported on Thursday (the 20th) that the boy, named Kadi, was pronounced dead at the Philippines General Hospital on the 21st of June. His family brought his "remains" back to his hometown, which was 300 km away. The very next day, Kadi came back to life during the vigil and asked for food and water.

Kadi described how he had fallen into a terrible darkness after he had lost consciousness. However, not long after that, he saw a beautiful church with angels singing inside. A man with golden hair and a beard appeared suddenly and asked him to wake up, and when he opened his eyes and saw his family, he could also see the same man above them slowly fading away.

The report said that after the miracle happened, Kadi was brought to a church for spiritual guidance and that was where Kadi related his experience. The clergy there and other church members believe the man Kadi saw was Jesus. (Sin Chew Daily)


FZ and F2/3?

Mushroom drug produces mystical experience

NEW YORK - People who took an illegal drug made from mushrooms reported profound mystical experiences that led to behavior changes lasting for weeks — all part of an experiment that recalls the psychedelic '60s.

Many of the 36 volunteers rated their reaction to a single dose of the drug, called psilocybin, as one of the most meaningful or spiritually significant experiences of their lives. Some compared it to the birth of a child or the death of a parent.

Such comments "just seemed unbelievable," said Roland Griffiths of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, the study's lead author.

But don't try this at home, he warned. "Absolutely don't."

Almost a third of the research participants found the drug experience frightening even in the very controlled setting. That suggests people experimenting with the illicit drug on their own could be harmed, Griffiths said.

Viewed by some as a landmark, the study is one of the few rigorous looks in the past 40 years at a hallucinogen's effects. The researchers suggest the drug someday may help drug addicts kick their habit or aid terminally ill patients struggling with anxiety and depression.

It may also provide a way to study what happens in the brain during intense spiritual experiences, the scientists said.

Funded in part by the federal government, the research was published online Tuesday by the journal Psychopharmacology.

Psilocybin has been used for centuries in religious practices, and its ability to produce a mystical experience is no surprise. But the new work demonstrates it more clearly than before, Griffiths said.

Even two months after taking the drug, pronounced SILL-oh-SY-bin, most of the volunteers said the experience had changed them in beneficial ways, such as making them more compassionate, loving, optimistic and patient. Family members and friends said they noticed a difference, too.

Charles Schuster, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at Wayne State University and a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, called the work a landmark.

"I believe this is one of the most rigorously well-controlled studies ever done" to evaluate psilocybin or similar substances for their potential to increase self-awareness and a sense of spirituality, he said. He did not participate in the research.

Psilocybin, like LSD or mescaline, is one of a class of drugs called hallucinogens or psychedelics. While they have been studied by scientists in the past, research was largely shut down after widespread recreational abuse of the drugs during the 1960s, Griffiths said. Some work resumed in the 1990s.

"We've lost 40 years of (potential) research experience with this whole class of compounds," he said. Now, with modern-day scientific methods, "I think it's time to pick up this research field."

The study volunteers had an average age of 46, had never used hallucinogens, and participated to some degree in religious or spiritual activities like prayer, meditation, discussion groups or religious services. Each tried psilocybin during one visit to the lab and the stimulant methylphenidate (better known as
Ritalin) on one or two other visits. Only six of the volunteers knew when they were getting psilocybin.

Each visit lasted eight hours. The volunteers lay on a couch in a living-room-like setting, wearing an eye mask and listening to classical music. They were encouraged to focus their attention inward.

Psilocybin's effects lasted for up to six hours, Griffiths said. Twenty-two of the 36 volunteers reported having a "complete" mystical experience, compared to four of those getting methylphenidate.

That experience included such things as a sense of pure awareness and a merging with ultimate reality, a transcendence of time and space, a feeling of sacredness or awe, and deeply felt positive mood like joy, peace and love. People say "they can't possibly put it into words," Griffiths said.

Two months later, 24 of the participants filled out a questionnaire. Two-thirds called their reaction to psilocybin one of the five top most meaningful experiences of their lives. On another measure, one-third called it the most spiritually significant experience of their lives, with another 40 percent ranking it in the top five.

About 80 percent said that because of the psilocybin experience, they still had a sense of well-being or life satisfaction that was raised either "moderately" or "very much."

ANTIGO, Wis. (AP) - A Wisconsin man has received an unexpected message from a deceased friend -- in a bottle floating in a lake.

Steve Lieder was chatting with friends near White Lake when he looked down and saw a bottle. They broke it open and found a note. Lieder was amazed to find it was written eleven years ago by one of his closest friends, who died last year.

Joshua Baker was ten years old when he wrote the message for a school project, stuck it in a bottle and tossed it in the lake.

The note reads: "My name is Josh Baker. I am 10. If you find this, put it on the news. The date is 4/16/95."

Baker died last year in a traffic accident in California. His mother says he had recently returned home after serving in the Marines in the Middle East. She plans to display the note in her home.

LENA McGregor had a vision which saved the life of a stranger.

For three days and two nights, 79-year-old dementia sufferer Tony Poboka lay helpless and dying alone in a dry creek bed after disappearing on Friday afternoon from his granny flat near Nimbin.

The State Emergency Services and police centred their search in the scrub around his son Fred Waters' property at Blue Knob, north west of Nimbin.

Thermal imaging equipment, a helicopter and sniffer dogs were used to try to find him.

Crime prevention officer Michael Hogan said police, SES and the Lismore rescue squad searched for the man for two days using extra resources already in the area for Mardi Grass.

Too weak to move, and mute from a stroke 12 years earlier, Tony was hidden beneath a wall of lantana 150 metres from the family home.

Desperate to find her father-inlaw, Tania Theoharris left a message with her friend, Lena, on Saturday night.

Lena, who claims to see energy fields and is 'very good at finding things', arrived at the property at 1pm on Sunday.

"The night before I got a flash of where he was," Lena said.

"I saw a bush setting, a cliff and rocks at the bottom of it.

"I knew he had fallen on the rocks."

Arriving at the family home, Lena intuitively knew where to find Tony.

"When I got there the landscape was the same (as in the dream) and my adrenalin was really strong. I knew he was down there," she said.

"He (Fred) told me to go right, but I knew I had to go left. That's when they told me there used to be an old track leading that way."

Lena, Tania and Tony's granddaughter, Sabina, scaled down the incline, ripping through the thick lantana to get deeper and deeper into the scrub.

One hundred metres down the ravine they found Tony at the bottom of a dried-up creek almost totally obscured from view.

Shaking from hypothermia and barely opening his eyes, Tony was alive.

"It's a very extraordinary miracle that he was found by this lady.

"He would've been dead in another three hours," Fred said.

"I'd say only one person in every 100 million has the power she has. She's a very special person."

Despite earning her living as a clairvoyant, Lena does not want money for finding Tony.

She has only asked to return to the property to help the family uncover the mystery of how Tony ended up where he did.

Tony is in Lismore Base Hospital and is recovering remarkably well.

Link

AMANDA PARK — Clifford Foss had a vision.

A child was trapped in Prairie Creek and could not get out.

The vision awoke him at 3 a.m. It gnawed incessantly at him. Foss tried to ignore it. He was tired and wanted to sleep.

But the vision would not go away.

Around 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Foss and his 22-year-old son, Clifford "Jesse" left their Amanda Park home, stopped for coffee and then headed a mile and a half down Highway 101 to Jesse's shake mill.

When they passed Prairie Creek, Clifford Foss looked for signs of trouble, but seeing nothing, discounted his premonition.

Then they passed Milburn Creek. A three-foot section of guard rail was bent back on the opposite side of the road. Muddy tire tracks pointed toward the creek.

They kept driving. Accidents happen and are cleared away in the middle of the night all the time, he reasoned.

"Did you hear an ambulance last night," Clifford remembers asking his son.

"No," was the reply.

"We better go back," the elder Foss decided.

He turned around and parked beside the guard rail. Jesse hopped out and peered down into the 20-foot ravine. A black, mangled pick-up truck, partially obscured by trees, was at the bottom of the shallow creek. A man hung halfway out the driver's side window, covered in blood. He yelled for help — and Jesse Foss scampered down to him.

More...

Yesterday I had a psychogenic seizure. It was pretty intense. I don't know whether energy work made me more senistive to its effects, or if everyone who has them experiences them as I did.

Normally my heart center feels like a small, clinched fist; during the seizure it was the size of a basketball, with significant pressure in the area. There was a strong electrical tingling in my arms up to the elbows. It took me several hours to completely move the energy down to the subnavel, then out the legs. I'd never had so much energy in my system before, even when raising it during trance for over an hour.

While researching what happened, I was really struck by how similar seizures are to energy practices. Dramatic Kundalini effects could easily be misdiagnosed as epilepsy. This was more proof than I ever wanted that the physical effects of energy work are absolutely real, and probably cause changes within the brain and nervous system.

This post in the Permanent Topics section contained a great tip that got me into a pre-OBE state for the first time. I'm confident that I would have had an OBE had I not gotten so excited.

Before going to bed I did some affirmations and thought about a few of Monroe's stories to get myself into a positive mindset. I lay on my back without relaxing or going into trance, or doing anything really unique besides falling asleep. In order to avoid entering into a dream, I observed the hypnogogic state and the way I was feeling, being careful not to fully wakeup or fall asleep. After the images stopped, vibrations started in my legs and quickly spread through my body; a minute or two later my whole body was rumbling, and a huge amount of energy was building in my crown center.

I hadn't felt strong vibrations before, they really caught me off guard.   It reminded me of the movie Contact, where the main character, Ellie, travels in a small pod through a dimensional portal. There are vibrations during the first minute of the journey that eventually cause the chair Ellie is sitting in to break loose from the pod, and she then unbuckles her restraints and floats through the air. It couldn't be any more perfect an analogy for OBEs.

One variable which may have helped this technique was a lack of sleep the previous night. I have no idea whether it will work consistently.

On Feb. 11th, while in a light trance and having trouble deepening the relaxation, I decided to relax my energy centers rather than bring energy into them. There was much less tension in my legs upon relieving pressure in the base center, so I continued up to to the heart, but didn't notice any other immediate effects.

The next day I felt emotionally, mentally, and physically dull. I figured this was probably due to relaxing the ECs, so I raised as much energy as I could during meditation. That made me feel better, but now (2 weeks later) there remains a lingering physical effect of very slight numbness, or lessened sensitivity.

Could this be harmful in some way, and can it be reversed?

I am curious if anyone has noticed changes in their left or right hand dominance in the astral. Do you use your dominant hand out of habit, or because you have to?

[this]

There is a long list of anecdotes in this blog post relating to the sound of buzzing during paranormal experiences.

I 'woke up' from a dream after three hours of sleep last night, without entering F1.

My bedroom looked almost exactly as it should have (dark), but my eyes were not open! There was some lack of lucidity, because even though I knew my eyes were closed -- I shut them tightly, to be sure -- it didn't occur to me that it was odd to be looking through my eyelids.  At the far side of my room was a poorly lit, unidentifiable object; as I focused farther off, it split in two as a very close subject does when one stares into the distance. I felt as if I was moving my eyes to see, but it may not have been a sensation from F1.

When I entered F1, my eyes were noticeably heavy and scratchy from lack of rest (they hadn't felt this way in F2). I was still looking directly where I had been in F2; the poorly lit object that I had observed was no longer there, and the wall it was next to was much closer.

This is the third time I've been in this state after a dream has ended. I'm going to have to incorporate movement into my lucidity checks so that I'll remember to get out of bed next time.  :wall:

I gave this a try last night and got strange results. In the dream, I sat down cross legged and cradled my hands, just as I would in F1. There was a fireplace directly in front of me which became my object of meditation. Almost the instant that I started concentrating, I zoomed up to within a few inches of the fireplace, then snapped back to my original position, at which point I began to rapidly pitch and yaw. :pale:

In an attempt to stop the roller coaster ride, I switched my concentration to the breath -- my physical breath. This resulted in a weird but short lived overlay of tactile sensations from F1 and F2 as the dream ended.

Could the loss of equilibrium have been a confusion of F1 (laying down on my side) and F2 (sitting upright)?

Is there a difference between imagining and manifesting in the astral -- are we using the same force to manifest an apple in our hand as we do when picturing an apple in the mind's eye?

For example, while having a lucid dream I briefly imagined a mountain stream which a character was describing. Was there anything stopping me from jumping into the water that I pictured, besides my belief that it was imagined?

I'd also like to know how imagination works in F3.

Recently I've had two experiences in the hynopompic (waking from sleep) state that were surprisingly vivid. In both cases I achieved them simply by opening my eyes very slightly, allowing light through but not details.

The first happened on 11/25: I looked across the street from my bedroom window. This was surprising because I had drawn the curtains the night before, and, even stranger, the view was from an angle that would be impossible to see from my bed. When I opened my eyes fully, the curtains were closed and the room was darker than I had expected.

This morning I had another: a mole-like creature emerged from between the books on my bookshelf, crawled across the spines of several perfectly shelved tomes, then returned to hiding; this I knew was a hallucination because my bookshelves are a complete mess in reality. At some point while I was watching this, I heard the distinct noise of someone gently blowing air into my left ear. Shortly after the mole was gone, I saw from what appeared to be the perspective of a shaky video camera.

The scene was of a black iron fence dividing a green lawn and sidewalk. One or two small pedestrian traffic cones were toppled at the base of the fence, and to their right (maybe 10 feet away), two men were standing. I tried unsuccessfully to stop the vision from bouncing by concentrating on steadiness, and then by slightly opening my left eye -- most likely what ended the experience.

The next time this happens, I plan to close my eyes once the visions begin.

Has anyone used a similar technique to enter the astral? This seems almost like scrying in that I am in a very dim room (pre-dawn light), looking through mostly closed eyes, which causes forms to be indistinct and fluid.

Are people who lack a sense able to experience it during meditation or phasing?  Do the paralyzed feel vibrations; do the blind see colors/shapes; will the deaf hear sounds?

Were the congenitally handicapped (i.e., those who have never experienced certain sensations) able to obtain feeling in an altered state, then it would be compelling evidence of an expanded model of consciousness.

In my attempts to AP from a LD, I've had two dreams that included some low-level awareness of the dream state without any degree of lucidity:

1) A dream character tells me that my irrational thinking is evidence of dreaming. I agree yet don't become lucid!

2) 'Realizing' that I am dreaming, I walk onto an airport runway in front of an incoming plane. I pass straight through the fuselage when it hits me, and then, remembering that I can fly, turn 180° to rocket away. This was one segment in a dream that was otherwise normal.

What is going on? I can't figure out if this is purely my subconscious acting out my waking thoughts, or what.  

What made you think there was more than F3, and why have you decided that there is no F5 etc. (or have you)?

It has happened a few times recently during meditation, always located in the same spot slightly above the tip of my nose. Have others experienced this characteristic pressure in areas besides the 3rd eye?