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So looks like the world is still here and for me personally, the 21 December 2012 turned out to be a most positive day – I had by far the best out of body experience so far, and that's after months of nothing at all.

Before going to sleep, I meditated and also repeated affirmations to myself along the lines of, "I will wake up at night, realise I'm in bed, remain still, induce sleep paralysis and leave my body effortlessly." I repeated this long sentence slowly a good dozen times, focusing more on the content and understanding rather than the wording.

At night, my girlfriend had trouble sleeping and I woke up several times, going to the bathroom at least once. Then, at some point I was having a dream about falling asleep and I guess I became lucid, thinking, hey, this is my chance to project! I thought of somehow going into sleep paralysis but realised it's pointless as I could already leave my body without any effort. I dropped through the bed onto the floor, got up, tried the door, but couldn't get through it – it was "solid". I went for the window, walked right through the glass and fell three stories down onto the pavement, feeling absolutely great

I focused on my hands in an attempt to prolong the experience. They looked physical, but the texture of the skin was much more structured than in real life.

Then, for some reason the best thing I could think of was to go and disturb the traffic. So I ran onto the road and a cyclist had to dodge me – he was angry and even tried to slap me as he rode by. This was a fairly strange part of the experience and perhaps a bit more like a lucid dream – I don't believe any "real" conscious entities were involved.

I then felt like I was losing it, but instead I ended up on the other side of the house, with a crystal clear awareness. And it was... beautiful. The colours of everything were beyond words. I studied some tree and was amazed by the detail. It was nighttime and I looked at the stars. They were moving very fast across the sky and I thought they could be meteorites. Funnily enough I even remembered what date it was in the physical, and thought it would be somehow ironic if the world actually did end while I was out of body. Being a total disbeliever in this stuff, I immediately dismissed it and realised that the stars were moving so fast because time was "fast forwarding" and it was just the natural rotation of the Earth causing the perceived movement. The morning came in a matter of seconds. At that point I started floating in some direction and it all became dreamy. I floated above some "mushroom farm" and "mushroom exhibition" (those were culinary mushrooms mind you) – but it was a dream by this point. Woke up a little while later and wrote everything down.

Sorry for the longish post, I did abridge the account a lot.

As for what helped me induce the experience, I think there are several keypoints to note here: 1) reading this sort of stuff before sleep, 2) affirmations before sleep, 3) disturbed sleep. I think these three things together caused a vivid dream in which I remembered that I should stay still and try to project. And I even thanked my girlfriend for waking me up in the middle of the night

It was morning, almost time to get up. I was having a succession of false awakenings - I get out of bed, start doing something, realise I'm still asleep, get out of bed again and so on... (these are quite typical for me). I finally realised I should be using this state to project. So I simply got up and out of my body.

The getting out part was very "real", as if I was there standing on my bed physically only that I knew it wasn't the physical. I was having some vision problem and I opened my eyes (which has happened often to me), but I quickly understood that it's the wrong thing to do, so I closed them again. I was still out of body, but still having this vision problem - I can't even exactly remember what it was like. So I thought I should get away from my bedroom and the only place I could immediately think of was "in front of the house". I was transported to the street just outside the house and at this point things turned weird. This bit is difficult to explain, but I'll try.

I wanted to go into the grocery store on the other side of the street, but instead of moving into it with my "astral body", if you will, I was just looking at a rectangular frame. It was a lot like playing a 3D computer game: there's a screen in front of you and on it you see what the main character sees and you can move them around. That's pretty much what I saw, only that I didn't interpret it as a computer screen, but just some "frame of vision". (I rarely play computer games these days.) Also, from this point on, it did not feel like an OOBE anymore, but rather a forced visualisation, like "okay, let's walk through that aisle" and then I imagine walking through that particular aisle. I wasn't "in" the experience anymore, I was just intently visualising and watching it through this frame thing. I tried walking around the store, but it just didn't feel real, it felt forced and even a bit disappointing. So I think at this point I voluntarily ended the experience.

So, what was this? Has anyone had similar experiences? What should I do if it occurs again?

Thanks!

Hi everyone!

This is not my first post here, but I haven't posted in years. Some four or five years ago I practiced AP/OOBE a lot, had some experiences but then for some reason I stopped. I don't even know why I stopped even though I've known all along that this is something I want to dedicate a significant part of my life to.

In any case, I am back in business. For the last few weeks I have been actively reading the forum, which is a brilliant place as always, and practicing phasing. I even had one short unintentional OOBE one morning, nothing too special though.

Now I have never managed to project consciously, but this is something I am aiming for. All my experiences previously have been so to say opportunistic "RTZ" type ones (with very little control) – I'd become lucid in a dream or I would reach out for my watch and find that I have reached out with my "astral hand" instead of my physical, and then I would use the opportunity to exit. But to lay down, meditate and project – never.

So now I am practicing phasing. I'm taking it slowly, currently I am focusing on simply reaching F10 and becoming familiar with that state. From what I gather, I can reach a reasonably deep F10 and stay in it for quite a while.

However I have a few questions about F10 and F12, both being important milestones in phasing. The first question is about "blackness". Most descriptions of F10 and F12 talk about this blackness. In F10 the blackness is 2D. In F12 the blackness in 3D. 

But what is this blackness everyone is talking about? Does it mean "black" as in "pitch black", that is, the blackness of outer space and of the ocean depths? To be honest, I have never experienced any such blackness during my sessions.

Or does "blackness" mean simply the stuff we see when we close our eyes? In my case, it is far from black. If anything, then it's more like dark red or brown (even when wearing a blindfold) and usually with lots of colours and shadows moving around (the ones I am supposed to notice during the Noticing exercise).

Also, it is said that during the transition from F10 to F12 the blackness should go from 2D to 3D. However, most of the time when I am in F10, I am actually witnessing a visual scene, so how do I know if the blackness has become 3D when I am not really witnessing any blackness, but something visual in my mind's eye? Is this "2D to 3D" thing supposed to occur only when doing the noticing exercise throughout? I get visual scenes almost instantly when meditating and they seem more interesting than doing noticing, so usually I just concentrate on them.

I do however, occassionally, during a meditation session, suddenly experience the scene that I am watching become "full blown 3D". I can feel a very distinct difference between active 2D visualisation I start with and these 3D scenes. They usually come unexpectedly and I often lose them quickly when I realise that they are 3D. Could these be short moments of F12 that I am experiencing?

Thanks in advance for any input!

I was wondering if anyone could comment on the possibility of affecting the physical realm while being OOB.

In his first book "Journeys out of Body", Robert Monroe mentions how he visited a friend of his while out of body and in order to make sure she remembered the visit he pinched her. When talking back in the physical world she told him that it really hurt and showed him the mark it left on her belly.

I had been researching the concept of AP for several years before reading the book and was really surprised by that part when I read it. Prior to that, I had never come across any accounts of affecting physical things (eg. human bodies) while being out of body and didn't think it was possible.

Do any of you have any experience with that or any knowledge of such phenomena?

Hi everyone,

this is my first post on this forum, though I've been browsing it for quite a while.

I've been trying to OOBE for several years now probably and have had a few successes, but a few experiences that I've had lately are puzzling me a lot.

A few weeks ago, I was having a dream which suddenly became lucid. I realised I was sleeping and thought that this was a good opportunity to project, because I actually felt that I'm halfway OOB already. So I just jumped from the bed onto the floor and opened my eyes. It was obvious that I wasn't in my physical body, but I could feel the hard floor. The most peculiar thing was that my vision was obstructed by the blanket that was covering my physical body. I just thought that I must have taken the blanket with me when I jumped out and tried to shake it off. At that point I somehow just didn't realise that I couldn't have taken a physical object with me. I could walk and feel the floor, but my vision remained the same - mostly obstructed by the blanket and a top corner of my room visible above it. I got back into the body and only then it dawned upon me - it seems I was OOB, but I was actually looking through my physical eyes, which had probably opened at some point.

This has happened several times already after that - I'm out of body, but my view remains the same as if I was just lying in my bed with my eyes open. This is very weird and I feel I'm missing out on some very good OOBEs, as I seem to have lots of control and I remember what was going on.

Today it happened again. I tried forcing my vision to switch to the astral one and shouted mentally "restore vision" or something like that, but I only managed to get a mixed view from my physical eyes and astral sight after a lot of effort which vanished quickly.

These OOBEs seem to happen right after lucid dreams, when I suddenly feel the urge to jump out of my body. I don't remember the dreams, but I remember the OOBEs. Also, what seems to stimulate these experiences in the first place is a change of environment. The first one happened right after I moved into my college room from home. Several others happened when I moved my bed around. I have quite an empty room, so I placed my bed in a totally random diagonal position in the middle of my room and this caused an OOBE the next morning.

Could anyone comment on these "open eyed" OOBEs? I would appreciate any thoughts or suggestions.

J

Hi all,
I'm newly registered here, though I've been browsing this forum for quite a while now. I've been trying to AP for some time and now decided to take it up seriously.

I've done lots of reading and practice and it seems the best way to achieve an OOBE as a beginner is to do it in the morning. Many methods even state it's important to sleep for at least 6 hours, stay awake for an hour and then try to AP.

My problem is, I've always been very bad at falling asleep. This way, things like dozing off during meditation have never been a nuisance. But if I slept for 6 hours and then woke up, it'd be very hard for me to go back to sleep again. And if I add a whole hour of staying awake, falling asleep again will become quite unthinkable.

I suppose this problem shouldn't make such methods absolutely impossible for me to do. So my question is, how could I adapt them so that this problem wouldn't arise? Will shortening the periods (eg. 5 h of sleep, 30 min awake) render the techniques useless? Or maybe there is a way to make myself "better" at falling asleep?

Thank you for any help, I would be grateful for any suggestions.