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Being on the brink of sleep can help, but it isn't necessary. You want to stay aware enough that sleep, or a dream state, doesn't overtake you.

Mindfulness is a practice that can help you in all aspects of life. There are many ways to approach it, and meditation isn't critical for it. You learn to see your mind objectively; and when you experience your mind objectively, you will have total peace in every situation. I am mindful outside of meditation by knowing what I am thinking and feeling, and (if possible) keeping track of why and how my mind came into that state.

There are numerous medications that can cause vivid dreams. Lucid dreaming is really a blanket term that includes several elements: awareness, control, and vividness. Your period of wakefulness during the pre-dawn hours is one of the techniques used to attain the mind awake/body asleep state.

thanks for the advice you guys. i'm a pretty happy and positive person, so i think i'm afraid because the negs seemed to be sort of hyped up whenever i read something about AP. (usually on other forums) i need to ignore it.

Is this happening while you are reading about AP, or during your projections?

Dream recall is a good point to start from.

Netflix has it.

You might be able to find previous threads if you run a search. In my opinion, the negs are a manifestation of fear.

I learned to project by reading the FAQ and Permanent Topics sections. Posts by Frank were particularly helpful for me.

Physical activity, or activities that require you to interact with and manipulate the environment.

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Hi Frozen Silence, i think i might be able to help you out! i have suffered from paranoid schizophrenia for 5 years. i was on Risperdal also, but now i take omega 3-6 along with balanced diet and exercise. I'm still under my doctors supervision and i see her regularly.

Absolutely get yourself the omega-3 oil. They can be as effective as the synthetic drugs, and without the side effects. Our body needs a ratio of omega-6:omega-3 in at least 1.5:1; in the west we are averaging well over 10:1 (wikipedia). There have been quite a few studies linking this imbalance to all sorts of problems, from depression to Alzheimer's.

In order to give your condition a label, it has to match one of the established definitions. It's not uncommon to have symptoms that don't fit neatly into schizophrenia, etc.

You might have to accept that there is no obvious cause, or that you won't find the cause. Work around the problem and live your life.

The Buddha told an allegory about a man who is struck by a dart, and then distressed by the pain; it was as if he were hit by two darts, the physical one and then his emotional response. In psychology there is a form of therapy called CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy) that works on that principle: you learn to live with your burden, without being significantly affected by it.

and can i quickly say is OBE different from AP? i thought astral projecting is an outer body experience.. but anyway i've tried various ways and none have suceeded, however i have got better at ap-ing. I have tried lying on my bed before i go to bed and sometimes i feel my head go up, i only get about 30 cm forward and then it's like there is a wall there. i've tried all other ways like rope and ladder but whenever i go to make my hands go outta my body i end up physically moving them. i've tried going backwards but no sucess. i've tried lying face down on my bed and trying to go through it (i have a bunk bed) but it's hard ot breath and i end up keeping swallowing.

can someone give me the tech i would probally find most easiest or suggestions please? and can you give me a like '5 stage' guide on what i must do please? i'd really appreciate it!

Check the Permanent Topics and FAQ sections for info on terminology. You might not be relaxed enough if your body is still moving.

Use the sleep cycle to your advantage - make attempts after a few hours sleep, so that you'll naturally enter the mind awake/body asleep state.

Your post content doesn't reflect the subject.  Do you feel this is something sinister? My guess is that your anxiety of projecting is manifesting in the hypnogogic state, where F2/F1 overlay.

Simple relaxation increases my dream recall by several orders of magnitude. Normally I'm unable to remember any of my dreams.

It may have to do with giving the brain a little time to cool off before sleep. You go in better rested and more able to retain the dream content.

I remember reading about an inventor that would build a machine in his mind and then visualize it running to see how well it would perform and what changes to make before actually building it. Unfortunately, I neither remember what book it was or the name of the inventor.

It was Tesla.

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.

Such as we build up emotional prints of day to day objects, and even days, for example Sundays have a specific feel, doing certain activities evoke a specific feel etc.

I was never able to find a word for that. It's like the perceptual function of emotion.

The eyelids require a muscle contraction to stay closed. If you relax the muscle, they open.

Excellent advice so far. Do some exercise that will give you a good sweat to leach those toxins out of the body, or go to a sauna and let the heat do the work for you.

You need to be able to function in physical reality. Take a hiatus from whatever practices you are doing if you believe they are causing this.

'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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flammarion_woodcut