Messages

You can try for physical manifestation abilities like psychokinesis.  That'd be something new coming from an astral projection and meditation background.  Or you could try to visit the Akashic records.  I've heard it's quite fascinating...and yes, I imagine many people here are quite envious.  I know I'm always envious when people make it sound so darn easy! Haha

Exactly.  Why are we here if not for fun?

Well now, that's really the question.

While I believe we exist in all areas of the continuum simultaneously... do those other focuses do more than just "nothing" while we're not focusing into them.
Do they require our conscious INTENT to do anything?

Maybe everything we experience on all focus levels is stored in our mind somewhere and we're constantly learning things subconsciously, and those things are our instincts and intuition and very slow spiritual evolution.  I've heard of the concept of astral schools where we're learning things subconsciously while we sleep.

WHAT!!??...is your favorite color?

Here's a fun trick you can play on people.  When you're outside at night with somebody just be looking at the sky and then pretend to see something "That star just moved!" and start semi-freaking out and pointing at it and getting them to look at it to.  "Just keep looking at that star, I swear it moved."  If you look at a star for long enough it appears to start wiggling around and moving slightly.  That's just because of your eyes twitching though and since there isn't much reference in the black sky except the point of light you're looking at...it looks like the star is moving around.  It's very hard to stare at something with completely still eyes.  They always want to be twitching around.  I remember my dad playing this trick on my cousin.  It was pretty funny.  My cousin was totally convinced he was looking at a spaceship.

Haha.  Nice perspective.  From the apparent state of aimless randomness most of my dreams are in though, I'm not really sure the rest of my unconscious mind really has any idea what the heck it's doing or anything resembling goals or plans though 

Individuals.  There's no need to classify.  It just sets up divisions that don't need to exist. "The greatest illusion, is the illusion of separation."

So a part of my mind is off having experiences the whole time I'm awake that will never impact my awareness.  Seems like a waste of mind, or mental energy...a waste of something.

I once saw a bright neon green shooting star pretty close to me.  I think it was just falling space junk though, burning a different color than a natural meteorite because it had synthetic parts with chemicals that burn freaky colors.

I made an observation and I'd like to see what you guys think about it.  My girlfriend falls asleep extremely quickly when she's really tired.  Last night she was sitting on the couch talking with me and then started to get sleepy, that eyeballs starting to roll up in your head but you're still talking kind of instant sleepy.  She pretty much turned off like a light bulb and was only out for two seconds at most and then came to and told me about a dream scene she'd just had.  She hadn't spent much subjective time in the dream, only a couple seconds, but it was a pretty complex situation she described to me.  It just struck me as odd that she got out/phased over (which ever way you like to think about it) and constructed a dream that fast.  Then I remembered something I read about a year ago that mentioned dreaming and said that "the dreaming" is always going on, even when you're awake.  It had seemed like a strange and unlikely idea to me at the time but it makes sense now.  She was able to slip into such a complex dream so quickly because it was already going on.  Her consciousness just shifted over to being aware on that level for a second.  So the dream is constant; we just shift our awareness over to it when we sleep.  That's confusing to think about though because if it's true, it means that a part of my mind is currently on some kind of crazy random astral dream adventure at this very moment as I'm typing that I'm completely unaware of and will never remember or have any knowledge of.

I think quantum physics is knocking on the door to where objectivity and subjectivity meet.  I found this article a while back

http://www.integralscience.org/psyche-physis.html

It brings together psychology and quantum physics.  I won't pretend to understand everything it talks about but it was a fairly mind-bending read for me at some points 

In my experience most OOBEs happen when I'm not expecting anything, and it seems, specifically because I'm not expecting anything. haha

I would so love to be able to use AP as a way to visit my girlfriend when I can't see her.  I'm living with her now in Hong Kong but when I come back to the states to finish my degree I won't be able to see her for a while.  Wanting to see the rest of my family back in the States now and wanting to be able to come visit my girlfriend when I'm back over there are some of the major reasons I've starting practicing again but I still haven't gotten the hang of it yet, not to a useful degree anyway.  But regarding your post, I've never had any pain.  I get snapped back when I'm lucid pretty often but never with any pain.

Sounds like you're astral projecting, or lucid dreaming, can't tell which but I don't think it really matters, the point is just that you're aware.  And then when you come back you're in sleep paralysis.  I don't know much about sleep paralysis because I don't have it but I'm sure plenty of people on here can tell you all about it.

Is your heavy breathing being caused by your rapid heart beat, like an involuntary panic reaction? If it is, I have that problem too.  I've learned to kind of force myself to ignore it but since it's involuntary you can't really ignore it completely.  You either have to force your breathing to remain normal, or do nothing in which case your breathing gets really heavy and breaks your state of relaxation.  Kind of a lose lose situation I haven't figured out how to get around yet.  You might want to try phasing though.  That's a technique a lot of people on here recommend that's completely different from most traditional obe techniques.  I'm trying to use it to get around the rapid heart beat and automatic heavy breathing problem because the technique doesn't involve bodily sensations at all.

I once APed from a lucid dream to my friend's house and the next day she called and told me that she saw me floating around her ceiling at the same time I had APed.  That seemed like pretty good confirmation to me that it's not just in my head.  It can't really be proven to you though.  You have to prove it to yourself because it's hard to believe hearing from somebody else.  If not by someone spiritually sensitive seeing you then by observing something unknown in the real time zone and then confirming it by checking it physically.  Either way though you have to be able to do it first. haha

I have a theory but that's all it is.  I don't have as much experience as you, but I think that nothing external can actually forcefully keep you from going back to your body, so what was holding you stuck out there must have been yourself, your subconscious mind.  Perhaps it/you were trying to make yourself face whatever those things are.  From your descriptions of them they sound pretty darn evil, maybe your mind's representation of your addiction.  From what I understand kicking heroin is about the hardest thing possible.  Maybe if you can face it in the astral and learn how to deal with their presence it will somehow aid you in kicking the addiction.  This is only my guess though.  Any other members who have more perspective feel free to add.  I have an old friend from childhood I don't see much any more, maybe once every 4 or 5 months, well none now because I'm overseas but anyway, I think he may have picked up the same addiction.  His presence felt different the last couple times I saw him, kind of distracted and detached, and I saw a discarded needle on his front porch...I really hate to see that happen to people.  I wish you the best of luck on your journey to quitting.

This might be a good place to ask the question: What is a "light body?"  I've seen that term a few times, once used by Robert Bruce, but I still don't know what it was referring to.  I just know it's supposed to be immortal.  Is it something that you could hypothetically create physically?

I think an increasing number of people have the same attitude.  Seeing what we all do with it's going to be interesting over the next several decades.

The world needs more real masters. 

I have a friend who said she went to bed on clean sheets one night and dreamed about being on the beach, and when she woke up there was a little pile of sand on the sheets below her hand.

Sorry but did you really believe that?

I always have doubts, but I like to keep an open mind, and from some of the other things I've seen myself involving that person...a little sand wouldn't surprise me too much.  haha

I have a friend who said she went to bed on clean sheets one night and dreamed about being on the beach, and when she woke up there was a little pile of sand on the sheets below her hand.  And I have another friend that once said he shaved one night before going to bed and when he woke up the next morning he had like over a week's worth of facial hair growth.  I've never had experience with anything like that but I have noticed strange correlations sometimes that seem impossible.  Like for example my alarm clock will wake me up but at first I will be dreaming about something that's making a loud noise much like my alarm clock and then I slowly realize that it's actually my alarm clock and I wake up...but the thing in the dream that was making the noise had been going on for much longer than the actual alarm clock would have been going off.   There are other instances like that where something random and sudden will happen physically to wake me up but the way my awareness shifts from dream to reality, it's like that things was happening in my dream before it started to happen in the physical.

Maybe mechanical things in nature are determined.  So the question is what sets us apart and allows us to use this "free will"?  Everything that we have is a part of the system of nature; our bodies, and also our minds.  If you wanted to view everything in nature as predetermined then the only thing that could operate out of free will would be something not in the system of nature, i.e. something that does not really exist: You, the observer, the consciousness itself.  When you engage in your mind you're being a part of nature and are thus bound by it's determinism.  The only way to be free of that is to free yourself from your mind, become enlightened.  Philosophy is fun Haha. but usually ultimately pointless.  I like to play with it but not really care about the "truth."

Near as I can tell it's tied more to confidence and optimism and being relaxed and unconcerned than to how you actually practice.  I have my best results when I'm not stressed, generally happy with life and not really trying to do anything.  I know that doesn't help any; that's just how it seems to work for me.

Actually I think the fact there is no "purpose of life" is a wonderful thing.  An inherent purpose would contradict free will.  The ability to choose is what makes us living beings as apposed to just a bunch of biological machines trying to find our lost directive.