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Hi RM,

I don't get paralyzed or have astral sight either. But I feel pretty sure that my OBE's are legit! (After all, I keep verifying them!)  

Jeff and I have similar experiences and I think the way it differs from what you are trying is simply this - we allow our selves to drift off to sleep with the firm (and I mean FIRM, absolutely intent) intent to stay mentally awake.  So we get that snap back thing going where eventually we snap back into a situation where the body is dead asleep. I seriously doubt I could get my body that dead asleep without falling asleep and snapping my awareness out of it.

I am not clear if others can achieve this sort of state without some falling asleep. Maybe they can.  It sounds to me like you are trying to get there in a completely controlled manner, not letting your body go to sleep because you don't want to lose control and .... well....fall asleep!

I often (not always) know if I am going to succeed or not based on whether there is a voice in my mind telling me that I really should get a good night's sleep. That is, I rarely succeed if I am half hearted. The determination to stay mentally awake is key. And again, it's not that I DO stay mentally awake without any breaks in awareness, rather it is that I am intent on staying awake and so every time I drift off, my consciousness snaps me back.

(I always thought hypnogogic imagery was not something to engage in anymore than thoughts. I always thought that I should reset my intent every time i saw such imagery. Which means losing a bit of the trance. But I always figured that was part of the snapping back process.)

I can't address your other questions.  A lot of Robert's most useful info is on the web, so I don't think that buying the book is necessarily the key. It's a great book, well written, and I recommend it. When you have more money.

For what it's worth, I have been grounded for the last twenty or so attempts; no approach is foolproof except maybe for someone with lots of experience or with a knack for it.  

Patty

Hi Lapsilap,

I've had ... I don't know - a few dozen OBE's over the last four years. I'm of two minds about it.

Yes it is easy.

No it is not easy.

how's that?  

I'd have them every night if I could.

Usually one of two things will happen. I will either (1) have not tried in months, and out of the blue get the buzzy feeling like I could get out that night. I go to bed early, and get out.  Or (2) I will be doggedly trying every night (which is currently the case) and bat about 100 (1 success for every ten attempts.)

You might find that the quality of the experiences isn't what you expect. (Or that might just be me.)  Of the times I succeed, the clarity and length and control varies widely.

Weird thing is, I started OBE'ing to get away from the physical world. But I think what it has done is give me more appreciation for the physical world. I wish the astral realms were as easy to maneuver in!

I expect to be doing this for the rest of my life, and I anticipate learning to maneuver 'there' better.

good luck.

Patty

Hi Comus,

What I was 'missing' when I was depressed, was my child. I felt like I had lost a limb, (or a major internal organ) only no one could see it. I always thought that at least if people could see what it was that I had lost, (like if it had been a limb), that they would understand why I couldn't function. It sounds like you don't find that to be the case, that what is missing in your life is plain to see and that people still aren't compassionate or helpful.

You are helping me understand, and I wanted to say thank you. Also, here is another ((((hug)))).

Some therapists are spiritually trained. I think (can someone verify this or correct me?) that Jungian psychologists/therapists tend to help patients look for spiritual bases for their concerns.  In terms of the medications, Tisha knows more than I do from her family history and her advice sounds good. I would guess that if you keep those specifics that you don't wish to share, out of the picture, no one is going to think anything at all except to listen to your wish for medical help.

I don't know where in Canada you are - but here is a page with some contact info on Jungian psychologists (again, someone please straighten me out if I've got my information wrong, I think jungian analysts are trained to look at things from a spiritual perspective)

http://www.eskimo.com/~dcs/faq.html

I also volunteer with hospice. We firmly believe that pain is not necessary during end-of-life situations, like the 75 year old man you used as an example.  We help by providing pain killers so he could have a fuller physical life until his body is truly done living. I personally believe that the decision to accept help to overcome pain can be a spiritual decision ---- it is no small potatoes to reach out for help. Perhaps that is the reason for pain, it gives us an opportunity to accept help from others. I don't know.

Finally - with regards to what existence is like while NOT on the physical plane. I am not terribly experienced, but from my limited experience I have developed great appreciation for the STABILITY and PREDICTABILITY of the physical plane. It is nice that it is so concrete. The physical world can really suck, but at least you have an idea of what to expect. I tend to think this is a place where we develop our consciousness into a form that can exist in the fluidity of non-physicality. Like, our physical construction houses our consciousness until it is developed enough to exist without a physical housing.  

This is all so speculative. I don't really know. All I know is that it is really hard to hold things together when I am 'out.' Things start slipping all over the place and I get confused pretty fast.

Keep us posted.

love,

patty

Patty

Hi Again,

I wanted only to comment about the medication. First of all, I should say that different people respond differently to medication, and if you do decide to get some antidepressants your doctor may need to try different dosages or kinds.

Second of all, sometimes the medication is not just a short term fix. In some cases, getting the seratonin levels at the right place will kick the system into regulating itself properly again, and you can wean off. (Every case is probably different.)  

I have had stomach problems in the past, and I really resisted taking medication. I thought that I could beat the ulcers through diet, exercise, whatever. And I didn't want to be dependant on antacids to feel right.  But the thing is, taking the acid - blocker allowed my stomach to heal to the point where it could keep itself healthy on its own.   So when I finally took the medicine, I found that it got my system running properly again and after a few months I didn't need them any more.

Please don't be offended that I am comparing ulcers to depression. As I mentioned before, I have been suicidal. I know that depression is 100 times worse.  But I also hear you saying that you don't want to use a drug ---- and I am trying to offer what experience I have to help you see another possibility ---- That maybe it wouldn't be a long term prescription.

((((Comus))))

You know, even though I don't have depression now, I still see a therapist. It is good. It helps me realize that people help one another.

I hope you are having a good day. Keep at it. I'll check back on the thread regularly.

Love,


Patty

Hi Comus,

Yes, you can make choices here.  It's not a simple thing like waking up and deciding "i'm not going to be depressed!" But it can be done. Deciding to do one small thing that you think will make your future better. I can't add much to what has been written except to point out that making small choices (even though it takes a real effort) really will, over time, exemplify how much power and control you have.

One other thing. During my deepest depression (I considered taking my life) I realized that "I" existed separately from my feelings. It is very easy to get caught up in the idea of being intimately intertwined with one's feelings (and most times it is appropriate and good to be so.) But there is a space where you can step away from your feelings and recognize that although 'they' exist, 'you' also exist independantly of them. If you can find that space or a similar space, you might get a breather now and then.

Caffeine reduces the likelihood of trying to take one's life.  Prescription antidepressants are wonderful medications.

Finally, my episode with depression is what has opened me up to greater spiritual growth. I don't wish depression on anyone, it sucks big time. But I simply would not be projecting, or even living a proactive life had it not been for depression. I would instead be living a life of reacting to whatever was put in front of me. Your situation sounds more chronic, so my experience might not apply. But I hope you can find a way through your depression to a more fulfilling life.


(((hug)))


ZPE: I had a roommate who used a special light (came with an umbrella to direct the light appropriately) for SAD. You might want to look into specially designed products like that. Also, time of day appears important for light therapy:

http://www.mercola.com/2001/feb/7/depression_light.htm

Patty

Great thread. I'm going to save it. I think it will help me.

Thanks,

Patty

Chris,

I DEFINITELY want to know if you get a hit on this. Will you keep us posted?

You can try a search for databases on google using words like "social security, obituaries, death, etc."

Here's one that came up that you might try:

http://www.ancestorhunt.com/obituary_search.htm



Patty

Fallnangel:

I assume you are talking of the 'path' to greater spiritual growth and awareness.

I believe the 'right path' is to find one's own way. Whether this includes asking for external help (or marketing one's talent) is each individual's decision. John is making decisions I wouldn't make. People who ask him for readings are making decisions I wouldn't make. But I believe we each follow our own path. (Also, I believe John is not as talented as the show makes him appear, and I believe that 'needing to eat' does not justify the income that he receives. So I guess I am judgmental.)

Windameir,

Yes, I have an opinion on Sylvia Brown.  

The only high - profile psychic who still has any credibility with me personally is Laurie Campbell.  I don't know much about her. I have only heard good things. I also have a good opinion of Joe Mcmoneagle, RVer. He has done well in tests that ask about human psychic functioning. Though he doesn't claim to speak to the dead.

Bottom line for me personally is that if one can do it oneself, then one should do it oneself. That will lead to more growth, and leave no room for doubt as to whether fraud is going on.

Daniel,  You make a good point. Even if psychic functioning is happening, one doesn't know the basis for it. Again, personal exploration seems both best, and most empowering. Not quickest, of course.

And despite being contrary on this particular topic, I wish everyone good travels always.

Love,

Patty

Perhaps it is my own failing, but I cannot possibly understand how someone who charges several hundred dollars to  over a thousand dollars for 15 - 60 minutes of their time, can possibly be in this for anything but the money. (And the ego trip.)

I have posted a link before, and can post it again, to the IANDS board where a believer saw Edwards in person and witnessed one 'cold reading' after another. Since it was a live performance, no editing was possible. This believer gives a very thorough assessment of the evening with John.

About five years ago everyone was enthralled with James Van Praagh. And now, several times, he has been filmed cheating outright.

It may well be that these psychics have some considerable talent, and considerable psychic ability. but it seems almost certain to me that they are also using dirty tricks to make themselves look better. If I were on the astral plane and met someone who was trying, for instance, to look like a being of pure light and it was obvious to me that they were something a tad less than that, well, I would just as soon wander off somewhere else and let them work through their issues on their own.

Losing a child is truly devastating. After our Rachel died I bought quite a lot of literature on the subject of life after death.  I attended a few talks and went to lots of  'angel' stores and met a lot of people - Some of these people have genuinely helped me on my path but many of them seemed more interested because of the 'fad' nature of new age. Like, how many crystals should I get, what aromatherapy would best complement what metamusic, etc etc etc.

I believe going within one's self is the best way, and many of these people were going outside themselves looking for answers.

People like Robert Bruce and Bruce Moen and Robert Monroe (and presumably Laurie Campbell, as she is affiliated with TMI and isn't she RAM's daughter?)  encourage self empowerment, self discovery, development of one's own inner sight.  This is good. I have had several conversations with some of these people (possibly including RAM after he died, grin) and didn't have to pay a nickel. Laurie 'tests' well, or so I am told, so perhaps she really is tuning into the deceased for those who ask.  Perhaps John is too. As I said, perhaps it is my own failing, but those sorts of dollars (and that sort of public adoration) seem like a very slippery slope to me.

(I'm going to go stand in the corner now.)

Patty

That is great!



I'm jealous now.  (not really, just happy for you.)

Patty

When I say I snap back to full consciousness, I mean that my body is still asleep. I don't wake up. So the two ARE separated, and you're right - it is not a way to separate but a way to exit.  I presume the separatyion happens because your body is asleep.

Have you ever had the experience of trying to stay awake really late and you doze off, wake up with a jolt, try to stay awake, doze off, wake up with a jolt, try to stay awake, .... etc......

It's almost EXACTLY like that, only eventually when you 'wake up with a jolt' your body doesn't. It is just your consciousness snapping alert. Then you can get up and walk around.

Patty

Wow, I totally had you pictured wrong. I thought you were a skinny blond guy with blue eyes.  Guess my clairvoyance needs a tune up.

You're right, it's nice to have a face to put to a name.

  <- me still smiling

Patty

Jouni -  realized you were tallking to Rodentmouse. Sorry!

David, yuck! How long ago was that?  Obviously "Abduction' crossed my mind - what do you think of that possibility?

Patty

Our experiences are very similar.  

I also often fall asleep, then snap back to consciousness without waking up. Usually within a few minutes of falling asleep.

I don't roll out, but maybe I will try that again next time. There is no sound, most times. I feel the carpet underfoot as I am walking around,  as real as can be. I start to think, "I must be awake, walking around, this feels very real."  

I don't put my arm through the wall to check, rather I jump - and sure enough I make it to the ceiling. That's how I know I'm out, and that my body is still asleep.

RM  and AM  - I get the idea that you are looking for an exit with no sleep before hand. Yes? I hope you get it! My understanding is that that is a different sort of experience - Like more controlled, less confused.





Patty

quote:the last desperate vestiges of your subconscious resistence making an attempt to psych you out

I think so.

I feel like the 'evil' part was actually confronted and resolved in the dream -which is positive. Even though I am not 'christian' in the sense of a church going bible-focused christian, I do consider Jesus to be a loving/powerful personal being who would help anyone who asked --- but I wonder why I called for help like that. Like, I would like to be able to overcome obstacles on my own so what does the fact that I called for help really say?  Why didn't I try something on my own first?

More perplexing to me is the image of my sister and her family in the photograph, and standing with my mother looking at this photo. My mother had recently died at the time of the dream....

These seem like important elements to me in understanding all the messages of the dream, but I have not figured them out yet.

Less than 2 cents -

Patty

HI RM,

Funny, the first nightmare that came to my mind also involved family and evil -

Very short - I was standing with my mom looking at a picture of a sister and her family. The picture was hanging on the wall. I knew it was a bad picture somehow, like it was ominous.Suddenly the picture lifted away from the wall and a white smoke that was very very very ominous indeed, swirled out from behind the picture. I knew that pictures shouldn't be able to lift away from the wall like that, but I didn't really become lucid - Anyway, I was really scared, the smoke came towards me and started wrapping around my legs and crawling up through my body and it was chanting 'evil, evil, evil....'  I could feel the smoke penetrating me, poisoning me, I was terrified.

I started calling out Jesus! Jesus! And soon woke up in a cold sweat.

(Interesting side note - that sister and I have had a falling out recently over some issues involving her family. I wonder if the dream is related....)

Patty

AM and RM:

Have you ever had the experience of having legs or arms feel separate from the body? Where you could move those without moving your physical arms and legs?

I think the rollout method is like that - you have to be deep enough that you can feel the astral body (at least part of it) separate from the physical body, and roll that part. I think it probably feels physical, not just like an imaginary thing.

I did rollout once, I prefer the 'sitting up out of your body' approach.

Patty

I have never been aware of floating over my body like that.

I do find that the more I try to project, the less energy I have in reserves and the less impact an experience is likely to have. It sounds like you see something similar. Despite the lesser impact, I am trying ot project frequently, thinking that the more you use the system, the more energy you start to carry as a baseline.

Wish I could be of more help -

Patty

If nothing else, it is quite special to experience that by loving something we can transform it, make it more substantive and more positive.

As to messages - if they were important you might see other indications in dreams?

Patty

I can't give you advice from personal experience; I always want to be in the real time zone so I have never tried to go anywhere else. But I am always happy to comment anyway! Based on my reading various authors:

What makes sense to me intuitively is to ask for a non-physical helper next time you are out. I understand that this is supposed to work, but that how it manifests is hard to predict. Maybe just a feeling or an impression, or maybe a fully formed person.  However, believe your request will be answered. Then I guess it is up to you what to do with it - whether to ask it to take you somewhere or to let it decide what might be best.

I did ask for a helper once in a real time projection - and I saw some sort of energy and a person. (So there were then three of us there.) THe person, in the experience, was deceeased recently. I got his name, but I am having trouble figuring out how to verify it.

Anyway, I never left the real time zone. Maybe that was an opportunity for me to go visit where ever this departed soul was going.  But I have my own belief issues, so I didn't do that.

try it, I am curious if it will work for you.

Q for everyone - is a landscape that doesn't have a physical counterpart always an astral level? Or could it still be real time with some sort of overlay of personal imagination?

Patty

Yes, I didn't mention that I also keep other journals.

One is my angry journal, a place to externalize the anger that I have ongoing issues with. It really works! I write down, uncensored, all the anger I have - and then it feels released and I can approach life fresh again. It also gives me a laugh to see certain entries - how many times I use a word that rhymes with duck.

A second journal is a collection of letters that I am writing to my kids.  it's a way to keep track of their growth in a format that they can appreciate when they're older.

The third is all the scraps that i mentioned - putting dreams, ld's, and other nighttime adventures on paper to help remember them.

AND TODAY! I finally started working on an outline to chronicle my OBE stuff. I have to hunt around for where I have left all those scraps- but I have the outline written and I'm making headway. I don't know what form it will ulitimately take.  maybe similar to a book - somewhat chronological with organization by topic.  What was wonderful to see was all the progress. You lose sight of your progress until you look back at the early days, and then you realize that even if you haven't had the ultimate experience that you may want, that you ARE making progress. So validating!  I have to thank this forum and thread for helping me direct my energies this way.

Patty

Hi,

Michael, I will have to check the articles page. I would love to check out what you have written.

Based on various authors, but mostly Bruce Moen (a relatively recent contributor to the field), I am of the opinion that I was perceiving the pull tab, but that the perception was somehow filtered through my beliefs or something before an actual memory of the event was stored in my brain. Like I couldn't get a firm handle on the perception, only enough that my brain tried to pull out the closest match that it could - and so my perception was interpreted as a coke can. It's entirely theoretical, but it's the idea that I work with when I get these sorts of results.

Jeff, heh heh - sticking arms through walls is pretty fun! Actually I was reading an account yesterday that was at the other end of the spectrum entirely - the projector was on another planet, having tea with two advanced beings and telepathically communicating ..... The account reinforced to me how personal these experiences can be.

There are so many possible avenues when one projects! They all have value. I often think that I spend too much time focused on proof. The 1998 stuff, the early few projections, were such a new place for me - It is such an amazing experience, really broadens one's appreciation for what it means to have consciousness.  It wasn't til after these, that we started working with a real system of getting evidence that I might actually be separate from my body.  Most of the attempts were too fuzzy ----- I was too preoccupied with all the fluctuation in the experience to hazard a guess. But I have had six experiences over the last few years that I tried to verify afterwards, and five of those were strong hits and the sixth was a partial hit.  More importantly, I see progress in both my success with projecting in the first place, and with figuring out what I am perceiving. I don't think I appreciated the progress until I started to look back at earlier experiences. But still the fluctuations dominate the experience.

Two of the recent verified experiences are posted somewhere on page two or three ("Last night's OBE" and "Three for three on my card experiment").

OBE is a wonderful avenue of human experience.

Patty

Ireland or scotland you say?



I'll look for a pic, but it'll be a few days -

Patty

I can't get these time zones figured out. Is it tuesday there already? Or do you work on sundays?

The reason I asked was because on Friday morning (my time, so whatever that is in Australia)  I was waking slowly - I clearly heard a voice say "I have to tell patty I had an OBE...."  It was you! (but no accent,,,, heh heh heh ..... but somehow in that weird hypnopompic state I was hearing James S or a decent construct of him) I don't know. It was just one of those weird things. Anyway, I was hoping for a direct hit ---- looks like a no on that ---- but still neat that you started mind traveling in roughly the same time frame!

later -

Patty

Wow!

Those sound really neat.

I meant to ask about the church. DO you have a sense of where it might be? Is the water the ocean, or a bay, or a lake? If I can find a picture of a building that I have in minmd, I will post it. But I think it is a longshot.  Where do you think the locale was?

Your diligence really illustrates well how sticking with this pays off. I have a hard time finding time every day - I try my best, but you know kids and stuff -- You inspire me to really commit to daily projection attempts as soon as I am able. It won't be anytime soon but someday.

i guess I didi have a little different sense of paralysis last night. But really fleeting, I couldn't hold it. I think Ralph or Tom or kakkarot (I forget) is right when they talk about how maybe some of the symptoms cycle. I lay awake for three hours, and nothing but a few minutes of almost paralysis in my arms. I'm telling myself that the good thing was that I was able to wwait patiently; that the effort of laying there for three hours will impress upon my mind that this is important and that I wish to succeed.

Anyway, thanks for sharing!

Patty