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Wow, I must say I'm quite surprised to find that it may be exactly what I assumed was not the case.  I'm not quite sure what to make of that, lol.  Of course I do feel like it might have been quite silly of me to miss such a thing.  I suppose I just exacted it would be a bit less, "physical" feeling, for lack of a better way to put it.  Also I must admit to not really knowing what to do next, when I find this happening again.  It;s odd and a bit funny how years of practicing and reading, and still there's that strange moment of "okay, now what?" lol.       

I thought about it before deciding to post this, and finally decided to.  I've had something a bit odd going on lately and I'm curious about it.  A few times in the last couple months, when I've decided to lay down a short while in the afternoon to nap on days I happen to be off work. I've woken up to something quite strange and certainly a bit alarming.  After an hour or so of sleeping and slipping a bit into dreams, I will wake up quite suddenly and without much reason, I will wake up with the feeling that my entire body is shaking lightly but with a powerful energy running through it.  Now, of course I've heard all about the vibrational state assosicated with out of body experiences, and on this sort of forum that might be a good conclusion.  Except that I don't think it's quite the same thing at all, or at least it doesn't seem like it would have the same cause.  For one thing, as far as I can tell, I am completely in my body when this happens on waking.  For another, I am always quite wide awake.  Woken up quite quickly and always slightly confused, but awake no less and normally laying with my eyes shut for a moment waiting for it to stop so I can move and get up.  It always goes away after a minute if even that long, and of course I'm perfectly fine and just go on about my business.  Still though, it's weird and I'm left to wonder.

Am I missing something here? Has anyone else ever experienced such a thing?  I'm not so much concerned as simply wondering.  I don't see how it could be a sign of anything dangerous or anything.  But I do wonder about the fact that it seems to happen after short naps in the day or evening, and never after waking up in the morning, after a night's sleep.           

Ya know... I'm looking forward to it to in a way too.  Dec. 21st, 2012 has been talked by so many, worried about by some and eagerly awaited by others, for so long now.  I'm certainly not one to think the world will end, and I'm far from hiding underground in a bunker somewhere.  But I must admit, I'm curious to see what the world might look like on that day.  Will we find people praying on the sidewalks of cities?  Partying in the streets?  Jumping for joy at being alive, or just laughing their butts off at other people?  I work in a small store,and I would hardly be shocked if some yahoo ran inside sometime, screaming about how doomsday is upon us or something. Yeah, it's actually getting pretty interesting I think, just to imagine what if anything might go on. 

Hey, Welcome to the site.   

Neat experience.  I've never consciously gone out of body, but every time I have seen anything in the real time zone (typically during false awakening type situations,) my home has never looked the same as it's physical counterpart either.  It seems to go to one extreme or the other in my case.  I've seen places I've lived look suddenly super tidy and impossibly organized.  In other cases though, I've seen a house I was in appear completely totaled.  Things all over the floor, furniture tipped over, boxes of junk in the middle of the room, etc.         

Well said, everyone.  I agree with you completely.

In our society it seems it all about getting a good degree in something that's both considered smart and will pay well, and then going on to buy a house, etc.  We are not supposed to be happy being "less" then those educated people.  Maybe there should be a little more emphasis put onto being happy, being nice, being helpful, and so on. Also, while this is of course not true in every case, there is such a thing as being educated to the point of snobbery.  Bottom line, with it makes you happy, go for the big degrees and the titles, if it doesn't, don't, or so says me.

The thing that just gets on my nerves though is the way it tends to be assumed that lacking education means knowing less or knowing nothing at all.  I know plenty or people who are uneducated or under educated, and I count myself in that category.  We are certainly not stupid.  Some of the smartest people I've ever met personally barely finished high school, or didn't even quite make it.  I am left to wonder at times, is it really about education at all, or more about the opportunity to either earn the big money or to be thought of as smarter than others.            

This has nothing to do with anything really, but I've been thinking about such things lately and decided to post this topic on here because it could certainly lead to some interesting and thought provoking discussion. 

It seems so often, that to so many people higher education is a great measure of one's worth.  People tend to assume that if one is highly educated they can be for far more help to you in even the mundane things in life.  Why do we tend to look to the PHD in the room, when we need info on say, the force of gravity on the planet Neptune.  Never mind that said PHD, might hold his degree in Sociology, a field very unrelated to the stars and planets - and the guy next to him is an amateur astronomer, who just happens to pump gas for a living.  Why are we shocked, as rule, that the lady up the road with ten cats and a job at the local fast food joint, is seen reading and clearly comprehending a book on advanced particle physics?  Furthermore, why be so surprised when a heart surgeon makes several spelling mistakes? 

It seems to me that people tend to equate high advanced education with high intelligence, and high intelligence with great use and value.  It also seems that we tend to equate low education with much less knowledge of anything at all, and that state as a bit less valuable.  The fact is though that a gas station attendant can understand science and math if he just happens to be good at it.  And a doctor cannot always spell or understand a wealth of complex words.  Perhaps all has more to do with natural talents for learning and retaining information, than anything else. 

To me education is more a sign of someone who was perhaps given greater encouraging and opportunity, than much else.  Of course this is not always true, but is it not a point to consider?

Your thoughts, anyone?               

I can't say I've ever heard of such a connection before.  Anyway I personally have my doubts.  I've never had a problem with sleep paralysis after eating rice with my dinner. 

Thanks for the advice Lionheart.  I typically journal my dreams on that old laptop that I sent flying last night, lol.  I think I will just make a file for OBE stuff to and start typing out my practice results in there.   

This somehow seemed more significant last night than it does now, in the morning.  I decided to post anyway though for whatever reason, likely because I need to get out of my own mindset of self doubt and criticism and assume that if something seemed important once, it actually is so.  Anyway, last night I was laying in bed listening to music on my laptop, which was on the nightstand near my bed.  I decided to experiment with noticing as I fell asleep.  I held some awareness for a while by deliberately counting silently from one to whatever I could reach before losing track and then instantly starting right back over at one again.  (I have no idea now where I learned to do that.  I know I read that idea on the internet somewhere though and I use it from time to time.)  I found I could get to only about twenty nine or so, which does seem like a pretty low number before getting confused, forgetting the number I counted last and started back over again, but it did lead to a bit of a neat state.  It seemed that while I was still very aware of keeping track of the numbers with one part of the mind, it sort of ran in the background, while all sorts of inexplicable pre-sleep images and ideas ran at the same time in front.  I consciously noticed just how fast the images flew and disappeared, because I knew the numbers were running at what we would consider normal speed.  Yeah, such a thing is impossible to really explain while typing and thinking in waking life.

At some point though I became quite aware of myself and the energy pulsing strongly through my hands.  I gained a good understanding that I could feel my hands and arms on the bed and under my covers (sort of,) but I could also feel my non-physical body's hands trying to really lift up a bit.  My feet and legs felt the same within a another second or less.  I had the feeling of eventually needing to try moving, but waiting another short while to see what would happen.  If I kept on going, I knew I would eventually just kind of lift free of my physical body.  I had to keep from thinking too hard or questioning and analyzing.  I'd lost count of course and I made myself start over again.  I've had a couple of experiences of feeling quite spontaneously and unexpectedly about to float away a bit not long after waking up, and this had scared the life out of me more than once.  This time though I was only again quite perfectly calm and collected about it, probably because I was actually doing this on my own terms and slower, so it wasn't too shocking or startling.    

I'm not sure exactly how I messed this up.  I just know I did.  Suddenly I was quite physically wide awake again, and was suddenly bothered by the fact that I could still hear music playing.  I got up again and moved to shut my computer off.  I managed to knock the whole thing off the nightstand, laptop, the cooling fan it sits on top off, a book I had nearby.  Big crashing noise.  I was of course half asleep and that started me good.  After I picked everything up and was quite sure I hadn't done any harm to the computer or the fan, I just shut it off like I'd intended to do and went to sleep.

I do think I might try this same thing again, the method of counting from one as high as I can, and just starting over, some time again.  This time though I'll do so without that computer still running or anything else for that matter.  Perhaps with no reason to have to wake up again to shut anything off I'd get further.  (?)                

It's great that you want to find info for the little guy, and help him.  This whole thing is as far as I've so often heard, pretty easy for many children and they are quite naturally good at it.  But of course someone or other at some point will inevitably imply that they are doing something bad, or it's all just an overactive imagination and not to bother with it anymore.  Children likely just assume at first that everyone will relate to the things they tell about.  Good job for listening to this child.

That said, I don't know of any books or anything written for children specifically.  I agree with the others though.  Just goggle it yourself first and find somethings he might be able to ready (with help from you) on the internet.  There are members on this site who must have a few cool experiences from childhood to rely to him, things that won't freak a kid out.  I agree with Szaxx.  Ask question for him too.  Just be sure to say you are asking for a child and obviously most people will be careful with their answers.          

 

Hey thanks for the link Szaxx.  I've never heard of this site before, but it looks very interesting and useful.  I have a dream dictionary that I like to use often, but it's not always the most helpful for all dream symbolism. 

Typically I consider myself pretty good at working out what my own dreams might mean.  I find the whole subject very interesting.  Lately however I've had a couple of related dreams that I cannot figure out at all.  I'm curious about what others on here might think of this one.

Three times in the last couple months I've dreamed of either being in the hospital or preparing at home to go into the hospital for what I knew would be an extended stay and major surgery.  The first time, I was already in the hospital in the dream.  I was told I had some serious female issues.  The second dream no more than weeks later, I was at home packing a bag to take to the hospital for treatment of brain cancer.  The third, only a couple nights ago was one of packing a bag once again and talking on the phone to hospital staff in the nearest city, confirming dates and times, and preparing for a heart transplant of all things.

Now in waking life I am a very healthy person.  I've never had major health issues, or been in the hospital for any truly serious things like the ones in these dreams.  It's always the same in the dream though.  I hear the news or I already know it.  I understand that this is something that could quite easily kill me, but still I just sit calmly an pack a bag.  I wonder if I have enough reading material, and if I should pack my laptop.  Common things like that.  I never react as though I've got a problem on my hands.  I tend to call my ride in these dreams and simply try to work out how to get to the big city hospital in the first place, since obviously driving myself is unwise.

If anyone has any ideas of what these crazy dreams might mean, I would be very curious.   

It is getting into flu season.  At the risk of sounding a little obvious here, are you sure your friend doesn't have the flu or something like that.  This to me sounds more like a typical case of someone being ill than anything odd and creepy.   

Hi everyone.   

I've been hosting a show on blogtalkradio for several months (link in my signature if anyone wants it.)  I try to cover all sorts of subjects that are less known or spoken about, but nevertheless interesting.  I've never done one on the subject of astral projection and OBE's yet,and of course I'd love to.  I thought I had a chance to cover that one with a guest months ago, but of course as things will, things came up and I lost my guest entirely.  I got to thinking about this again yesterday and decided there is no harm at all in looking on this forum.   I'm a member of such a great community and surrounded by knowledgeable people, yet I never tried to extend an invitation before.

Perhaps there is someone in the community who is knowledgeable, and with some good info and interesting stories to tell on the subject.  Someone that would like to talk a bit about it and maybe offer some information for listeners.  My little radio show is still small and  certainly far from well known but still if anyone has ever thought of being a radio show guest I can perhaps give you an little bit of an opportunity on mine. 

Looking forward to any comments on this in here, of of course PMs.

Thanks.      

Hi Lone_Dreamer,

In answer to the question in your thread title; no, of course there is nothing wrong with you.  There is no definite and known answer to why some people seem better at this than others and some take years or decades when for someone else it could be weeks, to succeed.  I've never been in the army myself, but I'm quite sure that's not all that conducive to astral projection either.  You might have better luck after you are back out again.  Of course keep on practicing, and perhaps make a point of doing so at a time you have a morning off.           

Interesting question for you guys.  This one is a bit hard to explain clearly but I'll try and hope it makes sense.  I'm curious about this.  Say you were to go into a good and stable state of remaining awake while your body physically goes to sleep.  If you had a radio on nearby or the neighbors were talking and laughing outside, would you still non-physically hear the sounds?  We read and hear a lot about vision in non-physical reality of course, but for whatever reason there seems to be much less said about hearing.  Now say someone were to get completely out of body and decided to leave the room or even the house.  What would happen to that sound?  Would it be just like walking out of a physical room in which you've left the radio on?

Haha, my hope is that this is not an utterly stupid question.  I just wonder, and of course i do think the answers will very from person to person, how to you experience sounds from the physical world?  Or does something like a TV or radio just mess up your attempts?  Of course I can fully see how a new sound that started suddenly, such as an alarm clock going off, or someone banging on your door, would just wake you up.  (My door buzzer went off recently under such circumstances and of course startled me quickly wide awake.)  But what if the sound was not annoying and had been there all along?           

Well yesterday I finally decided I was ready and interested in practicing again.  I had some time to go back to bed for a while after being up for a couple hours on a day off, which was ideal.  It was certainly a good practice, and no more fearful happens, which is good.  Unfortunately my door buzzer rang, forcing me to get up and answer the door just as I might have otherwise gotten somewhere with it.  Just thought I would leave this neat little if not quite pointless update because I'm happy to find I've not been completely thrown off after all.     

Hi

I wanted to reply too, because I have a couple things to say about this as well.  I've also been interested and practicing for a long time without fully succeeding.  There are a few of us here who it seems have not caught on as quickly as most.  Six years is a long time I suppose, but not unheard of.  I fully believe that when we say we have been waiting a long time for a real success, what we mean technically is that we are still waiting and trying for a success from a state that we can remember as unmistakable.  We certainly can't discount those fuzzy experiences out of dream-states where we don't wake up enough to take control, and the possibility that there may well have been experiences in which we simply never took enough consciousness with us to actually remember much by morning.

It does seem though for so many people, myself very much included, that the objective is to find something as close to personal proof as we can.  I want to be able to interact with the real-time zone.  Try to turn on lights, (I've so often heard that this is next to impossible to do - the lights will either not not turn on or turn off,) try to walk through the wall, ect.  Still thouhg I've learned over the years to never discount other experiences as just as real, if less concrete and beleivable.    

I've also started to really improve my lucid dreaming skills, as a result of OBE practice.  Personally I think lucid reaming is amazing and a great accomplishment in itself.   Why not work with that for a while?  Set a couple of lucid dream goals.  When you meet those move on to new ones.  My current dream-state goal is to defy gravity, but there are many possibilities.             

In part (though not a big part I think) I suppose it could have been the slight feeling of really experiencing both bodies at once.  It was really a state of feeling like I was spinning and falling and drifting and yet still also laying my bed and not moving. That's never happened before.  of course I've read a lot of accounts of such duel awareness, but to read and experience it are two different things.  Then there was also at some point that infamous, "Oh my... I'm dying!" reaction that again I've read about from others but never quite experienced myself.  It's ridiculous of course, looking back and wondering why I would have possibly thought I would be dying right out of the blue and for no reason at all.  But the mind goes weird in such a state and I know that full well by now.  It really is a gut-wrench reaction, and that sudden and illogical panic over dying really doesn't feel so illogical in the moment.  Lol, I can easily imagine some of the more experienced members of this site, nodding understanding over this one, while laughing good naturedly to themselves at another person doing that very same thing and losing it.

This little experience was completely unplanned at the moment, and simply happened right out of nowhere.  That gives me something else to consider too that I guess I never truly considered seriously before.  It looks as though my first conscious projection experience, could actually be a spontaneous projection at a time when I simply intended to go back to sleep in the night.  I mean I thought of that before of course and I thought that would be a great thing to happen.  But obviously I'm not so sure now.  I've decided by now of course that just walking away from this altogether would be silly and very much over reacting.  Like falling off a bicycle once and deciding to never try to ride again.  lol, I was just really panicked when I wrote that first post.  The question I am left to ponder though now is will I be ready next time?  Will I really be ready for anything?               

Now thinking this over in hindsight, I have to laugh a bit to myself over it all.  Wow, I was certainly having a bad morning.  I suppose in a way I'm just a bit shocked and surprised.  A good while ago I'd questioned the idea of fear and was completely convinced that the idea of projecting didn't scare me.  I think yesterday I found myself thrown headfirst right into a fear barrier I didn't know existed at all.  Good to have discovered it in some way I suppose.     

I'm just posting on here because this really was/is odd for me, and I'm looking for insights.  This morning I woke up a bit earlier than I intended too.  (Off work today, no big plans, and I intended to sleep in a bit longer.)  As soon as I woke up though I looked at the clock and still tired and seeing no reason to get up, I decided to roll over and lay in bed a while.  I must have been far more tired than I though or something because almost as soon as I thought that, I started too doze off again.  I was however instantly aware that I was not falling asleep "right" or completely.  Within a very short time I had the felling of falling and spinning, yet still in my bed.  I was getting almost dizzy feeling, and trying to move was suddenly far more complicated.  I didn't feel fully attached to or within my physical body, and yet |I was just as completely aware of it and it's position in my bed.  Strangely in that instant I thought that the way I was laying could not possibly be comfortable and I struggled to move to a different position.  As soon as I'd succeeded in moving though, it all just got worse.  Suddenly I was completely aware somehow of the possibility that I would take off completely away from my body, and it occurred to me fully that that was the very LAST thing I wanted to let happen at the moment.  I didn't feel right.  I was panicked, and dizzy and, lacking control.  I certainly hadn't been trying on purpose at that point, and I suddenly wondered vividly what on Earth I had been thinking to try this on purpose at other times.

Well I woke myself right up quickly and instantly I climbed out of bed and stood with my feet firmly on the floor.  I was still so freaked out by who only knows what exactly.  I could not even imagine getting back into bed and tryingf to get a bit more sleep.  No  way.  I got dressed and went on to start the day.  Even typing this now an hour later, I still feel quite startled and I still can't quite put my finger on what exactly caused that complete panic.  I still can't imagine having to go back to sleep.  I'm just thankfully this wasn't two am or some crazy hour because then I could have been up all night.  I'm just as thankful it was daylight out side.  I'm an adult woman.  I live on my own and have for years.  I hold a job and have a life.  Yet here I am admitting to basically being so freaked out of something that I couldn't go to sleep again after that.

So that leads me to ask a question that this whole thing brought me to wonder after |'d finally managed to think clearly.  I know I have come close to projecting before.  Actually when I think it over I realized I have been much closer than I might have been today.  I've been close to it and instead of completely panicking to the point where i can't go back to sleep, I've simply found it all amazing.  Some experiences have been almost fun in away.  What the heck made me completely lose it this time?  Furthermore I feel like it should have known better than to suddenly panic like that.  I've been into this subject for years?  I know I should know better.  This was a BIG set back in my attempts and I know that.  I'm sure I will change my mind again at a later date and decide to try again, but at this moment I have to admit to thinking I may be done with this whole subject by my own choice.  Or at least I may not ever try it again myself.  This is ridiculous.  I don't even know what exactly scared me this bad.  It was nothing truly obvious or clear that would have done it.

I have to admit that by now, as I've gotten to the end of my post, I feel quite silly on top of everything else.  Yet I can't help my feelings or reactions and I am very curious about this.  If someone happened to have some advice or insight for me I would be most thankful.                              

I know that I will always have a lot more to learn. 

I meditate in a computer chair at times.  So, sure it works to do so, at least from my own experience.  I like to listen to and use guided meditations on the computer so began my tendency to meditate in the computer chair.  Do make sure your chair is steady and not likely to require a difficult balancing act to stay in it though, lol.  How can someone enjoy a meditation if you are constantly panicked, thinking you are falling over.  In my case, as long as my feet are on the floor, or resting on the bottom of my desk, and I am sitting up properly in my computer chair, it would be very difficult to fall backward or anything else.      

It sounds to me like on the first night you ended up behind on the amount of sleep you would typically get... so you caught up on the second by getting extra hours in.  Who knows, you could have been a bit behind from other recent nights too.  If you are still concerned over the matter, I'd say why not try to adjust the sleep cycle a bit by going to bed at a planned hours and intentionally getting up eight or so hours later with an alarm for a couple of mornings.   

In my case, it's actually been many years without anything I would define as a truly conscious success.  Not quite quite sure how many years of hand.  I'd have to think a second.  Nine, ten, something like that.  Sounds like a big number on these boards, but such things do happen. 

I only bother to reply to this topic, because I want to give an opinion here.  It's not entirely IMO, about the end result, but about the act of working, learning, and trying.  Like Stookie said, it's a lifestyle, not a quick little course.  So many people of course hope to reach their goal in weeks or months and if you do that's great... but there is some greatness to the slow path too.  You get to see success and amazement in related but not quite intentional events.  Practicing is good for self discipline (It certainly takes some commitment to decide to set an alarm for some crazy hour of morning some night just because it's a good night to do so,) you get to be pretty good at dream recall, and dream work is a neat subject in itself.  I'm just saying...