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I have heard in the past of a few people who said that a few times, they got back in upside down and then got straightened out.  I have no recall of anything like that myself though. 

I have also heard it said if you don't get in smoothly or if you come back too fast, you could get a headache and tired .  Beats me though.  I have no recall of any probs getting back in at any time I wanted to get back in.  Plenty of times, I did not want go back in but did anyway. 

Often, after waking up, I do have a slight headache or kinda strained pressure feeling around the 3rd eye region above the eyes.  Sleeping more after the event seems to help the headache and tiredness.  I have always attributed the headache to some kind of strain from doing the OBE and not to being bad at getting back into my body though, but I don't really know. I don't think the other person really knew for sure either though.  Most of us are just guessing.  ;-P

But  I have never really worried about not being able to get back into my body.  Like I said the attachment to the body seems pretty strong.  I figure I am WAY WAY more likely to get run over by a car or hit by lightening than I am to have any life threatening events occur because I was traveling out of body.
-Eva   

I didn't read the other threads so I don't know the nuance they meant.  If you told me that a thunderstorm around me in the waking world did not exist on the astral plane, could be, I don't know.  If you said there is never any thunderstorms where I go to when I go out, well i would say most likely you can create thunderstorms with your thoughts in some places I go and weather phenomenon mostly likely exist in other realities that can be visited when OOB.  Certainly it is possible to create the feeling of water on your skin when lucid dreaming or some such and it can feel even nicer that it does in waking life.
-Eva 

Whatever is in your mind can easily get amplified 10 fold when out of body.  So if something looks pretty, you could easily get super fascinated like that is the most beautiful vision ever!  Or if you are a tad nervous, you could quickly feel terrified beyond all get out.  It all comes from you.  I have experienced the terror of sleep paralysis a few times .  It's quite bad, but  it is possible to control your fear and get past it and then you can actually go on to have a very fun trip.  I know it is hard, but you have to realize, you are not a victim of anything other than your own self.  You choose your reality out there with your thoughts.  Controlling your experiences is about controlling your own mind and emotions.
-Eva 

Well there are the stages like you can feel the vibrations, and then you could feel just your arms float out, or you could go just above your body but you feel it and are aware or it, and then you move away from the body.  So I would guess the acclimization of the process could make your tired.  Personally, I think there is a whole process in the body related to this stuff that can make you tired.  When I first started actively trying to have OBEs some 10 years ago, I mostly scoffed at the idea that it could really have much effect on me.  But since then I have gone through some stages early on during which I would get REALLY REALLY REALLY tired from what I was doing at night, even if I had no memories of any OBEs.  I do think some stuff goes on that is out of the range of good understanding and that can be tiring.  I think there can be something to that whole thing about once you really open the door, you can't close it again.  The only way after that is forward.
-Eva

I think we do a lot of really cool things every night.  But if you have had a lot of OBEs, you will probably recall times when you went off someplace and your consciousness changed and you can't now recall what  happened then.   Even dreams can be hard to recall if not written down immediately.  I think a lot of that stuff just does not easily translate to the kind of consciousness we have when we are awake. 

It's like they that state dependent learning the scientists sometimes talk about.  Research has shown that when you are in a certain state, it's much easier to remember things that happened when you were in a similar state in the past.  Well I think when we are asleep, we more easily remember things from other times when we were asleep, and when we are awake, we more easily remember things better from other times when we were awake.
-Eva

In a lot of my classroom style dreams, I have a number of references about some kind of math book or physics book that I am supposed to be trying to learn.  I am not involved with math in my daily life or work. I am not sure why this big emphasis that it is SOOOO important I learn this complex math book thing.  Nor does any of the stuff in it really make it back to my consciousness enough to remember it and write it down.  Anybody else get this math book thing or some kind of equivilent concept? 
-Eva
 

Newmethod,

Thanx, hope it helps. I read it once myself long ago around the time I was having trouble getting my astral self to pass through the door. I had read a bunch on how cool it feels to feel all the inside parts and layers of the door as I passed through them.  I was eager to feel this but could not get through the door after a few tries.  Then it occured to me that maybe my expectations were stopping me so I made a big  point of saying to myself right before the next attempt that I am purging all expectations and let what ever happen happen. And it worked!  I got through the door, felt the layers, etc.  Of course, i am not sure it worked because the expectations were the prob or because I had confidence in the plan and confidence was what I needed at the time.  Maybe it was a bit of both!
-Eva

Venus, this would make sense.  WHen flying, it always has that weird feeling like not just a dream, like some part of me is really moving.  The flying itself can make me get lucid just because it feels so weird. 

Historically, there has been various definitions of lucid dreaming, dreaming, and out of body travel.  Out of body travel has often been a definition that is saved for those uber cool experiences that are less dreamlike and more real feeling even than real life and they feel so special.  I think it's hard for people to think they go out of body every night and that dreams are special.  We have been conditioned our entire lives to believe that dreams are not important or maybe only useful for showing subconscious pyschological issues. 

Personally, it's those uber cool events that are more memorable and special for me, events in which there is no doubt that was an OBE.  The lower lucidity ones are just not nearly as cool!   

Thanx for the explanation.  That theory does explain why one could go out of body every night but some of them can be tiring but others not at all.  Perhaps moving the consciousness more away from the body is more tiring for the body.

BTW, maybe you would be willing to give the IAC definition of a dream?  I'm curious..

-Eva

Almost always, it happens automatically and often before you think you are ready.  On very rare occasions, I have heard of experiences where people were not able to get back in right away and they got nervous, but then got back in a few minutes later.  There seems to be some kind of connection in which you are gonna go back in even if ya don't wanna!   
-Eva

Wow, great experience!  Maybe you were ready to see your father.  I do think often a visit from a past one can interrupt the healing process and bring back the pain again for those that aren't ready.  The visit is joy but the joy is fleeting and can be followed by a repeat of intense pain like losing the person all over again.  And so that is why I think often you do not see your past on loved ones until later, until you are more able to deal with it without reliving the crushing pain of loss all over again.  So I think its important that people ry not to feel bad if they don't see their loved ones right away.  I think its likely they wait to let you heal first so the visit will be less painful for both.  A big part of life is learning to move on from pain, as hard as that can often be. 
-Eva 

This has probably been mentioned but one way to project is to have a lucid dream.  Once lucid, run or fly at a solid object and tell yourself over and over that when you hit the solid object in the dream, then you will project.  This works!  I used to use it. 

Now I just ask to have the OBE before sleep and hope it happens.  I also tend to wake up for a few seconds now and then, especially in the morning hours, so I tell myself in those seconds that hey, what no OBE yet?  Well I better have one after I go back to sleep this time!  Then I go back to sleep. I just kinda keep needling my brain for one and I will usually get it in a few days.  But personally, I think a lot of it is just remembering what you are already doing often. I think we all OBE often but we just forget.  The trick is to remember.  Anyway that works for me.  Maybe it helps take the mystery out of it.  Think of it as normal and natural and I think that makes it much easier to do.  Plus try to let go of expectations. I think if you have an expectation about what OBEs will be like, and then you are trying for the expectation, then you are trying for something that is not an OBE.  Because your expectation will not likely be accurate.  So let go of all expectations.  Open yourself to 'whatever cool thing' or some such more vague plan and that can help.  Cuz you can never really describe it or imagine it accurately in advance.  The reality of it will always be different than what you expected.   

As for tiredness, trying did not make me tired cuz trying for me was just keep reminding myself to do it.  Either I had one or I didn't.  I have found that when I do have an OBE, I do often feel tired afterwards.  Extra sleep after the experience helps cut back on tiredness.  I remember Monroe said he would get tired after doing lots of OBEs and people even remarked that he looked tired and should cut back!
-Eva

When I travel, I go into the minds of other people at interesting moments in their lives: violence, sex, love, hate, conspiracy, etc.  I don't know if they are past lives or other lives or what so I just write down the stories and let you decide.  Please shoot me a comment now and then if you think they are interesting!

http://www.realmcrawler.blogspot.com

-Eva

Or put antoher way, maybe the laws of physics are controlled by thought.  When you get down to the building blocks of reality, quarks, string theory, etc, what we seem to be finding is that obseration/attention seems have a profound effect on what exists and what doesn't.  And that is OUR observation, not that of a separate god, other than if you want to argue we are all part of god. 
-Eva 

I always wake up before it gets good, darn it!   

I suspect it might be that if we are all parts of one big whole or connected somehow, it may be a natural desire and pleasure to sort of recombine or merge for a while with another one of the parts.  We may find this naturally pleasurable.  Just like when a person says another makes him/her feel complete.  Hence the saying 'my better half.'   On earth, we have put a lot of good or bad cultural judgements on it. 
-Eva

When I was about 6 years old, I was visiting a family friend in the country and was sleeping on the couch in the living room late one night when I felt the couch begin to move.  It was slowly scooting around the room in little jerks.  I could see my position in the room was changing.  I was scared and kept trying to close my eyes and make it go away.  Eventually it stopped and I fell asleep, but the next night, it started again.

By the second night, I decided to figure out what was going on.  The couch from my perspective was now in the middle of the room instead of against the wall.  I screwed up my courage and lept from the couch. I was afraid the couch might run me over as it moved, but it seemed to stay in place now.  I kept peeking back at it to make sure.  The room was dark and I was disoriented but by moonlight through the windows, I was able to make my way towards a wall and struggled to remember where the light switch was.  I was trembling in fear and reaching my hand tremulously towards the wall when suddenly all the lights came on!  I must have jumped a mile high with fear! 

I turned and there where a wall used to be was now a room!  The room was familar except that I knew it belonged elsewhere in the house, not there where there used to be the wall that was the edge of the house with bushes behind it.  There was no door to this room.  Instead, the space was open between my room and the out of place room, such that I could see directly in to where a woman was on a bed and reaching out after having just turned on a lamp.  The lamp was causing the light. 

The woman was one of the house residents and she was now demanding to know why I was up in the middle of the night.  In answer, I began to stammer questions about why there was a room in the middle of a wall.  She then asked me why I was spouting nonsense and told me this room had always been there.  I began to argue with her that no it was not!  She informed me that was ridiculous and I better pipe down, go eat some breakfast and get back to sleep before I got in trouble. Since this was a farming area, they often ate breakfast very early before dawn.  At this point, I was both scared and angry that she was denying the obvious fact that a room had moved into a wall, but I obeyed because I was a child.  I sat at the dinner table and she made me some eggs.  I ate them and then she sent me to sleep back on my couch which was now back along the wall and the weird room was now gone from the other wall. But I still felt extremely disoriented.  I felt I would never sleep after such an scary event, but I fell asleep almost instantly. 

In the morning, I still argued that things had been moving, but the adults said simply that I had a bad dream.  Years later, when I asked about the event, the adults told me that I had wandered into a back room and was standing in the doorway when the lady sleeping in the room turned on the lights, thus scaring her near to death.  To me, I had never left the main living room but her room had somehow moved to me.  I wonder now if it was a case of my astral body going one way and my physical self going another and then not rejoining right away, such that I was seeing from two location perspectives at once.  My brain might have just cobbled together the two varying perspectives, thus combining one part of the house with another in order to try to process them in a way I could understand.
-Eva N., Escondido, CA

Hi all, my name is Eva and I am new to here but long been sorta involved in OBEs and whatnot.  Over a decade ago, I often posted on alt.out-of-body.  I am not sure but this newsgroup may be dead now although it was very popular back in the day before yahoogroups took over the universe.   Then somehow I became moderator at the OBE mailing list at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OBE-L/ . I am just noticing that I have been doing even THAT for at least a decade!  Arg!   

I also have a blog at:http://www.realmcrawler.blogspot.com where I post about some weird astral travel or past life or whatever the heck they are type events.  Recently, I have been looking for other active forums.  After following about 30 or so dead links or links to places that were dead, I finally found this one where humans still dwell, cool!
-Eva