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I suppose you're right. I really don't appreciate the world outside me. I guess that's a little immature, isn't it?

I used to be very much the opposite - thinking leaves were beautiful, a plastic bag dancing in the wind (before "American Beauty"), even the mundane architecture of my school (someone designed it and people built it, how is that not beautiful?). This was around the time I discovered lucid dreams, actually.

Then something happened. I'm not sure what it was - some really bad lucid dreams where I lost control and felt attacked, and another when I went to the buddhic dimension and saw the world was designed for pain and thought I'd go mad. I'm not sure if my changing views sparked those experiences, or if those experiences changed my views.

Because, the whole world can't be beautiful can it? What about the mentally ill people who have no comprehension of the world or themselves? What about all the kids who die before their 5th birthday in Brazil? Or the ones who grow up deformed and retarded because of malnutrition and dirty surroundings? What about the kids in richer nations with emotionally abusive parents? Or the daily inconsiderations we give to one another and act selfishly? None of this needs to happen - and that's not beautiful. I scorn a physicaly world system that allows such suffering and does not allow me to communicate this easily. I mean, Jesus healed the sick just by touching them, and what did he accomplish? An inspirational self-help book. Bestseller!

Sometimes nature is a sick freak, and the world is a wasteland. Changing your perspective doesn't change the fact that these things happen. People who lead the cause against these things thousands of years ago didn't make much progress (Jesus included), they certainly don't today.

How sucky is this world, where beauty is from ignorace? On the other hand, maybe I've just been watching too much pessimistic liberal TV :/

[Edit: You're actually right upstream. The experience changes on the onset of boredom, which it may have been itself conducive too.]

Now is where I quote the American Heritage Dictionary. Atheism is "Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods. The doctrine that there is no God or gods." Note the words "doctrine" and "disbelief" (as "disbelief" is the belief of that which is not)

If you want to claim that you have no religion, and are bereft of a belief system, don't say you're Atheist - if you do you give them a bad name. Atheism is a firm declaration that God does not exist, not indifference. Many of them take pride in their ability to defend this belief. If you neither believe nor disbelieve in God, claiming that you don't know (and can't know), you're not Atheistic - you're Agnostic, which is the declaration that you can't know.

If you have no belief system, as you claim, why are you trying to defend one? Shouldn't you just be sitting quietly, listening, and gathering empirical evidence (which would be a wise and noble thing to do)?

Cube, I mean specifically real-time zone. Going into a picture is fine, or better yet, a movie screen. Some of the best experiences I've had involved the use of some type of video game system. These aren't classic real-time OBE's, though, and fall more into line with dream experiences - they're also more fun.

I still think flying is fun, clandestino, but after a while it stops becoming an end in itself. Is flying and spying all that RTZ's are good for?

The statement in your signature, Beyonder, ""No one knows and no one will ever be certain," is a statement of faith. It relies on the "invisible crutch" of nebulous epistemology and astonishingly empty assumptions about the future.

You might recognize it as Agnosticism, which is just as much a belief system as Atheism, "New Age"-isms, Unitarianism, Buddhism, Christianity, etc. Just as Neo-Thomist Catholics can assert that all Truth is knowable, you can assert that it isn't on the same grounds.

Lots of good stuff in this thread - just want to thank everyone.

So, is it significant if your destiny and personality numbers are the same? One should hope that one's destiny is in line with one's personality after all. For that matter, is there significance if they're different?

Amazing. I am obsessed with the big picture (9), but I'm way more selfish than you're average person and, I must confess, self-absorbed, because I consider myself and my place in this world to both be mysteries the most worthy of study somehow.

I would have rather had others, such as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8.

Indeed.

Well then I'm 9, 9, and 15.

I strain to find their coincidence with other numbers in my life. No matter, I'm sure I'll look at the clock sometime tomorrow (as I'm prone to do nigh 100 times a day) and it'll be precisely 9:15, and then I'll ponder the significance.

"It's like being.. nibbled to death, by cats."

The most compelling experience I've read is from the dreamofpeace.net people. It was a while ago and their site has changed dramatically, but two members planned a meet-up. One had a dream where he spoke to a small dog about the experience of dreams and the other dreamt that he was very small and was talking to a taller (normal sized) person about very similar topics.

The consensus among the net seems to be that experiences can definitely coincide with one another (with differing opinions on why or how), and that the content and imagery is anthropomorphized subjectively according the dreamer. Since there appears to be different amounts of objectivity (read "authenticity") in OBE meet-ups, most have attributed the level of objective experience to skill. However, even for the skilled, such experiences are rare and difficult.

OBE's are a puzzle, just like dreams, just like lucid dreaming, just like other paranormal experiences, just like life itself - for the moment, their explanations rest on a great deal of faith, even the one's derived from laboratory experiments. Yeah, we can activate a kind of OBE with electrodes to the brain, but that doesn't add or subtract from the usefulness of the experience - right now it just makes us feel like there's life after death (something most of humanity believed anyway) and appeals to our sense of wonder and mystery.

Nay, what are your OBE meet-ups like? (All those threads in API are filled with "I can't wait" and "I hope" and "I'm trying" and experiences preempted with "Maybe it was just a lucid dream?")

[smack]

DD, I'm sorry if you made this clear and I didn't get it, but when you awoke did you find that your arms and ears were still in pain? Or was there some other discomfort, or no pain at all?

I've felt some very agonizing pain in my joints while trying to project in dreams, but when I awake I find myself in very comfortable and serene condition. I feel confident that they're related to the paralysis experience, as the pain in the dream also accompanies an inability to move that particular part, like it's "locked." So Andali may be right, that our awareness is "stuck" to our body and the disequilibrium manifests as a very particular agony.

A few nights ago, as I was doing a reality check on a very persistently realistic dream, I attempted to fly and floated a bit, but stopped as I didn't want to go through the ceiling and lose my bearing. For almost no apparent reason, though, I felt a violent smack right to my forehead and the pain reverberated for a few seconds. The vibration felt like an OBE exit sensation, so I actually wondered if my physical body got up and hit its head on the bed post, a brief moment of sleepwalking maybe. Eventually I woke up and I was in this really comfortable position under the covers, feeling undisturbed, and my head was nowhere near the post.

If it weren't for the concept of an "obe exit sensation," that pain would've been completely arbitrary, and I don't know how else it could've happened at a moment of lucidity. It's definitely a topic of interest for me.

[Edited for spelling]

Cube and James aren't just making stuff up.

I made a grave mistake, once. I believed in movie scenes and love stories, words like "passion" and "persistence," that there was some combination of gifts and timing that would make magic, and bring back the woman I loved. I looked obsessive, manipulative, and ended up pushing her away probably forever. It was such a profound mistake of ego.

So don't let your sense of self-importance get in the way. And don't just shrug and say fine - it can be a sneaky little sense.

You might be right about there not being any good in the universe (I believe it) - but, then, it might be that good exists in a pure state outside the universe and orchestrates events through you, if you believe in it.

quote:Originally posted by kiauma

In fact, I would hypothesize that it is your very revulsion of your own subconscious fears that you object to so strongly in noob questions.  
...

I gave considerable thought to this even before you mentioned it. After all aren't all of our objections of people really just objections of our own state or potential (maybe)? But let me confidently assure that this is not the case here as I'm not objecting the people but the questions they use to start a discussion.

I hold on to these possibilities (spirits, higher selves, etc.) because I'm a scientist and I consider the experiences (read experiments and theories) of others in my formulation of objective reality. But aren't these just pantheistic and pneumatological ideas arising from asking what OBE's are instead of asking how they affect the world and our lives (what they do)?

When a "noob" comes to the board and asks the questions manuel outlined above, someone refers them to the Roberts' books, websites (usually this one), and maybe some other threads. Either way it's a whole lot of "maybes" creating a whole bunch of nothing. "All talk," as manuel would say. The moderators allow these threads because everyone has their own ideas and it promotes free speech, but any conclusions are one hundred percent faith-based.

If someone is sitting in front of the TV and asking, "what am I experiencing," that's a good question - to ask themselves. Ask someone else not in the room and they might say "maybe you're watching TV?" In this case the room is your mind and the TV is an OBE, when there are plenty of other things you can do in your mind we don't really know about because we're not in your mind, we're in ours.

Surprisingly little is said in projection forums about how our lives have changed through experiencing this phenomena and what we have been able to do with these experiences. That's really no one's fault but our own.

I don't want to ridicule "noobs" kiauma. But I do want to let them know that answers to those questions come from experience (which is what everyone else says) and that it's naive, irresponsible, and wholly immature to think that other people can make judgments on someone else's personal subjective experience. There's no "noob factor" with regards to your own mind. Jesus, the way you say it you'd think I was conspiring against the establishment or something.

[Edit: I know some of you are going to say the TV analogy is categorically different because OBE's have similar descriptions. So if someone said, "describe your experience," and you said, "I'm looking at pictures on a screen," they could infer reasonably that you're watching TV. Not so - you could just as well be looking at a computer.  In this way we can liken TV's to normal dream experiences (passive) and the computer to OBE's (active).]

quote: - but I think everyone here would also admit to at one time being a newby; insecure, unsure, curious, afraid.

I'll openly admit that I only felt more afraid and insecure after visiting astral projection forums. I started asking myself questions like, "am I being attacked by a spirit?" People had similar experiences, after all, and they appeared to be more experienced in them.. did they know something I didn't? Eventually I started wondering, "are other people's higher selves interacting with my higher self?" and "if we go to the astral after death, why don't I just kill myself now? Travelling there would be easier without having a body to wake up to, wouldn't it?"

This is not a critque on whether the forum is by nature good or bad, and I wouldn't make judgements on it anyways. But I do question the usefulness of discourse on this subject. But then I can't say I really advocate a world where everybody bottles up their curiosities to themselves.

Maybe I'm waiting for someone to tell me I should leave? And have the feeling that I should go "reassured."

lol, that was great.

Reassurance of what, kiauma? That they're doing something almost completely out of the social norm? Though it may be "normal" for the experienced members of the forum, we are surprisingly few. Our beliefs also differ on what exactly the experience is. Is it the exit of an energy body to other realms (Monroe, Bruce) or is it the induction of a more vivid dreamlike state (LaBerge, DeGracia) or is it simply our consciousness managing infinity (Castaneda)?

This forum is well founded on the beliefs and experiences of one man, Robert Bruce. We take him to be honest in his convictions, but like any other teacher he cannot give us the experience of knowledge. We need to find it ourselves. A math teacher can go through problems step-by-step on the board all day instructing how to do them. But if the student hasn't experienced the personal practice of deducing the answer on his or her own, then he or she hasn't really learned anything about doing mathematics.

Those questions, "was it an OBE?" and "what did I experience?" spark a sick feeling inside me because I know the person asking the questions is heading in the wrong direction. Really, what can someone say other than "you're not alone in your confusion about reality?" Even Bruce acknowledges he still has stuff to learn. No one finds answers to those questions in this forum, or any forum. At best they find discussion and ideas, and that's fine, but given how subjective our experiences are of this phenomena, this can be especially challenging.

I agree with you manuel, and I've tried to say the same in other threads. But in my efforts to make it potent, people think I'm just stirring up trouble. In reality I'm trying to encourage personal creativity, development, and exploration - because I know that, after searching for answers in forums and new age websites for more than two years now, I've been looking in the wrong place.

You guys are sick. You need to see a therapist on a regular basis who will constantly suggest that you take medication. Yes, your sickness is normal, but then it's normal to have a broken leg in a car accident, isn't it?

Sorry. It's just that I've been in the state you describe since I was 9, with very short moments of relief. I'm pretty certain that whenever things start appearing dull, though, it's because they are dull.

But then there's also been a study on the brain chemistry of murderers - they're very much like the brains of extreme sportists, in the way that they need powerful stimuli in order to feel excited. The difference between murderers and skydivers is that the skydivers have found a safer means of getting their kick. This brain chemistry is found in children as well.

Does that maybe make you feel better? That you're "wired" to feel like the world is pointless after childhood?

[unnecessarily sarcastic] Why, yes, I have a book here that says a flash of "brilliant" white and blue light followed by a scream in the right ear means that a message was delivered to you from akashic records but was somehow cut off by an intercession from a lower realm. Possibly a neg? If your chakras are open, close them now! Oh wait, you said the left ear... that's different... [/unnecessarily sarcastic]

Not to belittle your experience, but was your first reaction, "I'm clueless of such things, I better go to AstralPulse and ask the experts!"...? Record the experience in as much detail as you see fit, like with any other mysterious or interesting experience. Your subconscious will work on it, you'll become consciously aware of other interesting things that connect to the experience. Perhaps you'll read in the newspaper a murder occured at that exact moment? Perhaps not.

Oh my God.

Just ask someone if they're interested in dreams. It's not hard to fit into a conversation, as in, "Have you ever dreamt of...?" If they are, which is not often, then talk about lucid dreams, projection, etc.

Craziness is often just mistaken for a lack of social courtesy and a poor choice of words.

The best weapon against negative spirits is a mirror. Just hold one up and they will run away from themselves.

quote:Originally posted by majour ka

quote:how can I find out what aura I have?

Hey Madrox, Robert Bruce has some good imfo on Auric sight traing I do believe, you can find the link on the home page. there are a few books available.
An easy way to start would be to hold your hand out in front of you against a white wall in normal indoor light, say a 60 watt bulb, relax your view and  gaze just past your hand, after a while you should see a white'ish glow that will eventualy become a colour.

Those are called afterimages. That's why you still see it even when you close your eyes and turn in a completely different direction away from your hand and the wall.

Out from dreams. There really is no other beginner's method. If you can't do that, there isn't much hope for you, but you're welcome to try!

It also used to not be practical to have 512K of memory on a computer. Energy usage changes.

I hate penalty shootouts!

Well, at least I can feel good for Holland breaking its shootout curse [|)]

Astral projection? It's so easy! I mean, I can project in my sleep.

[|)]

Get it? So can you. You want to know if you're making progrees in reaching altered states of consciousness? Keep a dream journal. The better you become at that, the better you become at visualizing, meditating, energy work, all of that. It will be a daily record of your work and improvement.

Meaning implies a means to an end. If there is no end to life, then it's its own end, and thus carries no meaning.

Irrational decisions aren't always wrong.

quote:Originally posted by narfellus

We are all here on earth in Lesson to endure fears and frustrations and obstacles in order to overcome them.  That is why we are ALL here "..." I won't and can't preach to you what to believe; no one can do that.

Well, narfellus, you overstepped your ground. That statement, that we are all here to learn lessons and overcome fears etc., is not fact. It is a belief.

Now, it may be a fact for your case - you might have experienced a high state of consciousness where you could actually remember choosing to come to earth, or another kind of revealing experience. But if we take a look at the objective evidence available, there is little to suggest that existence (birth) is voluntary. Rather, conception is commonly the result of a decision made between two consenting adults and biological factors. Voluntary death is taboo.

This is critical for our understanding of the topic of this thread. Is existence a voluntary decision?

My own subjective experience suggests no, that existence here is a mistake (or punishment). I have an unending number of experiences that suggest this, but I will simply say that, after observing my dreams and this world side by side for some time, I would pick the dreams every time. Prior to awakening from an astral experience, I always experience a "fall," as though I've tripped, and then an abrupt "thump," as if a suit of bone and flesh encapsules me. I open my eyes to a cloud of ignorance.

People die often for no apparent reason at all - careless car accidents, disease, and natural distasters. Can we say that they learned everything they needed to learn? Aren't the lives of the young cut short? And when does life begin, anyway, at conception? When do we develop a rational self-directed personality, maybe at 4 or 5? When do we have the right to personal responsibility, 18 or 21? Is it ok to kill bad people before they attack me? What about during the attack, didn't Jesus preach "thou shalt not kill" and "turn the other cheek"? Are we responsible for someone's suicide if we yelled at them and made them sad? Are suicidal people responsible for the sadness of their family?

Oh yeah, and what is the meaning of life? Why are we here, learning... to what end? Is learning an end to itself? Isn't that.. boring?

These aren't easy questions and I am befuddled by your attempt to nudge people in the "right" direction. No hard feelings.[|)]