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Something I was thinking about this morning as I was waking up is that there is a difference between visualisation and the images you "notice". When you visualise, it's something you create in your mind and it generally isn't something that is separate from your thought(s). When you are getting "noticing" imagery, they are independant of you and your thoughts. When you are looking at the back of your eyelids, you are doing just that.. looking at something. You are seeing the back of your eyelids. All this does is turn off your visual input. So what you need to try to do is stop looking at the back your eyelids.. ignore that, switch off..

When you're dreaming, you're not actually consciously visualising the environment.. you are just observing and reacting to the stimulus being presented. Ever notice how in a dream you aren't really in total control of the situation? You just being pushed along through the "story" and any time you put your rational thought or analyse the situation, things almost immediately shift and change. I'm not talking about being lucid in your dreams, that is different. I am just talking about the regular, non-lucid dream. There are moments when you start to use your reasoning and analytical mind to work out what is going on but things change as you focus or think about them. This is what is happening when you are noticing, if you think or analyse the things, they will shift, change or disappear completely.

Anyway, my point is that there are distinctively different "modes" of imagination/visualisation. One is user-created, the other is user-experienced. It's the difference between watching a movie and being in a movie. You can imagine that you are some place all you like but it remains imaingation.. a visualisation inside you and nothing more than that; once you step into that visualisation, it is something that takes on its own existence that was created by you but is no longer "being" created by you.

Hard to explain.. it's so obvious and stuff in my head..

EDIT: Just to clarify, what I am trying to say, in a nutshell, is that you need to stop "thinking" and just "become" the thing or become part of the thing. Thought and analysis completely destorys the experience.

I also "used" to have them.. I just wear regular glasses these days.. too much bother for such a cosmetic difference.. besides, I can't use disposable due to my eyesight being so bad that none of the disposables are good enough.

I wore the same pair for 15 months because they were non-disposable ones. As long as you take good care of them and wash them in fresh lens cleaner solution everyday, it shouldn't be an issue. Obviously each person is different.

The point is though, that if you are wearing your daily disposables and you want to take them out for an hour of meditation or a quick nap, then you can accomplish this by simply buying one of the bottles of lens cleaner. Inside almost all of the boxes for the bottles of lens cleaner comes a free lens storage case, so you don't need to buy separate cases or anything and having the lens cleaner and case handy, even if they are only daily's is a good idea in my opinion. Say you get some dirt in your eye during the day or something.. what are you going to do? If you have the lens cleaner and case handy, you can simply pop them out, give them a good clean and pop them back in again.

Just have to point out here that I have a rally hard time doing what I have suggested.. haha.. I mean, when I reach that point I start to notice.. then as I notice something and feel a further shift of awareness and "focus" on the thing that appeared. As Lionheart has suggested, as soon as you do that, you snap back to the previous point of awareness. You've gone beyond just noticing it passively and have begun to notice it actively.

I was doing this last night.. and I "actively" noticed time after time after time.. haha I just couldn't stop myself.. the moment the 3D object or scene or whatever appeared, my brain became curious and "looked at" the thing. A split-second later, the object or scene would fade out immediately and then it was gone and I was back to where I started. It's really, really hard to do.. but it's just a matter of practise, that much I am sure of.

What you may want to do is take a break from the monroe tapes, just for one or two days a week. I find that when I listen to the same stuff over and over it's so much that it becomes boring but that it appears to become less effective and less profound. So what I do is I will listen to Xanth's 4Hz binaural beat thing a couple of days and then go back to the Monroe stuff.

Another good trick is to use one of Monroe's tapes as an entree` to your real attempt. Play one of the early tapes, like tape 2 or 3.. I forget which one is the Resonant Balancing one but that one where you remove your fears and all that.. do that tape, then after it is finished, get up.. have a glass of water or whatever.. take 15mins break.. go to the toilet and all that stuff..

After that small break, go back and put a binaural beat tape in and use it to practise "noticing" and do a good 30 to 60 mins of this as an "attempt" to OoBE/AP..

I think the hardest thing about this is to stay passive and to "not focus" on the images and things that start to appear after about 5 to 10 minutes. What I find happens to me is this:

1. I close my eyes and I "gaze" at nothing in particular for about 5 minutes.. at some point around 5 minutes I notice a "shift" in awareness.. it's just a mild sensation that feels like you've moved but you haven't really.. it's hard to explain but there's a distinct feeling that happens.
2. At this point I decide on a point of focus. This could be anywhere in your vision. I just look wherever is comfortable.. which is generally centre but just to the right.
3. At some point after that.. it could be as little as a few seconds up to another 5 minutes after the "shift".. I will start to get hypnogogic images or other "effects" and things happening.

It is at this point where you need to remain unfocused, without reacting to the images.. just gaze and "notice" without reaction to those changes. Just allow the effects to increase on their own, allow it to take you away.. it will all happen without any conscious effort from you. The real practise is in maintaining a detached, passive, unfocus without falling asleep... essentially meditation. Think of this example: You are standing on a train station and a train is approaching. You look straight ahead, adjacent to the platform, so in the corner of your eye you can see the train approaching. However, don't look at the train, don't even look out of the corner of your eye, don't even think about the train.. just allow the train to come all by itself. As the train crosses through your forward vision remain passive to it, allow it to blur past without the slightest twitch in your eyes.. it's just another object moving past you, don't allow your eyes to track it, infact don't allow your mind to even track it.. just keep on gazing forward, noticing the train but not focusing on it at all..

Where you look is not really relevant.. how you react to what you see is.

Hrmm.. buy yourself some contact lens cleaning solution. They usually come with a little case for your lenses to go in when you are not wearing them. There's nothing wrong with taking them out for a short time, placing them in the lens cleaning solution within the case and then popping them back in later.

As for meditating with them on.. I wouldn't recommend it.. when you're wearing the lenses, your eyes can't breathe properly even with your eyes open.

What do you mean "just" a lucid dream?

Lucid Dreaming is just as valid an experience as Astral Projection... in fact some would argue that they are one and the same thing, I like to think that they are the same.. just that up till the point you realise you are in a dream, your conscious mind hasn't played much of a role other than observing. Once you take over the reins, you can do anything you want including going back to the "real time zone" reality.. if you wanted.

So I've been fooling around with this idea since posting the idea the other day and last night I got some results.. not an OoBE but something that I've never got before.. if I thought I was close, to consciously activated OoBE'ing, before then those previous experiences were nothing on this. As I was looking at my "cloud-wall" I realised that it is something akin to me looking within myself.. like my self is being reflected in the back of my eyelids insofar as the energy fluctuations I am witnessing are biofeedback from my brain.. so with that in mind, I affirmed to myself that "what I am seeing is my greater energy body" and then I also affirmed to myself that "I just need to let it all go, stop thinking, stop my internal voice commenting on everything.. just allow it to take over".

The next few minutes were me basically "spinning".. I could still sense my physical body in the background but my consciousness was spinning really fast.. it felt like my head was inside a washing machine or clothes dryer and spinning, spinning, spinning.. actually.. the effect was more like the insides of my head were spinning because, as I said, I was still vaguely aware of my physical body including my head. I had the perception of light or lights rushing past as I span around.. and I just let it happen.. I wasn't scared.. I wasn't worried.. I just allowed the feeling to overcome me and see where it led me...

Unfortunately I got a bit excited at that point and my internal voice started up again.. but for the brief few minutes (I'd guess around 2 to 3 minutes of "perceived" time) it lasted, it felt so... different. Like nothing I have ever experienced.. it was nothing like that spinning feeling you get when you are drunk and lay in bed.. no.. that is nothing like what I was experiencing.. This was something that was nothing to do with the physical body at all..

Anyway.. I'm sure this is just another milestone/test, one which I feel I passed well because I didn't freak out etc..

It is like a wall of static formed from your sensory and that which is directly in line of your local effect space.  Perhaps those clouds could be cleared out to sustain a clear and perfect vision of reality.  That could in fact be what astral projection is... the dimension of a harmonized vibration. 

Yup, that's kind of what I was trying to explain... that by getting beyond those clouds, thinning them out, lifting the veil (and all the other analogies), we can see clear through to the greater realities.

In my younger days I can certainly attest to some level of clairvoyancy but I have always had above average (at least to my perception) empathic abilities. These days I guess it's all become second nature and I don't readily identify individual events as clairvoyant.. just the element of empathic awareness remains in the readily identifiable range of perception.

In regards to the theory, as such, what I was trying to present was a possible method people could use to focus their awareness. I hear/read often about the blackness when one closes their eyes and so many methods are based on either pure visualisation within the blackness or simply exploring the blackness. However, when there is no blackness from the very outset.. what does one do? So I presented this idea of the "cloud wall" and trying to perceive that there are two distinctive sides to the wall; one on "this" side where we start and then the "other" side where we move beyond our limited awareness. The cloud is a real, in so far as something mental can be real, object that can be perceived rather than just a metaphor. So by using this method, I hope that I might be able to use the cloud-wall as a already existing visualisation without the need to conjure up other imagery.


Once the focus of awareness has "pushed" beyond the cloud-wall, one should have entered somewhere between the Focus 12 with intention being to move on to the 21 state and beyond; that is, beyond what the physical eyes are perceiving when the eyes are closed.

What you should do is photoshop it and make a few tiny changes.. hehehe.. just small changes that you don't notice at first

Hi all,

It's been a while since I've posted anything other than a reply or something but I have been continuing my experiments. I came across a realisation last night as I was settling in for a sleep, so I wasn't actively thinking about AP'ing or anything but of course it's always in the back of mind even when I am not actively thinking about it.

Let's get one thing perfectly clear, when I shut my eyes it's anything but "black".. I've never, ever, experienced "blackness" when I close my eyes. It's more like a foggy, cloudy greyness. It's basically like seeing clouds or swirling fog/mist where the only detail is whether it is lighter or darker than another part. There's a generaly shade of greenish-yellow and sometimes a little yellow-orange depending on the time of day etc but it's certainly never "black".

Often when I first close my eyes, I get flashes of light appear immediately. Usually it's more like a spark rather than an overall, diffused flash.. so there is a definite point in my consciousness where the flash originates followed by the diffused light of the flash. So I like to think of these as "Sparks of Thought". I don't generally think much of these as they are just distractions and my brain making sense of the "greyness" in front of me due to the lack of visual stimuli.

Now to my realisation: The astral is "beyond the clouds". When I think of that fog/mist/cloud of greyness that I see in front of me, it is generally perceived as a "wall" of clouds or fog. That wall is usually anywhere from a few inches away from my eyes, or up to a foot away. It's a perceivable distance and the cloud-wall is a perceivable object that is separate from me. As I go deeper into my consciousness, this distance becomes less objective and more subjective.  The concept of the distance becomes more towards infinity.. but essentially, it becomes less meaningful.. less tangible in terms of time and space.

Beyond the cloud-wall is where I generally perceive the flashes of light, so it's like looking at the moon through the clouds or when you see lightning flash within the clouds. You can see there is light there but the clouds are diffusing the light and partially blocking the object. If you were to fly up, as you get closer to the clouds then the effect starts to become like when you have your eyes closed; you can just see a mass of swirling clouds across your entire vision. As you begin to move through the clouds, they begin to thin and the moon (or whatever) becomes more and more clear to you.

The way I perceive all of this is that the astral is just beyond the grey cloud-wall in front of me and what I am starting to try to do is reach forward with my consciousness to move through and beyond that cloud-wall. It's very similar to the way Frank Kepple describes a room starting off dark and then the light starts to build up and when you get to full brilliance, you are in Focus 21 or beyond. It's essentially the same idea but something that can be perceived from the beginning of closing the eyes and then visualising through all the stages of change.

I've only just come up with this idea/realisation, so I've not fully explored it.. but it seemed so profound to me last night that I had the idea to come and share it.. it doesn't seem so profound now.. and I am having difficulty explaining it how I perceive it.. but I've done the best I can.

Comments?

The people that I work with read this and make fun of me and not in a nice way if you know what I mean,.....I am going to have to leave.

Wow.. yer.. people can be so thick at times.. when I look around at many people here at work, if I was as thick as them, I would be laughing at them for their infinitely small brains.. but you, me, pretty much all of us here on this forum are beyond that. Now that may seem arrogant or egotistical or whatever.. but it's just the simply truth of the matter. Some people are too "low" to understand and whatever they don't understand they make fun of.

It's the same thing with electronic cigarettes.. they just don't get it..

If you're cloudy and groggy it might be a good opportunity to do the cycles right away, even if you've woken up and moved.

Do 15-30 seconds of Forced Falling Asleep, and then go through the cycles. Do at least 5 cycles, don't stop early. A lot of people go through cycle after cycle only to be surprised when it works on the seventh or eighth cycle.

I don't fully understand the "Forced Falling Asleep" technique.. I've read through its description a few times but don't really understand it..

From all the accounts I have read by the "masters" (hehe.. don't know how else to refer to them), if you don't get anything within 20mins, then anything longer is pointless.. however... there are also a lot of people who say it takes them longer.. so I think that 15 mins is a little too short and 30mins is probably a good average.. but there's nothing really wrong with an hour either.. whatever works and feels comfortable to you.

I think that it would also depend on how much "response" you are getting from your endeavours.. so.. if after 20mins you are still making no progress, maybe a good indication that your mind isn't in the right space and to get up, do something else for a while and then return later to try again. However if you are getting some "signs" of progress then there's no reason to stop just because of some time limit..

Infinity and Eternity are really difficult concepts to "fully realise".. even numbers like 15 billions years (approx age of known, physical universe) are hard to really and honestly fathom.. then we try to think about eternity/infinity.. and it's just too much for us in this form. 15 billion years might seem like an eternity to us.. but by definition alone, any unit of time is never going to be big enough to measure eternity/infinity.. it's unmeasurable!

I go back immediately, within seconds or something less than a minute... usually... of course there are the exceptions. Three and often 5 or 6 times.

The first projection is usually the longest.

If I project several days in a row even the first will be shorter in duration. It seems to take about a week or two to fully recharge.

I find a similar thing in my practises. If I don't do anything "actively" for a few days and then I find some spare time to practise, when I get this Binaural beats running it's so strong and focused though no success as yet.. but if I do that every day.. the effects of the Binaural beats or even practise without audio wanes dramatically..

Why don't you describe exactly what you're doing?

Well.. I've been using the intent/affirmations to:

1. Remind myself to wake up without moving/opening eyes.
2. Remind myself to practise the phasing indirect techniques within the first few seconds of waking.
3. Remind myself of the fact that I am more than physical matter (as per Monroe's TMI affirmation).

So it would go something like:

"I will remember to wake up without moving or opening my eyes."
"I will remember to practise my phasing techniques as soon as I wake up."
"I am more than my physical body...etc"

I will also recall my 3 techniques that I will use in my cycling.. all with a clear, background intent to experience phasing. I mean, I will say all these, in my mind, with the underlying intent of "deeply desiring" to experience the phase.

Prior to this, for the first few days, I did very short (15mins) practise sessions to get a feel for the indirect techniques and which ones my deeper consciousness reacts to. I find that the "body tensing" (without using actual muscles) works really well at increasing the "sound" within my head.. and then that of course would lead to me using the "listening in" technique and my third is using the "noticing for pictures" technique, just to keep it different from the other two.

Anyway, I've yet to wake up being anywhere near a state of being able to do anything.. and as per my previous post, I feel a lot more cloudy and groggy than I had before I started to attempt these methods..

I dunno...

I was just about to post to this thread.. but yer.. I haven't read that addon book, so I dunno.

Anyway, what I was going to say is that I am having zero luck with these indirect approaches. In fact I have seen a rapid decline in my near-miss/glimpse experiences even to the point of waking up a lot more cloudy and unable to recall my dreams at all.. I'm beginning to think that this indirect method may not be "for me" as it seems to be doing the opposite of what I am hoping for.

Sleep Induced Paralysis would be a better term.. but it's too much of a mouthful

@Xanth:
I've had your site reclassified by WebSense (a web filtering software used by many businesses to stop their employees going to sites they don't want them to) from "Social Networking" category to "Blogs". This won't affect your site.. but it means anyone who was being blocked by their work may now be able to access it freely.. hehe..

Also.. would you mind putting the PDF in my email box if I sent you my email address? I can't access it from here, for the same reason as above. Dropbox is categorised as "Personal Network and Storage", which is blocked..

Any terms, like the FoC or Focus ones, used are purely for describing to other people the experience you are having in order to communicate in the same language. It's good to have these terms because without them there is likely to be a lot of misunderstandings. Like for me, I am stuck flipping back and forth between Focus 10 and 12 most of the time.. so does that mean I am in Focus 11..? hehe.. maybe.. maybe not.. but I don't think it's all that important.. but by saying that I keep flipping back and forth between Focus 10 and 12, people know what I am talking about and can offer suggestions that would be different than if I said I was stuck in Focus 3, for example.

What, I don't think so :/
That means that if I died tomorrow I would be dead right now, but that's not true because I am very lively and writing this post.

It means that you are not-born, alive, and dead all at the same time. Try not to think of things in those terms though because there is "existence" before and after in-human experiences.. before "birth" and after "death".. everything is happening at the same time. Using the circle concept I mentioned before helps with this because you are still moving in a serial "direction" as per your objective perception but the ability to "come back around again" allows for infinite time.

Also, one thing about reading round.. while it is important to not believe the first thing you read just for the sake of it, when it comes to practical usage.. it's best not to flick back and forth between multiple methologies. If you're currently on SOBT, stick with it for a few weeks.. definitely read other books and stuff but once you decided to start practising, stick to one set of techniques (methodology) and give it a good go before giving up. Just because the SOBT says that you should be "guaranteed" a success within 10 days doesn't mean it will.. there's no guarantees.. give it a good one or two months at least..

Regarding SOBT.. just remember that it is only one person's way of approaching the subject and if you feel, in your heart/mind, that something there doesn't sound right or contradicts your own belief, make a note of it and look to other authors as well as come here to these forums to ask the questions. There is no right or wrong way in an overall sense.. just that some thing seem to work for some while other things work better for others. Also that through their experiences, they have come to conclusions that may or may not relate to your own experiences and conclusions.

Keep an open mind but approach everything as a skeptic and be discriminating in what you choose to accept.