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  How do I keep my ego from clouding my quest?

This is a big problem, but a subtle one to catch. How many times , while we are out, we think of touching a girl or visiting an expired relative or flying and peeking somewhere, a lottery number etc? (I'm guilty of such but I did not make an issue of it).

This is a result of gaining the spiritual powers (=the ability to AP, its a siddhi actually), without first cultivating your mind. The result is, we waste many such opportunities of spiritual growth. May be that's why all spiritual traditions recommend taming the ego first, to cultivate a balanced mind, before doing advanced practices. In this way, the student gains full advantage of the powers.

Same applies to the recall and communication of the experience itself. Ego interferes and colors them. Some of the 'mainstream' projectors have fallen to such tendencies, may be to make their descriptions more spicy, to make themselves appear special, to sell a book, or simply to motivate others by making it somewhat larger than life.

The way I've found to remain honest and balanced in such matters is to imagine that I'm narrating the incidents to someone whom I respect greatly. Generally its your Guru or someone who is greater than you in this art. Mostly an experienced Guru will instantly detect the BS, if you tell him something, this keeps you in check. It also helps to include phrases such as 'in my opinion', 'its my guess', 'others say that'. So that you can speculate without making it appear as a fact.

Welcome
You are very fortunate to have this thing happen to you, very few people on this planet have experienced something like this. I've a feeling that the number of such people is increasing day by day, or it can be that we are now well informed of such events more and more due to the net. (or can be both).

The sensations you are having are "normal" (although extraordinary). They will subside with time. So you need not worry about them, unless they are causing pain.
These are energy body movements or flows of energy (Prana or chi). As it 'flows' it causes such sensations and spontaneous movements. The sensations of floating up or suddenly falling are also seen. I have personally experienced them and it can feel very odd initially, as if you are in an unreal world.

If the sensations are causing pain or discomfort, it can be due to 'blockages'. The Prana clears them up just like water flowing at high speed pushes obstacles away. If its too much to handle, ground yourself for some weeks. (search 'grounding'). I'd rather advise you to visit a knowledgeable master and learn some basic techniques (like pranayama) to control the energy flow. If you are serious about your spiritual progress, the time is ripe now.

IMO, OBEs are a sign of active Kundalini (especially those that are induced from waking state and when exit is through the crown). The visions you see are also a sign of such activity and shows that your third eye is now active. These may not last forever, it gets milder and softer over time, but a door to the higher reality is now open for you.

Once the Kundalini flows vigorously and continuously, this door opens wide and you can access the higher realms even while fully awake and active. The tale-tell sign of Kundalini flow is pulsations at all 7 chakras.  There are techniques to activate Kundalini at will, but these should not be attempted without proper guidance.

All the best and keep as posted.

So, if my house is burgled and I am murdered in my sleep...it's my fault?

You should not see it in terms of anyone's faults. If someone gets injured in an earthquake whose fault is it ?
As I said, events happen, they are neutral, it's not that an event is waiting for you to commit a fault and then jumps in ...

Judging events in term of faults of self or others is denying the responsibility that it was your own choices. As soon as you color your choices as faults, the ego kicks in -- how can I be at fault, I'm perfect, its not my fault, its not my choice, its *his* fault.... It is an error in thinking, you see.

Of course you did not choose to be burgled or murdered, but you chose to overlook the security and you chose to not to learn the art of self defense (to fight, to kill if there is a need). The criminal chose you, because you were an easy target. This is so simple, so natural. The ego makes it complicated - why me? I always did good of others. Nature is cruel ... etc etc. This is the veil of ignorance and is the cause of suffering.

Now, we are not perfect, so we often make wrong choices (not morally wrong, spiritually wrong). And so suffer the consequences. A person who is asleep (=ignorant = not so evolved spiritually) will immediately color the result in terms of faults/guilt/shame/anger/whatyouhave and twist his mind in so many ways to effectively deny what has happened. He again makes wrong choices and overloads his karma in the process. This is a vicious circle. A person who is awake, accepts what has happened, sees the real cause, rectifies his choices in future and sheds his karma, unwinding the twisted thinking.

Some people wrongly think that the phrase 'accept your responsibility' means to accept the fault you made, like in ' you are responsible for this'. This is just social conditioning. In spiritual terms, that phrase simply means to acknowledge the causal chain that lead to an event, see how you were involved in it, and to untwist, ease out, feel light as a feather.

Hopefully some one hasn't already asked this, but why do bad or unfortunate events happen in our lives?

Anything that happens to you is a result of all other choices you have made till that thing happened.
In other words, if a thing X happened to you today, it was because of the trillion choices that you had made till today. Well, sounds far fetched, but a good brain storming session should clear it up.

Now, some choices affect the outcome more than others. It should be obvious that you failed your school tests today not because you chose to eat a burger last year, it was because you chose to watch TV instead of studying this month. So if a particularly bad event has occurred, there were a few major reasons, not a trillion tiny ones.

You may say that road accidents happen randomly, and these type of events are not dependent on our past choices/actions. That's a good point, but if you see it deeply, you will see that road accidents happen more to irresponsible/newbies/drunken people than to experienced and stable guys, they are not equally distributed as randomness would require. (Or more precisely in a bell curve manner)

Then, there is a need to understand what exactly is *bad*. Whats the real meaning of that word.... ?
Are the events bad ? or is our perception of it bad ? or does it means something else?
As far as I know, events are always neutral, they are natural, as natural as sunlight or gravity or rain. Events are a product of physical laws (thanks beavis !), that should be obvious. Where did the bad-ness came from? Have you ever thought about it ? Or were you too busy suffering them....

Is it because of karma?

I guess so. Karma means actions. Actions result from your choices. Choices are a result of your mental condition (the way you tend to think about something). Mental condition is sum total of all your past experiences.

So you see karma is ultimately a structure in our brain (a non-physical structure, a kind of information network). When you are born, there is very little of it initially, so you must have noticed that for a very young child death of a relative is merely a curious event, not a sad/bad one. He doesn't go in chronic depression, instead asks (silly) questions. But as you grow old, your experiences color everything, and a rigid structure is formed in your mind. This is karma. It governs you in your adult life. You accumulate a lot of it, so much so that you become (spiritually) ignorant. It obviously colors the events, and you began to see them as good or bad, instead of mere happenings.

What happens when you dissolve all the karmic stuff? You see things as they are, you are free....This is the meaning of cleaning up the 'Samskaras', the unlearning process.

Is it so we can learn something on our journey through life?

No, bad event do not happen for the purpose of teaching you anything. Its not that someone has set all this up to teach you stuff. You and you alone are 100% responsible for whatever is happening to you at this moment. Moment by moment, the *Now* where life happens. Its not wise to project the cause of events to 'something' else. Only an ignorant person thinks anything happened because of others/external things.

When something had gone wrong, the only thing to learn is that nothing was wrong, it just was.

Is it to balance out light and darkness?

These are already balanced. Its you karmic tendencies to get more and more of good stuff that make you bump into bad stuff so frequently. If you desire to stand on a mountain and the land was flat there, you will see that after you find yourself on a mountain, you have dug a deep pit just behind you. Its just a matter of time, fall happens.

Is it because we attracted it?

It appears so only in retrospect. After all , most of your life is spent in repelling bad-ness and attracting good-ness, then how come you attracted bad-ness so often ?
Its only in your mind, you are playing this game of attraction-repulsion. On the outside, life is happening.
Most of us have lost touch with life, and identify ourselves with this game instead.

Which one is it? I'm confused

That's a good thing really. You are asking questions. Only a fool is totally sure of everything.

is it true that we could incarnate as an animal or animals could incarnate as humans? what's your opinion?

Just like Xanth says, the truth is a matter of belief. Someday (hopefully) you will know the truth. Or to put it more correctly, you will experience the truth.

Once you know the truth and express it to others, it becomes an opinion for them. Such is the realm of subjective truths.

I've not experience the truth (yet), so I will tell you what other people say.
Once you die, you are no longer you, the person is gone. You are no longer a human. Human is only a form. But you do have something that come from being a human - the human experience. So after death, you are a pure consciousness with some essential qualities, and depending on your level of spiritual evolution, you are either seeking a form furiously or are simply waiting for guidance/inspiration.

For most, its the former. Depending on how 'human' you were in this life, you naturally are attracted to a form that resonates with your tendencies. If you were mostly animal-like in behavior (e.g. all you did in this life was eating, sleeping, excreting and reproducing; had little sense of higher human faculties of creativity and such), then you may get sucked in a suitable animal form. There is nothing wrong or embarrassing about it, this is natural. Other example would be, if you like surfing the sea, deep diving, and swimming , so much so that you did nothing in your life except that, you may find yourself as a baby dolphin, as soon as you open your eyes again. This happens because the consciousness cannot discriminate, there is no intellect, and if you had not done your meditations correctly, there is no awareness of what's happening. Nature takes over.

Note that the word 'attraction' is a little confusing here. There is no attraction in the sense of feeling a pull or emotional attraction that you are familiar with. (There is no emotional structure, no brain or chemicals at that time, obviously). The attraction, IMO, is just like the attractors in mathematics, natural occurrences that simply happen to be there. Or you can imagine them like probabilities of quantum mechanics, you are most probable to be something depending on your karmic configuration.

Of course, reverse may also happen, an animal form can reincarnate as human. After all we all were animals in majority of our million or so lives.

 

It should be obvious that one should not be too violent or indifferent. What is less obvious is that one should not be very touchy-feely too i.e. act like lame girls

It is a good thing that the OP has activated his heart chakra. If you consult a Guru, he will probably tell you to come down from the cloud-9 and clean the toilets of the ashram as usual.

Kundalini will trigger such things, they don't last. It is wise to carry on your practice after simply acknowledging such things. Soon (hopefully) your third eye or throat will be activated, and you will receive similar (and bigger) gifts. But now you know what to do with them.......

This is a very old thread, but I guess there is no harm in answering this for other member's. So here you go..

I have a question about the law of karma.

Since others can affect an individual's karma, how much is the individual responsible for the "reaction" karmas ?

Short ans: 100% responsible.

I think there is a problem with the sentence "others can affect an individual's karma". I'm new to this concept so probably I did not understand it, but IMO others cannot directly alter one's karmic structures, one is totally responsible for their own karma. Others can push you towards a good or bad karma, but you always have a choice.

Secondly, I agree with above poster, there is no good or bad karmas. Karma means action (in Sanskrit) and actions are always neutral. Please remember that we are talking in spiritual domain, trying to understand it in ethical perspective is meaningless here. The meaning of 'good karma' as commonly understood in east is any action that takes you towards liberation (and vice versa). So e.g. getting rid of a friend who is a constant source of negativity and trouble for your meditative practices is *good karma* actually

You can say that if I dump my friend, other will dump me, as per the karmic law. Yes they will, and you should feel happy about that because the reason for that will be that you no longer align with them, and its better to make friends that are in tune with you. You will have to be a little more conscious about why things happen to you (good or bad).

Taking the original example of the man who got robbed, a Buddhist will smile at his situation and say that nothing bad has happened and he should not react at all. Sounds confusing but its true.

It is really his 'bad' karma that lead him to this condition. The bad thing (or the wrong thing or the action in a direction opposite to one's liberation) he did was to hoard stuff. If he hadn't done that, no one could have robbed him obviously. So he should get the lesson here - detachment from anything that can be taken away. Note that the keyword is 'detachment', not the word 'hoarding'. (But once you are utterly detached from worldly things, you stop hoarding anyway).

His relatives left him. Well that's the best thing happened to him. What good are such relatives who stick to you only for your wealth ? They are no more than parasites. You got rid of them, celebrate.... and find some genuine people to be with. This is the lesson here.

World abandons him, this seems pitiable, but he will learn a valuable lesson about how the world is and how not to expect anything from it. It is surely not a source of happiness, happiness comes within. This will also teach him not to abandon his friends if they get robbed.

Sorry to stick with this example, but when you see it from a spiritual point of view, this tragedy has opened a door of spiritual progress for him. He has a choice here to evolve, to be liberated. He can drop his load of 'bad' karma here and choose the right path.

If he instead chooses to steal for food, he has made a choice. Which simply means that he is not ready yet. He has added to his load of karmas. Note that stealing itself is not a bad karma, but his belief that he must get food only by stealing is. (May be augmented or triggered by an emotion of revenge, which shows his low spiritual scores).

He could have begged or labored for it. Which is a good karma, not because its ethical, but because this would have punctured his ego balloon too. This is a bonus karmic reduction.

Once we start making the *right* choices, we see that we get more and more aligned towards the natural laws and there are no more sufferings, only events, providing you even more opportunities to choose.

As soon as your karma is gone, there is no need to choose, you have attained liberation. In this state now you choose everything and nothing at the same time.

Better link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation
Most of the words in that article are links !

I don't claim to speak from my own experience, but following appears to be the essence of it all.
Short answer - to stop reincarnating , wake up, become aware, see the light, realize your true self, know who you are.

It is not 'you' (as a person) that reincarnates, it is the basic principle, all-that-is, the 'nothingness' or consciousness, that likes to take up various forms. You are just one such form. Once you die, the form is gone and your personality too. So you can't reincarnate as a person.
However the essence of your experiences remain in all-that-is, its called karma. There is a momentum to this karma and it almost mechanically results in another form. The form taken depends upon its tendencies (Prarabdha, is the technical term)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prarabdha_karma

So 'You' (if you can call this process so) have gone through millions of lives, from mineral, single celled, vegetation, animal and now human types. Which life you'd like to recall ? Interesting isn't it?
Can you stop reincarnating while this is going on ? No, doesn't seem like so, its a process of nature, it happens. If the direction of your karma is favorable you reach the human stage, which is one of the highest possible in this physical world, and you are gifted with something remarkable - the intellect, the ability of discrimination. Once you have this ability and learn how to use it properly (this is important), you can take your evolution in your own hands. If you use your human abilities in a way that purifies your karmic tendencies, the momentum of karma breaks down and you are free to choose. Most of the time such a karmic structure (=you roughly) will choose a higher life form on a higher plane, rather than human form again. This continues until there is no karma left, there is no need to experience anything, you have attained 'liberation' (Nirvana).

This is why human life is considered so valuable and unique and a very big opportunity. This stage is the turning point, a cross road. Here you can choose to be asleep or descend down the animal stages (by repeatedly engaging in animal like behaviors of heavy-eating/hoarding/violence/sexual excess etc), i.e. by choosing to not to use your intellect to do the right thing and succumbing to the tendencies. So the first thing one should do is, engage his/her brain and choose a right path, any right path. Freedom follows. Once you are human, liberation is assured anyway.

Some follow the right path vigorously, some take the long cut and let it happen, while most (sadly) are asleep and have left it to nature to kick them upwards, its the slowest path full of suffering. Not that the suffering is bad, it often leads to 'awakening', (its the last weapon of mother nature , sorta) but many humans (mis)use intellect to avoid suffering too, i.e. they are destined to fall. In such cases the natural law forces them to take a form suitable to act out their tendencies until they had enough. For example a violent person may reincarnate as a predator on some planet spending its life killing things and a heavy-eater may find a pig's body perfect to act out its desires. Nature has a solution for all kinds of people, she never says no to anyone.

If you are on a right path (increasing awareness), you slowly come to know your true nature and take charge of everything. First thing you may notice is that you are not a person, but much more than that. Here you can choose not to re-incarnate again as an individual. Not having a form does not mean you stop experiencing, but it can be a rather slow and boring state to be in, unless you have attained and are experiencing the universe as God would.

Nothing can be said about these "astral people", they can be your own creations or can be real things. If you are new, you need not be concerned with precise answers, simply ignoring them works best.
Simply go on doing whatever you were doing as if you heard nothing.

I don't guarantee that this will work always, but if they are your own creations, they will fade as soon as your thoughts about them change (no thoughts at all).

Do people who astral project share any character traits? Describe a typical projector.

IMO, No. There are all kind of people, with nothing in common (character traits), who have experienced this.

Don't go very far, just read some posts here, you will find people ranging from fearful housewives to spiritually advanced persons, all describing their experiences.

However, if you are asking about what kind of people pursue AP and give it enough importance that their lives revolve around it, they are mainly of explorer kind, having a deep interest in unknown. Another trait is that they are open minded, open to knowledge and new ideas, however crazy.

One more guess is that they all want to be free, than anything else. (But thats my feeling, can't support it)

I wouldn't say they are fearless, because fear goes away only with time and experience in astral. A random Ap'er will be as afraid of something nasty and dangerous as a common man.
I wouldn't say they are spiritual or evolved, not all of them, because an evolved person has gone past this stage and sees AP as hindrance or mildly amusing at most. Most of us are noobs in spirituality.
I wouldn't say they are special or chosen ones, just a common man who has chosen to become special.

This gives me creeps. Its like living among zombies and you are forced to act like them so they won't eat you alive.

Its one thing to hold on wrong beliefs and quite another to become violent to defend them. Sounds like a borderline mental disorder, the belief is like a virus that tries to protect itself at any cost and uses the believer to keep itself alive. They are possessed by it.

This happens not only with religious beliefs. Say for example, a brainwashed female rights activist can go mad at mere mention of the fact that many housewives cheat. Its an ordinary fact for most of us, but for her it becomes an attack.

I hope there will be a cure for such behavior in future.  

Has anyone got to the pulsing chest stage and claimed to project afterwards, because it is really intense and honestly, rather uncomfortable if you let it persist. I would rather not do it, especially if its not going to lead me anywhere. It would be helpful to get insight into that.

Cheers,
Contenteo

You are actually lucky to have that. Its your 3rd and 4th chakra (Manipur and Anahat) going active. And best thing is you have the energy body sensitivity/awareness to notice that.
The head-gripping sensation is most likely your crown chakra coming online. For me it mostly feels like someone gently moving fingers in the hair or something crawling among hair.

Those who can't feel it should practice placing intense awareness on those points (and all 7 actually).
If its painful/distracting then you are probably new to meditation, it will fade with time. You also get used to the sensations and focus on more "important stuff" instead of OMG-what the hell is that.

Currently I have no modern way of explaining it, but in Yoga its the Kundalini flow racing through your main channel (Sushumna) along the spine and causing all the chakras to pulsate. Its a good sign, only a few lucky ones have it.

As for why listening to this sound takes you to trance, IMO, it is a natural hypnotizer that takes your monkey mind to single pointedness. Trance follows.

You can change it a little bit, I have a feeling that it remains same and your perception of it changes. You can find a lot of variations in it (It is mostly pink noise, many overtones are present). As you go deeper and concentrate you will find finer and finer tones, some beyond 16KHz. Focus on the finest ones as soon as you find it.

Its the fastest way to AP.

Bedeekin, you have some deep knowledge of this stuff. Keep it up.

No the word dimension as used in AP has a different meaning than that used in science. It means a state of consciousness in one field and the number of variables in an equation in other.

[kailaurius]

For some people (majority I guess) sleeping is like hitting a wall. Wide awake now, gone next second.
There lies the problem, because possibility for AP is when you are on the border, and when the border is so thin, it becomes impossibility.

Such people hear about this technique and give it a try, and usually fail and return to 'normal' life dismissing the whole thing, its a waste. If you are such kind, you may succeed once in a 1000 tries. You are on the mercy of chance and a million variables.

The solution is to train yourself. Of course, you will take so much trouble only if you are serious about AP, training is difficult, takes time, demands patience and has no materialistic rewards. No wonder so few of us do it persistently. But if you are of that kind, an explorer, an ultra-curious scientist, then you will do nothing but training and improvisation. You need the answers desperately.

Training should be aimed at widening the sleep-awake gap. Its a natural hack really. Nature provides you a window when you can look through it to the other side. More serious training will be aimed at inducing this state, when you are intensely aware, yet all physical systems shut down, and there remain no choice but to go non-physical. AP at will anytime thing. As you are already aware the path to that is - meditation and Yoga.

I totally agree with kailaurius here. He seems to be doing such a training. In Buddhism this will be called Vipassana which means to see clearly or to witness. Very strong technique for not only AP stuff but also for general spiritual progress.

All the best

You cannot measure the mental states by physical instruments, by definition these are non physical but you can measure the physiological changes these states produce such as EEG/ECG and breathing/skin conduction/temperature etc.
I guess they were able to do that and correlate with (pre)OBE states.

[balance]

I guess you are already there. Just need a bit more practice.

The keyword in MABA technique is balance. If you are too tired, you tend to fall asleep fast, if you are too active, you wake up completely and can't relax. If you chatter too much (mentally), you will fall asleep without knowing when, if you are too focused you will remain awake.

The trick is to let go (doesn't mean to give up) and maintain a slightly curious state of mind ("lets see whats going on"). Fear will surely stop you instantly. For that you can follow any of the protection rituals (like imagining a energy shield around you), or make up your own fancy ritual, it doesn't matter as long as you really believe that it will protect you no matter what. You have to trick the primitive parts of the brain that are doing their survival routines, that's all.

2-2.5 hours is a little less I guess, try sleeping for 4-5 hours. (Experiment to arrive at the sweet spot)

Lately I tend to relate vibrations with the flow of Kundalini energy. It can also be an intense flow of Prana (Chi). The symptoms are similar, if you read about the sensations related to kundalini flow, you will notice that.

Once the Kundalini flow is consistent and strong, you are always in Astral even while awake. It becomes a matter of shifting the focus. You are aware of both worlds.

There are types of meditations to stimulate this energy and these amusingly sound a lot similar to the techniques for inducing vibrations.

Do you really KNOW your OBE's are from a different dimension or do you think they are products of your own mind?

Your question made me smile, because I used to ask this question not so long ago.
In my experience you will not know whether its all in the mind or there is really something out there just by OOBEs alone. When you are OBE the world you see is mostly a mixture of mental imagery and "some kind of reality" depending on how aware you are. So when you come back you can interpret it in both ways.

One thing is sure that you will start to doubt whether this world (physical) is real and is not a mental product.

There are some verification experiments done by enthusiasts but its one of those thing you have to test for yourself, no amount of proof is conclusive here. So go ahead and dive straight into it.

Official channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/ubikmonroe
Playlists
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_playlists&search_query=thomas+campbell&uni=3

Perhaps the same stuff but more audible.


Whenever I hear people saying - scientists are all against paranormal/supernatural/spiritual stuff, I refer them to Tom. He is a real physicist , he is not ridiculed by anyone, he is not called a crackpot. He is too senior and sane and bright to be taken lightly. He is a living example of science embracing spirituality. This will be the way science evolves in future.

Does anyone have any idea what this could be, or what caused it?

This usually means that your practice is showing its fruits. Spontaneous floating, falling or drifting sensations are reported often.

Good thoughts and a meaningful post (I was getting tired of those "dream or AP?" posts).

Though, what if one commits suicide out of readiness to be finished with this world, yet not in any sense of suffering.

Sure, you can do that, it won't be called a suicide. In east its called "Maha-Samadhi", the yogi having evolved sufficiently goes and sits in a cave and consciously leaves his/her body for further evolution/progress. Its not that these people don't leave bodies when they alive, they mostly do (just as AP), but keep a thread attached to the physical. In Mahasamadhi, all energetic bonds are broken. The body is offered to animals or elements.

What will happen if you don't do it properly ? Anybody's guess, I guess it won't go well . This is the proper way. My question is are you self-realized ? And do you have this ability to leave consciously?

Perhaps I am just confused, but what lesson is there for me to learn my only goal in life is detachment from this physical world and spiritual advancement?

Simply leaving the physical does not guarantee progress. You will be only as good there as you are now (or maybe worse depending on how advanced you are). Ability to leave physical and experience higher worlds is a by-product of spiritual advancement, not the other way round. So your hope that you can progress better out there, is only an assumption, imho. It is said that human life is a superfast lane for spiritual progress because it presents the needed situations, so one should make full use of it.

Your goal of detachment is very noble but I guess you haven't achieved it yet, because you are still here on earth. When you are 100% detached the body lets go of you (no remaining karma, all gone). You won't be able to stay here even for a second. Our attachments keep us here, (even after death), once there is nothing to anchor you, you are free.

I'm not saying that you will grow weak or fall sick when this happens, you simply shed the body and move on. Of course its very rare to do this, not many are so advanced. If you feel that you have reached this stage, no one can stop you. Just take care that you destroy your vehicle properly *after* leaving it (wait for a day or two just in case), as there are things that can misuse it. All this must be done under the supervision of a Master who has already done it himself, this is important. Else there are chances that you will end up just like an ordinary dead guy in best case or in trouble in worst.

I also agree with above posters here, good points, especially CFTraveler hits the bulls eye.

rangestormer,

It is my experience that if there are urgent and serious unsolved problems (pertaining to this world) the body won't let go of you. It's like a defense mechanism, your body holds on and demands immediate resolution of the problems first. By body I mean your physical aspects - the body, brain and ego mind.This nature of the body manifests in the form of restlessness during meditations/AP attempts, or incessant chatting in the mind, or hot flashes (like those of jealousy) or simply a failure to achieve the altered state needed for AP.

If you can go AP in such a state and manage to resolve those problems, I'll call you an extraordinary person, because, usually its the other way round, you first relieve yourself of earthly hassles then it becomes very easy to explore the stuff beyond. (That's why the yogis take a shortcut and relinquish all worldly stuff to get rid of this burden).

IMO, its should not take an hour to reach the AP state. It may take 20-30 minutes to reach a relaxed state, assuming you started very active and in an excited state of mind. But once you are in relaxed state it takes only a few minutes to transition to AP. It is possible to hold on to the transition state for longer but it takes practice and is of academic interest. For an ordinary mortal it lasts for like 5 secs.

The whole point of the "wake up early" method is to feel sleepy (but not tired and needing sleep). If you are sleepy it becomes easy to reach trance state and lose focus from body. The trick is to keep mind awake while you let yourself fall asleep.

If you feel too sleepy, try extending the sleep period, say to 6 hours or some more. This is a hit and trial method, the 5 hour recommendation is for an average fellow who sleeps 8 hours and has an ordinary lifestyle.

That's too many things to try in such a short time
Anyway I admire your enthusiasm.

IMHO, take a break and don't do drugs. Drugs are there to save lives, using them for anything else is bad karma, it comes back to bite you in many forms . I know you did everything in desperation, but desperation is usually counter-productive for AP. Stillness and calm works better.

I'm sorry if I'm asking something personal, is there anything unsolved in your life ? Are you trying to AP for some specific reason (other than to have fun and learn). Have you attempted in some other place, like not in your own house always?