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I followed a guided Yoga Nidra meditation today, and had a powerful experience about an hour ago.

At the beginning of the meditation I use, there's an opportunity to set a sankalpa, or heartfelt intention for the meditation. I chose to set mine as, "I am a powerful spiritual being, and I will communicate with my higher self."

I followed the meditation, which has you focus on various points around your body. It feels very similar to energy body practices as I do it, and I feel as though I have been getting better at being able to focus the energy around different parts of my body.

After you focus on various points around your body, the process essentially puts you into a state of "Mind Awake, Body Asleep". After this point, the meditation had me focus on my Third Eye and visualize different objects in a moderate succession. After this part of the exercise, the meditation had me reiterate my sankalpa. I did, and then began to ask questions of my higher self. I asked about life changes going on, and the answer was essentially that I shouldn't worry, and that things will follow the path they are intended to. I then asked about an experience I had yesterday during another meditation. I had seen a pair of eyes, and they appeared to belong to a woman. It then changed to a single eye, and I sort of felt it looking through me.

I didn't necessarily ask if these eyes had anything to do with a woman that I had seen before in a very vivid projection, probably my most focused one to date. I don't know who she is, but during the projection she saw me and looked right at me. It caught me so off guard that it ended my projection and I used an AI image generator to try to get a picture as close as possible to the likeness of this woman. I have attached the image to another post of mine.

As I thought about the woman, I finally saw her again. I inquired about who she was. First I asked if she was my "Higher Self". I was told she possibly could be, or she could be a past or future life of mine. Then I asked what her name was, and there wasn't a clear answer. I saw the letters "X" and "H". Then I saw "Asha". I was under the impression that this might have been a fragment of her name, but I'm not sure.

After trying to figure out who she was, I focused more and more on her and finally saw her again. She could see me as well, and she seemed happy to see me. She hugged me. It seemed that she was very happy to see me, and wasn't expecting to see me at this moment. I got the impression that she was much more aware of what was going on than I was. It felt like our connection was not platonic. I felt drawn to her physically, and things immediately took a romantic course. It was emotionally charged, like we had known each other for a very long time. I felt like besides connecting physically and emotionally, she was trying to teach me something.

After this, we were both somewhere on top of a mountain. There were others there, dressed like tourists. It looked like a national park or something. I was following her as she walked away from the small groups of people milling about the mountaintop. Someone stopped me as I followed her towards a rocky ledge and implied that I wasn't supposed to follow her, but I ignored them and continued to follow her. We stood at the edge of the cliff, and then it all faded away.

I didn't feel any physical sensations during this meditation besides focusing on the points around my energy body, and bursts of "vibrational" energy for brief moments. I didn't experence any kind of physical sensations when I was with the woman.

I don't know what to make of it, but it was one of the longest, most vivid projections I've ever had so far.

This morning, I did some meditating and had an epiphany of sorts and I want to share it.

I went into the meditation with the intention of trying to express gratitude to my "guides" or "higher self". I feel like all the positivity I've been striving to put out has been making it's way back to me, and I wanted to acknowledge it.

I felt myself reaching a point of very deep relaxation. I passively observed myself in this state, and I began to see swirling colors, like droplets of ink falling into water. I saw faint flashes of light, and felt the occasional wave of vibrations.

I decided to focus on the vibrations, and they began to almost come in regular intervals. In my mind, it felt like I was standing in the water at the beach, and the vibrations were flowing like the waves against the shore.

I had a thought in this moment that just sort of appeared in my mind.

"I'm like a little kid at the beach who can't quite swim that well yet."

As I thought this, I saw myself as a young boy at the beach.

The idea stuck in my mind, and it made more and more sense as I thought about it. Even now as I'm writing this, I'm understanding where I am in this journey and what the next steps might be.

Today I had a powerful experience. It was in the midst of a huge change going on in my life that has been a bit stressful, but thanks to advice from many individuals here I've been managing it.

I'm not sure what the general consensus here is about acupressure, but I recently bought a Shakti Mat. So far I love it, and I've experimented with using it during both guided and unguided meditations. The results have been interesting, and I've noticed a heightened awareness of my energy body during these meditations. It's also very relaxing for me, and it helps me fall asleep quickly.

I decided to take a nap today on the mat, and it produced an unexpected result. The mat also had an acupressure pillow, and it props my head up to an angle that I guess causes me to occasionally snore for brief moments while asleep. During my nap, I heard myself occasionally snoring, but it sounded like it wasn't me snoring. I would hear the snores coming from roughly 2 feet above me. It  didn't feel like I was snoring. Thinking about it afterwards, this was probably an unexpected OBE, which is exciting.

It felt like I was either below my physical body or above it but facing down towards my body. It was an incredible experience, and I think I'm reaching a point where I'm starting to fully "let go".

I just wanted to take a moment to express some appreciation for the insight you've all given here about this.

This forum is like a beacon of positivity. I'm grateful for all of you, and the insights you all provide. Every time I post here, this journey of exploration and growth feels less and less lonely.

Last night, I made time to reflect on my priorities. I made the decision to try tweaking my morning routine a bit in an effort to manage what I interpreted as obstacles in the way of reflecting on what I'm grateful for.

I followed through, and i noticed a huge difference. I managed to get in some time for a bit of meditation to help set the tone for my day. I decided to "get back to the basics" that I felt I had drifted away from recently, and it was incredibly refreshing.

I managed to reach a level of connection with my energy body in a way that I hadn't in a while. It just feels so good, for lack of a better way to describe it. The positivity, the warmth, it's such an indescribably wonderful feeling.

My whole spiritual exploration started out with curiosity on the subject of OBEs. I pursued it with enthusiasm and passion, wanting to achieve a successful OBE more then anything. I began to receive glimpses of things I would have dismissed as "New Age nonsense" if someone told me about them a year ago, but I've come to a point where I've accepted that they'll happen when they're supposed to as a result of this invigorating connectedness to myself. I don't know the proper terms to describe it, whether it's spiritual vibrational frequency or something else. I'll have these moments where, during meditations, I just feel so alive and in the moment that I don't want it to end. It's like getting high on my own existence. When I finish the meditations, it's pretty much impossible to feel bad or upset about anything, andit just carries on throughout my day. 

I've noticed a difference in nearly every aspect of my life as a result of this exploration. My wife even pointed out that she can see a noticeable shift in me towards putting out positivity as much as I can, and I believe that's why we're in a position to make a better life for our family.

I just wanted to express some gratitude for the help. All of you make this forum the incredible thing that it is.

Thanks for this. It's just discouraging to have these periods of insightful silence, but it's probably my own unintentional doing.

I'm doing my best to maintain an attitude of positivity and gratitude through this crazy period. I've been focusing on the goal being achieved, and you've brought it to my attention to seek some peace and positivity through this period of change instead of seeing it as a hurdle between my current state and future personal growth.

Hey everyone, I just wanted to get some insight.

Lately I haven't been making much progress in my spiritual journey, and I'm trying to press through this. I'm feeling like I'm in a bit of a slump, and I've been struggling to meditate at all.

Things have gotten pretty busy for me lately, and I feel like stress and life in general has hindered my progress. There's a ton of stuff going on in my life, but I wasn't to find balance to at least maintain what I've developed and achieved so far.

Things are pretty chaotic, with trying to sell my house, move across country, secure a new job, help my wife get situated in her new job, and taking care of our almost 1 year old daughter.

I've used meditation to cope with stress in the past, but I can't even manage to find time to meditate lately. The times I do find, I usually struggle to make any progress or even stay awake.

I know this journey is a marathon and not a sprint, but I don't want to lose any progress I've made. Part of me recognizes that all of these moving parts that I'm stressing about are moving pieces in the Gateway Method Patterning I've done within the past year, but things have been tough. It's as if there's something making this goal as difficult as possible every step of the way. I'm hanging in there, but I'm looking forward to reaching a point where I can just breathe and at least maintain my progress in my journey.

Typing this out in itself is helping me process everything going on, but I'm so appreciative of the experiences I've had so far, and there's a part of me that's worried that my journey is stalling.

Does anyone have advice about finding some balance in the turbulence of life on this journey?

A few months back, I was meditating, and saw a woman I've never met before. It was the first time I've ever seen a person during a meditation.

At first, I recognized that I was at my workplace. I had my daughter there with me, which was very strange because I work in industrial maintenance. My daughter was small, maybe 5 months old at the time of the projection/meditation. She was in her infant car seat.

I saw a woman next to us, looking at my daughter. The woman then turned and looked me in the eye. This was the clearest, most vivid thing I had ever witnessed during a meditation, and I had only seen still images of things up to this point. It felt like I wasn't just seeing a scene play out in my consciousness. She LOOKED at me. I felt a connection to this person, and my nerves got the best of me. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end outof excitement and shock, and it stirred me out of focus and my meditation ended.

I was so excited, and overwhelmed by this experience that I went on an AI image generator to try to generate a picture of this woman, and eventually got a result. I still have the picture I managed to generate of her, whoever she is. The picture is attached.

I didn't see her again until 3 days ago, in a dream. I didn't realize it at first, but thinking about the events of the dream led me to realize that it was the same person or entity.

It was a bit of an odd dream. I was with my dad and older brother, and we were at some kind of big race event. The three of us were there to compete in different events. We were borrowing vehicles to compete. The owners were friendly, but I don't know any of them. My dad raced first. He did a quarter mile drag race in a heavily modified school bus. I distinctly remember that he managed to get a 10.7 second time, a whole second faster than the next best time. Then it was my turn to race in a motorcycle event.

A woman was letting me use her motorcycle for the event. She has her hair tied up in a bandana, and was very friendly. She explained that she has personally modified the bike, and was clearly very proud of it. The motorcycle was hardly recognizable. It looked like something out of a Mad Max film, aggressively modified for off road use. I had difficulty riding it, and I was struggling to get it to run properly. As the steam went on, I grew frustrated because I was losing badly. The race was to see who could travel the furthest distance in 30 minutes, and I was wasting time stalling the bike. It gradually dawned on me by checking the bike that this motorcycle had started out as the same motorcycle I currently own.

The thought rebounded in my mind as if on repeat, "this is JUST like my bike." I lookedat the frame, the engine, and saw things that I had replaced on my own motorcycle. My mind raced and the thought became " wait, this IS my bike." Then I recognized her face from my meditation and immediately woke up.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this, meeting the same stranger multiple times? Who might she be, and what is the significance of seeing this woman repeatedly?

Lumaza,

When you talk about acute pain in limbs, how long does it last?

I've done lengthy yoga nidra meditations before, and on multiple occasions I've had excruciating pain in my dominant wrist. On a scale of 1-10, it's all least a 9. It feels like my wrist is being stabbed and crushed at the same time.

I injured it about 6 years ago and it's progressively grown worse over time. I've tried to tough it out, but it just gets worse until I can't ignore it anymore and it disrupts the whole meditation.

Any suggestions?

Lumaza-

I've been making a point to be as observant as I can be without trying to analyze or understand what I'm observing after initially reaching out here on the forum, as many suggested.

I think a lot of this success was from your recommendations on my post about developing patience, namely the video you shared about developing peripheral focus.

After I started to notice the "small window" I was seeing these events through, I would take a moment after my meditations to reflect on what I saw after the fact, and that video was the first thing that came to my mind. It was as if each successful meditation was allowing the small dot to develop into a larger and larger window, until it had completely filled the full view of my mind's eye.

I'm making progress every time, and I appreciate all the advice from everyone on here. You guys are awesome.

28 Jun 24

It's been a while since I've posted, but I've had what I interpret as progress.

In the past two weeks or so, I've been using techniques recommended by numerous members of the forum here. One that I've seen a lot of progress with the method of relaxing and "focusing" on a central focal point without focusing too much on what I see, and it's yielded interesting results.

As I relax and gently focus on the center of my mind's eye, it's as though a small, circular window will begin to open. I'll see what looks like an almost sepia tone "movie" through it.

At first, I thought this was simply hypnagogic hallucinations, but as they've occurred more frequently, I've realized that they aren't still images.

Gradually, the circular window has begun to open further and further, and yesterday I feel that my mind's eye was "fully open".

What I saw wasn't anything spectacular, but I recognized that my mind unfortunately had decided to go to my workplace. This has been my second experience of seeing my workplace in any sort of AP meditation.

I'm guessing that my mind's eye took me to a place that was very familiar to me. Although it wasn't a groundbreaking experience, I recognize the significance of this progress. I look forward to continuing and experiencing more.

I decided to start posting new AP/Dream journal entries here. I have a bunch of older ones, but I decided to start from today and post newer entries moving forward. This is from today.

13 Jun 24
Binaural Beats meditation

I decided to do a simple meditation on my Shakti mat with binaural beats playing. I put on my headphones and sleep mask and laid down on the floor. I struggled to initially focus. The mat was initially uncomfortable, which is normal. My mind was wandering and thinking about things that have already happened recently and cannot be changed or improved by thinking or worrying about them. I decided to try a mental chant of sorts. I thought to myself, "I am ok, I am safe, I am calm" over and over.

I noticed that it helped me gain focus. As I focused, I relaxed into the mat. I had some very vivid glimpses of things. I'm not sure if they would be considered hypnagogic hallucinations, but they weren't just random flashes of light or images.

I saw a first person perspective of where I was exactly in the room I was laying in, but I was sitting up instead of laying down. I saw the bed to my left, my guitars to my right, and I saw my hands in front of me. During one of the brief glimpses, I had a bolt in my hand that I had been installing on an airplane at work the previous day. I tried to not focus too hard on what I was seeing, but I was so surprised to see the exact item I had been handling. I felt it in my fingers.The experience lasted a few moments, between a few seconds to a minute, but I tried to savor and enjoy it as much as I could without being too focused on what was going on. I'm not sure if that was the right choice, but it felt right at the moment. I made a point not to look around the room and to just focus on what was in the center of my view, the small bolt I was holding.

After that, I don't recall much. Eventually, the binaural beats playlist I was listening to started to play a specific track that was incredible. I felt buzzing throughout my body (nothing like the powerful "electric current" I felt in a previous experience) that intensified with the music. The sensation was indescribably powerful and close to euphoric. I didn't want it to end.

The meditation lasted roughly one hour.

I've been doing a lot of suggested reading and thinking lately after receiving some awesome insight and advice here on the forum.

One of the major ideas that I was told was to incorporate my AP experiences into my waking life. It got me thinking about how AP can change or enhance a person's life.

Personally, I went from believing that our time here was finite to understanding that there is more than just that which can be scientifically proven currently.

I've started to feel what the "energy body" is, and my experiences have helped me understand that your outlook can directly affect your life experiences.

What about you guys? How has AP personally changed your lives?

That stinks that the idea fell through. Having someone to regularly check in with would be great.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll definitely give them a try. I've been experimenting with generating a blank state of focus, but your single point of focus technique sounds like it will be alot more productive.

At this point, my biggest regret was waiting so long to make an account here and not asking for all of this assistance and insight sooner.

I feel like I came here looking for some simple advice and the whole A-Team showed up. I'm so grateful. You guys are all so awesome for taking the time to drop some knowledge.

I took a lot of what you all shared into account last night and had the first vivid dream I could clearly recall in months. I went to sleep and put a clear intention that I understand that I will experience what I'm supposed to experience, and that I accept it and I'm open to whatever happens.

I'm following omcasey's advice and journaling all of my meditations, dreams, and AP's now, and I'm working on framing my mindset more passively as Tak, tides, Lumaza, and EscapeVelocity have suggested. You guys are incredible.

Raduga's book was short and discussed an induction technique. Besides that, the guy is definitely a bit "out there" (he performed at home "surgery" with a power drill and put a hole in his skull to stick a probe literally into his brain in an attempt to induce AP at will. I'm definitely not interested in trying that. He didn't discuss trips to the hardware store in the book, but it did strike me as fairly eccentric).

Since learning about the Monroe Institute, I was curious about what a retreat there would be like. It never struck me as a realistic goal, being married and having a daughter coming up on a year old. I can say I've had some definitive and unexpected results from the tapes, namely the patterning tape. I followed it and put out the intention to get a new job in a different field from what I currently do, and within 2 weeks met someone who insisted I had the resume to get hired at their job. I've been applying, and have an interview in 2 days with his organization, so fingers crossed.

Like in the original post, the patience required almost feels like someone/something making a game out of all of this. I'll practice Anna follow until my desire almost starts to waver, and immediately I'll have a monumental event that can only be likened to gasoline being poured on a fire. Then my focus and desire is reignited, but I'll see no further results because I can't control the expectations I have. These OBEs are just so incredible. It's hard to not want to experience them all the time.

I've done numerous F12 meditations and asked what I need to do to move forward and the only messages I've ever received in response is the same answer in countless different ways. "You have to let go." When I ask how to let go, it just goes into a loop. I've had an experience where whatever entity, whether it was my own subconscious or an external source, was being very blunt in essentially telling me to "let go" for the millionth time, almost to the point where it felt like it was annoyed. I "thought" to the entity, "you're being very blunt", and the response I got back was, "wouldn't you?"

Having a resource like this forum has been incredible. I appreciate everyone who responds to my questions here. Your insight and experience is such an invaluable thing. You guys are all awesome. Thank you.

I've been making an effort to wake up early and meditate in the mornings, though in the past month or so, I've been slacking, or I end up falling back asleep.

I have a journal that I write my meditations in, but I've been making the mistake of not writing down each meditation, only the "productive" meditations. I have a separate dream journal that I write in as well.

I know there's no "one size fits all" course to follow in all of this, but a big reason I started posting here was due to feeling kind of lost in all of this.

I guess I just have to get back to the basics and be better about recording every experience, no matter what they are.

Thank you for the insight, it's made a huge difference.

I know anything worth doing is hard, but I'm struggling to reach a point where I can passively observe. Each new step just feels immense.

Reading Monroe's first book, I made a point to note the dates of the entries he writes about his experiences. Some are so far apart, but other parts of the book describe an ability to consciously induce AP.

It's such a powerful, profound thing. It's just difficult to comprehend being passive about it.

Hey all,

I have to ask. How do you develop the patience to allow things to reveal themselves to you? This has been the most difficult part of this journey for me.

My head has practically been spinning since Saturday night when I had my most powerful, profound experience yet. Since then, I've been looking back on my journals of previous accounts. As things progressed, I made the mistake of dismissing previous experiences as "astral projections" due to subsequent experiences revealing more and more of the potential of this journey. I'm a bit mad that I let myself make this mistake along the way, but I guess my realizations count as progress.

I've been reading books (Monroe's Journeys Out of the Body, Raduga's The Phase, and I just started William Buhlman's Adventures Beyond the Body), practicing yoga nidra meditations, The Gateway Tapes, binaural meditations, and trying to simply set intentions to help induce AP.

It's like the Dunning-Kruger effect, where each experience shows me how much more there is, andhow little I currently know. My issue is that with each experience, I just want to go further. It's my understanding that the more you try, the more difficult it can become, but I'm struggling to let it happen on its own.

I started on my journey almost a year ago, and I just want to immerse myself in this. I feel like I need a teacher. My experiences have changed my whole outlook on everything I know, but my biggest struggle is figuring out how to let it happen.

The solidarity of this, and the trial and error nature of this journey has been difficult. I feel like I'm dying of thirst in a hot desert, and each experience is a small sip of water that's barely enough to keep me going.

Any advice? Part of me just wants to talk about it with someone.

That was an awesome read. It's interesting that you mentioned you arm moving on it's own. When I woke up, I was laying on my back, but my legs had moved at some point. My knees were bent, pointing straight up.

I wasn't as annoyed as I was completely unprepared. It was such an incredible sensation. It felt so good, despite feeling as strong as it did.

I'm wondering, have you expedient anything like that since?

About 6 months ago I had another experience that lasted maybe a few seconds where I woke up in the middle of the night and rolled from my side onto my back. When I did, I felt the vibrations build. The sound that came with it sounded like an F-18 taking off from a carrier. Then I shot up towards the ceiling like I was fired out of a cannon. I "woke up" right before I hit the ceiling, and I was still sleeping on my side.

Again, I can't thank you enough for the suggestion of completely clearing my mind. I've been doing the Gateway Tapes, asking for messages to progress with OBEs. The most frequent response I've received was simply "Let go", and following your Doorway technique seemed to be the key to doing it.

Last night, I can't tell if I had an AP experience or if it was a vivid dream. There were parts of the experience that I could physically feel and it continued after I "woke up" at a certain point.

Immediately after the experience, I got up to use the bathroom and made a point to write this down.

"
31 May 24
23:20

Unguided/Spontaneous

I have never felt "vibrations" like this before. It was beyond anything I've ever felt. I'm not sure if I should be writing this in the dream journal or here.

I laid perfectly still. I sorted my way through the "monkey brain" stage (quieting random thoughts).

I felt as though I was with (my childhood best friend's name). We were somewhere tropical. I was staying at "his house" (or wherever he was staying).

I'm still buzzing from the experience. It's difficult to write at the moment.

I was in a bed and I felt an almost static charge building. There was a period where for a brief moment I heard static, and almost some kind of distorted voice on a radio. Then the charge surged, and it was the most powerful thing I've ever felt. It came in waves, but they were long. It was intense, but I liked it.

I was pulled during a few surges, going head over heels out of the bed I was in. (best friend) saw this after the first one. He asked if I was OK. I reassured him that I was fine. After that we were "driving" and traveled away from where our beds were. It was night time.  It felt like we were in some kind of Hawaiian island. We reached a point in the road where we looked out into an abyss. The abyss was not intimidating or frightening. A massive surge of energy built up and flowed through me.

I started explaining to (best friend) what I was feeling, and I told him about my meditations and my pursuit of AP. He asked why I hadn't told him about it sooner, and I explained that I didn't want to be judged or seen as crazy, which he understood.

Then to our left, we heard a child crying. We saw the child standing in front of a home and we both decided to leave. It was almost a feeling of fear, but more along the lines of "I don't want to know what's about to happen next, let's leave". As we were returning to where the beds were, I realized not to abandon the child/spirit and thought, "I'm sorry I can't help you, I love you."

Then I sort of woke up, back in bed next to (my wife's name), but felt another massive surge of energy. It subsided, and I got up and wrote this down.
"

Now, I'm just going to put a few additional notes here.

First of all, I credit most of this to Lumaza's "Doorway". I had decided to give it a shot, but last night was the second attempt I was making at trying it. I was just focusing on absolutely clearing my mind and never even got to the point where you visualize the Doorway and ask yourself questions about it. Thank you, Lumaza for sending your link.

Secondly, to those who are familiar with the "vibrational" stage, I'm a bit annoyed with the terminology being used here. Calling that insanely powerful feeling a "vibration" is like calling an atomic bomb "a really big firework". It felt less like "vibrations" and more like sticking a fork into a 220V outlet. Don't get me wrong, the feeling was immense and powerful. It was bliss. I loved it, and could feel each wave building to a crescendo. It was a wild experience, and I hope I get to experience it again.

Now, my question is, what was all of this? Did I have a vivid dream, an AP, or a bit of both? Please let me know what you think. Any insight or input would be appreciated.

Hello, Traveler_2649

I come to where I am now ( a seasoned OBEr ) through practice disciplines also.

My only focus the first few decades was to know the self -not to astral travel / go out of body or even anything else. The reason I am saying this is because I wish to say to you that IF, or so long as you are doing your practice(s) then there is never any stagnation. You are going deeper into those disciplines and they are preparing you inevitable climax moments. Do you keep a log of your practices / meditations? I would suggest it, it will keep you observing more than you might otherwise, and also serve as a record you can look back on to remind yourself of how much actually is taking place. It is so interesting how when we are not making the logs we can have the tendency to think to ourselves that nothing is really happening, when that thought could actually not be any further away from the truth. I have blown my mind with this observation so many times it now just makes me laugh. I like your array of practices, these are very good, notably meditation ( and more notably silent sitting meditation ) and the yoga nidra. You might think of adding an energy practice, such as pranayama, yogic breathing, and bring a few patterns into your array. Tratak ( conscious gazing, candle flame gazing, etc. ) could be very helpful to you as well.

I look forward to seeing you around the board.


Casey

I have a journal that I keep for AP meditations, and a separate dream journal.

Where would you suggest I look door learning more about pranayama and yogic breathing?

I found the forum a few months ago, but decided to join to maybe ask for advice.

I've been doing the Gateway Tapes, hatha yoga, chakra meditation, and yoga nidra with some results, but I want to refine my techniques. The information here is great and looks promising. I'm glad this forum seems to cover all the bases in a constructive way.

I feel like I've stagnated in my progress lately, but I'm trying to not get discouraged. I try to avoid trying the same techniques over and over, so as to not "burn out" from lack of progress.