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Apologies.   

I almost posted this in a topic I created a few weeks ago (How I got out for the first time) because this is a question that is asked a lot there.  But I thought about it and realized that this is a question asked everywhere and so I am posting it as a new topic.

This is a great article called "Astral Signposts: The Stages of OOBEs" and I think it will help a lot of people trying to get there to notice more readily what to watch out for.  Especially @ Anemani who asked, in one of my posts recently, "How do you know when you're about to exit, what does it feel like?" (paraphrased) and I answered that there is an ideal state of mind to reach and #27 &
#28 are addressing that state specifically.



I'm editing this post because the content I posted originally is copyrighted and while I've searched far and wide for the original website that it came from I can't find it, I can only find copied versions.  Now the essay isn't a published book or anything, it seems like it was just a blog post or something to that effect (maybe something like RB's Treatise on AP), but nevertheless, it's copyrighted and I don't have permission.  I'm trying to email the guy who wrote it to get permission to post it here but I the email address on the article isn't working and I'm having trouble finding him on the web (though I think I might have).

So, instead of re-producing the article in it's entirety here, I'll tell you what it's called and the author's name and maybe you can find it online yourself.  I think that I am able to post an excerpt of copyrighted material without permission, but I don't really feel like picking something from the article to post because it's all really good. 

"Astral Signposts: The Stages of Out of Body Experiences" by Charles C. Goodin

For anyone having trouble deciding if they're actually close to projecting, take a look at this if you can find it somewhere online, because he does a good job and point out different stages of the process.

I have said it before, I'll say it again.  I'm thrilled that the way I get out is helping so many. 

@ Anemani

The state of mind is the real sign that you're close to exit.  Being that you're relatively new to getting this close to projecting, you'll probably continue to feel strong exit sensations (energy rush, heavy vibes, tingling, heart center surge, rapid shallow breath, etc.) and in my experience these always end the attempt.  But, if you keep at it you'll develop the trance state more and you'll be able to achieve the proper level of trance.  Once you achieve the appropriate level of trance the sensations diminish.  You'll be told a lot that the more you practice the less intense the sensations are and that's true.  I think it's partially because you're becoming desensitized to them but I think that what's really happening is that you're understanding and achieving a state of trance that you weren't reaching before.  The big goal here is to shift awareness from your body to your mind as completely as possible.  It's the same for phasing as it is for the old style exit (in phasing though, you are "turning" your awareness rather than "pushing" it out of your body).  When you become so entranced with what's happening in your mind, you have almost no awareness of your body and so you don't feel any sensations.  It may be that the sensations are still there and you're just not aware of them (possibly, but I'm not so sure) or what I think is happening is that you have effectively "disconnected" from your brain/body and your consciousness is no longer sending signals to your body to tell it something strange is happening, something that shouldn't happen when you're awake.  (NOTE: I'm not saying that's it's unnatural to project from a waking state, I'm just saying that in your body/brain/ego's opinion it's misaligned with your typical experience.  Your body is habituated to projecting during sleep, but you have to get it used to the idea of doing it from a waking state)  What's probably happening is that you've successfully "copied" your consciousness into a form that is ready to project away from the body, but back on the body side of things, your normal consciousness is sleeping peacefully and so your body takes no notice of the fact that you just left.

So what are you going to feel at that magical moment?  Well, maybe nothing.  To be honest, the only way I know that it's time to project is when I wake (from a state of flickering consciousness, not from normal sleep) and feel that my consciousness has already started the transition and I feel myself already buzzing out.  At this point I just "push" myself the rest of the way out.  From here I have usually just managed to separate my awareness from existing solely in my body, but I'm not really out yet, I still need to do some kind of exit technique.  By this I don't mean the Rope or anything, I'm past that point.  This is where I roll-out, stand up, somersault backwards, or some other movement that will give me some forward momentum away from the body. 

I think the most important thing to notice in order to exit is what your consciousness feels like.  Do you feel fully aware?  Do you feel like you can pay attention to something (anything) or like you have enough awareness to do some method or technique?  Are you thinking at all?  Do you have enough awareness to say to yourself, "OK, I feel like I'm in the right place, let's try an exit technique now"?  If you answered yes to any of those then you're not there yet.  You want your mind to feel like it's pretty much asleep.  For example, yesterday I was doing some trance practice just to get into trance and stay in a single-minded state for as long as I could and at one point my awareness came back to a degree that I had some cognitive ability and I took a second to notice my body and see how it felt and I WAS SNORING!  It was the weirdest thing.  I was asleep but I was awake inside my body.  I mean talk about mind awake/body asleep!  I actually heard and felt myself snoring.  It kind of sucks because I've been telling my fiance for years that I don't snore.  What was funny was that I also felt a little furry body on my hand breathing (my cat, he likes to project with me) and he was snoring too, at almost the same rate as me!    But you see my point.  You want to be in such a deep trance state that your cognitive function is pretty much gone.  It's hard to explain if you haven't felt it, but the closest approximation is when you wake up early in the morning (like 4am, hours before you have to get up) and you don't really do anything, you just notice that you're awake but aren't thinking about it.  There's no internal chatter saying, "hey, I'm awake, my feet are cold, I have to pee", you are just aware with no thoughts.  That's what you want to get to.  When you can get there intentionally, you will easily leave your body. 

Besides the wonderful people here at the Astral Pulse of course.  

I just remembered that I used to be a member of this group.  It's part of a larger hub of various occult knowledge groups called 'Esoteric Online'.  I'm not sure if you have to be a member to download this stuff, but the Esoteric Online Astral Projection group has the largest collection of AP eBooks (.pdfs mostly) I've seen.  So, enjoy.

[link removed by moderator]

Salutations,

Rusty

Sorry guys, the link can't be there because most of the material is copyrighted and presumably on the site illegally then.  I want to formally apologize to all members of this forum because, while it was a simple thing to fix (notice the link was removed), I still technically broke the rules and I don't want to set a bad example.  So don't be like me and make sure that you're not posting copyrighted material without the permission of the author. 

I still recommend checking out the Esoteric Online site though, it's got a lot of communities related to all kinds of things, not just AP.  It's kind of like an Esoteric Facebook, or Meetup.  You can make your own page, showing the groups you're in, and there are a lot of knowledgeable people with a lot of good conversation going on all the time.  If you're interested in things like, Alchemy, Mystery Schools, Astrology, Sacred Geometry, Ancient Cultures, DNA, Symbolism, AP, Gnosticism, Shamanism, Lucid Dreaming, 2012, and so many other things, you might like this place.  The have so many good groups with a lot of good people.

Tiny,

Yes, it would be safe to assume that I achieved consistent success when I learned to properly achieve "Q-Mind".  I have been trying, like I said, for years, but only recently (past 8 months or so) has my practice been a disciplined and concentrated effort.  For the years prior to last summer(ish) I would casually try to project at bed time, I may have tried a couple times to use a particular method, but I never really put much effort into it.  At the time I was living the life of the wheeler and dealer, running the streets, slinging drugs, doing lots of drugs.  I had quite a few experiences of OBE type states under the influence of salvia divinorum, DMT, psilocibyn (sp?), LSD, MDMA, opium and marijuana.  But I don't count those experiences at legit OBEs, for reasons of personal philosophy.  I also wouldn't recommend anyone using any of these substances to achieve OBE (except for DMT in the form of Ayuhasca in the proper perspective), you have to combine them and take more than anyone should to achieve a proper OBE and it's just not worth it as I posted elsewhere yesterday.

But in the recent 8 months I practiced a lot of RB methods, got kind of close but no success.  It was recently (2 months) that I used some spellwork (specifically I dressed a candle and made a sigil) to lead me to the answer to my failures and it did.  Q-Mind and Frank's explanation of phasing (though I don't use phasing).

Fresco,

I have only been successfully projecting for about a month and a half, but I've been training off and on for probably 6 years now.  I would say that I have been REALLY training for about 8 months with a 2 month break from last Nov till the beginning of Jan.  In mid Jan I started practicing again and within about a month I had my fist successful projection.

However, I can now AP regularly at will.  By at will I mean that every time I lay down to do my practice I AP.  I can't just stand up and say "AP!" and poof I'm out of my body.  But any time I lay down I can get out, provided I practice under the right conditions.  I have tried to AP a couple times with adverse outcomes, but I really should have known better than to practice then anyway, I was really sore, tired, and my mind was really fatigued.  It's not really that hard once you get the hang of it. 

I have noticed "waving" sounds in regard to the ringing, but I'm gonna say that it is either because you are using your attention to make the sound "wave" OR your heart beat is effecting the sound.

I'm not particularly tired, well not any more than usual. 

But, I will say that I don't practice at night when going to bed because it's too easy to fall asleep and if you do that over and over then you will program your brain/body to think that when you do AP practice it's time to go to sleep.  That can be a pain to reprogram.

I usually practice in the afternoon after I've slept for 6-8 hours and been up for about 4-6 hours.  Actually, I feel quite rested and refreshed after I AP. 

I posted something about the buzzing somewhere else in this forum today.  I used to wait for the buzzing sensation as a queue that it was time to exit, but through recent experience I have seen that it's more like a symptom of the movement from a lower vibrational frequency to a higher one and back.  I think of it like this, we have something to focus our attention on in the physical and non-physical, but in between, when our consciousness is shifting frequency, there isn't anything "concrete" to focus on so we perceive the pure energy as a vibration or buzzing.  

I too "exit" the body upon coming up from a sleep state.  So my consciousness is flickering between awake and asleep and on one awake cycle I am feeling some buzzing which lets me know that I am in the middle of a transition.  I really don't know about re-entry though, because I have never had a spontaneous OBE, all mine are planned and intentional.  When I come back to the body I'm always pulled back.  I black out and I am suddenly aware of my body so I don't feel return buzzing.  

The only suspected return sensations I've had are waking up with a sudden falling sensation.  However, if my theory stands true, when going from physical to non, you're moving up in frequency and so the buzzing should seem to increase.  When returning you're moving from a higher frequency to a lower one so I would suspect that you ought to feel the vibrations wane.  The problem with that is that if you're in the process of moving up but something causes you to lose focus the vibrations will diminish and could be mistake for a reentry if you weren't consciously attempting to exit.

I disagree with that last bit Tiny.  When you learn to properly dissociate you've also learned to not become attached to emotions, but that doesn't mean that you learn less or don't experience them to their fullest.  It just means that you have learned that attachment is a physical thing and the attachment to emotions is in the body not the mind or heat.

I've been told (not in the astral   ) that benevolent beings who legitimately want to help will go away if you tell them that you don't want to talk right now, but malevolent beings will resist and say things like, "Ok, but you're missing out on information that could help you ascend" or "No, I'm your guide, I'm always here with you".  These things seems harmless, but a true guide respects your wishes whether its the best thing for you or not.

I commented on this 11:11 biz the other day.

Everything is supernatural avenged7x.  You are getting subconsciously pulled to it because of the energy of the object is congruent with some kind of energy that you have.

In regards to 11, numerologically it is a master number that represents illumination, i.e. enlightenment.  It also breaks down to 2, but because its a master number you don't break it down.  Though the fact that 1+1=2 is still significant because 11 contains energetic qualities associated with 2 only relative to 11.  So if 2 is about communication between individuals, 11 is about communication between the higher self and physical self. 

So, when you see 11:11 (subconsciously look at it) there's a good chance that it is a synchronistic red flag from your "higher self" saying "HEY! Pay attention! Something significant is happening".  You may just be sitting on the couch, but you could be receiving an intuitive message or something.

It just takes practice.

You should start from scratch.  Get Astral Dynamics (by Robert Bruce), Out of Body Experiences (by Robert Peterson), or go to www.astraldynamics.com

Why does it matter?

If you're trying to focus on it to OBE then one ear should be enough.  Unless it's disturbing you and making you focus on your body.

Perhaps they get answers quickly because there is a malevolent being feeding them whatever crap it can think up.

There is no such thing as morality. 

There is only scale and position.

One scale and position might be more conducive to things we think we want to achieve, like spiritual freedom and enlightenment.

Another scale and position might hinder our ability to achieve these things.

I focus on the ringing in my ears to achieve a single-minded focus.  I will often use foam ear plugs to tune out external noises so that I can only hear the ringing in my ears.  I feel a buzzing when I'm actually separating from my physical body. 

Hi Personalreality, on your blog you say you've been doing energy work prior to your obe's lately. Can I ask what you've been doing exactly?

Love reading your entires btw. And thanks for the tips in this thread - I've been getting closer to an exit with your 'non' method.
Focusing on the ringing in the ears really ramps things up for me...just gotta maintain that focus and not get too excited when the vibes kick in. I'll keep you posted.

I do the energy work that Robert Bruce sets out as a part of a projection process in Astral Dynamics.  I usually induce a light-medium trance and then (in this order, but do it however you want I guess):

1. Pre-stimulate Hands and Feet (simultaneously)
2. Arm Bounce
3. Leg Bounce
4. Whole Body Bounce
5. Whole Body Energy Circuit w. Arms

These are all techniques taught by RB in his NEW Energy Ways System  -->  http://www.astraldynamics.com/home/new-energy-ways/what-is-new.html

It's an invaluable resource and most successful OBEers here use some form of energy work because it helps you gain control of your OBEs.  From experience I can tell you that when I do energy work prior to exiting, I stay out longer, my consciousness is sharper, I have better control of my movement and I get pulled into fantasy traps/imagination traps less often.  When I don't do energy work first, I am pulled back to the body very soon after exit and I have less strength to resist the pull of my body.  I mean, what happens when you don't eat food?  You feel weak and its hard for you to function.  You can't think as clearly, you don't have any strength, you might even get the shakes or a headache and if you go long enough without food you can die.  The non-physical experience is no different.  Your form there needs food too, and I personally think that each time a projection ends abruptly (i.e. when you black out or are pulled back to your body) your non-physical form has died from malnutrition and your consciousness is then instantly flipped back to the strongest place of focus which is usually the physical body.  Luckily for us, the non-physical counterpart is invincible, it was just that particular extrusion from the body that has passed away. 

[really]

You know, I've found over the past few months that my paradigm for OBE theory and practice had a lot of little "inconsistencies" that weren't really bad or wrong, but a simple change in perspective regarding some of these things has done a lot to change the way I think about OBEs as a whole and in my opinion fueled the fire of my first exit. 

One of those inconsistencies was using terms like "body asleep" or "paralyzed".  Again, not to say that those terms are wrong, but in my personal experience, they were misleading. 

I remember a long time ago, asking people on this forum how I was supposed to make my body paralyzed, because I couldn't do it and I was sure I'd never project until I could.  More recently I spent so much time and effort trying to make my body go to sleep while I kept my mind awake that my mind would be WIDE AWAKE and my body would be in a light trance.  I've discovered through trial, error, research and contemplation that the way I was thinking about the proper state of mind and body was deceptive and was leading me to do the opposite of what I have learned I should do. 

When you think about it, dissociation from the body is what you really want.  You don't want your body to be paralyzed because let's face it, that's scary!! (and therefore disruptive and distracting)  You also don't want mind awake/body asleep (this has different meaning once you've experienced it) because you often exert too much mental effort to get to that place actively (I think it's more appropriate to think of this as a passively achieved state).  Frank describes this well when he's teaching phasing.  What you're doing when you phase is turning your attention from the outside to the inside, a 180 degree turn.  So, what is your body?  It's the outside.  And what is your "mind"?  For our purposes, it's the inside.  So what you want to do then is to "turn off" awareness of your body and shift to the awareness of your non-physical functions.  I think that the subtleties here are important.  While mind awake/body asleep or paralysis are certainly ways that this state can be achieved, they are not the actual goal (In my opinion naturally).  The real goal then is to dissociate your mind from your body, to "forget" your body, the memories of your body and most importantly the sensations associated, thus dis-associating from the experience of a physical body and an association with the non-physical aspects of your experience.

I also explained this to Eyyoshi recently, I have changed my usage of the word vibration to the word buzz.  The reason is that I don't experience bodily vibrations per se.  What I experience is a buzzing sensation as I actually exit.  I had a misconception for a long time that in order to exit I had to first feel my body vibrate.  I knew and know that everyone feels or doesn't feel different things before exit.  But I still thought that some feeling was required BEFORE the exit.  Now that I have experienced it, it's not that I feel buzzing before the exit, but rather I buzz as I exit.  So the buzzing isn't my queue that it's time to exit, it's just a sensation I feel as I move from one awareness to another.  The way I like to think of it is that while in physicality I'm very focused on the body and when I'm out of body I'm very focused on the non-physical environment.  But when I'm moving from one to the other there's a split second where I'm not specifically focused on either one, rather I'm focused on the actual vibrational frequency of the "light" in between.  Think of it like this:


----------------------------------------------------
~~~~~~~~~~  NON-PHYSICAL  ~~~~~~~~~~~~                             
----------------------------------------------------     
                                                                         ^
                        PHASE--SHIFT                              |  180 degree shift
                                                                         v
----------------------------------------------------
~   ~    ~    ~      PHYSICAL     ~    ~    ~    ~    ~
----------------------------------------------------

You can see that the non-physical experience "vibrates" faster than the physical.  That's thermodynamics.  The faster something vibrates, the more "transparent" it becomes relative to physical reality.  (i.e. solid --> liquid --> gas --> plasma --> non-physical)  The "substance" of the non-physical (perhaps it's strings) vibrates at a faster frequency than the "substance" of the physical, thereby making it undetectable to our normal physical senses and technological instruments (both of which can detect it given enough development) and allowing the non-physical realms to exist simultaneously in the same space as our physical realm.  So, in the phase-shift (for lack of a better term) there is a transition happening between the frequency of the physical and non-physical.  I mean it doesn't just jump from one to the other, it moves up a gradient of increasing or decreasing frequency.  In that in between space, there isn't any "solidified" object to focus attention on.  All that is there is abstract energy of differing frequency and our awareness moves through it when going from physical to non-physical and back.  And so, with no specific form to focus on, we just perceive the energy and it comes across as buzzing or vibrating. 

Personally I don't experience it on the way back to the physical because I usually black out and am suddenly aware of my body instead of the non-physical.  This happens (I think) because I've "run out" of usable astral energy and so i get zapped back because I can't keep it up, I'm fatigued.  So my awareness has lost.....awareness I guess, of the transition because there's no more energy to fuel the perception of the experience.   

A friend and fellow podcaster (I don't do my podcast anymore though) shared a brilliant analogy concerning this very topic.  Kind of.  

First I would like to note that shamans do ingest particular mixtures of plant extracts (DMT especially) to achieve OBE for the betterment of their tribe.  HOWEVER!!!  They also use things like rhythmic drumming to induce trance states and achieve "shamanic journeys".  A shamanic journey can be just as meaningful as an OBE.  The shamanic journey is where an individual meets their power animal or the totem animal of the tribe for example.  But one should also be aware of how the use of "drugs" is handled by a shaman.  The cultivation and preparation of the extract is just as important as the actual journey it induces.  They understand that they are being given a gift from earth and that deserves reverence.  For an easily accessible example read some of the Carlos Castaneda books.  Don Juan talks about his smoking mixture as his ally, his personal mixture that has power individually connected to him.  It's very different from the way we might go to a music festival, buy a bag of shrooms, and trip out at a phish show.  Even if you are the most spiritual person you know, I still highly doubt that you have undertaken the process of journeying with the help of a plant ally like a shaman does.  I'm not saying it's bad or wrong, not at all.  I'm just saying that the experience won't be the same.

The shamans of the world don't rely on just their plant allies though.  That is the most important point I think.  People always say, "Shamans do it!" and that's true, but they also do a lot of other things.  Anyone interested should read a book called "Darkness Visible", its about darkness meditation.  When a person goes without light for a period of time their brain stops making serotonin and starts making DMT instead.  Talk about a trip.  There are retreats (using the MindFold) where people are in complete darkness for weeks at a time.  In some cultures the shaman's apprentice (chosen at birth) lives in a cave, cut off from light, with the shaman until they turn 19 or 20.  It gives them a very unique perception of the outside world.

Anyway, the anecdote.  Learning to have OBEs and other altered state experiences is like climbing a mountain, the elusive OBE perched, waiting at the top.  As you train you are traveling up the mountain, learning the terrain, making a map of your journey.  It is arduous and challenging, but your muscles are strengthened and your wit is sharpened.  You gain not only knowledge of the mountain and the environment but you also learn about yourself, the skills you have and the skills that you need to develop.  

When someone uses "drugs" to achieve OBEs they are essentially putting on a jet pack and shooting to the top of the mountain.  But because they haven't taken the journey on foot, they are not familiar with the terrain of the mountain and thus don't know how to navigate.  So, sometimes they overshoot the mountain altogether and wind up 'somewhere' else.  Sometimes they do reach the summit with little trouble, but they haven't gained the skills that their 'flightless' counterpart has developed.  So, once they achieve that OBE they are lost and scared in a place that is perceptually uncomfortable and unknown.  Every once and a while though, someone straps on their DMT Jetpack and they make it safely to the OBE peak and they have a brilliant life changing experience and then they float easily back down, all is well.  But not really.  Because once you've had one OBE you want to have more, but unlike the traveler who went by foot, the jetpacker has no idea how to get back up the mountain without their jetpack.  So they may feel accomplished for reaching the top once, but now they are stuck at the bottom pining over memories of their trip with no idea how to get back.  Luckily for them, those who took their time and climbed the mountain, learned her curves and cliffs, and strengthened their skill set are often ready for another journey up the mountain when they bump into jetpack jimmy, pacing anxiously around the first mountainside cliff trying to find the best place to start.  They can offer ol' jetpack jimmy the wisdom that comes only from experience.  

So, in a way, the Jetpacker has indeed hindered his/her ability to journey up the mountain on foot because s/he has tasted the summit and now their mind is clouded with the memories of an experience that is very different from the one that they're attempting now.  Their perception of the OBE has become colored by the jetpack ride and an obvious as it may seem to some, the jetpacker might not realize that going up on foot is nothing like using the jetpack and the skills one needs for a jetpack ride are pretty much useless for hiking up a mountain.

It's good that you experienced an OBE because you've given yourself validation that can be a strong motivating force for further exploration.  But for true success, you ought to start from scratch and disregard your drug experience.  Write it down in a journal, but don't use that as the basis for comparison in your drug-free OBE pursuit.  

You should read "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind"

I should also say that at the time when I read it I was struggling to project for the first time and really just wanted a good method, I wasn't interested in Astral Theory, which this book has a lot of.

I have it, it's not worth the money. (In my opinion naturally)

And dense is right (i mean that in the most sarcastic way possible).  It's a lot of old theory and not a lot of practical knowledge.

It is a classic, and it's a cool read, but I think it's a book that someone should read after they've been projecting for a while.  It's really heavy in occult jargon or more appropriately, Muldoon Jargon. 

My boss gave it to me because he knew I was interested in AP.  He had a really old copy that he hadn't read in years.  He said his was given to him by a producer on a TV show that he used to be on (Haunting Evidence) who asked him if it was a legit book (because my boss is a psychic medium) and he said it was legit but "old".  By that he says he meant that it was "out-dated" or rather steeped in "superstition".  It's not superstitious like we think of superstition necessarily (like don't mess with your cord cause you'll die), but a lot of occult tradition.

I guess it's still cool to have on the bookshelf.

That sounds like a good plan.  I've been having trouble not getting distracted lately, so hopefully I can make it out of my room and up before getting off track. 

I'm not sure if this is a common experience for many people or not, but if it has happened to you and you found a way to resolve or circumvent this, let me know.

So, in my process of OBE I reach point where my consciousness is flickering between waking and sleeping.  At some point in the flickering I come back to waking and I notice that my perception has begun to shift and I feel it as a buzzing quality (I wouldn't really say it's vibrations).  Usually at this point I "push" myself out of the body and go on whatever journey is in store for that projection.  Lately though, I've noticed something that I didn't really care about in the beginning because I was just so happy to have a successful projection.  Here's what happens....

On a few of the sleep cycles in my awake/asleep flickering, I find myself dreaming.  They're always short, always lucid and as soon as I pop back into an awake cycle I am totally aware that I was just dreaming and now I'm not.  This may happen 2-3 times in a series of cycles before I project.  Sometimes it makes the actual projection a little foggy at first because it's like my stream of consciousness stayed with me through all of it (the awake, asleep, dream, and finally projection) and it takes me a second to realize that I sense a buzzing when I exit.  That's part of my cue that the wake/sleep/dream cycles are over and I'm exiting. 

Here's the problem.  Because I'm having these dreams so close in time together and the projection, and because I seem to maintain conscious awareness through all of this, my projection becomes "painted" by the dreams.  What I mean is that the projection takes on the environment of the dream, only it's static, like everything is just as it was in the dream, but nothing is moving, like a snapshot of the dream.  And this is where my projections start out.  Well, I always start in my bedroom but as soon as I walk out of my bedroom (whether I jump through the window or walk through the door) I'm in this dream replica astral environment. 

What I'm thinking might be happening is that my dream memory stuck with me and created an "intention" that then transports me (upon departure from the physical) directly to a subjectively created astral environment. 

So.  Is there a way around this or a way to move out of this environment?  I'm not really familiar with astral movement yet.  I can walk and fly and all, but I haven't yet really experimented with going anywhere besides where I pop out of my body.  I mean, i get out of my body and just start going from there and wherever I wind up is where I go.  I know I need to make a plan, I think it will help if I have a "concrete" plan ready and planted in my mind.  But if I do wind up in this astral dream environment how can I get out?