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[COLES NOTES]

sorry.

COLES NOTES

for my Canadian brethren.

[CLIFF'S NOTES]

CLIFF'S NOTES

[Note: I recommend using a MindFold and foam Earplugs.  If you don't have a MindFold, you can use a sleep mask or bandanna.  These create a "make-shift sensory deprivation chamber" which really helps me.

Forget your technique.

Forget that you're trying to project.

Intend to go to sleep.

Listen for ringing/whining sound in your ears.

Feel trance sensations.

Stare into the blackness behind your eyes.

Hold this state as long as possible.  This is the Quiescent Mind State, I call it Q-Mind.

To get an idea of what this Q-Mind is like, imagine seeing lightning in the sky.  After it flashes, you stop to listen for the subsequent clap of thunder.  In that brief moment between lightning and thunder is Q-Mind.  You are completely still and your mind is completely silent and focused, all your attention directed to listening.

Look into the blackness and imagine you just saw lightning and then you listen to the ringing in your ears, waiting for the thunder.

Don't fret if you doze off.

When you get close to projection the exit sensations will rouse you.

Wait for vibrations.  When they come you will instinctively know how to raise them. 

Leave the body.

From my recent experience I think that doing more energy work will help your projections be stronger, more stable and controllable. 

I know that I just posted a long message about my exit method and I really made myself sound like a big shot, but now that I've crossed the threshold what do I do next?

I guess my real question is, how long did it take you experienced projectors to start gaining good control (get accustomed to it all) and how long did it take you to develop more energy to create more stable projections, and were you able to easily just go anywhere immediately or did it take time?

I felt like my first real projections were a little foggy, like I was worried that they would end and that made them weak.  If any of you experienced that kind of thing, how long did it take you to become more proficient?

Eyyoshi I got out the other day for the first time and I just put up a post on how I did it.

[Why was it so hard?!?!]

I posted the other day sharing my first true OBE experience and I said that I would post again and share my method.  

Note: if you just want the method, minus my explanation of why the way I used to try to AP was wrong, just scroll to the bottom.

You may be asking yourself, "Why would I listen to this guy who just had his first OBE?  Shouldn't I listen to the people who have a lot of experience with OBE?"  And my answer to you is, no, you shouldn't listen to the experienced projectors if you're having trouble with your first projection.  Don't get me wrong, the projectors with months and years of experience are an invaluable resource.  They helped teach me a lot of things about OBEs in general and how to handle my practice.  However, the truth of the matter is that many of them have been doing this for so long that they probably don't even notice how they do it anymore, it has become a natural behavior for them, like eating, brushing their teeth, or driving.  Seriously, how often do you think about how you drive?  How easy would it be for you to teach someone how to drive?  There are so many subtleties about how you drive a car that become unconscious once you learn how to do it and it can be difficult to think it through in order to teach someone else when you've been doing it for so long.  So it might stand to reason that someone who has just had their first "successful drive out in the country" is slightly more conscious of the actions that produced that first successful trip.  That is why you should listen to me.  Plus, if you've had as much trouble with all of this as me then you'll probably be willing to listen to anything.

So with a fresh pair of eyes, let me share with you how I did it.

Why was it so hard?!?!

Before I tell you what I did right, I need to tell you what I did 'wrong' and how that made successful projection very difficult for a long time.  

When I first learned about Astral Projection I went out to buy a book and start learning how to do it.  I went to my local Borders and scoured the new age section (what an awful generalization of so many different subjects on their part) and finally found the little subsection of AP books.  I looked through a couple different ones, Astral Dynamics (RB), Astral Voyages (Bruce Goldberg), Journeys Out of The Body (Monroe), etc., etc.  I ultimately chose a book called, simply enough, Astral Projection (and the Nature of Reality) by a guy names John Magnus.  Most of you probably have never heard of it, he seems to be a one-hit-wonder.  However, his book was really good for my first experience (I really chose it because I liked the cover the best).  The only method he really gave was to try to maintain awareness while to went to sleep at night, and unfortunately I could never stay awake.  With little success I moved on and didn't think about AP for a while.  

Eventually I got interested again and bought RB and Brian Mercer's 90 Day Guide to AP.  As interested as I was, I couldn't ever make myself stick to the schedule and I eventually lost interest and moved on to other metaphysical/philosophical type things.  Then, about a year ago I started working at a metaphysical bookshop and one day came across Astral Dynamics.  I wasn't even going to buy it at first, but I was really interested in developing my sensitivity to subtle energies, especially in respect to being able to feel the vibrations of crystals and gemstones.  Crystals are a focus of my store and I always had customers asking me to help them pick the right one for them and I had seen my boss hold crystals and "feel" which one had the most intense vibrations and I wanted to do that.  It was recommended to me that I do some kind of energy work, like Tai Chi or Reiki.  I Googled energy work and came across the Astral Dynamics site and saw the NEW section.  I liked what I saw, so I bought AD and reading it completely renewed my interest in AP.  

I started practicing immediately.  I followed RB's methods completely and I practiced everyday.  Within just a few short weeks of doing RB's methods I started to see results.

My typical procedure went like this:

Deep Breathing (couple minutes)
Progressive Relaxation
Deep Breathing
Hand and Feet Stimulation
Deep Breathing
Energy Bounce Arms, Legs, Body
Deep Breathing
Full-Body Circuit
Deep Breathing
Trance Induction (with falling sensation)
Deep Breathing
Energy Center Stimulation
Deep Breathing
Energy Body Loosening
Exit-Procedure (usually rope method)

I usually did all of this sitting in a reading chair.  It isn't a recliner, it's cushioned, and has a high back for good neck and head support.  For much of my practice with this technique I had good results.  Nearly every time I practiced I would experience very intense exit sensations, like rapid heart beat, fluttering eyelids, rapid shallow breathing, rushes of energy in my torso, etc.  But for some reason I could never exit.  I would feel trance symptoms, like the feeling of floating and I would think that my "astral body" was separated and was just stuck and I would strain and try to force myself to float away but all I ever wound up doing was tensing my muscles and ruining my trance.  I got tired of always getting that far and never getting out and so I decided to lay off for a while and see if taking a break helped.  

After a couple months I decided to try again.  I bought the new edition of AD, thinking that there might be some new info in it that could help me.  I started my practice again and I got the exact same results.  I didn't know what to do so I performed a magickal ritual to show me the direction my practice needed to go in order for me to successfully AP.  That ritual brought me back to Astral Pulse Forum which started me on the road to success (this was about 1 and 1/2 months ago).  

Now, before I move on and tell you what combination of things brought me to success, let me tell you what was 'wrong' about my old methods.  There wasn't really anything wrong with the RB methods, there was just something missing.  What was missing was a description about the state of mind needed to get out.  RB does describe it but then presents SO MUCH other material that you get distracted from what I feel is the most important aspect.  What was wrong with this approach was that as a novice I hadn't yet discovered the subtleties of going on the drive that is AP.  The simple error on my part was putting too much effort into the techniques themselves and less effort in achieving the right state of mind.  I feel like RB left the importance of state of mind out of Astral Dynamics.  I think this because, like I said before, experienced projectors tend to neglect the subtleties when teaching because they are second nature to them.  I'll bet that when you do the online school, particularly because it uses the "Journeys Out of Body" Hemi Sync, that RB and his fellow teachers get the point across of the importance of state of mind.

What did I finally do right?

When I finally cam back around to the Astral Pulse Forum, I stumbled on Frank's phasing method.  It wasn't entirely Frank's method that I was interested in.  What I was curious about what how he was able to phase/project by just "noticing" when all these years I had been doing all kinds of techniques and processes and energy work and exercises with no success.  It occurred to me that there was something different going on here, something that didn't come through in AD.  I was really at a loss as to what to look for and where to find it so I just started to go through the authors that I hadn't read before.  I got Robert Peterson's first book and realized that I actually had read part of it online years ago.  But back then, the part I read didn't make as much sense because I was still focused on the the technique, not the preparation.  This time around when I read one particular chapter of his book it all clicked into place.

I had been coming to this realization for a while through years of contemplation on Astral Theory, but it never really solidified until recently.  I had basically been coming to the same understanding as Frank.  My ultimate error with the RB material was that I took it very literally.  I thought that I was doing what I was doing because I had an Astral Body that I literally needed to separate from my physical body.  Now I don't want to say that we don't have energy bodies, what I'm saying is that any energy bodies we do have (besides the etheric, the one that shares out body all the time and keeps us alive) don't exist here in our physical body per se.  I think that when we project, it's not that our normal awareness copies itself out from our body into an astral double that was generated for that experience, but rather our awareness shifts to a "subtle body" that already exists at a different vibratory rate than our physical body.  I also don't really believe that we ever truly inhabit out physical body, we are just focused here.  We exist simultaneously through all of the vibratory frequencies of existence.  To me, its like our physical body is just transmitting sensory data to our consciousness that exists somewhere else.  To project is less a matter of "phasing" to a different frequency and more about out consciousness changing the input source of sensory data.  

[Another, slightly less important, revelation I had through this whole process was that every one of these different vibratory realities is relatively physical.  By that I mean that to the awarenesses that inhabit that space, it is like what we describe as physical.  We only describe our reality as physical because any time someone does experience something else, it's always at a vibratory rate that's higher than this.  For some reason we assume that we are at "the bottom" of the spectrum, but I don't see any reason to assume that the spectrum isn't infinite in both directions.]

So why is this relevant?  Because it means that the trick isn't in literally shifting your awareness into an astral double generated by your body.  Though the "physics" behind the process may indeed be what RB describes, for all intents and purposes this idea is just misleading.  What is important is being able to "disconnect" the input of sensory data from the 'physical' body and change it to the 'astral body'.  SO!  How does one do this?

Mostly by dissociation.

Here is the short and sweet method that got me out:  

The first thing you should do is forget every method or technique you know, you won't need it right now.  

Ideally wait until you are a little sleepy.  I would try in the morning after you wake up or in the late afternoon/early evening when you feel sleepy enough for a nap.  

Lay down somewhere that you could fall asleep.  (I know it sounds completely backwards)

Close your eyes and let yourself drift off like you were going to sleep.

Maintain just enough consciousness to be aware of the ringing/whining sound in your ears.  Even if you don't hear it at first just keep trying and you will eventually.  I like to get those foam ear plugs and put them in because it ensures there won't be interference from outside sounds.  It will just be you and your inner ear sounds.  

If you want to speed it up a little first you can throw in a little bit of the trance induction falling sensation. But as soon as you feel some light trance sensations stop the falling and just go to sleep while listening to the sound.

You should start to feel some heavy trance symptoms really fast.  As soon as you do you will add another little focusing point, the center of the blackness behind your eyes or your third eye.  Either way.  Focus on the blackness and the sound in your ears.  

Here is the most important part of all of this.  DO NOT treat this like a method.  Just act like you're going to sleep and barely paying attention to the sound and blackness.  In fact you may lightly fall asleep a few times, but its ok, that's really what you want because when you regain awareness you'll be very dissociated from your body.  

For me this tends to take about and hour and a half.  Usually because I lightly fall asleep a few times, but also when you're in this deep state time goes by really fast.  Honestly I feel like I've only been laying down for about 10 minutes each time.  

I had my first successful projection the other day with this method and I have used it to replicate my projection every day since.  I already used it twice today.

What you want through all of this is to be uninterested.  You want to be receptive, as if you don't care whether you project or not.  It's your interest in projection that inhibits you and keeps you to aware of the sensory input from your body.  Once you make it out once, the rest will be down hill.  

Please feel free to ask me questions.  I will do everything I can to help those who are having difficulty getting out.  I want nothing more than for all of you to be able to experience this too.  You can do it, I promise.

I just had my first successful OBE the other day too. 

Congratulations

So I posted a couple weeks back venting about my mountains of effort and a strange internal drive to AP that almost seemed alien, like someone else took over my body and made me practice.

I posted again the other day with a partial success story.  I was only out for about 5-10 seconds and my consciousness was pretty foggy.  Yet I was still reasonably sure that I actually projected.

I was excited about it but it was under abnormal circumstances so I worried that it was a fluke that I couldn't reproduce in a controlled way.

Well.  Yesterday I extinguished my concerns.  I got off of work early because of bad weather and decided to practice when I got home.  My mind felt right and I was a little tired and everything came together really well. 

The whole experience took about 1 & 1/2 hours because I fell asleep for a little bit.  When I woke up I felt a slight vibration in my head and somehow I instinctively knew how to increase their intensity.  It was actually really easy once it started.  I increased the vibration to a point where I felt a bone deep tickle and then I just shifted out of the body. It was really that simple.

I have a journal of what actually happened during the OBE which can be read here........astrallyknown.livejournal.com...........

I went out the first time for about a minute, maybe two, then I blacked out and was back in my body.  When I became aware of being in the physical again I still felt vibrations and decided to try again.  And again I got out with relative ease. I stayed out for about 30 seconds then blacked out and was in my body.  I assumed I was done, that I couldn't go out again even if I wanted too.  I started thinking about how excited I was and how much I wanted to try again and without pause the vibrations just came back and I was out, this time for about a minute.

I am going to write another post later about the specific "method" that got me out.  Since this was my first real OBE in which I consciously got out and explored a bit, my perspective might help since its all still new to me.  You know, 'fresh eyes'.

I will say, anyone doubting energy work should reconsider.  Throughout the course of my 3 OBEs I progressively felt weaker with each subsequent projection.  I haven't done much energy work lately so I don't think the energy work is necessary to get out but if you don't have energy stored up your projection wont be very long.

I have only gotten out once.  I don't even know if I want to count that time though because I was only out for like 10 seconds at the most and I only floated above my body and was immediately sucked back in.

This is me at a Mayan Fire Ceremony with a Mayan Shaman (Don Carlos Barrios) and Max the Ancient Crystal Skull in September 2009




This is just me.

Not really.  I know I must dream, I really don't think it's possible for someone to never dream.  Certainly there are dreamless sleeps, like medically induced ones (did you ever see/read sphere?).  But for a person who sleeps "normally/naturally" dreams happen. 

But apparently not everyone remembers their dreams.  I am one of those people.

When I was younger I used to remember dreams, not all the time, but enough to know I had them.  When I got to high school I just stopped remembering dreams.  So when i wake up it's like I never dream.  I thought it was because I started smoking pot in high school, even though a lot of friends had more vivid dreams when they smoked.  But I quit smoking pot a few years back and I still don't remember my dreams. 

Granted I haven't put as much effort into remembering my dreams as I have AP practice.  But you would think that by doing AP practice I would also strengthen my dream memory because they are kind of similar when it comes to memory.  I did start a dream journal (and an AP journal).  I have done a lot of stuff from waking up a couple hours early and going back to bed.  I have tried a lot of the Lucid Dream induction methods.  I have listened to a lot of binural beats and the brainwave generator (from 90-Day Guide to AP) that are supposed to help induce Lucid Dreams and just help you have more vivid/memorable dreams.  Still, nada.  I never remember dreams anymore.

I don't know what wrong.  I'm not on any medication that would mess with memory or sleep.  I don't do drugs anymore.  I do AP practice all the time.  BUT STILL NOTHING.  It's kind of worrisome.  I mean not really. but I am kind of curious as to why I can't seem to remember dreams.  Anyone else have this problem?

I have to agree with the energy body loosening.  I know that RB says it's optional in Astral Dynamics and because of that I always assumed that meant unnecessary and probably irrelevant.  I thought it was something that might be a good way to strengthen control of the astral body but ultimately wouldn't effect how well I could leave the body.  Now I really strongly disagree with my old sentiment.  Energy Body Loosening is one of the most important parts of my practice now.

I also want to say that through my practice I have determined that the energy body loosening itself is a form of energy raising.  A big part of the whole energy raising process is to bring attention to different areas of your body.  Your attention is what can direct energy.  That's why the full body circuit is just rolling your attention around your body in a circuit that ultimately stores that attention energy in your solar plexus (not the solar plexus chakra).  When you do energy body loosening exercises you are using your attention to move your energy body as a whole.  From my experience this does a lot to raise the energetic state of my energy bodies.  It's like rubbing your socks on the carpet and building up static.  When you move your energy body you are loosening it, but you're doing it against a degree of resistance.  As you do it more (in one session and over time) it gets progressively easier because it's like you're heating it up thereby allowing it to slide more easily with less resistance.  This practice itself has not only generated a lot of exit sensations (like vibrations), it has also carried over into my daily life by enhancing my sensitivity to subtle energies.

In my opinion you can use energy body loosening as a substitute for the whole energy raising process when you're short on time.  I know it may sound weird, but if you think about the principles behind energy work, the body loosening has a lot in common with a lot of the other energy work practices that RB teaches. 

In reference to your actual question, there is no right way to do projection practice.  I started out doing RB's method and nothing else and it helped me energetically but I still wasn't progressing in the OBE department like I wanted too.  So I moved on to other methods and techniques and practices and I've made a lot more development through them.  The point is that there are tons of different ways to achieve OBE.  And in truth no one else's method can ever work for you.  The basic framework may work, but when it comes down to it, there are infinitely unique subtleties about the way you perceive your experience that will make your practice different.  And that's what makes OBE work hard.  There is no right way to do it, there is only your own way.  You can't learn your way from a book, you just have to get in there and try.  Through trial and error you will begin to formulate a process of things that you find successful.

Take the methods you read about and follow them very loosely.  Be prepared to have to tweak and edit them.  That's how you'll be successful.

Exactly. No one ever said that to me though.  You read about all these techniques but no one ever really describes that passive mind.  You said it perfectly too, you have to behave like you're going to sleep.

I feel like I've wasted years of practice because I wasn't including that fundamental bit of being passive and receptive instead of active and intently.  Granted, I have learned a lot about focus and trance.  But I feel like I could have done so much more with my years of work had I known about this "Q-Mind".

Maybe I should have read Peterson, then Bruce.  I might have been able to do more work with astral dynamics info with the conceptual info from Peterson's books.

Oh well.  The floodgates are open now.

It took an hour because for a long time I kept losing focus.  It took me about 20 minutes to enter an appropriately relaxed trance state.  Once I was there it took about another 30-40 minutes of trying to keep my attention focused on both the "whining" in my ears and the blackness behind my eyes without putting too much interest in the whole process.

But the time it took was a very good experience because I learned a lot about what I needed to do that no one had ever really said in a simple way to me before.  First, people say "you're trying too hard" all the time, but no one elaborates on what that really means.  Kepple touched on it when he said people fuss to much with methods and techniques.  You almost have to be completely uninterested in whether you project or not.  Its not that you shouldn't try "too hard", bit rather that you pretty much shouldn't try at all.  When we try through methods and techniques, we engage our awareness too much and have trouble dissociating from the body.  Granted some people naturally do this and don't see it as any big task.  For the rest of us, entering the trance state is a good start.  But as soon as you feel those tell-tale trance symptoms you need to withdraw your awareness and focus it down to a tiny thread.

Robert Peterson calls this the quiescent state of mind, I call it Q-Mind.  He describes it with a great analogy.  When you're outside on a warm summer night and you see some heat lightning or some from a storm in the distance, sometimes you stop to listen for the subsequent thunder. At that moment your mind is completely clear and focused, like it was just put in suspended animation.  You have turned almost all of your atention to your ears and you wait.  This is Q-Mind.  One of the ways he recommends recreating it is by listening to the "whining" sound that everyone has in their ears to a greater or lesser degree.

When you get to Q-Mind your awareness is focus on such a singular, specific thing that is like it has been narrowed to a thread.  In this state you become very passive the longer you hold your focus.  If you do this once you've already induced trance to the point that you can just barely feel your extremities, the vibrations will start within a few minutes.  When the do start you and vary your degree of focus and observe how the intensity of the vibrations change. 

One of the most important aspects of the whole process though is the very subtle difference of focusing on the "whining" vs. focusing on "focusing on the whining" as a technique.  That difference is what allows you to dissociate from your body enough to shift the perspective of your awareness.

Its subtle, I know.   But it seems to be an important difference.  When you're just passively focusing on the sound you feel more relaxed and its a noticeable difference.  One place that you can look to to determine where your focus really lies is the movement of your eyes.  If you're focusing on doing a technique, and you haven't narrowed your consciousness enough, your eyeballs will make little movements (not like REM) and may even feel strained.  If you're just focusing on the whining for the sake of focusing then your eyes will be still, like you're going to sleep.

Another way to achieve Q-Mind besides the whining sound is to focus on the blackness behind your eyes. But this can be tricky because you don't want to put much interest in it.  Again, you can tell if you're "trying too hard" by noticing if your eyes are moving or if they feel sore/strained.  They should be still. Here the subtle difference is like looking out of your eyes vs. looking through them.  Once you experience it you'll know what I mean.  You look out of your eyes in normal waking consciousness, but when you look through them its like you've been sucked to the back of your head and you're looking out your eyes and on to something in the distance.  This focusing (or noticing) method is harder for me to do in the beginning, because I'm usually still too awake and invested in the process.  My eyes won't relax at this point.  So I will usually start by listening to the sound in my ears and then later once I've narrowed my consciousness more I include staring into the blackness as a focus. Like listening for the thunder, I look into the blackness like I'm expecting to see something any second.

So towards the end I will focus on the sound in my ears and the blackness simultaneously.  Sometimes I will even visualize that my ears and the center of my field of vision in the blackness are connected by a line.  This forms a triangle and I see my consciousness as an ever shrinking point/thread in the center of the triangle (about where the pineal gland is). 

All of this combined gets the vibrations to start.  Then I just held out a little longer and I was out of the body.  It took a while to get a good grip on Q-Mind in a way that was secure enough to hold on to.  Once I got to that point it was less than a minute or two until I was out.


I hope all that made sense.  It was quite the earth rattling revelation to me after that session was over.  I'm the kind of person that needs to understand the principles behind a technique. I need to know how and why something works before I can put it to use.  This experience shed a lot of light on what actually needs to take place to get out.

Let me know if I can answer questions about my explanation of my process.

Rusty

I'm 95% sure that I had a successful projection yesterday. 

I used a combination of the Kepple/Monroe "Noticing" method and Robert Peterson's "Listen to the whining in your ears to narrow your consciousness down to a thread" method.  One of the most important aspects of my session that stood out to me was that I went into it intending to project, however, I was just going to take a nap.  It was that difference between intently working on methods and choosing to be "uninterested" in what's happening that did it.  I was just being receptive to whatever happened. 

It took about an hour because I was dancing around on the edge of napping for a while.  But I got to a point where I started getting some vibrations and I learned that I could change their intensity by focusing my mind to a thread and then unfocusing.  So I focused for as long as I could and then BAM!  I got really intense vibrations that tickled my body so much that I almost backed out.  I separated from my body, rose about a foot above it, then for some reason my awareness rotated 90 degrees.  I was still parallel to my body in that I was "laying down" but my head was now facing to my body's left arm.  Right as I turned and took a moment to try to turn on my astral vision I got this feeling that I was suffocating.  I just couldn't breathe all of a sudden. I wouldn't expect to continue breathing once I'm out of my body but I also wouldn't expect to feel like I was suffocating unless I was really focused on the fact that i wasn't breathing.  The issue is, I wasn't thinking about it at all.  I was almost astrally peeing myself because I was out of the body, so I don't know where this whole suffocation bit came from.  Either way, it pulled me right back to my body and I came too breathing normally. 

I don't know what happened with the suffocating thing, but it ruined my first OBE.  Nevertheless, I successfully got out.  I only have 5% doubt because I had been teetering in and out of sleep.  But I am almost positive it wasn't a dream because I didn't have an uninterrupted stream of consciousness.  I was aware for the 20 minutes up to the exit, through the exit, through the OBE, and back into my body, then another 5 minutes that I laid there until I got up. 

Whatever the cause of the suffocation feeling, this was helpful because it gave me validation and it helped me recognize the state of mind I need to achieve. 

There is a technique I have been using for quite some time to help me with negative people / emotions. If you must deal with the individual personally (i.e. at work) then you can create a shield around your energy body. This shield can act as a mirror. All negative thoughts / emotions aimed at you can be re-directed somewhere else. You can send them back to the individual but that may not be good or you can send them to a place far away.

I have used this technique when working in groups and some of the members will get frustrated with each other. I then create the 'mirror' shield around both of them and within a couple of minutes they will be laughing and having a good time. 

I do that too!

I also put a feng shui mirror on my front door (convex) to reflect whatever my neighbors bring around my house.  I also keep hematite under my door mat and under the floor mat in my car to neutralize any kind of negative emotions/energies that I may have inadvertently picked up during the day

In my non-expert opinion I think you're putting too much pressure on yourself and that may be blocking you for achieving an OBE.

That's slightly true.  I have acknowledged that I was "trying too hard" and that has inhibited me in the past.  And I'm not trying to dispute that possibility now, it's just that the experience is different this time around.  I don't feel like I am pushing myself to achieve OBEs, I feel like I am being pushed by something else.  And it's not just AP and other types of projection, but all kinds of metaphysical abilities.  I've been studying this stuff for a long time and I have been practicing different types of psychic/AP experience for a long time.  But it's never felt like it does now, and by that I mean that it literally feels like I'm going to explode into this psychic experience that will be massively overwhelming.  For some reason I can't release this build-up.  I really do want to successfully have OBEs and exercise my psychic muscles, but lately it hasn't felt like something I want to do, but rather something I have to do.  It's a difficult experience to explain.

I've never been disciplined about anything in my life, but over the past month and a half I have practiced AP every single day.  I practice every night when I go to bed (but who wouldn't it's a great time when you don't have much available free time) and I usually find at least 2 hours a day that I can sit/lay down and practice.  I'm really not exaggerating when I say this either.  It's the strangest thing.  I think i was more determined to AP 2 years ago but I didn't practice like this.  I really feel like someone else takes over my body as soon as I've got enough time to practice. 

It's just weird.

It's interesting that you mention 2012.  I'm actually in the process of writing a short book to sell at my store that touches on the concept slightly.  Not so much on what, if anything, will happen.  Kind of the opposite really and you hit the nail on the head.  It's just not practical to quit and wait for something to happen.  And we can't learn about our realities from anyone else, it has to be a subjective exploration.  We can't just stop and think that the universe will just bump us up evolutionarily. 

Some of the information you see in "conspiracy theories" isn't necessarily too far off.  These days I just call it conspiracy research.  Conspiracy theory is equated with crack-pots and cult leaders, but the idea of conspiracy is still entirely legitimate.  It's simply the planning and orchestrating of some action that defies common welfare or the prevalent power structure.  Some of the more extreme stuff aside, the basic concept behind much of modern conspiracy research is that we (the masses) have been programmed/conditioned/brainwashed to deny our spiritual heritage in favor of futile mundane lifestyles.  There are some "theories" as to who's doing it and why.  Like David Icke says the perpetrators are interdimensional-extraterrestrial beings that manifest as reptilians and they feed off of heavy/thick vibrational energy that we experience as "negative" emotions (fear being the biggest).  Someone like Alex Jones, who is mostly just concerned with the material side of things, will acknowledge that the perpetrators believe they are a part of some "satanic cult" that has signed a dark contract with ol' Beelzebub himself.  But Alex Jones seems to think they're whack jobs because of it.  But the common thread amongst all of these conspiracy researchers is that we are being controlled and manipulated in such a way as to inhibit our true power.  Which brings us back around to Astral Projection because it is part of that power, the ability to perceive our total existence.  This is why kids are taught in school that imagination just isn't real and in order to be "cool" (or a productive member of society) they must abandon their natural magick and conform. 

In regards to 2012, it seems to me that whatever may or may not happen will be our doing.  I mean that we will create that reality, we are creating that reality.  There may indeed be some force that is giving us a push but it ultimately up to us how we use it.  My only real reason for believing that there is some force pushing us is because there seems to be some kind of catalyst that is bringing out our old wounds and making us deal with them on an individual and mass level.  The shadow self that I was talking about is being poked and woken up so that we will all have to face it.  What will decide our "fate" is how we handle that shadow. It seems to me that we're not handling it so well.  Our entire reality is one great big reflection of our mass shadow and the world doesn't really show much peace and harmony with the rest of existence.  However, it is necessary that we experience this.  Otherwise we wouldn't.  If we were already complete we wouldn't be here.  If there were some mass conspiracy that treated us a cattle to be prodded then it would make sense that the way they would cope with an impending opportunity for spiritual evolution would be to force us to confront our shadow selves (collective and individual) at a pace that is too fast for us to handle, thereby causing a break in our collective psyche which would (technically by our own doing) put a halt to any evolution.  But, humans are also very powerful beings and our true will may surprise us all.

And, whatever the cause, we truly do seem to be experiencing a very large confrontation with our shadow selves.  In regards to your situation, your reality is a reflection of your inner reality and in my opinion they are one and the same reality.  The inner part is the real substance and the outer side is just a projection, like the movie being projected on the screen by the film projector.  The film (your inner reality) is where the real substance is, the projector (you) acts as the experiencing middle man, and the movie (outer reality) is just a picture.  To change the picture, you have to change the film. 

I'm having the exact same problem. I have managed to have some lucid dreams, but only 2 really significant ones. Other than that, not much. I usually wake up around 3:00 am to try and have an OBE, but I usually just end up relaxing myself back to sleep. I think I know what's holding me back though. I allow too much negative energy around me. I asked this question to some people on this board and they confirmed my suspicions. I have to figure out how to change that. 

I can help with that also.  Like I said, I work in a metaphysical bookshop so a lot of what I do during the day is help people deal with "negative energy problems".  Sometimes it come across as "bad luck", sometimes it manifests as "hauntings" (and I say haunting to mean a wide variety of things that have nothing to do with a genuine haunting, but that's what people call it when they come in), other times it presents as a blockage or difficulty with energy related issues.

There are a few easy things you can do.
1) Get a white sage wand or loose leaves and smudge your home, yourself, and especially the space where you do projection work.  Smudging is really easy to do, just get the sage, set it on fire and let the smoke go all through the places that you smudge.  I like to move the sage in a spiral/circle motion as I move it through my space, making sure to get smoke in every nook and cranny of the room.  You can also use just a couple of leaves to smudge yourself and help release any "negative energies" that you have in your energy system.

2) Carry some black crystals/gemstones with you.  You can also use some dark brown crystals, like Labradorite or it's higher resonance brother, Spectrolite.  My favorite protection stone is Black Tourmaline (Schorl), but you could also use Rainbow Obsidian, Black Onyx, Jet, Black Agate, or any other black crystal you find.  There are also a couple of stones that are helpful because of how they effect you and the type of energy your put around yourself.  Stones like Amethyst, Citrine, Kyanite, Amazonite, Lapis Lazuli, Celestite, Selenite, Rose Quartz, any other Quartz, etc. can all help you make sure you're not contributing to the negative energy and it can help you recognize and not attract negative energy.  These stones have unique metaphysical properties that I recommend looking up because you can get a lot more out of them than just protection. 

There is pretty good crystal information at these websites:

www.shimmerlings.com
http://spiritofisis.org/index_files/info_crystals.htm

There are also quite a few stones that can be helpful in Astral Projection/OBE work.  Their properties range from helping conscious projection to protection during projection to remembering the experience when you return.  There are also many that are associated with shamanic journeying (which I think is pretty close to Monroe's F10) and other types of "soul-journeying".  Some good AP stones are amethyst (put under your pillow while sleeping), Cavansite, Ulexite (really helps with visualization), Zebra Jasper, Bismuth (these are artificially grown in a lab which usually negates their metaphysical properties, but this is one of the few stones that is still considered to be useful after it's been altered, other examples are things like Aqua Aura Quartz or Siberian Blue Quartz), Merlinite (sometimes called dendrite opal, though there is no opal in it), and one of my favorites Mochi Balls/Boji Stones/Shaman's Stones.  You can also use stones for psychic development like Lapis Lazuli, Larimar, Azurite, Shattuckite, Chrysocolla, etc. (you may notice a theme here if you see these stones, they're all blue/violet which associates them with the 3rd eye).  And since I have mentioned the 3rd Eye, which is discussed here a lot, as long as you learn the color associations of the chakras you can find crystals that are attuned to the chakras.  Stones of the same color can help energize and clear Chakras.

Before I move on to the last points, I want to say that my favorite stone is Kyanite and for good reason.  Kyanite can cleanse and align all Chakras and Subtle Bodies (Energy Centers and Energy Bodies) with no conscious direction.  It can also energize and release blockages with some conscious direction.  I bring it up because when you combine it with the N.E.W. energy work it really enhances that practice.  Using the Kyanite as my "awareness finger" for some of my exercises has really heightened my sensitivity to subtle energies.  It is also one of only a few self-cleansing stones, only it takes negative energy and transmutes it to "positive" energy.  (and when I say +/- energy I mean that in a subjective sense.  scientifically it's often positively charged things that are harmful, like positively charged ions produced by electronic equipment)

3) Practice surrounding yourself with "white light" regularly.  Just visualize being surrounded by white light.  Even Monroe uses the exercise.  But beyond just yourself you can use that white light to protect your home and other people.  You can do larger areas by visualizing a beam of white light coming out of your finger and tracing a boundary around your space.

I want to clarify that when I talk about these negative energies, I don't just mean harmful "spirits" or something.  While that can be a legitimate concern, particularly "Astral Hangers-On" or Astral Wildlife/Elementals that latch on to your energy and feed off it (which isn't particularly dangerous, but can be annoying over time, I don't want people to fear these things because you generally have more power), that's not all I'm talking about.  I also just mean negative influences, like naysayers or people who make fun of you or put you down for the beliefs/practices you have.  Often these people are in our lives because somewhere deep inside we feel the same way and we have attracted these types of people to ourselves.  Our environment is a mirror that reflects our shadows (shadow-self; relevant to psychology) back to us. 

4) That said, there are types of shamanic journeying and other subconscious work you can do to release these shadow beliefs.  I recommend a book called "Healing the Shadow" by Ross Bishop and The Gateway Experience Hemi-Sync set from the Monroe Institue because one of the biggest parts of the set is learning how to heal and charge yourself energetically and make positive changes in your life.


I have to go to class now, but I'm thinking about making more comprehensive list of things you can do to protect/heal yourself soon so keep your eyes open.

Rusty

[you]

Our existence is based in infinity, in that it is an infinitely complex and infinitely extending infinite collection of systems, all interpenetrating each other.  Together they form a continuum of "reality" that moves infinitely in either direction.  For example, the distance between an electron and the nucleus that it orbits is greater to scale than the distance between many galaxies.  That system of an atom is likely another world like our own, and in turn we are likely a universe inside of an "electron" that exists inside the leg of some being. 

When we consider the "expansion" of our universe it seems that all things are born out of one cause.  There is no cause and effect, but rather one cause and one continuous effect (which might be interpreted as intentional creation).  But all of the folks in this forum have come across experiences that have shown them how much more vast our "reality" is.  It exists in multiple dimension simultaneously. 

However. When it all comes down to it, what can you possibly KNOW besides your subjective experience?  Which leads me to believe that such a thing as objectivity, something that we could measure and be sure of its existence independent of ourselves, is absolutely and utterly wasteful.  I don't see waste anywhere else in this universe.  In fact, everything being equally made of energy, the universe never wastes any of it.  Energy just get moved around.  So why have an objective reality if all consciousness is a subjective experience? 

Point being.  It's all in your head.  You created it.  You created me, you created you, and you created the entirety of the universe for the sake of your experience.  As I did too.  Just so happens that you and I are the same consciousness experiencing itself subjectively from a different scale and position. This wasn't founded on nothingness.  We are nothingness, we are just a thought being thought by ourselves.

I've been at this AP/OBE/etc. work for about 6 months now.  I am practicing almost every day, any time I get a spare moment.  Every night I practice walking the line between awake and asleep.  Every morning that I don't have to be up for work or class I stay in bed and practice.  I have been filling my everyday awareness with OBE books, ebooks, websites, talking to people about it (I work in a metaphysical bookshop so this is normal work discussion), etc.  Each night I declare/intend to gain awareness during an OBE and that I AP easily.  I have started using the Gateway Experience again recently.  I do energy work every day (whether it is N.E.W. or other occult methods).  I even started doing yoga to help with relaxation (and I've never liked yoga).  I changed my diet (not really for AP, but one would think that it might help).  I started to keep a dream journal and a "book of shadows", yet I still barely ever remember any dreams which has always been a problem for me. 

I just don't know what to do anymore.  I have such a strong desire to achieve the OBE and other metaphysical type experiences, that I may very well explode someday soon.  Quitting is just out of the question for me.  But I am becoming restless and frustrated. 

Within the past couple weeks I've been adjusting my practice from the "techniques" given by Robert Bruce to some of the techniques used by Monroe and Frank (i.e. phasing).  In the past I have come "close" to successful conscious AP with 'Astral Dynamics'.  But every time I got "close" I would lose it because the physiological sensations were to strong.  I wouldn't intentionally back out, but my heart center would "beat" so fast that I couldn't ignore it no matter how much I tried, as was the case with my eyes which would flutter so furiously that they would "open" (physically or astrally I don't know, but it always broke my concentration on climbing the rope).  As all this was happening my muscles would tighten and draw all my attention to my body.

Lately with the Monroe/Frank type practice I have been able to maintain trance but I haven't gotten anywhere close to projection (as far as I can tell).  From what I understand, you don't have the same exit sensations through the phasing "method", but I'm not even getting to a point where a shift might happen.  I keep hearing about hypnagogic imagery and I'm familiar with the hypnagogic and the hypnapompic states but I've never experienced the imagery people keep referencing. 

I'm not going to stop trying, but I'm really getting a bit distressed over it all.  I feel like I've got all of these "abilities" bubbling up inside of me and I just can't find the cork to let it all out.  I've got all the knowledge, but the experience is missing.  I just can't seem to cross that line.

Thanks for letting me vent.

This might be a good situation to try binural beats.  They induce trance within minutes.  Though relying on them will only hurt you in the long run.  But it may help you gain some subjective validation, which could very well be the push you need to do it on your own.

The fastest way I can enter trance is by maintaining consciousness when I'm in bed at night going to sleep.  You can feel the "falling" sensation in your body most of the time and that gives you a point of reference to recreate the feeling when you try to induce trance at other times.

I have a 'friend' that downloaded all the Gateway CD's. He borrowed them to me and I listened to every one of them. I found them to be rather boring and never worked for me. But everyone is different so give it a shot and see what happens.

Yea, they are kind of boring.  Either Monroe is talking to fast or he's talking to slow and it leaves me out of "Hemi-Sync" with his instruction.  However, after reading more about what the whole set is for, it makes more sense and I appreciate what it's all about.  I thought it was just for projection training, but now I can see that it's really there for developing knowledge and experience of the energy bodies and altered states.  Using these discs has helped me overcome problems with falling asleep as well as "toughen" me up when it comes to walking that line of the borderland state.

I did use "Condition D" from the Journeys Out of Body Discs to layer underneath some of my own hypnosis scripts.  It's great because it induces the trance really fast and opens me up to receive the hypnosis.  I helped my fiance "cure" her insomnia with my Hemi-Sync/Hypnosis mash-ups. 

You should be able to synthesize something like that on your own in the astral.  We can each have our own personal "imagination meth lab". 

The problem with using drugs to achieve AP or other altered states is that in the "western world" the quality of and connection to the drugs is usually very poor.  What I mean by that is that the people who use substances to induce altered states (like shamans) don't just buy some [insert drug name here] and trip out.  These people have an intimate relationship with the plant that helps them on their journey (I wouldn't trust artificially synthesized drugs like LSD, yes I know it was synthesized from ergot, but the process is entirely different than the one used by a shaman to produce his ally).  The shaman often grows the plant themselves or journeys into the natural environment around them to harvest just enough for their purposes.  They have a reverence for the plant that we often lack in the western world.  The actual process of turning the raw plant into something that can be ingested is one of love.  Each step is important and the process isn't just about making the drug, its a ritual.  What they are doing is a magickal ritual to "invoke" and "worship" the god/dess that lives in that particular plant.  While it may seem irrelevant to a skeptic who is only interested in the science behind the chemical interactions in the brain, the ritual is just as important (if not more) than actually taking the drug.  The reason is that if the plant hasn't been prepared with the "right" perception towards it, the experience won't be the same.  Again, if you're aren't terribly convinced by the animistic side of this, then you won't care.  But, for anyone considering using drugs for AP/OBE, unless you are apprentice to a shaman or have been invited to participate in the experience, then your experience may not be what you expect.  The actual experiences of shamans (and others who use these drugs ritually) has somehow filtered its way (along with mass produced batches of their "drugs") to the western world and our culture just isn't really structured to give the plant the attention it deserves.  It seems like a great way to circumvent the work needed to achieve OBEs but we usually only hear that people like shamans use these drugs to have OBEs, we rarely hear about the whole ritual.  To have the experience that people hear stories about, you have to participate in the whole ritual, from sowing and reaping, to making and taking.

Doesn't work on my computer.

You should be able to view it on the site, but its just a pdf so it should download fine also.  I'm sorry it isn't working.

This manual came with my Gateway collection.

This is true.  The Gateway Experience set I'm using is one that I borrowed from my boss.  I work in a metaphysical bookshop, so I was lucky enough to be in an environment where I might encounter a lot of people with interests in AP/OBE.  Thankfully my boss let me borrow her collection, but she just gave me a little zip up CD holder with the set in it, no manual.  She has had the set for a while and didn't know where the manual was (or the original boxes for that matter).  She tried to give me an explanation on how to use the set but it wasn't terribly helpful and up until now the best I've found online is the description on the Astral Dynamics online school thing website.

I know that no one on this forum would ever do such a thing, because we're all good, moral people who respect copyrights and never download files on the internet that may be slightly less than legal.  However, maybe one of the members of this forum has a friend who isn't built from such strong moral fiber.  And perhaps that friend managed to find him/herself a copy of the Gateway Experience online, but the wretched soul who pirated the brilliance that is the Gateway Experience didn't have the good common courtesy to include the manual as well.  But what can one expect from those deviant types?  Maybe it was a vigilante and they intentionally neglected to include the manual, thereby forcing a torturous ordeal on those illegal downloaders who are holding the "secrets" to personal exploration in their hands with no way to unlock the magick.  (I quoted secrets because it's not a secret, I wasn't trying to imply anything else)

But since no one in this forum is "the friend", then I might as well just remove this post.  Whatever.  I'll just leave it up for fun. 

Also.  My boss let me borrow the "Journeys Out of the Body" Hemi-Sync set.  Has anyone else used that set?  I haven't really gotten to use it much yet but I'm very curious about it's nature.  What is it about?