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This is a real problem for the average joe in Western society.

I am thinking of focusing on Lucid Dreaming techniques a couple nights during the week and doing the hardcore OBE practice at 3-4am Saturday and Sunday morning. Something like that.
But I know that as soon as I get a good rhythm going something will come along in life and mess it up. Just gotta roll with the punches, get it together again and try something new.

Good Luck!

Well I don't think anyone "came up" with that belief... it's more of a common sense belief.

I think it is biblical in origin and was added to the early AP writings for its obvious relevance to the subject at hand. The common distortions we see now look like the game of 'whisper'... the original meaning is entirely lost at this point.

The term is derived from Ecclesiastes 12:6-12:7 in the Old Testament, from the KJV:
"Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_cord

4. There is medication you can take for this. 

This is such bad advice that if I were a mod I might delete it.

For a young man to have violent dreams of conquest, vanquishing enemies, and yes, even cannibalism, etc. is a display of Jungian Archetypes of a very positive sort.

It is not a nightmare if it is not terrifying to the dreamer *during* the dream. To be disturbed by the imagery after waking up is another matter (also indicating a healthy psyche). A good thing to do is ask questions among people who know what they are talking about.

Ok, illusion, disolution and perception are all the same thing.

That is not true.

Perception from the Atmic position beyond duality is outside of the realm of Illusion. But most APers do not even know what this is much less have any experience of it.

What I was addressing was entities lying to one another. It can't happen.

Yes, it can. It happens all the time in the astral.
This is one of the reasons there are so many pseudo-teachers out there all spouting contradictory theories and stories. Some Trikster met them in the Astral and fed them a line of BS and pretended to be spreading Truth. They lace their load of nonsense with sprinkles of the sort of stuff the Astral Seeker wants to hear and the noobs swallow it whole. They go back to their bodies and write books and voila' -- mass confusion.

In addition, there is no scarcity. There is no material. There is no materialism. There is no reason to decieve or lie to one another.

Well, there is definitely a scarcity of Truth. And there is plenty of "material" and plenty of materialism. The astral material is much 'finer' than physical but it is still astral 'material'. There are all sorts of reasons to deceive and it goes on practically non-stop in the astral realm.

Personifying human nature into this realm is not sound logic. It's causal reasoning and has it's fair set of fallacies.

That is like saying "a pitcher throwing a ball to the first baseman is not sound logic". Of course it is sound logic. APers project their human nature all the time. It is exceedingly common. It is all part of the game.


(maybe this should be moved to the 'philosophy' section?)

They look like very tiny white lights and move exactly like an orb would. They just kind of seem to float around in short distanced, quick bursts of energy and they are constantly moving.

They do not sound quite like floaters to me.

I would do a little research on Orgone Energy and see if that matches.

Is this blindness normal and the noise?

yes

Xanth made a brilliant amendment to add additional clarity, but intent is not necessary, ...

  "Brilliant" as long as you invalidate the only significant addition he introduced?!

P.S.  This explains why things like lying, cheating, and deception are not possible in the astral, but that's for another thread.

This is not true either. Not even a little bit. The Astral plane is a realm of nearly pure illusion. The BST alone are a clear demonstration of that. Complete deception and communal self delusion.
If you accept the notion that the astral is a precursor to the physical then all lying, cheating, and deception, etc. must exist in firm etheric reality before it coalesces here.

That saying should probably be "Emotions and Thoughts through INTENT instantly manifest."
At least, from my experience, that's how it is.

Even with that edit/rephrase it still isn't true.

Lots of people Think the Thought and formulate intent to go somewhere like the Akashic Records for example, but they do not go there. Many people can't go through closed doors or walls, despite thought and intent to do so.

I was specifically talking about thoughts because I have experimented with emotion and I can manifest "ecstasy" of a sort at will and it is instantaneous.

But many types of thoughts do not manifest at all half the time for me. Two "personal servants" were introduced to me several years ago in an OBE and I have called upon them several times and they have not ever shown up. Most of the time when I think about the Akashic Records they do not "immediately" manifest.

Lots of thoughts do not manifest at all.

Emotions and thoughts instantly manifest. 

I am pretty sure this isn't really true.
I have been in lots of OBEs where thoughts did not manifest at all and others when the thought manifested as a delayed action.

One LD I was thinking this is my dream so I can do whatever I want. I walked over to a guy sitting at a table working on a laptop. I said, "I can make you disappear" and then I thought, "wait... that's no good, then he won't be here to see what I did". I looked down and saw a ping pong paddle and I picked it up and said, "Watch, I will make this disappear" and I waved my hand over it abracadabra style but nothing happened. I thought "Huh!" and I put down on the table and asked myself, "why didn't it disappear? and then I looked down again and it was gone.

BTW, can you have an OOB while sleeping on your side? I have always felt more comfortable relaxing that way, rather than on my back, but was of the understanding that it was best to lay on your back.

I have projected plenty of times while laying on my side.

But yes, I think most of the time laying flat on my back works best.

I don't think pain in a dream is at all what you "expect", but more what you need to feel for the Dream Master to get the point across.

I would ask;

What three things are most effective at helping the APer get from a success rate of 2 projections a month to 2 projections a week?

When I am flying high in the sky and over hills and valleys in my OBEs and LDs the experience does not last very long and I land back in my body.

When I am flying inside a building it seems to have no effect at all on duration. It can last a good long while.

So I was in effect dreaming about a dream, wasnt I? All in all it was a very strange night of dreaming.

Yes, it sounds like you were dreaming about a recent dream.

Dream scenarios can get very strange. The unnerving sort to me are the False Awakenings. I think I have done something when in reality I only dreamed I did it.

Some people report multiple False Awakenings and they start to freak out, thinking they are stuck in an endless dream world and can't wake up.

Do you have fast OBE exits (shot out like a cannon through the top of the head) or slow ones (rollout and liftout).

I do both. But lately more the slow rollout and liftout.

There are many complicated OBE techniques that have step by step instructions. Maybe all we need to do is to feel our consciousness shift upon sleeping and waking to be successful at OBE's. Being more alert during the withdrawal and re-entry process during sleep may lead to frequent conscious OBE's without using any OBE techniques.

Actually, this sounds a lot like the "Mind alert, Body asleep" stage.

The ancient Sant Mat tradition teaches that all this OBE travel type thing is "within". It is spoken of as "Inner Experience".

I think the obvious reason it is called Out of Body Experience is because of the way many people project... it feels just like floating "out of the body".

There are never any defects in the RTZ when I stay projected in my bedroom. The defects start when I leave my room, and they get much worse when I project outside my house.

This opposite for me. Something is usually different in the room but then I go outside, do the "clarity now", and the house and yard and most other things match the physical world closely. But not always.

In this light it is easy for any newcomer to mistake this zone as 'RTZ', when it is only a duplicate of the 'RTZ'. An age old, Looks like a orange, smells and tastes like an orange, then it must be an orange, causal reason fallacy.

A "duplicate" RTZ?

So now we have to invent a new type of RTZ in order to make an experience fit the Focus models?

I dunno.... Does anyone else think this is maybe getting a little ridiculous?

Sorry Rudy, I was addressing blidge in my post.  I should have pointed that out or added a quote. 

Oh, okay. It was the "I'm not quite in agreement with Rudolph that they're "worthless".  " part that made me think you were replying to me.

But back to the topic. I think the OP here is a good demonstration of why these Focus level schema are counter-productive. They are confusing to most and from what I see they pigeon hole the interpretation of experience among the few who think they do understand them.

I am very much intrigued by Todd's proposal here about the "Etheric" projection.

If you're looking to do more than just a spontaneous projection in the middle of the night or after being hung over... or if your aim is to eventually learn to project anytime/anywhere... then learning to meditate first is PARAMOUNT.

You need to learn to focus your consciousness... THEN, you need to learn to hold that focus for extended periods of time (30 - 60 minutes would be a good place to "START").  THIS is what meditation teaches us.

Okay... this is a difficult moment but I gotta admit that you have a good point here.

Those who can sit and meditate every day for 2 or even 3 hours straight for a couple years, if done well, will bring a skill and inner strength to the OBE table that is going to serve up some pretty satisfying experiences.

It is hard to keep that effort up, for the average Westerner with a job and a family - but for those who can manage it the effort is well worth the time.

I suggest you start as soon as you can and keep it up for as long as you can. I have never kept up the "over an hour" meditation daily practice for more than a couple years but I have to say that for the time that I did I learned things that are not gained any other way, imho.

You're kinda mixing systems here...

No, I'm not. Not even a little bit.

Monroe and Bruce's models aren't quite interchangeable.

No one said they were.

I'm not quite in agreement with Rudolph that they're "worthless". 

That's not what I said.

I think I indicated that they were worse than that, as in, worthless at best - i.e. they do more harm than good.
Please muster the courage to quote me exactly and reply to what I actually said, Ryan.
(tough fer a lefty, I know,  but I have high hopes....)

For those whose OBEs can not benefit from meditation, the OBEs will not benefit from meditation.

Those whose OBEs will benefit from meditation, will benefit from meditation.

For those whose micro-mini demitasse is full, no more additional content will increase the volume it contains.

For those whose goblet is mostly empty, many options are available to increase the contents.

Short OBEs are typical and common. For those who want longer OBEs an effort must be made to stop being so typical and common.

My question still is though what focus level was i on? the same or did/does it change in the same experience?

stupid focus levels... who knows... they make no sense for the most part.

In my career I have held highly technical positions and drawn large salaries at more than one company to build analysis structures around disciplined recording methods and I have created extremely complicated systems to evaluate complicated structures in this physical world and I can say without a doubt that these OBE focus levels that these goofs keep blabbering about are worthless at best (imho) 

Some poorly contrived and badly conceived focus level does not change the quality of your experience at all.

According to Castaneda this sort of phenomenon is always due to a physical person in the nearby area, often someone in the household itself.

If it is someone outside the household you do not need a medium since you have big psychic leverage to evict trespassers with little effort. Just man up and assert your authority. If it is within the household you might try a simple "family meeting" and all agree to be done with the disturbance.