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I suppose so though I do see differences. You both talk about losing or changes to awareness from the physical perspective but I tend to think we never do and it's a misperception. Correct me if I'm wrong but I read into your first comment that pure awareness is different than what we are at this moment. Implying two not one. Is this a fair interpretation of your perspective?

Can you clarify what you mean with the line"....the Earth life game loses its awareness of this game and reintegrates into others it is moving through"?

How are we losing awareness in your view and what do you mean by reintegrates into others it is moving through?

Interesting perspectives.

I think that awareness is the one ever present constant and it is the temporary ever changing objective content around us that is responsible for misperceptions of awareness.

Is there really an absence of awareness with deep sleep or is it jut the absence of objective content? We say things like I went to bed, slept for 8 hours and then woke up. For us to say that something has to be aware of this apparent absence of awareness. And if there is awareness of this absence then it wasn't absent. It was aware. If our body and mind turn off when we sleep then what is it that is aware of our alarm clock ringing in the morning to awaken the body and mind? Awareness is aware.

I think the apparent sense of timelessness associated with deep sleep makes us think we lose awareness. There is no content and it passes instantaneously. Time comes back online when we start dreaming or wake up. And what is time anyway? Just a concept of the mind. It has no reality to it. No one has ever experienced the past or the future. We only experience the now and the past and future are only referenced by thought. It is only a thought that says time exists but no one has ever experienced the past or future. So it makes sense in deep sleep where thought is absent that time disappears. And with the absence of time (just another form of objective content) it passes instantly giving the impression of an absence of awareness.

If you search your experience awareness is the only constant. Has anyone experienced the beginning of their awareness? Or the complete end? If not then why would we assume it is limited?

We say things like I was in this state of awareness of that state but I think really it is the mind creating this limitation. Awareness remains intact and unaffected by experience.

A question out there for those interested. I have my own thoughts but wanted to see what others think on the matter.

The purpose of resonant tuning is multi faceted.  Most reasons we know about already - raise your energy (for creating REBAL) and vibration, relaxation, and eases the mind.

One thing that isn't really touched on that i found Skip Atwater mentioned in a report on the effects of hemi sync years ago was that it acts in someway to make you more susceptible to binaural beats. I can't quite recall how it does this. Something in a resetting of the brain by doing it or something along those lines. That is why when you do a residential program at TMI the first exercise, regardless of how advanced the course youre on is, is always an extended resonant tuning session. Its setting you so you respond better for the course ahead.

On a side note, I find that people that promote this idea of just meditate and ignore thoughts like there is some type of inherent distrust of thoughts in general. But in my experience for those that really contemplate thoughts can actually be a path toward ending suffering and dare I say enlightenment.

The theory goes like this, if everybody just meditated all the time and ignored their thoughts and did what the Buddha did it would take us much longer to finally figure out science and then figure out the technology needed to end suffering and travel the Galaxies.

Not only that I believe those that figure things out here and make exploits to help end suffering here they are rewarded in that Afterlife with a better reincarnation next time. I am trying to gather evidence to support that theory for my book. Because otherwise there's no incentive to actually do good by actually ending suffering and that is a very sad thought and state of affairs.

It's not you, the body and mind, that gets enlightened. It's the self seeing itself on its own level through the individual point. That's why it is recommended that you allow your thoughts to 'be' because giving attention to thought is giving attention to the objective content of experience (meditation is consciousness without content). There's nothing wrong with thought but you won't find lasting happiness there. And you won't find enlightenment in thought, either. Everything you 'do' is a movement away from enlightenment.

The Buddha already figured out the end of suffering. Stop resisting life. As soon as you unite with a situation you end your suffering. There is so much attention put on manifesting this and that in our lives - this reaching outside of ourselves to make our lives better (this resisting) - when I get this object I will be happy. When I have OBEs I will be happy. That's all fine but why not start by addressing the inside first. If I accept this unpleasant situation I find myself in then it is no longer suffering for me. And by accept I don't mean by happy in it. I mean just accept it for what it is. Allow life to be exactly as it is.

You're talking about finding the end of suffering in new technology. Hasn't thousands of years of history taught us that happiness is not found in objective content. If you do find it then it's only temporary until you search for the next object. When you're driving your car look around you. Where is everyone going? They are literally driving somewhere to try and find happiness in objective content (a person, place, situation or object). What are they doing tomorrow morning? And the next day? And the day after that? The same thing. The end of suffering is not going to be found in a new technology/an object.

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If growth = happiness then perhaps yes.. it is inherent in all life to grow.

I personally don't think growth equals happiness. I think you could ask yourself is there anything behind growth that is something I desire more? If growth made you unhappy would you still pursue growth? If having OBEs made you unhappy would you still seek them out?

I'm back and forth on the idea of humans need for growth and evolution. Xanth also eluded to it in this thread. I have always gone along with the idea but I feel partly because it feels like its considered a spiritual constant. The idea of..."Yes of course we are here to grow and evolve. Everyone says it." But what if that's not true? What if its something that is so often repeated we have taken it as fact. I'm going to play devils advocate and exchange this spiritual constant for another - The idea of we are all One. Feels like it something spiritual people say so we just accept it as truth.

If hypothetically we do accept it then we are whole and already complete. There is nothing to grow or evolve into. So this plays back into advaita vedanta. If we already whole then there is nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to think. Just be. I suppose this then raises the question well then why are we here if it's not to grow? It could be a number of things. It could be nothing.

I dont doubt you have lots of profound experiences. They make for an exciting read. But I too have had many over the years. It's just I'm am starting to question mine.

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No-one who reaches a state of expanded awareness ever just throws it away.

I personally disagree. Myself aside for a moment, if you look to somelike Papaji, one of Ramana's disciples, he was having unbelievable expanded awareness experiences communing with Krishna prior to Ramana showing him the path of advaita vedanta. He gave it up and ultimately followed the path of self-realization.

I suppose ultimately none of this matters particularly. Everyone is just following the path that resonates with them. I don't think anyone's right or wrong.

I've also come to something of an impasse in my spiritual direction.

I personally think the answer to my original question is ultimately the same for everyone. At the core we want to be happy. Infact every action we take in life is towards a goal of happiness. What we spend our whole lives searching for. When are we going to realize we can't find it in anything objective? If we could then why are we still searching for it? We are not very good this.

I consider myself to be a very even keel person who is generally happy but tuning into myself more i realized there is a subtle undercurrent of unhappiness constantly present within me (maybe for you too?)Whether its anxiety over money, family or whatever. Its there. And once one issue is resolved a new one replaces it.

Seeking happiness in the external never lasts. Its the nature of duality. We buy a new TV. Its exciting to begin with then it becomes normal again so we look for happiness in the next thing and so on and so on.

But i also found this true of OBEs. The happiness wears off. But i thought OBEs were internal experiences not external.

But what if they're not? The mind/ego is a complex thing. Most of all the ego wants to survive and if your happiness is the cost of its survival then so be it. Like the stress you feel when your job is in jeopardy. Ego thinks 'where will the money now come from for the house and the food to keep me safe? I'm going to make this body feel stressed so that it acts on this now. I must survive'. Thats why if you want to do a tightrope walk and your legs go to jelly at the last moment. The ego makes it happen to protect itself. Its not actually actually interested in you. Just self preservation.

I pondered how much we think we are in control of our bodies and minds. We think we have control but ultimately its not that much. You don't control anything to do with how your body is maintained. Creation of new cells, antibodies,  regulating your hypothalamus. Anything. Your body does it all for you. If your body handed you the reins for the day you wouldn't know what to do. It does it all for you. We also think we think all our thoughts yet we have little ability to control them when we try. It feels more like we only add additional thoughts to the ones that automatically arise. We don't control the flow of emotions. They dictate to us.The one thing that makes us think we are in control is our motor functions. Thats about it. And if we believe karma creates our destiny then that is out of our hands too.

So if the mind/ego is not really me and neither is the body then who am I? Let me get out of its way and let it do its thing automatically so that I can see who I really am beyond it all.

So this got me looking closer into the ideas of self realization and the notion that the real self resides not just beyond the body but also beyond the mind. The mind is not to be trusted but we happily go into an OBE with it in control. But if the mind doesn't have my interests and happiness first and foremost then why would I trust it during an OBE? Is it feeding me lies to in some way protect itself? Unclear but I certainly don't trust something that willfully makes me unhappy for its own gain. You wouldnt respect those qualities in another human so why do we with ego?

While things like medititaion. Lucid dreams, and OBEs are about experiencing levels of consciousness, self realization is about becoming Consciousness. The difference between having an experience which is fleeting, and just being the that I am of consciousness all the time. A baseline of happiness outside the scope of ego (or at least it moves to the background)

So I got reading on people like Ramana Maharshi and Robert Adams and i feel far more resonant that I ever did with anything before it spiritually speaking.

But of course reading and intellectualizing on it is still just the mind. Thats not going to help get me there. The mind is not going to help get you there becasue the goal is disidentification of ego and it doesn't want that.

So that is where I am at now. On the path of enlightenment. Who i am in this sentence is yet to become clear. But with every day passing it feels less and less like this body and mind.

Feel free to contradict. Your ego is probably dying to. Mine is too.

Excuse my spewing.

I'm interested to know what is at the core of why you want to have OBEs/Astral Projections.

I am keen to hear what is the reason for people. Let me know your thoughts.

Hi,

I haven't been on in a while. Life and all that. Hope people are having lots of good spiritual experiences.

Really just came on to do some shameless advertising (but as an admin - what the hell. I guess i'm afforded certain liberties)...

I have been making a guided journey meditation progressive web app in my spare time. Takes you on 3d sound journeys to explore your consciousness. Might appeal to some people. If it interests you then take a peak...

(It's a mobile phone only situation)

www.lemonskies.app

I think EV sums up the approach to focus levels nicely.

There is always that nagging feeling of am I there yet? which you have to let go of. Bob Monroe experiences all occured from the equivalent of a focus 10 state only. The irony with Bob was hemi sync never really worked for him. He likend it to organising a party at your house but only being able to watch it from afar. Everyone else having a good time but you.

In regard to binaural beats I will say that the carrier signal is far more important than we think

Last time I was at TMI they were discussing reopening the Explorer sessions to people. If your close to Virginia it might be worth reaching out to see if you can get involved somehow.

You'll probably find still around the bruce moen forum if you want to reach out to her. Dont think she frequents this joint anymore.

I don't want to seem like I'm the person in the know. I'm really not as I wasn't around the forums then. Selski knew Frank probably better than any of the current admins.

I wonder why Pulse users were not told before here because over the years many (normal, public) AP threads contained a lot of posted questions and speculations about this - even from moderators themselves who seemed not to know this but should have had access at the old threads in the admin area. Of course it is older and no one maybe searched for it correctly? This admin thread must then have been from 2005 or even earlier? Just wondering.

Thanks anyway for informing us now.

Probably a combination of factors. At the time the admins didnt say anything out of respect I assume. Then over time with admin turnover and the thread getting buried under all the others it got forgotten about.

I only stumbled upon it when I was searching via Frank comments and noticed more comments than when I had done so before (this was because I had since become an admin and more of his comments were open to me.(. No way would I have found it otherwise and so why would any other admins?

Just for the sake of clarity and to put the speculation to bed -

Frank did indeed die of a sudden terminal illness. There is a thread on the admin forum in which he relates this to other administrators at the time.

Got any links/details regarding recommended indirect methods?

I think any method that utilizes losing consciousness right before the OBE is great way for people to get some experience under their belt. This way, unlike direct methods, you don't get all analytical about it and constantly wondering if you're nearly there. Let your consciousness do the work for you. I think going straight for a direct OBE is hard but if you've already created a path in the long grass through some indirect methods it makes it easier to then do direct ones and once you do then move onto direct methods you know exactly what an obe is like for you abd so you k now just how close or far away you are.

If I remember rightly when I first started I did the timer method which involved getting up at around d 5 am then listenING to some binaural beats to send you to sleep but it had a timer go off after a certain amount of time to wake you. You would then drift off again and the timer would go off again after a shorter period of time. This would continue about four times with the time betweens alarms getting shkrter and shorter and all the while your consciousness is levelling off around the wake sleep border and invariably you would automatically experience something like the vibrations or just find yourself out of body.

Also the wake back to bed method is good. I still utilize a modified version of that with about a success rate of 85%.

With these methids you don't need to worry about exit techniques or questions how close you are. William Buhl man did indirect techniques for years.

With doing a direct method wit no experience you are flying a little blind not really ever sure if you're doing it right. Sure there are lots of generic symptoms of our OBEs as guidelines but reading too much into them can hinder progress because your experience of symptoms s might be different from another's and you question if you're doing it right. They experienced the vibrations. Why can't I? I must be doing something wrong.

To me it just sounds like you are not far enough along to try an exit technique. I don't pay much attention to smaller exits symptoms like etheric limbs moving. It just distracts you from the goal here. For me I wait for that clear shift in consciousNess. That is my cue to attempt an exit technique. With practice you just know when it's time. This is why i advocate indirect obe methods first.

My shift in consciousnees feels like an internal whoosh sensation

I have had OBES with Metamusic.  They work just as well as straight hemi-sync. For me I also know that the effect of hemi-sync continues after I stop listening to it for a good while after. Your brain will still be giving off those theta and delta frequencies. When I do a hemi-sync meditation and don't experience an obe during the length of the exercise I will often turn on my side and simply go to sleep and most of time I will then experience an obe at this point.

For me the exit technique is not about getting out of body. It's about confirming I am already out of body.

What I mean by this is that the mind does a great job of replicating the physical body when you first move out of body. Sometimes I find i am already out of body but my non-physical body is lying in bed and i am wondering if I'm ever going to get out of body.

I never use exit techniques anytime before being at the the threshold of an OBE. I think a lot of people start employing them too early. I personally never found they help get me to the threshold. They have only helped me over the threshold once I am there. It sounds like you need to work more on relaxing to get to the threshold first. I think actually using an exit technique to relax more deeply is not great either because there is a pressure associated with them. I am actively pushing myself away from the physical and you are constantly wondering if you have made it yet. For me that's not relaxing. It sounds forceful. But that's just my opinion.

I personally would focus on indirect OBEs and get some experience under your belt before going straight for a direct OBE.  That way you'll know more of what an OBE looks and feels like for you.  Once you know that then you won't be constantly analyzing the process when trying for a direct OBE (which is obviously detrimental to the whole process). Instead you'll just let it unfold.

I resonate a lot with Xanths comments. I originally got into OBEs for purely superficial reasons. It sounded fun. Spiritual materialism got the better of me. But with experience comes a greater understanding of the self and the greater whole we are a part of. I am more in touch with my own divinity. I try to live from a heart centered place. I now go to a metaphysical church and say grace over meals(things I never thought I would do). I know I create my reality and being in a positive, loving, high vibration is paramount to getting the things I desire.

For me it's all part of it. And OBEs are a part of it too but but a small part. I am grateful they helped open my eyes but I no longer feel the need to go gunning after them either. Whenever I go on a TMI retreat, the programs aren't about getting away from the physical.  They are about, first exploring your inner self then taking what you learn and incorporating it to live a fuller life

I am more intuitive and get information from a higher source without the need to go out of body. Sure I still enjoy them when they occur spontaneously in my meditations but they aren't my focus. So, yes I resonate with Xanths comments

Hemi Sync is probably more expensive because of the way they blend the binaural beats and the amount of testing they put into it. Most other stuff I have seen rarely uses more than one binaural beat at a time. Many YouTube ones take you down to alpha for five minutes, then down to theta and wait there for thirty minutes. And that's it. Anyone can do that with Gnaural. I can't speak for things like holo sync. I would be interested to interpret it though.

At TMi they discovered that its usually not enough just taking you down to low theta as it invariably ends up in you falling asleep. So combining a dash of theta with some alpha means you still go down low but you are also staying alert. As an example the later focus levels combine theta with beta. When you get up to the much later levels they use upto about ten binaural beats at one time. But there is definitely a fine line between right and wrong. You can't just throw some frequencies together because in theory they should work.

One thing I will say that I don't yet fully understand is that the carrier signal plays a far bigger role in the effect of binaural beats than I ever knew. It's not just about the beat frequencies itself. There is something profund in deep carrier signals. Which ones, who knows? TMI definitely understands this. All of their later programs mainly use deep carrier signals.

In terms of th expensive cost - there are plenty of hemi-sync titles that aren't expensive. Buy some of the individual ones. Or maybe try their new technology SAM. You can pick up cheap tracks for download from the TmI websites. They also a few free ones on the site, SAM and Hemi-Sync

I think we need to get rid of the "over" dramatizations from the media, especially the Weather Network. They used to report the news. Now they are making it. This link shows just that. Caught in the act of over "hyping" the situation.
https://twitter.com/gourdnibler/status/1040678572262916096

Yes, the flooding is horrible, It's almost like we need to focus on a giant whirlpool effect to drain the water away. But then that could go badly as well. For now, we should just keep those less fortunate and in need, in our thoughts and prayers!

Agreed. CNN coverage has been horrible. It's all been catatrasphe, devastation, lashing the coast, a Mike Tyson one two. You get the feeling they are smiling as they write it. And when there is optimism they make sure they follow it up with a negative. It's been downgraded to a cat 1 but human suffering is guaranteed. Really? You wonder if they are crossing their fingers as they write it. Just scaremongering at this point. I appreciate that people need to be told this is no joking matter but they are just treating it like a bit of sport. They have definitely contributed to the hurricane being worse through collective consciousness.

Very little is being said about the amazing spirit and community effort that is coming from it. People coming together in amazing ways and helping

My wife and I are from Wilmington. We evacuated to Atlanta. Tornadoes and flooding are the big threats now to our homes. Thanks for everyone help. We have also been doing similar things.

But I thought its not a complete OBE until your fully out of your body and walking (or flying) around.
I thought in the dream state you merely hover a few centimeters above your body.

Or do I have that wrong??

Feeling the need to experience stepping out your body for an obe is a physical world hang up. We as humans learn that to get somewhere we have to experience movement because the laws of time and space dictate this. These laws dont exist in the non physical so you dont need to follow them. Once you have more and more obes the need to experience a visceral separation dissipates.

Just got to try it and see what works for you. When I have had a stomach bug in the past and not eaten for a few days I have noticed my visual perceptions were enhanced when I closed my eyes. I remember on the commute to work once I was watching a battle play out. Very un expected.  Although it's debatable was this this the lack of food or the stomach bug itself?

For me a no sugar diet has little to no effect as does being vegetarian. .

The general rule with anythino AP related seemp to be follow the generally suggested guidelines but tweak to make it work for your own body and consciousness.