Messages

Hi guys,

Marc - I lean towards the consensus that we are communicating with our loved ones on another level, but I really have no way to know.

Jeff - i also like the analogy!

Greg - I had forgotten the tired visitor exchange that Monroe related. You have to love it! It does give me pause, to think that really are communicating.

You know, sometimes I think things are communicated differently while astral. For example, when I started looking for verification of being astral, I tried to read a note that my husband had hidden. I quickly became frustrated by the task because every time I projected, I would wake up as soon as I thought about reading the note.

Turns out that my husband, in his infinite wisdom and humor, had written a brief note that said simply : WAKE UP!!!!!!!!

I didn't laugh.

But I do wonder if I was accessing that information in a way that I don't 'remember,' because obviously I was waking up.

Patty

Well, about the feet -

I think there is a school of thought that all the stress points in the body can be accessed through the feet. I am not sure if this is something like accupressure - something eastern - or not. Maybe if you look into that - you might find a clue? Someone wanting to help release your tension through a certain practice.

Patty

Any possibility it is one of your 'selves?' I recall Monroe having close encounters with beings that turned out to be himself ----



Patty

ANTIBIOTICS!

Your doc must know if your infection is bacterial - but if it is the antibiotics will take care of the pain in a day or two.

I had an ear infection three years ago. Incredibly painful. Like a knife in my head. I still don't hear perfectly in that ear but at least it feels okay since the infection cleared.

Patty

Hi Greg and Jeff,

I've had a very few of these sorts of things involving my husband. He doesn't recall them either.

In one, it was in the wee hours. I was trying to reach the vibratory state, trying very hard. I was certain I was awake. Certain.  No break in consciousness.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I see my husband get up to use the bathroom, which he does almost every night in the middle of the night.  I was still reaching for vibrations, no luck.

I think to myself "Knowing my luck, I won't project and my husband (skeptic) just did. He probably didn't really get up to use the bathroom, it was probably his astral self going there."

So I reach over and sure enough his body is fast asleep in bed.

During a false awakening earlier this summer I had a short conversation with my husband. He didn't remember it.

These all seem so real when they are happening! I mean, indistinguishable from 'reality.'  So either we really are talking with some aspect of our family members, or we're not - in which case I suppose we on this forum (though probably humanity in general) has occasion where they can't tell fantasy from reality.  It would be wonderful if they remembered the encounters.

I recall that Monroe's friend - the one that he pinched - was aware of him astrally  but he was concerned she wouldn't remember physically; and thus he  pinched her. Sure enough, she didn't remember, but had a pinch mark to prove his memory.  That makes it seem likely that we are really talking to aspects of our loved ones.

Patty

I have been quiet lately. Not a student, though my small kids are in school and that means my involvement.

My reasons for being quiet is that my focus is inward - on my emotional state (going through the anniversary dates of my child who passed), whilst trying to 'tune in' to spirituality without forcing it.  i feel like when I try to quiet my mind - there is nothing there, I feel like it is because my thoughts are weighing heavily in other areas. There is no sense of potential, nothing to tune into, just 'dead air.'

I miss meditating but I am having trouble with the discipline,,,,, and feeling that I should be elsewhere (ie "here" in my present surroundings).

Still, I am trying to make moves towards another astral 'go' and hope that I can gather some momentum.

Good luck in classes!

Patty

Personally, I like a nice parfait.

Patty

Presumably we're not projecting into the physical world per se. That's the onion idea.

Or else we ARE projecting into the physical world but can't affect it because we are not physical ourselves.  A fascinating idea that raises more questions than answers.

As near as I can figure, ideas/thoughts/etc are 'seen' while OBE, so a direct analogy to physical world does not work in any case.

Some physicists postulate that other universes exist in the same space as our own (or are just a small space away.) This is very tangential, but might be a better analogy when trying to postulate what projection MIGHT be.  Search for the 'ekpyrotic' model  (an alternative view to the 'big bang) and if you read enough about it you start to get the idea that different types of existence can all 'be' in a very small space.

Sorry for the garbled jargon, I'm not a physicist!

You're welcome for the link.

Patty

Ditto.

Patty

Well, I didn't even open this thread until today. I read the title "Affecting the physical world in OBE" and thought "Not likely. why bother reading? "

Then when I saw the topic was on it's second page I figured there was some real discussion going on.

Hey Gus,

You would likely enjoy the skeptic's board at FACTS:

http://unfacts.org/cgi-bin/index.pl

especially if you surf for a few days before jumping in (hotheaded group).

I don't really have much to add here. You want my opinion? If the sort of OBE that you, Gus, are talking about (a reproducible 'on-demand'  ability to project to an exact replica of the physical world) existed, then it would have been demonstrated a long time ago.

If on the other hand, our occasional experiences 'out of body' represent something like a spiritual existence separate from the physical body, then (as different as that existence may be from physical life)  we can hopefully make some sense of that existence through these experiences.

I've had dozens of presumed OBE's personally. Every time that I try to verify these experiences, I get a 'close hit.'  I never get an 'exact hit.'  I always do better than you expect by chance, though. So yeah, I think there's a reasonable possibility that I really am in something like an 'onion layer' of the physical world, seeing a distortion of what is in the physical world.  I've recorded a few of these experiences on past pages here:

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=&TOPIC_ID=1360

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=&TOPIC_ID=1314

I don't draw any conclusions from these OBEs, but I do keep a running tally in a file. (in my 'playing card' experiment, I have gotten results that you expect by chance one time in eight. Not overwhelming, but nice to have that in addition to the very real 'feel' of the OBE.)

I have a hard time understanding how you could affect a light switch, but hey. I had some weird things when I was younger, too.

Patty

I didn't try hard -

My situation was that I was in profound grief. Really really profound. Or maybe even more profound than that!

had an OBE within a week of deciding that the moorings had come loose (due to the grief). I used the Monroe approach (but modified.)

It wasn't as full as I had hoped (too brief, too dark, etc) but it was easy.

these days it is not as easy. I seem to be anchored more firmly. But with a lot of effort I still get out sometimes.

Patty

Hi Mobius,

Thank you for your response.

I don't know quite how to phrase what I want to say here.

Let me try it like this. When I was learning to write publishable scientific material, I was taken aback by the dry and brusque tone of what is generally published in many fields. "I don't want to write like THAT!" I thought. I"It sounds so, so, UNLIKEABLE!" My early manuscripts were much more conversational and 'touchy-feely' in tone. (they were not published.)

Over time I came to see that scientific writing is brusque - precisely because it is scientific writing. Science is meant to do exactly what Gandalf wishes it would do - measure the things that can be measured. Stick to the physical world. Et cetera. (And it would appear that at least some spiritual experiences have a physical component. I am all for understanding the physical component!)

Since science (and it's writing) sticks to data about the physical world, any sort of emotional, or spiritual, or non-scientific element in the paper would be completely innappropriate (I'm talking about studies - such as the ones brought to this board for discussion -  that are published in peer-reviewed journals, not popular science on the bookstand or internet sites, which have a different sort of value altogether. )  Everything in the journal has to be backable by data. Period. Rules of the game. That's the best way to allow other scientists to build upon that data.

And I would like to say again that I have not seen any papers dismiss outright the spiritual side of experiences. (I should look into the one you mentioned.)  If they don't address the spirituality aspect at all, it is because they can't. The absence of discussion about the spiritual side of OBE's (or whatever) should not be interpreted as meaning that scientists dismiss them. Even if the 'tone' sounds dismissive, that may well be interpretation on the part of the reader. The passage that Jeff quoted, for instance.

quote:
"Sometimes patients describe looking down on their own bodies, and that experience is actually an aura or a warning that a seizure is about to occur," said Dr. Cindy Kubu, a neuropsychologist at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. She has worked with patients with epilepsy for more than a decade.

He interpreted as dismissive, while to me it sounded very 'believerish.'   In point of fact Dr. Kubu didn't say one way or the other whether she thought her patients were actually out of their bodies.

As a general rule, I don't tend to discuss my OBE's with friends or family or colleagues.  I discuss them anonymously on the internet, with lovely people like yourself! However, I do have several scientist friends who are quite into these ideas. And I just remembered that I DID mention a flying dream at a work party recently. I was testing the waters with some folks that I felt a resonance to.  They enjoyed hearing about the dream..... Ahhh, but these things take time.... perhaps at the next party they'll bring up the idea again .......

Warmly,

Patty

Thank you for the input, Mark and Ralph.

Mark, I think that in general, I have the experience you describe - the more aware I am, the more I can work with what is in front of me. What surprised me about this dream was that in many ways I was NOT very aware. I didn't bother to have a body, I can't for the life of me remember how I got from the ceiling of my bedroom to the door (floating or walking? No clue.) Etc. Nevertheless, I was able to navigate and reason, which in the past has only happened in very aware situations.

Ralph, I have also wondered if this is some sort of training or other. Maybe I want the glitz of a great projection with all the pre-exit symptoms and earmarks like the silver cord. I always thought those were necessary in order to advance or something. Maybe they aren't necessary.

I don't know.

Mark, I will ponder the idea of how fast the mind enters the state and how that might affect things. Thank you for the information about the roses. I should look into that, the symbolism would certainly apply in this case!

Ralph, I have often (well, half a dozen times) not seen what I expected in bed. I don't usually look, but when I do I don't see what 'should' be there. One time I saw my husband and I thought "That can't be right, I'm napping with my daughter right now." So I looked again and I saw my sister. Somehow that was acceptable to me at the time and I didn't question it further. (side note, I have caught myself calling my daughter by this sister's name. So there is a link in my mind between the two.) When I woke up, I was really upset that I had not figured it out at the time, that it couldn't have been my sister. I am not convinced that an OBE has to reflect the real world.  At the same time I hardly understand these experiences.

Patty

One more:

THis is an 'alphabet'  that a guy got from his 'angel.'  The link will take you to a long explanation of the alphabet which I found tedious but you might find interesting ----

Click on "Click here to see my AOD" and you will go to his symbol/numerology/alphabet chart. 18 should correspond to the double arrow.

He has a symbol he calls a double arrow, he describes it as:

quote:Eighteen is virus , this is only its latest manifestation. I first referred to it as spirit, for the horizontal line of alt 23 is missing. I had already envisioned the meaning of that glyph as Life, with the double arrow symbolizing the man and the horizontal line below it as the URth. It seemed obvious to me that life beyond the URth would be death. That then became the tarot trump assigned to this hieroglyph. I sharing the philosophy of the Imortalist found the prospects of this card to be distasteful, and more appropriately outdated. I felt a new formula was necessary to coincide with the procession of the equinox. Death was the formula of the dying goD, and this was the aeon of the force and fire of life. The aeon of the @M demanded a philosophy more congruent with its own. My uneasiness was answered when I found what seemed like an obvious flaw in the interpretation being used for it. According to most tarot interpreters, change was the key word that seemed to resonate true understanding of Atu 13. This did not appear to describe the heat death of entropy, but rather that of intelligent Negative Entropy (InforMaatian).

Here is the link:

http://www.sentence-ov-desire.net/volume-2-issue-1/volume-2-issue-1-article-7.html#AOD

Finally, I once met an NDEer who went somewhere sort of like the akashic records. It sounded different than what you describe. But who knows how these things work.

Patty

Here's another possibility:

http://greywolf.critter.net/ahq/spells/runes.htm

Look at "Ghur" the amber magic arrow.

(Oh, and the first link apparently was TWO runes, both arrow shaped, one on top of the other.)

Patty

Check out this possibility (from a polish coat of arms):

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/9538/OdrowazRunes.html

See if the rune that is on the right, halfway down, could be a match. The poem is cool, too.

I don't know if Poland had a standing stone tradition.

Patty

Hey Jeff,

Neat guide. Neat car. (And thanks for the tip about staring, in the other thread.)

You asked about memory. I have had in the dozens of OBE's/ld's. Not sure if I have broken a hundred or not. But I have sure seen a difference in my memory and reaction to them. I have thought it is because now they are ho-hum, whereas at first they were so radically different from normal sleep.

So like you, I don't remember them as well, they aren't as startling, etcetera.

That sounds grim, but the flip side is that it is like anything else --- with experience you lose the novelty but you gain ability. (under the lucid dreaming forum I posted about how yesterday I was able to react to an inconsistent lucid environment in a calm and reasoned way. It didn't frustrate me, for the first time! And it wasn't because I didn't want to be frustrated, but because I recognized that the environment was a valuable opportunity even if it was shifting on me.) So you know, Iguess the thrill is gone but there is a lot to be said for being able to navigate the environment rationally. It seems clear that you have gained some exp[ertise in your travels.

(Incidentally, regarding being a dork. I'm still jumping when I am out, to test whether I am out or not. That has to look pretty dorky - there goes patty, jumping up to the ceiling again because she can't tell if she's in body or not!)

Still smiling,

Patty

Hi Mobius,

My opening comment was in response to the idea that 'scientists are going about this the wrong way,' or that 'scientists are trying to disprove OBE,' et cetera. "Scientists" are not a group separate from "OBE'ers."  I am reading some comments that sound like 'they' are wrong and I am trying to make the point that there is no 'they.'

I don't see scientists doing anything but seeking to understand that part of transcendant experience that can actually be measured.

Good regards,

Patty

Hi,

I'm a scientist. PhD in genetics.

I read the article and don't see anywhere that it indicates that OBE is not a spiritual experience. It simply is able to say that there is a brain - chemistry or brain - firing thing going on.

Elsewhere, it has also been shown that transcendant experiences during deep meditation correlate with decreased blood flow to the frontal lobe/cortex (don't know the jargon). this is the area of the brain that normally regulates our sense of how our self relates spatially to our environment.  This might explain why transcendant experiences include elements of no environment, spacelessness, etc.

These advances in understanding most certainly do NOT say that the experiences do not have a spiritual component. I know that I am in part physical. I believe that my physicality is beautifully integrated with my other aspects, which are less 'measurable.'  Given this (hypothetical) integration, I would expect a physical aspect to any spiritual experience.

Did anyone follow that? It is rather in line with Blossom's post.

(Adrian, it seems there must be a story behind your change in career! I'd love to hear about it!  My personal course got re-charted after the death of our first child.)

Patty

Is dogma the stating of an idea as irrefutable truth?

In that case, then (no offense, Adrian) :

quote:
But Spiritual progression to the point of escaping the "wheel of incarnation" by rising to the Celestial planes and beyond is a progression that takes many incarnations, and each minute of each day in each incarnation. It is not something you can go and do a course on, accompanied by a whole new dictionary of words, which might be incomprehensible to many people.

sounds dogmatic to me. (Perhaps because I was raised with the belief that we are here for a single incarnation.)

However, I am neither pro nor con the website, nor various ideas including reincarnation, though I do shy away from anything that sounds dogmatic.

Also, perhaps "together we go further" ( and I DO value input from others), but I can't find it within myself to allow someone else to direct my course. (With the caveat that hopefully I would accept direction from a higher 'being.')

In this sense I think going it 'alone' (although hopefully with other friends who are charting similar courses)  is an indispensable part of the journey.

Though I really should visit the website before chiming in.  

Patty

I had a dream about radar a year or so ago. Not lucid like yours, and I only mention it because it had Radar in it and I wonder if the word 'radar' is something we can hook onto in our attempts to explore nonphysically.

Anyway, in my dream I was watching TV and I saw Radar on the TV. Only he didn't look right. It was Radar, but it wasn't.

Funny thing is, the next day my kids were watching Sesame Street, and Big Bird was carrying his teddy bear around all day. Big Bird's teddy bear is named Radar.  (So, Radar was on the TV, but didn't look right.)

Heh.

Thanks for sharing your dream!

Patty

HI,

What does your singature mean?

I am not clear how your nap differed from you old style of falling asleep in the zone. CAn you elaborate on the differences?

I often will have more success if I meditate before bed and fall asleep in the zone, as you say. I also get sleep - depriveed over time from this. So I try to do it during a time when I am not 'needed' much elsewhere, knowing I will be less useful to friends and family during that time.

Other tips that elp me are dream journaling and dwelling on OBE during the day. Lots of energy - raising, etc.

Last success I had, I just planned on being tired the next day, sure enough I was but it was worth it.

Patty

Wow. Cool experience.

I don't know the answer, but I really enjoyed reading it.  I have many experiences that I can't put my finger on labelling as one or another type.

I think the hand thing IS recommended in AD, at least that's my recollection. It's supposed to jolt you to a stronger level of awareness. Weird thing was a few weeks ago when I was dreaming regularly, I looked at my hands and they melted ---- then when I thought I was OBE on a separate night, I looked at my hands and they DIDN'T melt.  

Cool dream though. I love meeting people like that, people I know but don't recognize. It heartens me to think that we have another level of existence complete with real friends and even roommates!

Patty

Several people here use a disrupted sleep cycle to trigger more awareness while sleeping.

Typically, set your alarm for 4 - 6 hours after you go to bed. Then get up when the alarm goes off, do something for 15 minutes or so to really wake up, and then go back to bed. You might find a LD or OBE happening during the ensuing dreams.

I find more lucidity in the ensuing dreams, though I don't practice this on purpose. My kids will often wake me in the middle of the night and serve as an alarm clock.

Patty

Try finding your hands, if you haven't done that already. Or set some intent every time you go to bed, like "When I become lucid, I will blah blah blah." Then you have a focus for the next opportunity.

I haven't figured out how to become 'more' conscious during attempts. Usually wherever I start out (mildly aware or super aware) is the basic level of awareness for the whole experience. I have tried demanding more awareness during the experience, etc, no luck. Other people say that they can become more lucid by demanding more lucidity.

AD has tips about pulling more energy from the sleeping body --- I don't know if this applies to lucid dreaming but you might want to look in there.

Patty