Messages

Welcome no_leaf_clover!

Glad to have such a long-standing perspective to assist the forum in growing and evolving!

EV

There are no clear-cut answers that I see at the moment. Lumaza and no_leaf_clover have given some good, plausible ideas to consider.

My Chakra idea involves the idea that your present state of OBE awareness relates to your level of Chakra activation and that is what is limiting your ability to fly. In this theory, the early Chakra activation leads to Etheric/RTZ projections which are very limited in their range, thus the idea that you lose consciousness as you attempt to move beyond your bedroom or house or whatever initial environment you find yourself in. Moving beyond these confines involves activation of your Emotional/Astral body and you should become aware of the resulting activation of higher Chakras such as the heart or third eye. This whole process of moving from one to the next can be a hit and miss affair, it doesn't necessarily work in a straightforward/linear fashion.

Being aware of vibrations just before exiting is more of an Etheric/RTZ experience, at least in my own experience. In this, your range (in physical terms of distance) is very restricted and I'm not sure it allows for the freedom of flying.

With that said, as a kid I could fly pretty regularly and I wasn't aware of a difference between energetic states, but it could have simply been my lumping the experiences all together at the time.

Maybe working on activating the higher Chakras along with an affirmation to FLY gets the message across to your Higher Self.

'Cuz flying is fun! Good luck!

Great nap!

One theory -Early projections involve activation of the lower Chakras, including the root or sexual Chakra. This often results in strong stimulation of the related sexual organs despite the lack of any outside sexual stimuli. This energization can power our projection but it can also divert us into sexual fantasies such as succubus or incubus situations. These can be greatly exciting and enjoyable; they can also go horribly wrong and turn into seeming astral rape situations. I've known a couple early projectors who have stumbled into this scenario and become nearly deluded with the experience; they are having way too much fun to move beyond the experience. This can be rightly argued as one of the 'dangers' of AP.

Simple question: how many times have you woken up in the morning or from a dream, and noticed you have an erection or your body is sexually excited? I can't speak for the girls but for the guys I know it is very common. It was for me.

As we progress, our projections become powered through the higher Chakras, such as the heart or third eye, and this problem diminishes greatly.

I'm always amused when news reports say 'the gun fired by itself'...which is simply untrue, somebody has to pull the trigger.

In these cases, yes...it simply fired by itself...Lol

Sammie,
What I am currently reading is giving me insights into my own personal circumstance, but also reinforces the idea that this is the time in history that if you are feeling strong energy within the heart centre, the cosmic Love Energy, then this is the time to let it shine forth, in assisting Humanity to move to a higher frequency.

So if you are filled with that Love, then be a beacon to all around you and let it shine. The more you shine simply by just being wherever you are, the more the Love energy will find you and fill you. At times, I guess it really is that simple.

Peace

Lol, SleepyHollow, at least a few of us have remembered and been paying attention to what you had posted back in May; you are close to a significant breakthrough in your awareness. The clarity of experience that you have had so far, in your RTZ and related experiences is one thing; to move to the next step really wakes you up and you get a taste of that during the Phasing process. The clarity of the newer environments is simply astounding.

Are you creating the whole thing in your mind as an illusion? The answer is a qualified yes and probably to a pretty significant degree, at least initially; sorry, that realization was a little disappointing for me, but we move onward. The material that makes up the environments and entities you encounter, at least early on, that material is all drawn from your subconscious; that's why it has a hint of familiarity. And where the humor derives at times. The qualified part to this answer is that no, the energy dimension that your subconscious material is presented within, the new matrix of energy within which you now learn to operate is not your creation; it is a new dimension that has infinite capacity for you to explore and learn within, the trick being your learning how to control your thoughts and emotions which manifest nearly instantly within.

There can be exceptions, where an explorer has a special request, that may allow a deeper experience of the NPR, like when I asked to visit my recently deceased father...but for the most part, we are restricted to learning experiences where the material is drawn straight from our individual or possibly the collective unconscious.

Without exceptional circumstances, it seems that we are restricted to our personal NPR areas to learn for awhile. We are not simply allowed to go roaming unattended through the NPR or the Afterlife regions in general. This condition will change at some point within our learning and we will move/graduate into more collective areas, but not until we display the intelligence and emotional control necessary that we won't embarass ourselves and muck the place up; they simply don't allow it. That's at least my take on it and it has become pretty apparent to me in my experience.

You come to realize that certain notable explorers such as Monroe or Leland, are tremendous exceptions to this rule; they make it sound so easy and straightforward; they seem to go almost anywhere in the NPR, and maybe for some who go unpublished, it is that straightforward but we don't know about them; for the rest of us, it is a much more difficult struggle. For one, I am thankful to have had Monroe and Leland leading the way to give us some signposts...

Right now, your learning appears to consist of understanding where you are and what that environment is made of, how to move through it, and figuring out what lessons it has to teach you. Actually, you are still working on simply gaining entrance in a newer, more effective way compared to the earlier methods you have learned. Recognise that fact and challenge yourself to take the next step. This basic concept apparently repeats for quite some time...it is likely a very nearly eternal condition.

blidge,
I'm not saying whether it's right or wrong but do you subscribe to the Chakra theory? Do you feel one or more of your Chakras energized during exit symptoms or during the OBE itself? If so, which ones? and has this changed over time?

SleepyHollow reminded me of something and Lumaza reinforced the fact that this issue occurs in many areas of our experience, from RTZ-type experiences to learning an exit method such as Phasing and even into the deeper realms where the learning really begins to accelerate.

That issue is the delicate balance or relationship of how and when we apply our Attention/Focus/Intent. Sometimes we are required to apply as much Focus as possible and stay engaged or lose the scene altogether; other times we are supposed to back off and passively observe all around us to be open to new stimuli. Figuring out how to determine this is very tricky and the dilemma can occur at any time.

SleepyHollow, your initial reluctance not to throw out an anchor in the Phasing process is a perfectly reasonable idea left over from your experience of having difficulty staying in earlier RTZ type scenes or related. Now you have to let that tendency go for awhile and trust that the scene will continue on its' own strength. You will find that the scenery you encounter from here on has much more intrinsic stability to it.

Maybe that has to do with our developing an inner, instinctive ability to supply the right amount of Focus but without overdoing it. Maybe there's more to it but I think that is a component. What I do know is that as our experiences move deeper, our psyches evolve in many subtle and nuanced ways; and like Lumaza says, a bit overwhelming at times (like last night for me!). Much of this we only figure out in retrospect and reflection.

Thanks for the kind words Lumaza.

SleepyHollow,

Keep in mind that what I recommend is just based on my interpretation of certain commonalities I perceive between our two experiences and others that I have read; just one more perspective to consider.

You are keeping yourself open to a number of possible expectations -the environment, recognizing people, asking questions, etc- This is a good and reasonable set of expectations, but I think this is the wrong time to be having them and they are complicating and confusing what the true purpose of this particular process is trying to teach you. In other words, you're getting too far ahead of yourself and this naturally leads to frustration.

This type of learning in the NPR begins almost immediately and continues maybe indefinitely and involves the necessity of having to stop and reassess our present strategy and expectations and how to proceed; it has sure frustrated me at times.

In simplest terms, sometimes the NPR just wants us to focus on and learn the most simple, next single step in front of us and nothing more. And until we do that, the whole process can grind to a halt until we make the right choice.

Keeping in mind that this is the basic Phasing process where we patiently observe as the hypnogogia subsides and shifts into landscapes, then into moving pictures and finally solidifies to a point where we learn to transition into it. In an earlier post I suggested that the landscape would start moving for you and apparently it did, but now you have seen that depending how you focus your attention upon it, you cause the scene to 'freeze'.

This was a good realization you made about the effect of your perception on a scene and that you need to somehow 'adjust' your attention so the process isn't interrupted. This is a pretty subtle yet necessary insight. A hint as to the answer: You observe the scene without freezing it by not focusing directly on it, kind of like watching somebody out of the corner of your eye, askance as it were.

Learning this technique is the only thing being expected of you at the moment. The why or where of the environment doesn't matter, the questions will likely go unanswered -unless maybe you ask What is the specific lesson I am supposed to learn right here?-none of this is important right now, only the step by step process of learning to Phase, learning another exit method.

Once you learn to 'modulate' your focus, the scene will unfreeze and continue building. You maintain that neutral observer focus and watch as the scene strengthens to a point where it occurs to you to 'step' into the scene -this can take a few tries to figure out as well-.

Hope that helps

Early childhood astral-type experiences can be very confusing and turn unbelievably frightening. This can often give a very distorted and largely incorrect view of what most of us are striving for and our resulting experiences. This, coupled with much of the negative literature and outright fantasy pushed in YT videos and such just multiplies people's distorted views. So, depending on the person, a great amount of re-education may be required; otherwise, yes, you could find some trouble out there, just not in the way you're thinking right now.

The physics and energies involved are complicated enough; heck, just dealing with the issues Sleep Paralysis can put you through if you don't understand it can be terrifying.

While some explorers such as Monroe report distasteful and possibly negative entity attachments and attacks and visit lower frequency areas of the "Lower Astral" (to use one name) where some pretty ugly things can occur, these explorers quickly learn to move on into more agreeable and pleasant areas and are no longer troubled by these issues. An exception is somebody like Robert Bruce who specializes in helping people with their "negative entity" issues.

So if you managed to find yourself in one of these lower frequency realms, if you spent enough time there, you might very well get into some nasty situations, but you would have to try pretty hard; and ultimately you would simply be fighting with your own self-generated beliefs/fears. It certainly would not be good for your psyche and could end by causing you real trouble.

With that said, you need to make an honest appraisal of yourself: your age, maturity, attitude, your beliefs, your fears...then maybe this isn't the right thing for you to be doing, at least right now.

Maybe just start slowly, by remembering your dreams; that's a great place to start working on eliminating fears.

Welcome back herat123,

Yeah, life on Earth at times takes precedence over everything else for a number of years; this probably happens to most of us. The lessons of the Physical are our primary focus, the trick being to gradually incorporate the Non-Physical experiences in a balanced and healthy way to broaden the Soul's overall experience. Or something like that.

The best way to start remembering your dreams is to start a Dream Journal and every day write down at least just a paragraph of what you could remember from the night before. Within a couple weeks you should notice improvement. Also minimize/eliminate the drugs or alcohol before you sleep; alcohol especially is a memory killer.

Also daily and nightly affirmations asking for better memory will often help.

It really is that easy to see quick improvements and sometimes astonishing progress if we make just these small efforts to change our mindset; they really are that subtle and yet very effective.

Good luck, ask questions and keep us posted.

Visualization skills alone did not work for me; I had numerous 'walks in the park and through the gate' or 'walking on the beach...' It wasn't until I learned to add a kinesthetic sense of movement to the process and also to be willing to just go with the flow and roll with however the sensations developed. Someone suggested the name Rundown and that really stuck for me. So we can add a whole variety of movement-based Rundown/Visualizations: the Trampoline, the Skier, the Snowboarder, the Skydiver, the Flyer, the Dancer, the Driver, the Motocrosser...you begin to get the idea. All this rapid, rhythmic motion somehow aids your 'energy body' or your idea of the need for one, to begin shaking loose and releasing from the Physical.

The timing of this is also crucial because we are somewhat instinctively reluctant to know or at the least ignorant of how that final 'connection' is made that allows for the release; so it's likely that most of us have to almost stumble into a semi-conscious release/exit the first few times until the connection is better understood. For me, that mean't waking myself in the middle of the night after 2,3 or 4 hours of sleep and just observing the process of my body falling back to sleep and training my 'attention' to remain sufficiently focused through the transition: this is one type of Noticing exercise. That mean't beginning a Rundown and not interfereing when the visualization began to change on its own and just allowing it to happen.

In your case, maybe you experiment with a movement-based theme, maybe with sound/music included. Make it an activity you are already familiar with: maybe you skateboard/ski/snowboard/surf with earbuds and music...in this case, I would focus on the movement and sound and wait for one of those sensations to increase or expand on its own at some point. When it does, you need to let the process happen and follow along with the changes without getting too excited (which is what usually happens the first few times anyway!). Maybe the movement increases into a big side to side swaying, if so let it happen and go with it, you might just pop right out into a RTZ type environment. Or maybe the music becomes engulfed by a roaring sound, another good exit sign, so go with the sound. Maybe you get the Vibes at some point, another good sign.

Or the sensation may increase to the point where an instant transition occurs and you find yourself in a completely new environment; this is Phasing.

2 other things would be really helpful right now. Start a Dream Journal and do some daily/nightly affirmations giving yourself permission to explore the Non-Physical Realities. These are two methods to get this conversation going with your many aspects of yourself...'cuz it ain't just you in there! There is your Subconscious, your Superconscious, your Inner Self, your Higher Self...whatever the combination is and however you choose to define them, you need their cooperation in exploring the NP.

Hope that gives some ideas.

I generally agree with Lumaza on this, though I may differ on some of the details and nuances of what happens, it is likely just a difference of our personal experiences and interpretations, and this interpretational element is the over-riding part of everyone's experiences; at this point, I'm not aware of any better or more specific opinions; either way it is still just conjecture...which is nonetheless educationalmand valuable.

Having been through many SP episodes myself, and realizing they are tests of a sort, the internal, almost autonomic 'fight or flight' response is my first conclusion because the images/sensations that challenge us seem either so primal or so individualized to each of us that it seems obvious to me that the material is drawn/extracted from our individual subconscious, each episode in fact tailored to our own predilections for fearful responses.

Maybe it is a simple, limbic system kind of 'fight or flight' reaction that keeps us centered within our physical body. A second possibility is that it is a direct challenge to our psyche to make the step into the OBE experience or the Non-Physical experience, however you may choose to describe it. This may be a challenge designed by purely inner biological/spiritual/personal forces or it might be imposed by some outside force. I am still undecided on this and am open to the idea that it may be a bit of both.

To me, the diversity and far-ranging possibilities of human experience are SO great that, at this point, I am pretty much open to anything...Lol.

The idea that the SP fear test is just a bio kind of thing, a leftover 'checking mechanism', and why it persists for me, is that I question why veteran experiencers such as Lumaza, others or even myself, still get them from time to time...I mean sometimes they catch me out (and I fail) or I am left thinking, Why did that need to happen? Maybe it is just designed to keep us on our toes...Lol.

Like Lumaza said, ask your higher self.   Minus the joking, it can be just that simple: make the request in a simple, respectful fashion. You might be surprised at the response.

You say that you are new to this Cantfly...my best advice is to stay open to everything, including the humor that is a subtle undercurrent to the whole thing. It is frustratingly brilliant!

Depending on what part of the world you are in, you can try Meetup.com or do a search on local spiritual/metaphysical discussion groups and go from there.

In reviewing some of your older posts, you've been dealing with this inability to fly for quite awhile. To any other early projector, I would give the pretty standard answers of 1) learning to apply Intent properly or 2) dealing with doubt or fear issues. I suppose your problem could still be a variation of one of these, but it seems like you've been at this long enough to have figured out a solution by now. So maybe the issue lies elsewhere.

Some questions:

How many conscious OBEs have you had? Have they all occurred within the "RTZ" or have some of them transitioned into what were clearly not-Earth or Non-Physical environments? I know from your early posts that many of your early OBEs started in what can be referred to as the RTZ but that you lost consciousness as you attempted to move from room to room or out of the house. Were you eventually able to stay conscious as you made some of these transitions? If so, where did you find yourself?

Another line of thought to consider are the differences between your Physical mindset and your NP mindset; you've probably had enough experiences to be realizing this fact. Your NP mindset can have a completely different set of wants/desires/expectations and all your pre-planning can be lost in an instant. This is where the instinctual fear/doubt thing can trip you up despite all your Physical mindset rationale. Just for starters...

Your answers will give us a direction.

Drakoreo,
everyone is giving you solid advice here. My opinion is that it is largely an issue of understanding the mindset that you need in these experiences. In your physical life, if you are impulsive, demanding and prone to anger and emotional outbursts, then this needs to be brought under control, because in the NP, this type of mindset will get you nowhere; even if in Physical life this is a minor issue, the NP magnifies these issues to the next level.

Beyond the Physical, the NP requires an extra degree of emotional control...and until we learn, we get continued challenges to do so, even as early as you are experiencing them. It is interesting that most people get to fly around town a few times, fly off into space, chase a few girls/boys...that is, have several unencumbered experiences before we realize that we are now actually being challenged and tested in various ways, beginning with the most basic of emotions and motivations. In your case, it seems the tests are beginning almost immediately, with basic understanding of navigation and movement. You want to fly and the test is just how to move, to know where you are and the understanding involved; these basics can be very frustrating.
Fast forward to when you might think that you know where you are and what you are doing...My 'Back to School' experience is a good example: Even though I entered within an excellent full-technicolor experience, all bright-eyed and confident: I had the entrance under control, I had nearly 100% lucidity, and as a result of the challenge I was put into, I ended up totally and completely confused and frustrated...a lesson in how much my mindset needed to change at the time.

Just my opinion and perspective.

Astralphreak, I agree with the advice Lumaza is giving you. The fact that you display such good emotional control in SP provides you a wonderful opportunity to apply a variety of exit techniques. Calm, conscious control of the SP state is probably the fair equivalent of being in the MABA Mind Awake, Body Asleep state or Focus 10 of the Monroe model; the ability to remain in this state and think about your options is pretty much ideal.

Not getting caught out by any SP phenomenae at this point is also a good sign of your control within these types of situations; a likely indicator of a good mindset which will serve you well in later experiences.

Recognize the confidence this should give you and go with the flow, trust your instincts in these experiences.

That's a great set of experiences and you handled them very well.

It becomes really helpful now, once you have a number of differing experiences behind you, to compare and contrast; there is so much to learn from these, patterns that emerge, realizations to be made.

Each of these was a lesson, with tests and challenges to your level of awareness and decision-making. And of course, a Fear test every now and then, thrown in for good fun.

In the first one, it appears you gained full lucidity at the fourth or fifth Dream Trigger. Nice.

You didn't get caught out by the Fear tests that random hypnogogia will throw at you from time to time. Well done!

The transitions between environments, as well as the increase/decrease of your awareness is all designed to teach you about the form and function of these environments and the quality of your awareness within them. Think about and study the "feel" in each of those environments. This is a real workout for, and expansion of, your NP awareness.

In the third experience with the guy and his wife in the garage...did you know them? If not then how did you know their relationship? Either way, you reacted with rationality and cooled the situation. This was likey at least 2 tests and you passed with flying colors.

Plus, you were challenged with finding a new way to exit...for some reason the old methods failed and it definitely occured to you to try the Phase method...did that work?

Thank you for sharing these.

Wonderfully expressed as usual Lightbeam.

It would appear that several and varying "evolutions" are at work here. The extra-terrestrial involvement became apparent to me some decades ago. According to some, there are as many as 12 ET groups operating here, some with helpful purposes, others not so helpful or neutral at best. Some may be interested in our body/mind/soul complex, others may see the occupying spirit as nothing more than a nuisance to their use of our physical organism. It expands the concept of thinking about just how many "beings" from however many dimensions, are participating in/with the Being that I had formerly thought of as soley Me...from symbiotic organisms in my intestines, to bacteria lodged within my lungs, to thoughtforms within my aura, to ETs utitlizing my physical body...I am relegated to being just another temporary owner/occupant, Lol. The "farm animal" becomes an uncomfortable but likely accurate metaphor. To me, the beauty, complexity and enormity of our Multiverse becomes ever greater but the further I am shoved into the cosmic food chain, the more humbling it becomes as well. The TOTAL human being. Sobering thoughts.

We are just a few of many multitudes of cosmic entities, gathered here for a time, at the Earth Life System, making use of the unique, collective learning process that it alone avails us, in its myriad forms and fashions.

This I found interesting some twenty years ago, a quote from The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort, 1919, page 163

"I think we're property.
I should say we belong to something:
That once upon a time, this earth was No-man's Land, that other worlds explored and colonized here, and fought among themselves for possession, but that now it's owned by something:
That something owns this earth---all others warned off.
......Pigs, geese, and cattle.
First find out that they are owned.
Then find out the whyness of it."

From the age of five to twelve, I had no remembered exit symptoms, I simply came aware realizing that I was already "out/somewhere"...some floating/drifting/bobbing etheric kind of sensations were present at times, or I was already flying.

At thirteen, I came across Monroe's first book and soon experienced vibrations, really rough and violent the first few times and in later years they continued to smooth out and soften, sometimes allowing an exit, sometimes not; the last several times a few years ago they were so delicate, they were more like an extremely high frequency, soothing kind of warmth.

At twenty, I had the helicopter sound once which translated into a hypnogogic visual of a black helicopter just outside my window which I floated out to investigate; what I consider my first conscious exit because I pretty much understood what was occuring at the time.

Beyond that it was mostly singular or combinations of symptoms as described previously. I would add a few more: Energy body sensations (however one might define that) including expansion, contraction, single pointedness reduction or expansion to near infinity at times; floating up/down/sideways and sidewise...lol; the absolute and very simple, yet undeniable, loud mental CLICK! which designates a shift of Focus.

Amongst them all are the occasional Dweller On The Threshold/ Fear Tests...the creepy crawlies like Lightbeam described, that come for you across your bed, lol. My last one was when I came aware in the middle of the night and was greeted by a woman leaning next to my bed (she was damn upset and having a bad, frizzy hair day) and screaming at me in a horrid and frightening fashion; caught me so off-guard that I screamed back at her until I realized that we were harmonizing our screams and I started laughing and sending her PUL...at which point she smiled, laughed and dissolved...

Later on, as my experiences evolved (?) along with the pretty much instantaneous Phasing shifts into OBEs/experiences I would get dumped unceremoniously into a scene, sometimes literally dumped on my butt, lol...I now get periods during the night where I don't even wake up directly, but gain enough awareness to know that some experience is occuring: a download of some unknown sort is taking place, a very mental type of discussion/sharing is happening, a visual is demonstrated, a musical piece is explored, or a complete ROTE as Monroe defined it, is downloaded such as my Fieldtrip experience, which did not unravel until more than two years later.

Fun stuff.

The early morning WBTB method is what seems to work for many people and is one of my best methods, but you need to understand that a few other factors may still be affecting your success.

Sleep Paralysis is not a necessary condition so don't become needlessly fixated on it; the same with vibrations. They are both good signposts that you are close but not everybody gets them, much less on a consistent enough basis to conclude that they are a requirement.

Another factor may be the idea that you need to ask for and get permission from your inner self, Higher Self, subconscious self (who knows?) to have an OBE...it is after all, a highly different thing than you have really honestly considered before, something so alien to your Physical Reality that just the simple idea may be objectionable to you on some inner level; or at least cause some resistance.

For this reason and a couple others, Affirmations can be very helpful in asking, instructing and directing for what you want to have happen. Considering the  Higher Self, I'm asking permission to open up this new area of my consciousness and experience; considering my inner or subconscious self, I look at it like I'm ordering my dog to do something he's never done before...and he just sits there staring at me with his head cocked to one side as if to say, What the hell are you talking about?

This permission-giving process can take a few days to a few weeks and it may need to happen on a very internal and subconscious level; but you need to push it along from your conscious perspective. It consists simply of short, positively-worded instructions of what you want to happen, repeated on a daily basis as much as you want, the more the better.

Finally, the concept of Intent quickly becomes very important. You always need an intent or a goal for each attempt. Early on it is enough just to want an OBE or an experience. Once you have a few experiences, you will find that you need to move your Intent/goal outward in some fashion...beyond just exploring your house or immediate neighborhood, to visiting a particular place or person...and eventually to asking for an experience that teaches you something, or getting closer to your Higher Self or God or Source, or simply offering to help wherever you might be needed. We reach plateaus of a sort, along the way, and have to figure out for ourselves where we go from there. It is all quite exciting and frustrating...lol.

Ideas that I hope help.

I have read of a few people reporting the involuntary opening of their eyes during relaxation. I have never experienced it myself and really cannot offer a solution except to say that for many, if not most of us, as we are attempting to relax and move deeper into a "trance" kind of state, we are not getting anywhere close if little things like itches, muscle tension, eye openings, stray thoughts and such are still affecting us. In these cases we are still focused too much on the Physical side of the equation.

You need to let go further and allow yourself to move deeper...even to the point that you fall asleep many times. It is only near the "release point" of sleep that you will gain enough experience to know just how deep you need to go.

Finding this small window of relaxed awareness can be very difficult to find in an afternoon or evening attempt; that's why many people experience their initial successes after a few hours of sleep or an early morning attempt.

Look at it this way: even if you fall asleep several times, you gain the experience of searching that necessary depth of relaxation and you give yourself the opportunity to have a lucid dream experience which is every bit as valid a method for initiating a Non-Physical experience. It is all good and adds to your knowledge base.

Hope that gives something to consider.

Do you normally feel that certain chakras are energized to help power your projections? If so, which ones? Is it one or more? and has this changed over time?

I am certainly no expert on chakras but I must admit my earliest OBEs involved a high degree of activity first in the root/sacral area, then later projections and phasings involved heart area and later brow/third eye activity.

I have never read of a blockage as you describe, but I suppose most any symptom is possible.

I will point out that often the so-called Silver Cord is described by some as being connected at the mid-point between the shoulder blades just as you have written(not that I subscribe to that theory as I have never noticed the Cord myself in 49 years of experiences). However, since much of what we experience in the NP can be personally belief-biased, if you subscribe to the Cord theory then this could indicate some kind of energetic or symbolic blockage that you are representing to yourself in this fashion.

Maybe this offers some ideas?

You are very welcome! I hope that gives some ideas...

And it's not that you were too vague...you actually hit on some key indicators. The vagueness results, whether we like it or not, because there are simply dozens and dozens of nuanced areas where we go astray, if that makes any sense...it can be quite difficult translating for others what our individual difficulties are. I simply went with the most common three that seemed to resonate with what you were saying. That's also why I recommended the extra reading; there are good ideas in there that I think some may point you in the right direction that you need to hear at this time and will make sense shortly; we are all slightly different in what we need at any particular point in time.

The early evening nap thing can work, but it's tricky like you say...that was my point; I never had any luck with it. Try awakening an hour and a half early a few mornings and do some trancework. Or try the WBTB.

Don't be afraid of letting go and falling asleep either; that was a big "control" issue for me and it seems to be with others. If you are going to relax enough to get to the proper point of release/exit, then you will likely fall asleep a bunch of times. That's okay; if you've done the right prep work, such as affirmations, then you may just experience a short loss of consciousness, maybe hear a loud "click!" and find yourself out, either in your room or some other environment. That is still a success...remember, you are looking right now for quantity of exits and not necessarily quality or control of exits...that will come later.

It's like flying a plane...any landing you can walk away from is a good landing...in your case, any exit is a good exit!

The basics are timing, opening communication and programming the internal computer for what you want to happen. That gives plenty to work with for awhile.

After twenty years my dream journal still consists of a legal pad and a bunch of loose pages stuffed in a folder...it doesn't have to be anything exotic.

Now have some fun!
EV

Hello Machinist56,

Without knowing some more details of your practice it is hard to pin your problem down to any one or two issues...so there might actually be several factors at work.

One issue is likely timing, or when you are making your attempts at an exit. An hour and a half may be great for building your capacity and recognition of deeper meditative or trance states but that is just too long and too frustrating to be trying for an exit. My advice would be to try some different times during the night, especially like after 2 or 3 or 4 hours of sleep...what is known as a Wake, Back To Bed technique. Give it a try for half an hour and if you get nothing noticeable, roll over and go back to sleep...you might even then find you get a lucid dream that you can utilize for an OBE. Sometimes you just take what you can get, lol.

A very possible second issue is that of asking and or giving yourself permission of/from your inner/higher/subconscious self to have an OBE in the first place. For many of us, the idea of an OBE may be theoretically a simple thing to desire...but maybe on a deeper level the barrier of fear/separation/death may be more of an issue than we realize. Therefore a steady nightly diet of positive affirmations often is a great help; giving/asking permission to have an OBE.

Third, you must start a dream journal and record whatever experiences you remember. This is another signal to your inner self that you want to open a continuing dialogue on your inner experiences...it opens previously closed channels of communication. After a year or so, you will find it an invaluable resource.

Also you need to fill your head with some new ideas and indicators of just where you are. In this forum, the first two stickies are worthwhile; How I got out for the first time...and Everything you could ever want to know about Sleep Paralysis...

On the third forum you will find Xanth's Phasing Primer and Szaxx's Astral Blueprint...both good resources to give you ideas of what to look for...

That should give you plenty to chew on for awhile...keep us posted on your progress and feel free to toss up some more questions.

Thaomas makes some good points that I will add to.

You are right, those are three seperate signposts that may indicate that you are getting close or are already within an exit state.

I went through this many times. My suggestion is that you explore different times during the day or night that you could try. Are you pretty typical of the modern, working, studying individual? Do you awake about 6am to 9am and go about your day, retiring to sleep between 9pm and 12pm? If this is your case, then doing meditation/trance work with the idea of having an OBE in the early evening is not likely to produce the result you want; it certainly didn't for me! When I finally achieved the MABA Mind Awake, Body Asleep state (quite by accident I will add), I fully realized that most of my earlier attempts had not gotten me anywhere close to the required state...

A certain, definite balance is required...a balance between the rested yet still somewhat tired physical body and the ability of your consciousness to remain aware as the physical slides back off into sleep.

So my suggestion is to explore different time periods during the night and early morning wakeups...say after 2 or 3 hours of sleep or 1 or 2 hours before you would normally get up. Set your alarm for one of these periods and when you awaken, get up and freshen yourself, then read for twenty minutes or so and then lay back and relax and observe yourself as your physical falls back to sleep, or try any number of exit techniques: the Noticing exercise or a Rundown. Affirmations can be quite helpful also.

You will hit the right combination at some point.