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Frank Kepple's posts on the Astral Pulse forums are a valuable resource for those serious about exploring their inner worlds and gaining control over their dreams.

The posts span several years and, when read in sequence, provide a transcript of Frank's progress towards a mastery of lucid dreaming.

Although not everyone may agree with his particular worldview and theories on the afterlife, his posts contain many insights into the process of conscious transition into the world of Lucid Dreams.

Xanth on these forums made a very nice PDF a while ago with all of Frank's posts in it. Over the years, however, for my own reference I've been making a collection of his most useful posts focusing on the purely practical side of things, editing out all the extra bits I felt didn't contribute and labeling them by topic. I think Frank has a lot of good ideas but not all of them are worth reading if you just want to GET THERE... Recently I decided to organize them into categories and have created a useful document. You guys can read it if you like, I've shared it on Google Docs:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aytbhjRRgmbIFRe3pb8yw9NWh88Ra_mjJZWO3fafbw0/edit?usp=sharing

Best of luck

I'm sorry to say this but no one technique works for everyone. We are all different, not only physically but also mentally, and what works easily for one person may never work for another.

The best approach is to actually find the most popular and effective methods and try them one by one to see which seems to resonate with you, and then go with that approach. You will also need to adjust your method as necessary. My method is a blend of several different ones.

I would start out with SSILD. If you try it and it seems impossible or you don't like it, look for something different. This is an extremely difficult hobby and success usually comes at the cost of a lot of research and self-analysis. Some people do historical analysis on their progress because it can be difficult to analyze trends without detailed notes. You may not notice that one technique works better than others unless you have notes you can review a month later, after you've moved on to something else.

Good luck!

I have not found my AVS machine (Procyon) to be very helpful. I think this is a problem with me and my expectations rather than the product itself. To get a "non-physical focus" like Lionheart describes I think you have to be able to achieve that focus on your own. Then the AVS machines will help you get there much faster.

I can't maintain the focus and tend to fall asleep, which I imagine a great majority of people who try to consciously reach that stage do as well. This is a problem with my own abilities and says nothing about the effectiveness of the device. The Procyon is so effective, actually, that it makes me pass out into a stupor during the middle of the day when I am wide awake.

Right now I am focusing on developing the focus and technique necessary to achieve the Phase on my own. Once I am able to do it consistently this device should make it a much faster process.

Thank you, that sounds like an interesting experiment. I will try it out and post how it goes.

Could you expand on that? What are you focusing on?

I like this machine, last time I used the "night voyage" track I nearly fell out of bed because I hallucinated a dog attacking me.

The Procyon arrived yesterday, I have had the opportunity to use it twice. Each time I used it with high-quality in-ear-monitor headphones, using the synthesized sounds from the presets that come with the system.

1) In the evening to try it out, I lay down and tried the 35-minute "visualization" track. It's quite dazzling at first, I turned down the brightness to about half. You get very interesting patterns but I did not get any "brain-generated" imagery as I expected, only the patterns generated by my eyes being exposed to bright flashing lights. So, no mandalas or geometric forms or scenes, just different patterns of flashing lights.

2) Today at 6AM I woke up early and tried to use the 35-minute "Night Voyage" session. It's very relaxing and it goes through several stages. I definitely clicked out towards the end, since I almost didn't notice when it was over. You wouldn't think that would be possible with these lights flashing right into your retinas but it definitely lulls you off to sleep!


My method so far is to lie down and focus either on my breathing or on the lights in my visual field, without trying to think or see anything in particular. By relaxing my focus and taking in the entire of my periphery this makes my eyes relax and seems to bring on a trance-like state sooner.

If there's a better recommended method let me know. I want to get into an alert but very relaxed state, so it's easier to take my mind away from the physical sensations once the session is over. I think that how you approach this mentally is a large component, so you definitely have to be meditating in some way to get the most out of this device. Just lying there blanking your mind out is probably not the right way to do it because you'll just fall asleep.

Some questions:

1) How long is the nap?

2) How much time must pass between the nap and when you finally go to bed? If  you're napping at 10PM I assume you wait at least two hours before going to sleep at midnight, but maybe that's not right?

Thanks to this thread and subsequent research online, I have ordered a Procyon and will be posting my results to this thread.

My goals for getting it:
- Want to achieve deep trance state reliably and quickly
- Want to avoid falling asleep, hopefully the flashing light delivery system will take care of that

I can reach my goals during the afternoon but not in the morning when I want to actually practice phasing, so I hope to use this to prime myself for a more productive practice session in the early morning.

For anyone with a Procyon, what are the best preset tracks to use?

I'm extremely skeptical of validation exercises for the reasons already mentioned in this thread.

That said, if I had to submit a theory on what might be testable, I'd say that trying to "remote view" physical objects that no one else has seen is probably impossible since that would require physical interaction with those objects. In order to "see" anything light needs to pass through a focusing lens and strike a surface. People who astral project aren't sending their eyeballs out into the ether, so this is very unlikely.

If I were to subscribe to any crazy theory, it would be that of shared consciousness. The most compelling stories you hear are the ones where someone is paid a visit and they communicate a thought, idea, or image. Where someone notices something about the physical surroundings that later happens to match reality, it occurs when someone else is physically in the room, awake and observing it. If there is a mass consciousness mechanism that would mean that the only validation you could do would be the "mental communication" kind, rather than the remote viewing, looking at hidden objects, etc.

Having read through this thread with a skeptical eye, this is just a trend I have noticed among the various stories posted. Few and far between are the compelling ones, but they crop up often enough to make me think...

If you catch yourself snoring it means your body is nearly asleep.

I am using my snores as milestones. Before I'd snore once and the sensation would freak me out and cause me to wake up.

Now I'm up to three snores in a row. Hopefully with more practice I will just ignore it and zoom

I think this poll could be useful, but I would ask that this poll only be answered by people who do SUCCESSFUL attempts, rather than people who feel that a specific time of day gets them closer to success than others.

I think your comment about Randi's test is unfair. Someone who wants to pass Randi's test is either

a) mentally ill and deluded into thinking they have powers when they don't
b) a charlatan who is lying and believes he can trick his way past the test or
c) sincerely able to pass the test because they have special powers.

If nobody passes the test it means nobody is in category C has taken it yet, not that the test is invalid.

If you thought you had powers but couldn't pass the test I'd say your powers are pretty useless because they cannot demonstrate anything of any value.

Xanth: I don't think they ever expected this to "pay off." This isn't like the pharmaceutical industry, where R&D is expected to bring returns when they make a new marketable drug. Like most research in physics, if anything with a dollar value is created it will be incidental to the main goal. This was funded by several countries working together, it's not a private venture at all. The goal was research for its own sake. Don't be so cynical

The Higgs particle is predicted by the grand unified theory: dozens of various particles and their behaviors have been predicted by complex mathematics, and their existence has all been proven through rigorous testing to the highest degree of accuracy. The Higgs is the only particle they have not observed, so in essence it's that missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle you need before you can claim you've solved it. A unified theory (and by theory we mean a set of laws that described observed behavior, not a theory as in a "hypothesis") has been the goal of physics for many decades now, hence the global effort towards finding this last missing piece.


I read an interesting teleportation study a while ago, that said Teleportation would have to overcome some serious natural laws to work. When you teleport something, you have to either physically transmit someone's physical matter and reassemble it at the destination, or you have to transmit data which describes the configuration of said matter and assemble it out of "spare parts" at the destination.

When you're moving matter, you run into the problem of finding enough energy to move it. Accelerating even a microscopic object to the speed of light takes an incredible amount of energy: to move a small rodent would take the power of an entire city. Consider the power you get when you explode an atomic bomb, with a core that weighs about 50 pounds. If it was perfectly efficient it would create an explosion in the hundreds-of-megatons range. Multiply that by 3x and that's how much power and energy you'd need to accelerate a standard 150lb person to the speed of light, if you could harness all that heat and light.

If you're moving data, you have a different kind of problem, because you have to capture and send all the states of every sub-atomic particle comprising a person. We don't have any way of transmitting or even storing that kind of data right now, even if we used every computer hard drive in existence on earth.

Can't speak for what we will have in the future, though

To add another perspective, I have found that the length is determined not by what you do, but by what you don't do.

If you don't actively maintain the environment your brain will wake you up. Here are common rules to follow:

- Don't let your gaze rest on any one thing for too long. If you stare at details you will wake up.
- Keep your senses busy. Remember to feel things with your hands as constantly as possible. Let your gaze wander around on things nearby.
- Have a plan of action. If you stand still and just "soak it in" you will wake up. Stay in motion, stay engaged actively in the environment.
- If you feel your senses starting to disappear or grey out, try rubbing your hands together or spinning around in a circle, or diving into the floor, as if it was a swimming pool. You may find yourself somewhere new but you will still be in the phase.


To give an example, upon one of my first successes I immediately started (briefly) examining everything in my room and feeling the objects, the floor, my self, with my hands. The world became more real and vibrant immediately, and stayed that way as long as I continued to do so. When I ran out of stuff to examine I jumped through the roof and flew around the town. Eventually I flew to a window and looked inside. Nothing was going on in there and I momentarily stopped, wondering what to do next. That caused me to wake up. If I had followed a firm plan of action my experience would have been longer.

I have done this myself. My problem is that when I start snoring (it was quite a crushing realization to find out that I am one of those people who snore!) it wakes me up because it feels like I am suffocating.

Logically I understand that I need to become comfortable with the sensation of snoring, it is just difficult.

Todd, did you have this problem? What does snoring feel like for you?




For people wondering how to be passive, it is actually a tricky endeavor. This is something meditators who focus on their breath eventually learn to do, how to pay attention to your breath without influencing it in any way. It is a tricky balance, but once you strike upon the right mindset you can use it for any part of your body. When I need to relax tension in any part of my body (especially my eyes) I can passively focus on the sensation of tension without trying to get rid of it. The mental state is comparable to "curiosity," where you are idly feeling like "I wonder what will happen next" second by second. By focusing on it passively the tension eventually dissolves on its own.

Mushrooms can be a strong agent for change, but not always a good one. "Awakening" implies that you suddenly see a truth that wasn't there before, but it is easy to confuse a new perception or point-of-view with the objective  "truth." That your experiences made you act strangely and negatively around your friends and family suggests that perhaps you were not ready for a sudden and broad change in perspective.

Such drugs tend to detach you from your ego, and the sense of broad perspective and uninhibited/enhanced perception create a state of mind that many meditators only achieve after years of guidance and training from an experienced guru. When such states occur suddenly and without preparation (often through drug use or through brain injury), what would have been a welcome and beautiful experience for a seasoned practitioner can be terrifying and overwhelming for the debutante.

What I got from your post is a great sense of confusion. You are self-aware in some very useful ways but it seems like you are unable to recognize your transitory mental states very well, and thus each new state seems to be "correct" and "permanent" while you experience it, until you move on to the next one. Does what I'm saying resonate with you at all? Do you feel like you are missing a baseline from which to measure your feelings and experiences?

It's worrying that your personality changed for many months. If you have a history of mental illness or depression in your family you should definitely not do any drugs like mushrooms or acid. Try meditating instead: it will keep you grounded when you struggle to deal with your feelings, or when you are unsure of what you should do or say. The website here has a very simple and effective meditation method that anyone can do:

www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html

I think either you are operating at an entirely different and advanced level compared to the rest of us, or you might benefit from getting back on your medication.

I think one of those scenarios is more likely to be true than the other.

I don't wanna jinx you by setting up any expectations: I had pretty good results my first couple of tries and then nothing for a long time. Seems like a pattern: people try for the first time, weird things happen, they get excited, and then their expectations sabotage their efforts.

You might have a talent for this stuff judging by your first attempt.

Post your progress here. It's possible you may not be able to repeat your near-success, in which case I have some advice for you.

I think you chose the most difficult approach and stuck with it, which is admirable, but now after the very predictable failure you've experienced you are discouraged.

This is kind of like deciding to get into hobby aircraft flying, and starting out by opening the manual for a commercial 747. There are much easier ways to achieve your goals that you may have been simply unaware of.

Lying down and going for a fully conscious entrance is really difficult, and impossible for most people without many many years of dedicated practice. It is much easier to have these experiences by making use of sleep-cycle timing and specific techniques: done correctly it takes little effort and you should see results very soon. I had been doing the same thing as you for over two years before I switched tactics and then had success after only two weeks.

Read the free ebook at obe4u.com: the first section about phasing in under three weeks is like 25 pages long and it's all you need really. Just follow the directions carefully, without making any exceptions for yourself because "I am different." Sleep for 6 hours, get up for 30 minutes, go back to sleep, and then when you wake up do 60 seconds of the technique cycles.

Trying to project before going to bed for the night is very difficult, will often lead to discouragement and even insomnia from the sheer effort of concentration. The best time to try is right after waking up in the morning. Try sleeping for 6 hours, waking up with an alarm, taking 10 minutes or so to wake up, and then going back to bed to try again.

If you feel STRONG vibrations try rolling out, sitting up, levitating up, etc. If the vibrations are weak and you can't intensify them, switch to another method such as:

-listening for sounds in your head
-observing images in the blackness
-imagine yourself doing some physical activity such as swimming, rolling left and right, rubbing your hands together, etc...

Once any of these becomes realistic, you try to roll out, sit up, levitate, etc...

An interesting essay. You could improve its impact by adhering to the "thesis-arguments-conclusion" structure rather than the rambling structure here.

Hard to comment on the content since there's a lot of assertions and arbitrarily chosen terminology. No recommendations or suggestions that I can see... What were you hoping to achieve with this post?

Time passes at the same pace as in waking life, but since everything is so condensed and actions follow each other so rapidly, it feels like you are spending a lot more time in there than you really are. Mainly because you don't spend time walking from place to place, you just wind up with the memory of arriving.

Looking at things and reacting to them or analyzing them is what your consciousness does. Your awareness is separate from your consciousness:

Consciousness is always of something, awareness just is. Consciousness goes away during sleep, awareness does not. When you have a thought or a feeling, it's caused by your consciousness. Your awareness of that thought or feeling is separate. Once you can reside in that awareness for a little while the noticing exercise comes naturally.

As you're lying there, everything you see or think or feel is your consciousness. Once you take all that together, what's left is your awareness. It can only be defined by negating everything else. What is a mirror in the absence of light and objects to reflect?