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I have certainly had what fits the OP's definition of spontaneous experiences one a few occasions.  One, oddly enough was actually partly confirmed after the fact.  Always from a sleeping state too.  I have actually had a few really neat experiences, but sadly I don't tend to consider them true successes.  I have never projected with full intention and and from a non-dreaming state.  A fully conscious remains a goal of mine, but I do see a link between intending to do so, an openness to the idea and a tendency to project spontaneously from dreams, ect.  By trying to do so, consciously or not, we certainly gave our minds a great suggestion and surely the mind is happy to take us up on it.    It;s my belief that the human consciousness wants to do such things anyway, and if we basically give it permission, well them of course off it goes.           

A few nights ago I had an experience of spontaneous phasing while laying in bed before sleeping.  I was tired but still quite awake and thinking over random thoughts of the day and planning for the next one.  I certainly wasn't trying for anything really.  Unexpectedly I had this odd feeling of both falling into sleep and becoming far more fully awake at the same time.  (Hard thing to explain of course.)  Suddenly my awareness was of looking over a vast expanse of pure white, powdery snow, and the tops of a mountain range.  In places grey rocks poked through, but it was mostly just endless snow.  Quite a lovely view but so very clear and vivid that it was shocking.  Now I don't consider myself to be very good at phasing at all.  I have not practiced it much at all, and the few experiences I have had have been spontaneous, extremely short and uncontrolled.  I have only even succeeded in being greatly startled by it and snapping back to wakefulness.  This time though I suppose I must have gained some confidence at, because while I did indeed snap myself partly back, instead of waking right up confused, I instead felt a bit disappointed in myself for doing that and simply allowed my awareness to fall back into the phase state again.  To my surprise I was right back where I started, looking down over the snow and mountains.

For the first time I had control too.  I thought of moving my awareness down toward the ground, and "landed" on the snow.  I moved slowly froward looking around at the rocks above the snow and a couple of evergreens.  A strange colored thing caught my attention.  It was blue and looked out of place in the otherwise natural landscape.  I moved too it and saw thick fabric.  I eventually made out a snowsuit and a pair of boots.  To my shock I realized next that there was someone in the snowsuit and that person was dead.  He was laying frozen on the mountain half laying half leaning against some jagged rocks.  (The fact that he had no gear of any kind with him, no pack, skis, poles or anything of the sort, only struck me as strange and concerning after the fact.)  For several seconds I stayed there, confused and bothered by it.  I wondered why I would be seeing such a scene, of all things.  I even turned away once and then slowly back again, just to see if I might have made it up in my own head and he would not be there when I looked again.  Sure enough though when I looked again the body was still there in the snow frozen.  Slowly and fare more gently than I have before, I left the phase and returned fully to my own physical form laying in my bed.  I went to sleep shortly after, making a mental note of it but thinking little more about it.  

This is where it gets crazy.  I was at work the next morning, sitting in the staff room enjoying my cup of coffee, and using my smartphone to kill some time browsing my Facebook news feed.  An article a member of my friend list had shared jumped out at me, because of the events of the past night.  It seems a man from a neighboring town no more then 30 kms from me, had been killed in the past couple weeks after being caught in a mountain avalanche.  Obviously reading that freaked me out a little because of the phasing experience and the timing.  I'm posting this on here hoping someone may just have a little insight here.  What happened?                  








             

Though I once wondered about this very same kind of thing myself, I have since found that for me personally it doesn't seem to make any difference.  I suppose though that it would depend on the animal in question.  I sleep with my cat on my bed, (or with her using me as her bed for part of the night.)  She doesn't really move when she's asleep though.  I can easily imagine that sleeping near an animal (or of course even a person,) that kicked and rolled around making noise, would be a different story.  That said, I do not actually consciously project, I only practice sometimes and try to.  I tend to go on the assumption that I could with a pet on the bed though because I can of course sleep with one on there.

One concern I have though about pets on the bed is actually of a animal not already up there, jumping up onto it.  Even a smaller dog or a cat can land quite hard. 

Very cool.  Good job on getting somewhere with this. 

I've been trying to use a bit of a variation on this method, sleeping for a while and then having my phone alarms sound at odd times, five minutes, then maybe, seven minutes, four minutes later, ect, over a bit of time.  I end up needing to wake up though to find and grab the phone in the dark, shut of the alarm and set it back down again on the nightstand.  I'm thinking that just seems to be too much moving around and dealing with sudden loud noises.  Your timer app sounds like a far more practical and logical idea that I think could work much better.  Actually could you post the name of the app?  I'm interested in trying a timer that will turn itself off again, instead of my default alarms.     

I am wondering your experiences with your pets and your astral projections or attempts to do so.  I would think this is mostly relevant to cats and dogs, because they are generally loose in the house, but of course anything could apply here.  If you are someone that happens to have an animal sleeping in your room with you, has it ever been a problem for your practice or travels?  Haha, do they actually ever notice non-physical bodies?  I'd be curious to hear about anything involving animals and OBEs, mostly because it might be a cool topic in here.  

For myself personally I have one pet cat, who likes to sleep curled up most of the night on the end of my bed.  (fluffy little foot warmer it seems, lol.)  She'll jump up there if I nap too.  So far I've never had any real trouble practicing with her on my bed.  But once in a while she likes to randomly sit or lay on top of me, and I'm a bit worried about getting jumped on.          

The other day a similar thing happened again.  This time while I was dozing off to sleep, and fully intending to try getting out of body, I was met with the very distinct feeling of very heavy footsteps walking hard across the floor.  This time though it was distinctly my own floor as opposed to anything that could have been in any neighboring apartment.  Once again for a while I managed to both misjudge it and also react in a way that now seems ridiculous of course.  After a second of being startled by the sudden thumping that dragged me partly back from a near sleeping state, I simply assumed with some irritation, that someone was certainly insisting on walking awfully heavy across my floor while I was obviously laying down.  It was only after the next quick second it took me to actually realize that I live alone and had no house-guests, that it occurred to me to wonder who on earth could have been doing it in the first place!

Obviously I need to get the hang of this.  At least for now my "signpost" might be that sudden and erratic Thump...thumpthump... bang, on floors and walls, as opposed to anything more steady as I must admit I had been almost expecting.  I have to admit this is a tough one to work with because it is so sudden and not steady and it could almost be physical.  It's very interesting.             

I would be interested in doing this here with our members, if you guys are as well.

Otherwise I will just delete this entire thread.

Personally I think it be interesting to see and Astral Pulse version of this sort of thing start up on here.

Just a couple ideas for the teams here, should you guys decide to try any of this; A little section for the partner ship project, with forum threads serving as progress journals for the pairs.  A "wanted ads" areas in there too, for those that want to join and to be paired off, etc.     

Thanks Szaxx,

I was a but surprised at my own lack of fear.  But then of course a motion that feels a bit like someone pounding on a neighboring wall, is not THAT jarring of a feeling, all things considered.  If anything i got confused and missed it at first, assuming for so long it was actually someone physically banging nearby because it was not steady and not what I would have been expecting.  Haha, I had just recently made a post on this forum that lead to a comment about nothing being as we would have expected.  Well timed I think!

I suppose I really could have tried to get up and move away.  The thing that seemed to get me is simply doubtful thoughts, "Is it a good idea to move yet?' "Do I really want to?" "Maybe i should wait longer."  etc.  Strangely I had no idea exactly what to do next and so did nothing at all.

The question I have now about this is why would I have fallen asleep right away after that?  I mean sure it makes sense becuae it was night time and I was laying down.  But still it seemed I went right from thinking and noticing something very odd, to sleeping.

I thought I'd post this mainly because it ended up later leading me to consider a question of others on here.  Last night while laying down beginning to fall asleep but still feeling somewhat awake once again, I first noticed what I thought at first in my odd state of part wakefulness, was the neighbor upstairs walking extremely heavy and pounding on the floor so hard my apartment was shaken slightly from the motion.  Needless to say I was annoyed at first and wondering what on Earth was going on up there that could cause such a feeling of reverberation though the ceiling and walls below.  I quickly noticed another motion and again the whole room seemed to shake from the impact.  This time though it occurred to me that it almost felt like it was below me and not above at all.  As this continued with no real pattern to it, just as noticeable each time and always sending wakes of vibration through my entire body as I lay wondering what in the world was going on that night.  A couple odd things occurred to me then.  Firstly there was no banging sound or anything accompanying the constant shaking of what I thought was part of the building from footsteps.  Besides who could or would cause such a thing and just keep on doing it in the first place.  Even if it did make sense, it would be so unlike anyone that lives in nearby apartments to do so.  Secondly I still couldn't rule out that it was actually coming from below and not above at all.  It felt to be just as must be just as must below me as above, yet I live on the ground floor!

It still felt physical, like someone was simply pounding away on the floor or walls, but silent and oddly out of place.  It just wouldn't stop.  Thinking again with surprising logic, I realized and then knew without a doubt that this was completely non-physical though it felt so real and convincing.Strangely conscious and clear thinking now in this state, I realized that I had mistaken non-physical vibration for someone banging on the walls and my ceiling extremely hard.  Of course from here I changed my thinking from frustration over what I had thought to be troublesome neighbors, to curiosity about the state.  Even though I was nowthinking somewhat intently, it still didn't stop and I realized that as long as I didn't think TOO much or panic it was okay to reason a bit.  I wondered then if I should try to move my non-physical body and see if anything would happen.  I wondered then if I actually wanted to.  It occurred then that I had no idea what to do or how and that was fine with me.  Whatever was happening just continue and I recall thinking very clearly "Wow, I always thought it might scare me if it got this obvious."  The thought that followed immediately was simply, "It's not scary at all.  Why panic?"  At some point very soon after I suppose I just dozed right off to sleep.

Now the question I was left with from this, because I've noticed such a thing before though not under quite this circumstance, is simply does anyone else commonly find themselves just basically not sure at all how to proceed and doing nothing because of momentary cluelessness.  it;s odd to find just how in such a state logic can just seem to work differently..                  

So I don't think of it the same way anymore. It's not how "close" I am. It's "oh boy! There's so many ways to interact with the non physical. This is flipping sweet". Haha!

I figure its pointless to be frustrated.

I completely agree with you about finding that there are many ways to interact with the non-physical.  To me that might just be an advantage in a way of slower than typical progress, (not like there is anything truly typical in this endeavor, lol.)  Sure we may not always do what we intended to do, but we get to experience so many neat things in the process of trying.  I know for myself, I;ve certainly interacted in path with non-physical reality in my own way.  It's all pretty amazing really.       

Bedeekin, that's a wonderful point, and also exactly what made this topic so confusing in a way, to type logically.     I've thought of such a thing myself before, but of course from a different perspective. I've thought I must have been "pretty close" before, but always wondered how one would really know if they've never been any closer.  I meant it as a very relative thing for each person, because while it's hardly the most reliable measure of anything, it's the only way I can think of to word it and compare, lol. 

Haha, I'm awaiting my own moment of shocked "nothing like I expected," realization too some day.          

I'm mainly directing this question to either those who took a considerable amount of time before their first true success with projection, or those here that are still yet to truly and have been trying for awhile.  I'm curious about how things may have evolved over the months/years during your practice sessions, that have been what you would call "pretty close."  Obviously in order to have become later excited, make a note of it, post it on Astral Pulse, etc, we would have had to have hit some noticeable 'signpost' or had something get our attention.  Are we all hitting different signposts as time goes on, or is is just the same sort of experiences for some people no matter how long we've been practicing. 

I got to thinking about this today, and decided for the sake of interest, to start a topic on something less commonly thought of on here. 

For myself, I have certainly noticed, oddly enough that my own progress is evolving somehow over the years.  At first, having recently started out and beginning to think I might have been close, I got crazy spinning.  Somewhere down the road, and still a few years ago now, it seemed to more of a racing heart and very disassociated feeling.  Eventually it evolved from that into the most recent senses of moving non-physical body parts.  I don't even have the  early signposts happen anymore.  it seems the whole process of learning truly is a constant change from one thing to another.           

Admittedly it seems many people talk about the importance of having  plan in mind for what you actually wish to do or where to intend to go the next time you find yourself out of body, (or certainly the first time, for any that are still yet to have first successes.)  I'm curious about how many here actually use the plan idea.

I got to thinking the last time I consciously planned to make a try myself, that I don't have and never really did have a plan.  I suppose I've just always had a bit of trouble making one, and knowing exactly what to think of trying to do or where to go.  In any honesty I have no one I miss and would like to see if okay or anything.  Intending to go very very far is obviously a ridiculous goal for what will some day be a first true success, and something like "I plan to touch the ceiling" seems a bit silly... or is it?  I''d love to hear some or your thoughts on OBE plans and goals.     

As for my question lets use a scenario to give us a starting point,

Your driving your toyota hatchback on the the highway and you hit an oncoming truck at high speed head on. In this scenario you are crushed completely on impact which has unfortunately resulted in your instant death.

Now, My question to YOU is -

What do you think happens almost immediately after this incident ? Im not looking for major detail just your short an sweet view on the process  

My guess on this, simply because I must admit this is an interesting topic...

A flash of brightness, the sound of tires and grinding metal, and your own voice far away screaming in shock.  For a second you lose consciousness before you can even begin to notice the process.

Waken again quickly you find yourself very suddenly and unexpectedly outside a now very wrecked Toyota, totaled truck, and parts laying on the road.  With a strangely high amount of awareness and consciousness, you piece together in an instant exactly what's happened.  You look at your own body clearly dead and crushed in the driver seat of your car, with odd detachment.  You know in that instant that that is not and was never you.  You are the consciousness now standing on the highway.  It might be almost overwhelming at this point, but you can't stop thinking and comprehending anyway.  The life that just ended seems like a dream now, but you do know you have family and fiends who will soon have to hear about the accident.  You might feel sad thinking of their reactions.  You probably think then of the guy in the truck, and hope he is okay.  The road is brighter than you remember it being and you begin to sense the presence of a being or two near by.  You might know then in that second that a guide of some sort of other has come to lead you to where you go next.

Now the scene you've set up is of course a very sudden and traumatic way to die.  I think from here it could go one of a couple ways.  You may be among the unlucky ones that flips out for some reason or other, blames yourself for the crash, fears the light, fears judgement you were not ready for, simply gets confused, ect.  But for whatever reason you might then run to become "lost," for some time.  Hopefully though that won't happen.  Hopefully you will simply hold it together with curiosity and a strange sense of calmness, as you begin that instant to question everything from the meaning of you own life, to the safety of the other driver, to the future of your family, to whether you harmed anyone by breaking that window years ago at five years old...       

Yay, Xanth!
 

I greatly enjoyed reading about this experience and of course I thank your for sharing it with all of us here.  Sometimes I get nervous about dying too, which seems odd, but I guess it's part of what makes us human.  I've read quite a bit on the subject of near death experiences, a nd it seems that no one ever says they were afraid, only strangely calm or even curious, and yet still I suppose until you learn such a thing for yourself, it's difficult to not have a couple of doubts.  In your case, it seems like you own guides just decided it was time to just randomly show you something so amazing simply because you were afraid.  Of course they don't want us to be afraid.

I do wonder thouhg, how to you feel about the whole matter now, after this little amazing experience?         

I have felt an awareness of my own non-physical hands only a few times and this was the only time I ever really felt that tingly feeling like my hands had fallen sleep or something, but then this time I was far more aware of non-physical limbs and movement then ever before so far, and for much longer it seems.  I'm curious to see if it will always be the same in my case now or not.  It does seem it would make it a bit hard to really move but this is all just one more learning curve after another.   

The melting hands thing... I've heard many people talk about this.  Very interesting.  I have yet to have such an experience myself of course.  So far I have not really seen anything at all non-physically, my own non-physical hands or otherwise.  Once, some time ago I did have the very brief and unexpected experience of my astral body trying to open it's eyes, but nothing really to speak of (in the grand scheme of things.)  Sudden light in front of me in a dark room, the scene that my own eyes were closed and yet I was seeing.  A flash of motion and color in front of me.       

I little experience i had very recently made me curious abut this.  Of course I don;t think it's the same for everyone, but still it got me wondering and I thought others might like to compare notes on this too.

Basically I came pretty close once again to successfully projecting (haha, honestly I think in my case i ind the process of getting closer at times as amazing as many of you find your real successes.  It's all relative!  )  Again I felt the motion my my own nonphysical hands and was again amazed at how real it is.  This time though I noticed that while moving my hands in front of me deliberately, the motion felt pretty much the same as that feeling we've likely had a time or two of trying to move a limb after it;s 'fallen asleep' fro being left to long in a bad position.  Kind of like trying to walk after maybe sitting with you feet underneath your body or something like that.  The limb works fine (or almost fine) but feels very strange, tingly and you just want to try to get the feeling back.  Do your own nonphsyical bodies ever feel like that?       

I wanted to post too, and let you know I really love this song.  After listening to it a few times, it's literally one of my favorite songs.  Very inspirational message.  It's always great to hear people starting to write songs these days about spiritual topics like this.  I so look forward to hearing others. 

Just thought I'd post this in here.  Today I had a bit of a neat experience, and of course yet again it happened when I was at at all trying.  I've been dead tired all day, probably because I haven't been able to sleep well at nights lately, while still getting up early for work in the mornings.  Today though when I got home I ended up waiting for the landlord to pop by to collect rent, so the last thing I wanted to do is go lay down in my bed and doze off completely.  (I'd have only then ended up needing to track the landlord down tomorrow had I missed the door)  I decided to take a quick nap instead on the futon in the living room.  I don't sleep on there very often at all, and of course not very well because upright it's a bit narrow.  I didn't really intend to sleep, just kind of lay down for a short while and chill, but before i realized it I was dozing fright off to sleep anyway.  Strangely I was fully aware of falling asleep, and I thought of paying attention to it then just because the opportunity was presenting itself.  Suddenly and without a thought about it, I found myself in a state that I would call almost a state of hyper awareness, and noticing the feeling of existing almost independent of anything but my own consciousness.  I realized then shockingly enough that my body had fallen asleep.  My mind was aware of being awake in the living room, listening for the door, and thinking of how odd it was to have done this.  I've come quite close to this state before, but in that second I knew that was the first time I had ever really done it. 

For what must have only been seconds, but seemed in no way hurried at all, I just stayed where I was, existing as almost a simple point of consciousness within that I knew to be a sleeping body.  I was aware of everything yet of nothing at the same time.  I was aware of not sensing my own body, but at the same time I wasn't wasn't concerned.  I thought about it for a second and it seemed logical that I could have probably moved had I wanted to.  I just simply didn't want too or know how to. in the next second I thought that maybe I could try moving my non-physical body.  I have done this to a small extent before, but only ever by accident.  Normally I tend to assume at first I am physically moving, and I get confused.  I began to notice that I could move to some small extent without physically moving.  I think I was thinking too much though because in the next second it occurred to me that I had no idea exactly what to do next,and in the second after that I was actually aware of waking up again. 

Upon thinking this over not too long later, I think I must have set myself up for just such a thing without really putting much thought into it.  I took a quick nap in the daytime, which i course is very much off schedule and at a time when I was of course not as tired as at night.  i was laying down calmly in a place I would not normally have associated with falling asleep.  I as also thinking of actually not dozing off at all or a t least of not sleeping too soundly because I was of course waiting for a knock on the apartment door within an hour.  Haha, likely not too interesting of an account here, but of course I was quite excited about it anyway.               

I've noticed it still horrible when it comes to the spam on this site in the last few days. I've not even reported it to the mods recently because there is just so much I fear I might overwhelm the moderator team's in-boxes.  Lol, maybe if we all post more and more int he way of useful topics, at least the spam would kind of be overlooked to a small degree?

I remembered this today and thought I'd post it on here because someone may be interested and also I would love to know what it actually might have all meant.  This was a couple years ago now.  I was at a point in my life where things were a fine as ever.  I wasn't ill or over stressed or anything.

The whole thing started out seeming just like a dream, but quickly it became very very real.  I came to awareness in a tiny shack in some past era.  It looked like maybe a hundred years ago or so.  Hard to tell for sure.  There was not enough to go by to indicate a time period.  I didn't realize at the moment I had just simply gained awareness at all.  More like I just merged into the situation and assumed I had always been there.  I was suddenly a very small girl, and no longer me at all.  This didn't seem odd to me at all at first.  "My" mother was in the shack screaming that someone was coming and we had to get away.  She screamed that there was no way out and were going to be captured and dragged away somewhere.  She couldn't let that happen.  Outside I could hear noise and chaos.  She was frantic with panic and fright.  At first she tried to hide me, then must have decided it would never work.  I saw her then begin to go completely crazy with fear of whoever it was outside.  I never did figure out who it was out there.  I just knew, in my childish mind, that they were bad.

I saw "my" mother set our little shack on fire.  I think she used a stick from inside the stove, but I can't be sure.  I just know that very quickly the very dry old wood of the walls was burning and smoke filled the place fast.  She then ran toward me, and much to my terror, she set the fabric of my little dress on fire deliberately.  I understood then that she intended for us both to burn to death to save us being caught and captured.  I had never been so terrified before.  I didn't want to die and my own mother was trying to kill me, while I could do nothing about it. 

Knowing then that I was going to die and could do nothing, my awareness simply left the body of the girl.  Of course this was where it all got weird and confusing.  For the first time I realized that something odd was happening.  I was me again, but f course without my physical form.  I knew I was not her at all and I actually wondered what was happening and what it had to do with me.  For a moment I watched the scene continue to unfold, now of course detached from it and just an unseen observer.  The girl was dying, I had lost track of the mother, and the shack continued to burn to the ground.  The scene replayed, almost like it had been rewound.  My awareness was back with the child again, and again "I" was about to burn to death.  This time I caught on fast and simply willed myself to "jump out."  I literally flew instantly a few meters to the top of the room to observe again.  The scene seemed to reset again, and again I jumped back out at once.  I had began to know I could get easily, but still I was puzzled as to how to actually wake back up. 

On the next reset of the scene, it all went very wrong.  This time I tried to jump back away again from the awareness of this little body and I couldn't.  My dress was up in flames.  I could feel the heat near my head and smell the smell of burning fabric..  I willed myself out again, but I couldn't go anywhere.  I knew I was not her.  I was me, and I knew I had my own body somewhere.  Still though, it was the though of experiencing the death of this child that scared me.  I wondered for a second if I was supposed to experience it, and if that was why I had been sent there somehow.  Still though I just couldn't.  It all felt too real.  I panicked worse and worse until I thought I might lose it.  The sheer panic and dispairation to free myself from the strange and horrible experience must have snapped me back quickly, because the next thing I knew I was at least somewhat awake in my bed, with my eyes open, seeing the room the early hours of morning with the images of the other place still in front of my eyes too.  The phone started to ring.  That forced me to move and thank goodness it did.  I could barely stumble out of bed to pick it up though.  I just didn't feel good at all.

Even so long later, I would love any possible insight on this and what might have happened.                           

I'm a writer, or at least I'm trying to be, lol.  Currently I'm trying to get the book I'm writing, a science fiction-y type thing, finished before I got on to work on many other new plot lines for shorter stories.  Typical writer trait I suppose, my head is always so full of ideas that never seem to look as interesting for make quite as much sense on paper, lol.

A fair bit of effort and interest goes into the internet radio show I'm hosting, too.  Keeping an eye out for opportunities to interview interesting people, and keeping on top of positive news, an inspiration segment I like to do, is always interesting.  I've met so many neat people!   Most recently I've discovered that I love to play with sound engineering software, and I've been trying to learn that for the purpose of making openings and comedy sound clips and things.

I love somewhat amateur-ish photography too.  I'm always looking got interesting pictures to be taken.   My thing is mostly photographing buildings, bridges and, roads and railways tracks.  I edit digital photos as well, sometimes changes the colors and such.  

Music is something I've always greatly enjoyed.  I'm always looking to discover new music I've not heard before.  I'm trying to learn to play the guitar as well, but I'm not very good at that at all thus far, lol.                  

Wondering about this, and I'm guessing others might notice the same thing for yourselves at times.  Throughout the course of attempting projections over the years, I've come to realize just how varied my experiences are with coming close to succeeding.  There have been a few times I've been startled for a couple of reasons, and one in which I got up early int he morning after nearly leaving without intending to, terrifying to bother to sleep again.  Other times though it's so far from frightening, and I later find myself wondering how such a thing couldn't have scared me.  Lol, at times I've been terrified and later feel ridiculous about that.  Other times I've wondered why I wasn't scared.  Go figure.  Only once, I've had the experience of nonphysically rolling over from one side to the other in my bed.  (it was not until later when I woke up realizing I hadn't actually moved, that I even knew I'd been nonphysical at all,) but I recall it being next to impossible to move for whatever reason.  There was such a strong and strange resistance involved, that I don't know how being partly out of body went over my head in the first place.  Then again I'm quite good for missing the obvious signs, as I've done so many times over the years.  it just all seems to go over my head and until I later think "well that was a bit odd," haha.  At others time though it's seemed almost too easy to move, if that makes any sense.  The one time there was so much resistance, but another early on, I simply found myself spinning around a room nearly hitting a wall, before snapping back wide awake and confused.

What is it that makes the experiences of an individual so different from each other.  I can understand how things like how easy or hard it is to move would have to do with energy levels among other things, but what about being afraid or startled, or just thinking it's exciting or interesting? 

               

For myself, I think it was part personal choice, and part circumstance that led down this path.  Ever since I can remember I was so sure there was more to the world and our reality, than many people talk about.  From a young age, I was interested in the "unexplained," and anything unusual.  If someone said something was unlikely, weird, or even a bit scary to think about, chances are I wanted to know more about it, lol.  The world always seemed impossibly small I suppose and I knew it just had to be bigger than we thought.  By the time I hit my teen years I was sure they are more to a human being than just five senses and a body.  By chance my family and I were watching TV one evening years ago and on came a documentary about near death experiences.  My parents kept it on because we only had a few channels back then and there was nothing on the others.  I however found it interesting.  The idea of finding oneself in a reality outside of one's own body confirmed what i knew I'd always assumed as logical somehow.  Of course my new interest in that subject led me to read about OBE's because of course they are so closely related.

It was a couple years after I think, while browsing in a bookstore, through a section filled with books on anything spiritual, metaphysical or paranormal, that I came across a copy of "Adventures Beyond the Body."  It was reading that book that I learned the OBEs were something that can be learned and practiced by choice.  I'd always assumed of course that it was something that just kind of happened to random people with no real intention.  This was the first time I realized that we as common people could become explorers in a new kind of unknown territory.  I was then led, I suppose, to want to have an experience of my own.

Curiosity, and a tendency to look at things with an open minded belief, combined with a scientific approach, and a healthy dose of skeptical need to see things myself to really "get it," is a pretty neat combination of personality traits I do think.