What Got You Interested In AP?

[Euphoric Sunrise]

Christmas Eve last year i got a present from my cousins. It was a Carlos Castaneda book (The Teachings of Don Juan book). Castaneda led me into lucid dream and lucid dreaming led me into astral travel. It is my goal to have left my body by Christmas Eve this year. I'm nearly there [^]

[Huwie]

Good topic!  I had heard of lucid dreams and I was looking it up.  I came across a website that mentioned APing and Robert Monroe.  I had never really given much thought to it before, but RM sounded intriguing so I bought his first book.

Well, Journeys Out of the Body knocked my socks off!  Frankly, since reading it I became pretty much obsessed with the idea of APing.  I bought his second book (third on its way) and I've ordered Robert Bruce's book now.

[Tolvor]

For me it was another sleep paralysis episode (rare for me), very terrifying.  Did some internet searches on SP, found some science papers which had some extremely interesting symptoms that brought to mind astral projection.  Started researching AP.  The irony is, started the research to find a way to ensure that I would never have another SP episode, ended up indifferent to whether I have a SP.

[Logic]

I started getting alot of deja vu's and I read David Icke's "..and the truth shall set you free". I started learning about lucid dreams, and I worked my way over to astral pulse some how =)

[Nagual]

A friend told me about lucid dreaming, even if he was not really interested in it.  Then, I became interrested in relaxation, and curious about the process of falling asleep, and tried to feel as many steps as possible before loosing consciousness.  Then, I found out about OBEs and was happily surprised to find out that my experiences mostly matched others; especially since I did not read about it before trying.

[phi]

What got me interested in OBEs was reading about NDEs. I thought they must be similar. Richard Bach was also an influence. My opinion falls on the side of they are both hallucinations and dreams.

[crazy_colombiang]

my dad has a friend that knows how to AP i was really interested cause he said he could fly and go to places in a matter of seconds.

[Ybom]

I'm not really sure how to explain it, since it's all sorts of complicated and I would just turn it into a long run on sentence if I tried! I'll put it simply as this: I've had complications with AP and energy development and an interest with them all my life due to friendships, presbyterianism, and structured American society in general (and not to mention a giant case of procrastination!)

I sort of feel bad that I didn't accept things earlier, but I've come to accept that it wasn't my path or desire to know it earlier.

[TheSeeker]

A lot of things over time.  I had lucid dreams as a child, and have always been interested in dreams.  So I did some research on the different states of sleep.  Some people I've known througout life have told me stories about OBEs they've had (not conciously), they just happened.  Listening to TOOL (my favorite band by the way []).  And, last but not least, some experiences I've had on shrooms and LSD.

From there my interest was piqued and I picked up Journeys out of the body and a book on meditation first.  Then I read some Alex Grey and Robert Bruce.

[Aries]

I dream alot of things that come true, and have always had some psychic talent (self proclaimed)
Me and a friend of mine have almost a telepathic bond, we can send/recieve emotions and have conversations without talking. Not in a sense where I hear his voice in my head, but thoughts just kinda pop in and it happens to be what he is thinking.
Im also intrested in Aliens, Energy, alot of stuff on Nickola Tesla and all that kind of brought me to this website, where I have slowly lurked around taking in some info from all of you.
And thats what started me.. sry for the long post
-Aries

[WalkerInTheWoods]

When I was in high school I had an a spontaneous projection. I did not know what had happened at the time. A few years later I told a friend about the experience. She told me what it was that happened. After that I have been interested in it. Though as of late my interest has actually faded a bit and have been interested in energy work.

[Avalon]

I guess I'm with the majority of the poster here...I had a spontaneous projection.  It took probably close to 10 years to figure out what had happened.  It was an intense enough experience that I didn't forget it or the sleep paralysis that followed it.  I thought I had died, thinking I had stopped breathing because the whole body paralysis was similar to the feeling of having one's limb/s fall asleep (lack of circulation) but much, much worse.

[Makaveli]

I heard something about it when looking up SP and got really interested when I saw a little about ap at near-death.com.

[GrindxKing]

Hello all, I came into the scene of Astral Projection by COMPLETE accident... Or hell... Maybe it wasn't an accident... Anyway... I was having a get together with a few friends when we decided to eat a few hits of acid... After a few hours of just insane fun and talking about life and things of that nature we decided to chill for a while and listen to music... So we put on some Pink Floyd and after a few minutes we were all kind of zoned listening to the fantastic musical affects of Dark Side of the Moon... I kind of drifted off and was having fun watching the excellent visuals being produced in my minds eye by the music that was playing when my eyes opened and I continued looking around the room... Only something was different... Way different... It wasn't where I was sitting before... Then I looked slightly down and realized I was looking at myself from across the room... It was startling but not scaring... A peaceful and almost serene feeling filled me... I realized that I was no longer breathing and I no longer felt the burden of my physical body... I tried to move my arm and when I did my arm moved in my physical body that I was looking at across the room... This kind of shocked me and relieved me at the same time... I mean, at least I knew then that I wasn't in fact dead... I started to feel a pull from where my physical body was... Then the pulling started to exponentially grow to the point that it snapped me right back in to my body... The experience filled me with almost a child-like joy as it really was pouring in to me the reality and meaning of what had just happened... As I opened my physical eyes I looked over at one of my friends that also had his eyes closed with a semi-smirk on his face... I called out his name a few times before I actually got a response, but when I did finally get a response his eyes opened with a sign of glee... "You will never believe what just happened", he said. "Um... If it's like what I just experienced I'll believe it", I followed... "Dude... I was just looking at myself from across the room. " He replied... It was amazing... We had just had almost the same experience at the same exact time... This REALLY cemented the fact that this was something real and it was something completely natural and not just a hallucination produced by the acid I had taken... After this night I had a totally new perception of physical reality and felt almost like a kid again that was experiencing life for the first time... My curiosity grew as I found more and more books about the subject... It was awesome to find out that others experienced exactly what I had and that there was soooooo much literature on the subject... Coincidently Astral Dynamics was the first book that I happened to pick up, and I emailed Robert a few times telling him of stuff that I had found out... I actually came across his website in it's infancy and actually talked with him about helping him create a bigger website on the subject... But we lost touch as I soon after joined the Navy, got married, had a kid, and went through some troublesome times in my own life... But... I'm back now and wanting to learn even more about the Astral, metaphysics, and the like... I've had other O.O.B.E.'s since then but that was the one that really took the cake...

-Michael

quote:"Have you ever had a dream that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?" -Morpheus

[Blackstream]

Serious Necromancy there dude:p

But oh well.  Did you ever get that AP, Euphoric Sunrise?

What drew me here started with an exploration on lucid dreaming.  I actually heard about it on a game programming website.  Ironically it was a post about OBEs, and the guy mentioned that he made his OBEs by summoning up a train in a lucid dream and hitting himself with it.  So I asked him about lucid dreams, he gave me a link to lucidity.com, and immediately I was hooked, and got "Exploring the world of Lucid Dreaming".  After reading that book, I found out about the people who believe that there was something more to lucid dreams, that is, the idea of OBEs.  I saw some discussion that maybe it was all just a clever dream, but still I was interested.

Later on, I was reading another forum, and I got several links to OBE sites, this being one of them, the other of which I've already forgotten.

Woohoo.

[GRRegis]

I was just wondering how people got onto the subject of Astral Projection.  Me I read the Holographic Universe and loved the section on OBE's and NDE's.  About two weeks later when waking up I felt like I was being sucked up tthrough my third eye and then found this website and have been interested since.