Q for tom, but all input is welcome

[Tom]

Hi. The word purist did not really occur to me. Yes, what I am looking for is a clear and distinct separation from the body and full use of all of the senses in the astral body. That probably meets the definition. That is what other people here are having, right? And they are reporting back that it really does feel more real than physical reality. Back in '90 and '91, I briefly had this sort of experience while trying to teach myself meditation. Silver cords, guides, tours, and even physical verification of experiences afterward sound okay. All of that seems unimportant to me, though. Proof is for other people. We have our experiences for our own benefit.

There are a lot of types of out of body experiences. There are even people who do not go into a trance and can talk about what they are seeing during the experience. If that is the goal you are trying to accomplish and you succeed at it, great. If this is not your goal, then success with it will just be another step toward the experience you are looking for. It sounds like the experiences you had are not what you were trying to accomplish. They are probably steps on the way to another goal. The reason for my guess is that you used the word trauma. The fact that your experiences convinced you is enough. You are not under any obligation to convince other people that it was real. The question which remains is what sort of experience are you working toward accomplishing?

Sure, there have been experiences along the way. Reiki and other energy sytems have produced results. Nothing objective, but still enough to be helpful for me. A few times I saw auras in color around several people at once. A few times every year I have lucid dreams, and sometimes as often as several in a month. My intuition has become more active and has helped in having fewer minor accidents. It has even helped to avoid a few more significant problems. Meditation, physical relaxation, and trance states are all getting easier. One of these days, I expect to have all of these things regularly and on demand. Until then, their random appearances are enough to motivate further efforts.

[Patty]

Hi Again,

My two early experiences...were not immediately post-traumatic. in brief, our child died, it was emotionally devastating. Looking for a way to survive this strain, I sought help from a higher power. I began to feel "energy sensations" for lack of a better word. I thought I was being possessed. I fought it. I made it eventually go away.

Several years pass, I decide the sensations were pre-exit symptoms. I try to re-create them, within a week I have two very brief, fairly convincing (oh my god, here I am, complete, fully aware, standing in my bedroom without a body) experiences.

I had never meditated, and attribute those experiences to something like "need to know" and perhaps some sort of etheric unbalance or overload that allowed the experience.

I suspect that part of the subsequent difficulty in having as strong an experience is because I am more balanced. Is that good or bad? (rhetorical).

but I began meditating and all that, and have had an active, inspirational, and satisfying series of odd experiences since. When I try to verify them I succeed in small ways.

At any rate - with regards to the idea of having all of one's faculties - I don't know if folks here have that or not. As for myself, usually the experience is too brief to test all the systems. on average I could probably report on two or perhaps three systems per experience, and they vary. I regularly have problems - like not seeing early on, or not being able to fly.

I rarely hear - or rather i hear in odd ways. Sort of buzzing quietude. Motion seems slow-mo. I don't make sound when I walk that I can tell, but I often feel the carpet under my feet.

Things tend to be far more tactile or sensate than in dreams, but more hazy than in "real" life.

My only experience with hyperrealism was in-body. I was trying to perceive what was on a high shelf. (I was trying to leave my body to accomplish this.) I 'heard' a helper say "Just BE at the shelf!" so I did that, and my perception was that my hand alone was at the shelf feeling what was there in minute detail. (My awareness was still firmly planted in my head.)  The object that my husband had placed there - I could feel so easily and completely. more real than the keys I'm typing on. I verified it afterwards.

But no, I have not had an experience where I am fully assimilating from all my systems (sight, hearing, feeling, etc) in a hyperreal way. I have to direct my attention to one system at a time and wherever my focus is, I can make something out. Often it is NOT as real as waking consciousness, but still verified later.

One thing these experiences lead me to - is the realization that even IN waking consciousness we are not aware of all the input that is coming in. We focus on one area or another. I see parallels with altered consciousness.

I am presently happy with where I am, and you are happy too - Thank you for clearing up your position for me! I am not concerned with convincing others either, and am content with calling my experiences as I see them.  You asked what my goal is - I guess my goal remains to grow (making progress) and to verify (stuck in a holding pattern presently.) I'd like to more fully know that I will survive death, because I think that will help me feel more unfettered to live more fully. Sort of like the fear of death seems to affect my choices in a persistent, almost unrecognizable way. I'd like that not to be the case.

Thanks -

[Frank]

Patty, you say that, "your child died and that it was emotionally devastating. Looking for a way to survive this strain, I sought help from a higher power".

Okay, number one, the child you had is not dead. I don't care how much you may argue against that point, or how much you may disbelieve me... the child you had is not dead.

Physically, yes, no doubt. But not dead in the sense that you can never be together anymore.

You know, I live with dead people every morning. I look forward to it to the point where I know that no-one really dies, ever.

Yours,
Frank

[Patty]

Hiya, Frank.

In one breath you say my child didn't die, in the next you say you are with dead people every morning.

[]

I appreciate what you're saying, but recommend against that approach in general with the bereaved, particularly out and about.

But using that philosophy, no pain is real. Well, that's fine. But it doesn't help whoever it is that's hurting. It has been over seven years since our child died, I don't really hurt from it anymore, but I do recognize that such an event threatens most people's 'belief systems' pretty profoundly. (Those people who experience a devastating event first-hand, that is.)  So when the context is relevant I mention how I got started in OBE, because if my belief system hadn't been damaged, I never would have exited in the first place. It was relevant here because we were discussing my use of the word 'trauma.'

Finally, I 'see' my child frequently.  'Tisn't the same as raising her in our consensus reality.

Love,

Patty

[Patty]

Hey  Tom,

How much of a purist are you? I ask this from the standpoint of seeing people throw the idea of "leaving your  body" around in every context imaginable (e.g. on one of my exercise videos, etc).

I personally think I had two farily convincing experiences as a result to emotional trauma, followed by a most active dream life including states that ...sort of seemed OB, and to the extent that I can verify them, I wonder if I can trust that they were.....

From one standpoint, I still haven't had the sort of OBE that one reads about in, say, "Journeys out of the body" in which a person meets their guide and gets a tour of this that and the other, sees the silver cord and comes back knowing beyond doubt that death is not the end.  From another standpoint, I regularly have "something" which is different than pre-emotional trauma days. I think the verifications I get are similar in magnitude to what Monroe reported (he saw playing cards, turned out they were envelopes - etc.)

When you say 14 years and counting, have you had LD's, third eye vision, anything weird like that in the mean time? What would constitute an OBE for you? And what were your experiences in the 90's?

Maybe this should go in OBE discussions, but I felt weird directing a question to a specific person there.