Does the body really have to be asleep?

[Stookie]

Over the last couple months or so I realize I've thrown out many of the previous concepts of OBE/AP/Phasing, I think mainly because they were contrary to my experiences. One of these concepts is the physical body having to be asleep. I say this because almost every time I attempt to AP I "see" something, but I know I'm not asleep yet. For example, last night I attempted for about 20 minutes before bed, got up for a drink, and when I laid back down immediately started seeing bright flashes of light after only about 5 seconds (which is weird when you're in a dark room with no light source). Sometimes I see complete scenes. I'm definitely in a relaxed state, but far from asleep. Maybe I'm doing something related to phasing, but is different?

Do any others experience this? Is "mind awake/body asleep" really a good rule to go by?

[CFTraveler]

I think it depends whether you're attempting OBE or Phasing.  I can lay down and have images in minutes while I'm still awake enough and have limited control of what I see, but I can't project until I'm completely paralyzed and: Feel vibrations, feel my energy body completely loose "that floaty feeling", and sometimes see through my closed eyelids.  So, maybe someone can do it, maybe you can do it, but I can't. (And I've been projecting since I was 6 or 7 and am now 48, btw.)

[NickJW]

Yes I have similar experiences Stookie. I also see the bright flashes of light and have also seen detailed landscapes and visions with my eyes closed but my body still awake. The difference is that in these 'visions' you are not in a "second body" and you are not really interacting with the environment. I would consider these things some type of remote viewing which basically is the form of projection for when the body is awake.

[Ben K]

Over the last couple months or so I realize I've thrown out many of the previous concepts of OBE/AP/Phasing, I think mainly because they were contrary to my experiences. One of these concepts is the physical body having to be asleep. I say this because almost every time I attempt to AP I "see" something, but I know I'm not asleep yet. For example, last night I attempted for about 20 minutes before bed, got up for a drink, and when I laid back down immediately started seeing bright flashes of light after only about 5 seconds (which is weird when you're in a dark room with no light source). Sometimes I see complete scenes. I'm definitely in a relaxed state, but far from asleep. Maybe I'm doing something related to phasing, but is different?

Do any others experience this? Is "mind awake/body asleep" really a good rule to go by?

I think its only a figure of speach. In the wider reality there really is no such thing as "sleep", just a change of perception. for some people the notion of "mind awake body asleep" means that they have to feel their physical body fall asleep, which isnt true at all. you can have an OBE when you are wide awake, the only barrier is belief. Monroe in his later years projected while eating breakfast, haha.

its like a muscle. its an ability you have to progress with over time. when you are running on a treadmill your legs are ready to go, just like when you are waking up your mind is still ready to go. so you might see scenes or other dreamlike experiences for a moment until you wake up. eventually i think you can get to the point where projection is like flexing a muscle, you simply look for a point in your mind and activate it.

[Stookie]

Goes to show that when it comes to OBE a person shouldn't take everything so literally. Or believe everything. Really, nothings been as I expected it to be before I started to see any progress. It's kinda exciting.

Thanks Guys

[Stevo]

You know, Stookie, it took me 7 years to come to the same conclusion. You wanna know what I think it is?

For so long people see that something so rare in our society needs rules. It needs boundaries, right and wrong, left and right, up and down. If you don't follow the steps things won't work.

For a lot of people this is true. Many need steps, they need a path or a map; Just something that will tell them how to do it. It's reassuring to know that there's someone out there who did all the thinking for you so all you have to do is push piece A in to slot B.

A lot of time I spent laying in bed, dozing to the thoughts that I have, led me to realise just that. For years I thought I hadn't grasped concepts here and there, that I was yet to really understand the full picture. Then it dawned that the very things I'm reaching out for I used to experience as a small child. Heck, I experience it every time I sleep. The tricky part is being able to just be fully concentrated on it.

When I phase, I don't see places or people or hear things. It dawned on me that I rather don't like that form. I don't want to go somewhere and live in a fantasy land of my dreams. I'd rather just... be. So I sit in the unconcentrated darkness, and let the brain impulses jump back and forth until a train of thought pops in my head, and I daydream facts. Technically I'm still phasing because I'm completely tuned inward. I forget where I am and what I'm doing, I even forget I have a body.

So Stookie, do it your way. Have it your way. All you really need to do is forget about the outside world and look inside.

[Selski]

Over the last couple months or so I realize I've thrown out many of the previous concepts of OBE/AP/Phasing, I think mainly because they were contrary to my experiences.

Hi Stookie

You mention "many" of the previous concepts.  Get rid of them all and then the fun starts...  

You realise I'm not having you on? - I'm being serious.

Sarah

[Ben K]

Over the last couple months or so I realize I've thrown out many of the previous concepts of OBE/AP/Phasing, I think mainly because they were contrary to my experiences.

Hi Stookie

You mention "many" of the previous concepts.  Get rid of them all and then the fun starts...  

You realise I'm not having you on? - I'm being serious.

Sarah

I can back that up. Try to fit your extraordinary experiences into words...not the other way around

[Stookie]

I've found a crazy mixture of success and failure with what I've learned. I see a lot of it is trial and error. Like if I have an OBE after I did a certain thing, I'd think that thing is why I had it and try it again, when it really wasn't that at all. It can trip you up until you realize it.

Another example is when I first came to this forum. Frank was here and had a lot of new concepts and methods and it was pretty exciting to learn something new. But now I see that a lot of his concepts held me back. I know that was never his intention, but experience is the only way to really learn and without it, those concepts become rules, and those rules can become limitations. Like your body being asleep. Again, I know it was never anyone's intention, but my mind has always worked in a very logical way and really thought your body had to be asleep. We here at the Astral Pulse should ditch this terminology.

And I'm in the process of getting rid of this "logic" when it comes to AP. Logic is for the physical world.

[Leilah]

You know. This week, I have had the vibrations twice. I haven't experienced them in a LONG time -yet when they occurred, I noticed I could move my body. My body was definitely not asleep. Of course, this caught me by surprise, seeing how almost everything I have read never mentioned the fact that your body DOESN'T have to be asleep in order to experience .. "crazy stuff".

I guess this shows that you should really trust your own experiences rather than taking others words for it. I have always thought that in order to go "out of body" or whatever, my body had to be, for the most part, asleep.

Stookie, my experiences have proved this theory wrong as well.  :cyclops:

[Stevo]

Stookie, you are so on the right track. Just keep going with it, ok? Be on top of all that like butter on a baked potato. Trust me, those understanding factors are key. Most people never come to realise it.

[Ben K]

I think i can clear this matter up.

Your body must be asleep to REACH the state possible for astral projection. but once you reach the state required its all bets off.

does that make sense?

[Selski]

Your body must be asleep to REACH the state possible for astral projection.

I disagree.  

Based on my experiences, my body doesn't HAVE to be asleep.  For the majority of my projections, it has been asleep, but there have been half a dozen or so examples where (for instance) I've been waving my 'astral' arms around and could also feel the bedclothes on my physical toes.  I even thought to myself "this isn't possible" while it was happening.

I don't see why there can't be instances where we are both 'astral' and 'physical' at the same time if the process is a matter of shifting or sliding from one to the other.  

Sarah

[Stookie]

Your body must be asleep to REACH the state possible for astral projection.

Hey! I thought we just agreed to stop with these damn rules!  

I agree with Selski. I had an OBE where I was floating about 2 feet over my body, but was making my physical body lick my lips. Like Selski, I was confused because I thought I shouldn't be able to sense my body when out, let alone have control of it. It was one of the instances that made me question these rules.

One more thing - In this first post I mentioned bright flashes of light. I just read in "Astral Dynamics" it's called Strobing.  Robert Bruce says it's when energy builds up through the Chakras and into the 3rd eye (brow chakra), and when it overflows up into the crown chakra, bright flashes of light are seen.

So there's another rule to forget.

[dingo]

When your body's asleep there's a lack of sensory input that makes it easier to focus on the non-physical. It doesn't mean your body has to be asleep. I've experienced moving my astral and physical arms at the same time, and (more recently) I've scratched the back of my physical head while in a lucid dream.

[Ben K]

When your body's asleep there's a lack of sensory input that makes it easier to focus on the non-physical. It doesn't mean your body has to be asleep. I've experienced moving my astral and physical arms at the same time, and (more recently) I've scratched the back of my physical head while in a lucid dream.

alright il buy that.

it makes it MANY times easier but like anything is not necessary.

[Van-Stolin]

I have also projected while awake.  At work even.  Had some very nice experiences.  It can be hard to focus though and I often lose it.  It is weird, seeing myself before going out the window to find something interesting to do.  Not to mention the constant shifting.  You have to concentrate on both at the same time.

One time, it lasted for at least 30 minutes.  It felt longer though.

[E3mpirical1]

It's not that the body has to be "asleep" your mind just cannot be focused on your physical body it has to forget about it, that's all.

[Stookie]

It's not that the body has to be "asleep" your mind just cannot be focused on your physical body it has to forget about it, that's all.

That may be best for beginners, but to say that has to happen, I'm not sure is true. Like the story of Robert Monroe projecting while eating breakfast. If he forgot about his physical body he might end up with cereal in his lap. Or his face in the bowl.

I think that a lot of these rules are good for beginners, but once experiences come about it's good to review them. They can be helpful at times, but not always apply.

[E3mpirical1]

It's not that the body has to be "asleep" your mind just cannot be focused on your physical body it has to forget about it, that's all.

That may be best for beginners, but to say that has to happen, I'm not sure is true. Like the story of Robert Monroe projecting while eating breakfast. If he forgot about his physical body he might end up with cereal in his lap. Or his face in the bowl.

I think that a lot of these rules are good for beginners, but once experiences come about it's good to review them. They can be helpful at times, but not always apply.

Yeah I recall Frank mentioning the possibility to actually be focused in all FOUR focuses of consciousness simultaneously.

[Wandering Indigo]

Can anyone else simply "loosen" the mind while conscious and for a moment look with closed eyes clearly into the world, to see somthing that the fleshy eyes can't percieve? I also want to know if seeing(all 5 senses are engaged) things happen days in advance while sleeping on a daily basis is normal. The farthest ahead I've 'experienced' something is 2 years, 11 months. Also, is talking to entities that can't be sensed with the 5 senses, but can be "felt" with the 6th or 7th or whatever one it is, normal?

I initially came to post a definitive truth I have found in a book I picked up... sadly amazing to my level of thought at present day regarding society and government and secret societies and 'elite' families that govern the "leaders" of the countries of the world - "Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious." - George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four(The book is titled on a journal entry, thus the date as the title). I have found after much study of my fellow humans that we are alarmingly susceptible to propaganda and falsified history. Only when I grab history from the Great Subconscious Mind do I fully realize that many things written now about history are lies.

I leave for Enlisted Duty in the United States NAVY on February 8th, 2006. I leave for insurance, financial, political, employment, education and training purposes, most of them orbiting my family and the future. After then, I will not post for quite some time, if ever again.

[E3mpirical1]

It's all normal

[Porkchoppiglet]

Ok, ive been practicing AP for ONLY a week now, and I know I may sound a lil too amateur for you all, bit please could you give me some pointers.

I see some of speak of it being good for beginners to detract focus from the physical body itself. But weneva i start to feel my "astral" arms floating, i THNIK of my physical body, and I jus dont progress further. Im not impatient, and I thnik the reason i have already come THIS far in only a week is because im not focussing on the rules that other people have spoken about, but I have instead found my own set of rules, as I am wanting to create my own spiritual path as supposed to walking a path created by others.

I am currently using BWGEN Bineural Beat tracks to relax my body, and it seems to work well, however i must not become acustomed to projectiong ONLY with the music.
The reason i put ASTRAL in inverted commas in the second paragraph is because Im not really sure if they ARE my astral arms, but woteva they are i cant feel them and they seem to be floating;)

Any reccomendations wil be apreciated:)

Thanx all

[Wandering Indigo]

All things are possible. ALL THINGS. Don't be alarmed if what you experience is completely new and unusual, unless you get hurt(by something) in the process, then it's safe to go to your local ministry and get some HELP... Anyways, I've found I can lucid and astral while occupied in an endeavor. In fact, I do it so much that for the last 2 months I've had a lot of trouble getting all the way back into my body. I'm always a little bit outside it, almost like it's too small for me anymore(and I weigh in at 180lbs, 5'9", mostly muscle... I stay busy)... Maybe I've pulled too much of "gaia's energy" to supplement my own? I only do it when I've worn myself to my limits doing work or something... which is at least 2x/month... I simply use the method I learned back when mom was doing witchcraft to grab the Earth's residual EM and (whatever the 4th energy type Einstein discovered was named) waves and pull them into me like a vacuum cleaner pulls air into itself. It works great sometimes(and lasts all day long, merely like refilling my gas tank), others it provides for a brief burst of superior level energy in addition to my adrenaline(I feel like an invincible tank for about an hour and a half) and afterward I am at critical exhaustion and MUST rest. I can usually function for at least 4 hours at minimal activity, such as walking around and getting something to eat and showering at a slow pace after I have been burned out by a super boost. I recommend trying it sometime, but be careful. You have to know what evil energy and good energy is, and how to target specifically the physical energy and not the spiritual, or you can be "tainted" by a wayward parasite(demon, or "bad spirit"). Remember, there are NO RULES when doing this stuff, other than the basic laws already applied to your behavior and your behavior only, during your existence here on Earth in these magnificent protein-based machines God made for us to play in.

[Wandering Indigo]

BTW as far as the usual beat tracks and brain frequency modulators... I don't use 'em. This is all purely willpower.