Reached a dead end?

[kiwibonga]

Well, I seem to have reached kind of a dead end...

I'm not sure how to describe it, but basically, all the things I've experienced that feel like I made progress towards inducing an OBE have happened only once. I can't seem to reproduce anything that happened.

The list of things in question:
- Seeing hypnogogic images when feeling sleepy (only learned that there was something special about them recently, and have been unable to see any ever since, even though I often witnessed them in the past!)
- Waking paralysis (happened when I was little)
- Feeling an intense back and forth swaying motion following a very short lucid dream
- Seeing a tunnel as an hypnogogic image and feeling like I was being sucked into it
- Waking up in the middle of the night from hearing a loud crash sound, and having a voice tell me to go back to sleep

For the past couple of days, I have been unable to achieve anything ; I could not even start any meaningful imagery in my mind, which was never a problem to me before... I just stare into darkness and nothing happens, as if I was just too focused on the physical...

Much like how fear is usually feared, and not the object of the fear itself... I think I am probably looking forward to witnessing these things happen again, instead of actually working towards them, and this is why I am unable to reproduce them.

What should I do to get in the right path again? I was thinking of just stopping any kind of practice for a while, but can it really help? How do I reopen the doors I've closed?

[Sunn]

hi kiwi

I've been meditating for a year and a half and have experienced much of what you have.. although i've seen a few odd things like people at the end of my bed and had two lucid dreams and i think a obe also..

anyway the reason i strarted was to contact my guides(directly speak to them) but have been unsuccessful

I think you just need to keep plugging away and pay attention to your dreams you might be missing something there..

goodluck and keep at it

(sorry about the grammer and spelling.. and tea in the other hand)

[kiwibonga]

Hi

In regards to that post I made, I finally "reopened" the door not too long ago. I was able to finally see some very vivid hypnogogic images and hear sounds.

The hardest part is to stay in that state now. I'm practicing to go deeper into trance, because so far, everything has lasted about 2 seconds before I opened my eyes out of surprise.

In case you're interested, here's the three things I saw:

First, I fell asleep and noticed a bright orange glow stick in front of me, and there was a man sitting at a desk talking to me -- I could hear his voice but not understand what he was saying, he was apparently explaining something important!

The second time, I re-enacted a "falling off a cliff" nightmare in my mind. I fell asleep while dreaming it, and as soon as I hit the ground, instead of waking up, the darkness in the back of my eyelids became a very vivid white and I saw a big red flower in the center -- it looked a lot like the flag of Japan

The third time, I opened my eyes (not my physical eyes) and saw a small fire on my desk. It looked as real as it gets, and even though I was determined to stay in the trance, I just didn't expect to see that, so I opened my eyes and woke up...

So right now I'm going to keep on walking the line between awake and asleep, and eventually try not to get startled with trance... I've experienced this only four or five times (there's one I'm not sure about) since I started trying to induce OBEs again, so I think it will take some more tries, but I am definitely very close!

[CFTraveler]

Take time off if you have to, but don't give up.  I had a year and a half dry spell and started practicing again and since Nov '05 have been averaging 2 OB's a month.  If I can do it so can you.

[Meg]

And I think that dry spells happen for a reason. Perhaps we need to reflect on our experiences for a while, or maybe we need to come back to our practice with a new approach or attitude.

I myself have not had a decent OBE for some time, but I also know that I need to approach the whole hing in a more disciplined and mature way than I did as a younger person. That's ok. There's no rush, right? The Astral is not going anywhere.