Retaining Consciousness During a Non-Physical Experience

[Xanth]

(( I wanted to separate this response out in the Astral Consciousness forums, cause I don't believe it belongs in the Dream section... I believe this applies to a lucid dream or an astral projection. ))

Tajtas, posted a question in the Dreams forum (http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_dreams/how_long_has_your_lucid_dream_last-t32975.0.html), "Ive been trying so hard to get it past 25 seconds... When I realize im dreaming I start drifting away and then I woke up. Has anyone have had a LONG lucid dream, dozens of minutes? Is it possible hours or days?".

The_One made a nice response, "I've had this problem. It's quite simple when you think about it. Don't get excited, concentrate on a animated character (can be any thing). As, don't think "I'm about to wake up because I'm lucid". (Easier said than done).
I've substained a dream for so long doing this, I got worried that there was something wrong with my body. As over doing this will pull you out of lucidity and back into the dream.
Hope this helps."

This got me thinking about why something like that works... I wondered if the effect of how we initially Phase into the non-physical can provide us with a clue about how to REMAIN in the non-physical.  We know that there's a fine balancing act that must be done to Phase... you need to work at balancing your consciousness so your mind retains, at least, a single thread of consciousness.

Generally, we do this by keeping our minds active in some manner... in the case of the "Noticing" exercise, it's placing our conscious intent within the blackness behind our eyes and noticing the changes of that which we're seeing.  In the "Rundown" exercise, we're placing our intent within the visualized scene that we're creating with our imagination.

Well, what if, while we're in the non-physical, we do this act in reverse?  When you feel yourself beginning to lose the non-physical consciousness, begin immediately placing your intent on something within the non-physical, in essence it's allowing you to focus your intent more INTO the non-physical and away from the physical, which is where your intent seems to be going when you're slowly in the process of waking up.  In other words, bring your focus/attention to something on or around you in the non-physical.  It's kind of the same act as increasing your awareness from Lucid to Astral in the first place, except you don't need to ask yourself any questions.  Your goal here is to give your non-physical mind something to focus on so it ignores the physical reality sensations that it's slowly beginning to perceive.

A lot of people say to look at or rub your hands together.  I believe I now understand why that works... because it's giving you something to focus your mind on that's away from the physical senses that you're beginning to feel.

From the point when I begin to feel that I'm waking up to the point when I actually do wake up... seems to be anywhere around 5 – 10 seconds.  So, perhaps it's best to not even wait for that signal to happen and just do this exercise every minute or so, because once the signal occurs, it doesn't take long before you're back in bed wondering what happened.

http://unlimitedboundaries.ca/2011/01/27/a-thought-on-retaining-consciousness-in-the-non-physical/

[Astral316]

I can agree with this for the most part...

I'm no master of retaining consciousness in the out of body state, but I've had experience with what seems to work. That is, you must learn to soak up the "moment of now." You can concentrate on a thought or object in the astral, or you can concentrate on the moment itself. You can do this naturally if you practice stripping your mind of all thoughts. You don't "notice" here really, you just walk a tightrope without falling into a thought and hope you make it to the other side (ie projection.) Even if you don't, you have exercised your brain to take in the moment of now pure from distraction. In essence, you're training your brain to maintain a stable frequency (for lack of a better term.) When you get good this will carry over into the astral (for me it does, anyway) so you can be engaged in what you're doing out of body instead of worrying about extending the experience.

[TurtleSnake]

Kinda like when you watch a movie for the first time that you love, brain just clicks off and you just sponge it up. If you can induce that same feeling of awe and involvement (I find this tends to accelerate my noticing) sounds like it will reaffirm the connection.

[tweed]

I'm starting to get the feeling it may be a little more than that.. Definitely helps to keep your emotions in check, but I am calm in my recent OBEs and not really thinking and the time is still short. In my most recent one, I was even concentrating on someone I saw just prior to returning to my body.

I did have a longer OBE once just a few weeks ago.. possibly double to 3x the time I usually get. I was almost completely passive, I just let myself do its thing, gliding wherever it wanted to go. Every now and then I made a decision to move a certain direction. Should probably add it happened the day after a sort of 'fast' I went through, where I did not think, feel, or eat for the day.

[Xanth]

Well, I did just what I said in the original post on Friday morning during a projection and it worked great.
It was, what seemed like an RTZ projection into my bedroom... I walked out into the hallway towards the bathroom and a long story short, I began to wake up so I focused intently upon a piece of paper or leather or whatever it was that I was holding.  I looked at it, felt it, studied it... and it kept me from waking up for a good minute or two. 

So it definitely works for me.

[The_One]

Thanks Xanth, I'm quite chuffed that some one likes one of my techniques.

[The_One]

O, and where I put As sopposed to be also. 

[tweed]

Well, I did just what I said in the original post on Friday morning during a projection and it worked great.
It was, what seemed like an RTZ projection into my bedroom... I walked out into the hallway towards the bathroom and a long story short, I began to wake up so I focused intently upon a piece of paper or leather or whatever it was that I was holding.  I looked at it, felt it, studied it... and it kept me from waking up for a good minute or two.  

So it definitely works for me.

Yea it's funny.. I used to do that in the beginning when I was successful at inducing OBE. I used to do it the first thing I got out, because I often didn't have good eyesight and I read focusing on objects is also a way to strengthen your astral senses.

Perhaps this is a very personal challenge for me. Maybe to do with beliefs, who knows. I also have the problem that I can't sense when I am starting to fade. It feels like only a split second..


(I saw your post on the RTZ and in your journal, I will try those out  Thanks a lot for all the info you post)

[The_One]

I'm pretty lucky there. I can sense when I'm about to wake up, and have quite a while to fix the problem.

[Xanth]

I'm pretty lucky there. I can sense when I'm about to wake up, and have quite a while to fix the problem.

That's what I do as well.  It makes it immensely easier to drop back into the non-physical upon waking.
I feel I'm waking... everything goes to black... I feel a shift... I'm back in bed, but I remain still and keep my eyes closed (I call this the "eyes closed/body still" state).  From there, as long as I keep my eyes closed and my body still, it's only a matter of seconds before I feel a shift again and I'm back in the non-physical, usually right where I left from.

Which apparently is also called a "DEILD"... a Dream Exit Induced Lucid Dream.
So many acronyms, so little time.

[moondog44]

Again, trying to accomplish eyes still, and ballance myself from not falling asleep...

John