first AP experience or Lucid dream?

[astral_learner]

I would like to share with you an experience that I had this morning which appears to be an AP experience. I will appreciate your thoughts and ideas.
This morning I woke up around 4:30 and then went back to sleep. The whole experience started and ended(?) inside a dread.
Following is what happened in the dream.
I went to a couple of places, met a few relatives and then I was asleep in a room where my cousins were asleep too. I noticed that I was entering back into my sleeping body. Vaguely remember where I went. But I noticed it was so easy to enter back, I thought of trying to get out and it was completely effortless. I was out of my sleeping body inside the dream. I thought let me not look at my body otherwise I might get pulled back. Breathing was effortless. I was not able to see anything, I started rubbing my hands and felt my hands. When my hands touched each other, there was a beautiful sparkle generating light and more clarity. Everything was still not clear so I said "Clarity" but not sure if it worked but I decided to go out of my room(not my real room but the room in which I was asleep inside the dream). I flew and then landed in a jungle. I had read somewhere that you may have to face your fears so I was very well prepared to face lions. But there were no lions there, only few monkeys, and saw monkey's mother doing something may be she was preparing food. Then I thought let me go to some other place. I thought it is 5:00PM ish here so it should be 5:00AM ish in India and people should be awake by this time so let me go to a place in India and see what's happening there. (Note: It was 5:00AM ish here but I thought it is 5:00PM ish). With the thought of going to the that place in India, I moved and in no time reached to a place different than what I had planned for but similar. It was a temple of one God. It was marvellous building with 3-4 floors. I started observing minute details so that I can validate in future if it was a real place. I saw many people there. While getting out of that place, saw a lot of kids on my every move. Some kids had their mouth tied like it is done to the dogs. I kept moving and got down from the hill walking lots of stairs and my heart was beating fast. I told to myself, it was a nice exercise to have after long time. Then I saw a girl of my age. I told myself that I am not here for a girl, and it is not my goal here. While this happened, my view started to turn from HD to SD. Vision started to blur slightly. I noticed it without much reaction and moved on to next thought. Then I thought it has been a while I am here and my body back there may not be moving and what if my cousins think I am dead. Then I remembered people saying it is okay to be OOB for longer time. Then I asked myself "aren't we suppose to get pulled back if think about our body? why I am I not getting pulled back even though I am thinking about it?". Then I thought let me practice thinking about the body and not getting pulled back. So I tried again and thought about the body without getting pulled back and assured myself that it is safe in the room where I was sleeping. I moved forward and I saw that there was an accident nearby. An SUV hit a car and the scene was frozen, the SUV went up in the air a couple of feet high in the air but just stayed there and did not come down. May be there was a guy in that SUV and a kid with the mother in the car. They all looked unconscious. I raised my hand towards them and conveyed my energy/goodwill to them. They became conscious and started looking around. Then I moved forward and thought let's go out of this planet and to other planets. But I realised some people recommended not to go too far during first OOB. I said to myself, let me find a quiet place where I can meditate. All of a sudden I saw a few birds. Thought of seating on one of the black ducks and flying in sky with it. When I sat on a bird it struggled to fly(Sorry) and then it ran away. While the bird ran away, I noticed that I was still floating in the air and moving somewhere. I noticed that I was floating slowly in air while seated in easy pose(Indian style). My head was below and my legs were up. When I looked up i.e. above my legs I saw my reflection around 30-50 feet away. It felt like there was a huge mirror between me and my reflection. Then I noticed I was floating down. As I was floating down, I felt that my head was coming closer to a water body. Before I get time to think more over it my head got submerged into the water. I heard this amazing crystal clear pleasant sound of water when my head got slowly and smoothly immersed in water. And I took a deep breath. I was able to comfortably breath inside water and I continued to sank down until I noticed that it was the bottom of the water body. At this time I thought I am not sure how deep this water is and I should better move upwards. I started to gently splash and tried to swim upwards. Since my head was downwards I was not able move up fast. All of a sudden I was not able to breath and tried to breath consciously. I got pulled back into my body which was sleeping at my cousin's place. I actually got pulled into that sleeping body and from there got pulled further deeper/out into my actual body and I opened my eyes. Here I was out of my dream and at my home.

[Rudolph]

This sounds like bona fide AP but it is hard to say. I had a rash of similar dreams about a month ago where I was dreaming and I knew I was dreaming and I began going OBE from my dream body and it felt a LOT like actual OBE experiences I had... really hard to say... This sort of thing is just something I set aside and figure I will understand better with more experience in the future.

[merkaba1111]

The lucid dream is your lunching pad to explorer the astral realm, it's  tool just like meditation or astral projection.

[embrace]

There is a very vague border between LD and AP. For many people it's a difference in terminology. The fact is, you can see parts of real world and real events in a dream as well as in AP. Also, you can see things that completely don't relate to reality both in your dreams in AP. The only difference between two phenomena that we can be SURE OF is that AP involves a sensation of leaving your body.

[Xanth]

The only difference between two phenomena that we can be SURE OF is that AP involves a sensation of leaving your body.

Actually...

Astral Projection doesn't have to involve any such sensations. 

I practice Phasing, which is the smooth transition of your consciousness from one reality to another.  At no point do you ever get sensations of "leaving" your body.

You're probably referring to what people call "OBE".  I think this is a misnomer... as I don't believe we've ever "IN" our bodies in the first place, just focused towards them.

[astral_learner]

Thank you.

What would be a best starting point for learning Phasing techniques?

[Szaxx]

Look up above your post. At the base of Xanths post is a phasing primer. Download it and enjoy.

[Xanth]

Look up above your post. At the base of Xanths post is a phasing primer. Download it and enjoy.

^^

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/39504726/Phasing_Primer.pdf  <-- more direct route to my free eBook

[astral_learner]

Thank you. Very nice and very informative. Some of the concepts that you have explained are eye-openers. I have begun to practice the phasing techniques that I have learned from your book. Thanks again.