Defeating Fear..

[katrinamaria]

Alright, I'll admit it. Although going into the astral did not scare me at all when I began, lately I've seemed to lose my wits. I have decent concentration, and can control emotions fairly well when actually /trying/ to do so, but being caught off guard really sends me packing. I was wondering if there are any practices or techniques that help with quelling sudden fear.

For the most part, this is how my astral experience goes. I start in a dream, and come out. I meet things that want to scare me, and I can typically ignore the feelings that they want from me. In fact, the other night I ended up in a conversation with something that wanted me to fear it, and I could /feel/ it being irritated to death. It was rather funny. It seems that, whether I'm in the real time zone or in a view of the astral that peaks out of my dream state, it's hard to scare me once I have established myself in the area. Now, here is where things get icky. Some times, my trips to the astral are very sudden and accidental. I'll be pulled out from an area of near-sleep, and find myself in sleep paralysis. Sometimes, I can use the situation to roll/shake myself lose from my body. If I'm not there on my own terms, however, something usually pops up out of no-where and does a total "BOOGA BOOGA GOT YOU!" kind of thing. You know, like that prank internet video where you think it's a car commercial, and the ugly monster pops out and screams loud enough to give a drill sergeant a heart attack? Anyhow, if they catch me off guard, I usually find myself in a nervous panicky fit. I'd like to know if anything you all have practiced has helped remedy said situations. It's been happening more and more often for me, and I would like some suggestions on how to keep sudden fear from escalating into a total loss of control.