A Few Questions

[Meddlehead]

I have the first wave of the Gateway Experience, and i have come to a point where i am stuck. I am on "Exploration, Sleep" but there is one problem... I cant fall asleep, for some reason even if i am very tired i can never fall asleep. I always just go into a deeper Focus 10.  Also, how do i know i am even in focus 10? Here is how i would describe Focus 10 (if thats what im experiencing), I basically forget about my body, my heartbeat slowes down, i dont even notice my breathing, i only feel awake in my head. Also, what exactly are the images people talk about? I see mostly blackness, but with strange color flashes and if i think of something i can see a picture of it, but very briefly. Also, what are the signs that you are close to achieving and OBE? But more importantly, lets get back to the exercise, i have done it 6 times and i have yet to float out of my body, or even fall asleep. I feel i have come close, i imagined myself floating out of my body, did everything the excersise told me too do and more (i added more imagery), but i fell the cloosest i have got is some vibrations. I will describe my latest experience.

I imagine myslef floating out of my body, i start to fell strange feelings, first in my feet, then in my hands, almost like and electric sensation, almost tingling sensation, but coming from inside me. I feel my body getting heavier and i feel my arms moving up even though they cleary weren't. In addition my heart started beating rapidly and the sensations moved throughout my whole body except my head, and despite my one efforts, with and without the exercise, that is the farthest i get. I feel like i am starting to float up, but i cant. also i can not fall asleep like the tape tells me too, and i cannot figure out why, maybe im not comfy? i honestly have no idea.

So, basically, my questions are: Why cant i fall asleep? shouldnt i just drift into sleep?
                                            Am i on the right track? Am i getting close?
                                            Any tips, pointers or insightful ideas?

[no_leaf_clover]

You should consider yourself lucky.  I have a bad habit of falling asleep at focus 10 when I'm  NOT trying to, and I think this is actually a pretty common problem.  This is the first I've heard of someone NOT being able to fall asleep.

All I can suggest is to keep playing with the sensations you feel in your body,  you're bound to get something "loose"...

[Fourthdimension]

those pictures or flashes u see is hyonagigic imagery.

everyone makes a fuss about focus 10 but basically it aint nothing special and even before u heard of it you would have been in it millions of times like those time u lie down close ur eyes and remininsce or think of happy times. thats all it is your just relaxed but not asleep the only diffrence between focus 10 and the latter is you silence the voices in ur head so that your mind is working in unison as one.

i sometimes cannot fall asleep and other times i fall asleep. i mostly mediate before i go to bed which is a bad idea and when i do energy work with that i find it hard to fall asleep so i dont think its the focus 10 that stops you sleeping but its the energy work mabye making you a little hypersensitive.

so what i do now instead of making my self to aware or to relaxed i fall asleep i sorta dont try to make myself aware but rather just relax and let my thoughts drift about but have a little authority over them like if ur gonna practice thinking of nothing for a few minites mae it happen or if you wanna do energy work make ur self stop thinking of todays football game.

i would just skip past tape 5 on wave 1 because to be honest its pretty crap.
read somestuff by robert bruce he wrote some brilliant stuff in astral dynamics and there is a part devoted to energy work if you wanna copy i can email you one but i dont know where u can find an online version but another forum member might.

i dont know how you will know if your progressing into an obe but for me i just started feeling the vibes during energy work so knew that was working and felt diffrent sensations during my meditations i mean does nt mean am any closer to obe's but made me realise that something was happening. you ll just know if your getting closer or not.

anyways am not very good at this stuff but a tip is not to rely on hemi sync rember its just a tool to help.

take care

[Meddlehead]

Thank you both for your answers.

I will start of by saying that i know Hemi-Sync is only a tool, and i use it as so. Also, i am reading "Far Journey's" by robert monroe now, and robert bruce is on my list of authors i am going to get. And i guess i will just continue what i am doing, i havent been using the tape much lately, i have just been practicing on my own, i may skip to the nexy wave wich introduces focus 12 soon. But for now, i will just work on getting vibrations, and maybe in a while il get it, who knows though, ive got to be patient i guess!

[Xanth]

The Gateway experience isn't really a 'steadfast set of rules'.
If you can't fall asleep, just move onto the next exercise... or go back to previous ones.

Skip the sleeping exercise.