Alcohol and OBEs

[atraveler]

Hi,

I've been practicing techniques to induce OBEs for the past few months now with good preliminary results.  I generally enjoy drinking alcohol - 1 or 2 beers or glasses of wine per day.  I never have more than two drinks in a 24 hour period.  However, does anyone here have any experience or insight with alcohol and OBEs?  I'm concerned that drinking any alcohol at all might be limiting my progess, but I'm not sure if I want to stop drinking completely.  Does anyone have any guidelines - like not drinking on the day before you're going to attempt an OBE but other days is OK?

Cheers,
Atraveler

[Clarky]

I find that most of my OBE's are the day 'after' a heavy session on the alcohol.  As to why this is, I still dont know.

[atraveler]

Thanks Clarky!

That's interesting.  I have no problem drinking more!  I can definitely say that I've had OBE/LDs the morning after having drunk a few drinks.  I always hear that OBEs are about "energy", and I imagine that alcohol reduces your energy level.  However, alcohol is a depressant, and perhaps its relaxing effect is more powerful or important than the reduction in energy levels.

Anyone else have any experience with this?  I certainly don't intend to use alcohol as a means to induce OBEs, but if it has a "loostening up" effect, I wont avoid it.

[CFTraveler]

I have to make a clarification:  OBE practice can be about energy,  but OBE control is mostly about awareness.  The purpose of training  is to refine your awareness so you can become very familiar with how your consciousness operates, what feels like what, etc, and alchohol will eventually mess with that, and with your recall.
So remember, alchohol is known to relax in small initial doses, but  it causes more trouble in the long run.
If you want to 'just have an experience', all kinds of things can achieve it.  If you want to learn to induce and control the out of body state, any substance will work against you.  And alcohol will mess you up in ways that have nothing to do with the OBE state.

[atraveler]

Thanks CFTraveler.  I suspected alcohol is not the way to go.  Do you have any physical guidelines for OBEs?  For example, have you noticed that exercising the day of or before has a positive or negative effect?  How about how early or late you go to bed, or how late you have dinner, or to avoid sugar or other such items?

Thanks!

[CFTraveler]

About the only physical guideline I would say makes any difference, IMO, is the time you project.  Projection usually (but not always) happens in the Theta stage, and you get better chances for theta very early in the morning, when you typically enter more REM states (Delta?) than in the rest of the sleep cycle.  So it's easier to stretch theta in the am because your brain is more adaptable to hover there at that time.
As for anything else, getting lots of sleep is crucial- I project more when I sleep a lot.  Be comfortable enough to deeply relax, not so comfortable that you will fall asleep quickly.  Whatever works to get you to that state depends on you- for some people lots of protein before practice is not beneficial, etc.  But I think that's an individual thing.  Most everything depends on your beliefs, I believe.  (pun intended). 

[nickspry]

Alcohol can actually be helpfull in my experience as it suppresses REM sleep initially, leading to the REM rebound effect when it wears off. Of course it's not a very healthy way of improving your odds.....

[Venus_Goddess_of_Love]

My experience is quite the opposite.  Ever since I started doing AP exercises, I have become intolerant to alcohol.  One sip and I feel ill, exactly like poison.  Nowadays I can drink cocktails or some other diluted drinks but still have problem with beer or wine.  It's such a shame because I really enjoyed having wine with a good hearty meal!

[Impermanence]

In my case, Alcohol doesn't seem to affect my dreams or OBE practice much at all. I tend to fall asleep quite fast when I had a dozen drinks though,  . Still, I can remember my dreams and have OBE's.

[atraveler]

I'm starting to believe that OBEs & LDs for me depend more on when I go to bed than how much I drank.  If I can get to bed before midnight, it'll be much easier.  If I wait too long afterwards it messes up my sleep cycles.  I usually don't have more than 2 - 3 drinks in the evening anyway.

Cheers,
Atraveler

[brandon89lee]

i just wanna say ive tried it quite a few times stoned and quite a few times drunk...once when i was stoned... i got to a point where it imitated the vibrations but it just wasnt it...just got into a trance where i think about a lot of stuff lmao...but i always do that when im stoned to help me come up with new breakdance moves or flips so wasnt really anything...

the few times ive tried it drunk it didnt do much...once, after a party, i was hella drunk! and was about to go to sleep and thought it would be a good time to try leaving my body, i was to a point i was spinning cuz the drunkness lol...this was porbably the closes i thought i was to leave my body(but it wasnt anything more then just being drunk) but i really felt i was away from my body...the only thing good this did for me was, it helped my NOT throw up LMAO! so i guess if anyones at a point where they were about to throw up, just try meditating, and try leaving your body HAHAHAHAHAAH  no idk

but yea from my experience with drinking and smoking and other stuff lol... i believe its NOT the right thing to do! alcohol is poison! its bad for your body! the way i see it meditating and all this stuff is a way to help you cleanse your body physically and spiritually, and drinking alcohol to try to help would seem like it'd just not get you anywhere!!

i know when i smoke or drink b4 sleep or even that day...it makes it almost impossible for me to have lucid dreams at all...if i go to sleep high or drunk, sometimes i dont even dream at all, or atleast cant remember it, wich is weird cuz i always have lots of dreams! so it'd seem it'd be the same with trying to induce obes