Am I on the right track?

[Cydonos]

Hi, I've recently decided to try projecting, and have been trying for the last 3 days.

I've been trying the Robert Bruce rope technique, and I find that when I imagine pulling on the rope, I hear the sound of a high-pitched whine. It's the sound you hear when your ears are ringing after a night at a rock concert or the sound you hear when you turn on a TV.

I find that each pull on the rope makes this sound louder and higher pitched. After a while I don't need to pull on the rope and I can just increase the sound by willing it to happen. As it gets to it's climax, I feel increasingly disconnected from my senses, but I never loose control of my physical muscles. When it gets this loud, I think I can hear a faint roaring behind the ringing.

Am I making progress or is the ringing just a figment of my imagination?

[Skippy]

People have reported hearing noises while attempting to project before. It's never happened to me, but it's supposed to be quite normal.

I'd say you're on the right track, but I'm not hugely experienced, so you may like the viewpoint of others.

[Awakened_Mind]

I understand the ringing your talking about, it is more prominent after a rock concert definately but it can also be heard in a quiet room. Some projectors focus on this noise until it becomes louder for exit.

IMO, yes you are on the right track. This type of experience and many others are quite normal.

Do you experience vibrations at all or does this ringing start during meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, trance etc or only when you begin pulling on the rope?

-AM

[Mr.Shine]

I myself usually use active imagination techniques like intense visualization of an image-address, like say i want to go to a kemetic world, I'll make a big ankh image in my mind, and charge it with light and then project it (mentally of course) into the air and imagine myself walking iunto it, after a little while, you'll get so immersed you're basically in a lucid dream, things begin to act of their own accord, but you still have control of your identity-point, which essentially is all you are anyway.

if something tries something dumb like attacking, project a fiery pentacle or hexacle at it, maybe a water or light one if that doesn't work.

[Cydonos]

Awakened_Mind: No vibrations so far, and possibly that's because of my own fears, I've read that it's like touching a 110 volt wire, which sounds pretty scary so I may be holding myself back.

Yesterday the ringing started while I was meditating, when I wasn't making an obe attempt. Pulling the rope intensifies it, I also found last night that concentrating on my third eye intensified it as well.

Once I get the ringing, it seems to be with me all day until I wake up the next morning. I can even intensify it when I'm walking around with my eyes open. I dunno, it's almost like I've misaligned myself inside my body during the attempt and the sound carries on until I successfully project. (by sleeping)

[orbi]

Cydonos, I know exactly the kind of sound you are talking about, and have had few OOBEs while just focusing on the sound and making it louder and louder. At first it felt kind of nasty and scary, but I've get used to it now.

At some point, when focusing on the ringing, you'll notice that you don't feel your body, and end up being 'paralyzed'. This is the time when you just get up as you would normally, and it will take you out of body. At least that's how it works for me.

Now that I think of it, it's strange that my first OOBE was spontaneus, and came without any noises or vibrations or any other symptoms. After that my projections have been more dream-like, or blurry. They're  getting more clear every time, though.
Anyway, I miss the feeling of just floating out of body as in my first oobe, that felt just wonderful! Every experience I've had after that have more or less required me to work myself out of body by 'getting up' and this was not easy at first (was getting pulled back right away and moving was like swimming in glue or something plus the vision was bit like mirrored or something like that).

Don't know if any of this actually helps you, but there you have it anyway
Oh, and good luck!

[Cydonos]

Wow, that does help actually, thank you for sharing your experiences And thanks to everybody who replied, now I can approach it with more confidence that I'm on the right track rather than wondering if I'm slowly causing brain damage lol

[Awakened_Mind]

Not a problem. Come back if you get stuck again.

-AM

[Cydonos]

Hey, I thought I'd give you guys an update on my efforts.

I've been trying about once every other night to project using a variety of methods. (Rope method, brainwave generator presets, etc). But of course it was when I stopped trying that I actually made progress.

Last night at 4:00 AM, I felt the vibrations. I was having trouble sleeping and then at 4 I started to drift off and I heard what sounded like a woman's voice.. kinda yelping? Anyway I suddenly got this rushing sound really loud and my sense of sound seemed really far off.

Somehow I managed to stay calm and I thought to myself "uhh... vibrations please?" and they came on really gradually. It was like I was going easy on myself because it was my first time lol. But I found that I could choose to make them more intense. It was like a pulsating electrical shock from my head to my feet. It was incredibly vivid, there was no question in my mind they were real, but they weren't scary at all.

I was always afraid they would SNAP on and scare me out of it but they came on slowly giving me time to get used to them and stay calm. While they were going on, the sound I heard was like, plugging your ears while riding on a bumpy road.

I didn't try to get out, I just tried to stay with the vibes as long as possible, I'd say I was able to hold them at the maximum level for 4-6 seconds. I was so excited it took a while to get back to sleep. I also didn't check to see if I was sleep paralyzed, I was too afraid of losing the vibes by moving a muscle.