Are AP worlds *real*?

[Stookie]

Yeah, to me it doesn't seem that important. The main thing is gaining awareness in another state of consciousness. LD or AP, that's what happens.

[shineling]

The interesting thing is that the astral world never looks the same as the real world no matter what level of projection occurs.

Still... I've been to the same place in the astral world many times. And it stays the same! Meaning... the astral world is real in its own form even tho is it slightly different than the real world.

So... my personal conclusion is that it is a real place with its own unique features almost like an echo of real world reality. It's topography changes slightly when stray dreaming occurs. But if you were to be completely clear headed, it would be a stationary reality with it's own rules and traits.

It would be so interesting to map out this astral world... the astral world that exists without personal dreams in the way. Know what I means?    And it would be interesting to ask why it takes on the shape that it does. Can people build a stationary astral world?

[Xanth]

The interesting thing is that the astral world never looks the same as the real world no matter what level of projection occurs.

Could you further define "never looks the same"?

As in your visual perception of it?
Or in that the area seems to change layout?

Just curious...

[shineling]

Well... I'll be the first to say I really don't know what I'm talking about.    But everytime I go outside in my astral body the neighborhood looks slightly different.

The same house might have a porch when it doesn't in the waking world. The cars sometimes are in different places or not there at all. Things seem to shift a lot sometimes... but if you can stay aware and lucid you'll find the same location and it looks exactly the same - solid.

It's almost as if things are solid until your mind starts wandering. Yeah... I guess things are visually the same at the same locations as they where in all my past OBEs.

Spacial distances are very accurate as well. It's a trick I use to see if I am really in the OBE world and not just dreaming. Like... I can't take shortcuts from A to B in the real astral world as I can in maybe lucid dream. The distance from A to B is always the distance from A to B. So it's not like a quasi reality.

I'm going to try to find an object next time and try moving it. Then come back and see if it's still there. I can usually project 2 or 3 times in a row. They last about 5 minutes a piece. Getting better at staying out for longer periods tho. I've been trying to perfect it... for me it has to do with an attitude of nonchalants. If I get too excited I usually wake up. If I remain impassive and in the moment I can usually stay out longer.

[Xanth]

Ah, I get ya.

"Reality Fluctuations"

Yeah, they're the reason given to why people will wander around their house in an OBE state and things will be 'different'.

I understand what you're saying now.  Thanks. 

[Pauli2]

This experience happened again to me later in life, I was in the late 20's (1990's). I also validated those experiences with physical and measurable "real" objects, but these stories would take a good portion of a book to write. If you would like to hear about them I will gladly put them into a separate post.

Yes, please.

I would like to hear them.

[ZenTraveler]

Sorry I have been busy. My third OOB was during a deep meditation I had been in for well over an hour. I was in my meditation chair and was focusing on deep questions I had wanted answered. It had been years of meditation up to this point and I was reaching states of extreme calmness and serenity. I remember feeling a strange vibration and then a loud noise which seemed very odd. I kept the state I was in despite this odd occurrence and found myself floating above my body. I felt a sense of strong excitement knowing that I was back in a state I had tried to enter for years. As I floated around the room I noticed a ring my wife had been looking for. She had lost it years prior and was a gift from her mother. It was sitting at the far back of a cabinet on top against the wall. I didn't think much more of it, but I started to look around the room more.

I suddenly noticed there were beings around me of which I assumed as ghosts, but just then a was flooded with a feeling of extreme comfort, love, and kindness. I realized I knew all of these people, they were family that had passed before me. At that instant I received the answers I had been looking for and meditating on for years. Everything came into perspective, why I was here, what happened once we left these bodies, everything. I call this an enlightenment because I was changed at that point. No longer could I be afraid of anything, including death. I realized it was simply an extension of existence. I normally don't tell this story because I don't want to push any ideals onto others, or seem to be religious, but this was a profound experience. I feel that the answers to questions anyone asks can be found through personally experience. In fact I once had a master tell me before he left his body "Believe nothing until you have tested and proven it for yourself, books and other humanly thoughts should always be in question as to validity". And so my journey began there.

Once I was back in my body I came back from this deep meditation and looked above the cabinet to find the ring my wife had been looking for. When she got home from work she was thrilled I had found it. Of course she thought I was a "little out there" when I told her how I had found it.

Tad

[E]

I like what WASD said.  It depends on how you define real.  If you study the different spiritual masters, you will understand, intellectually, that there is only one great reality and the rest is illusionary.  If you go far enough within yourself you will know, experientially, that there is only one great reality and the rest is illusionary.  That does not mean that a table isn't a table or that an astral form isn't an astral form.  We have physical senses.  We have astral senses.  We have mental senses and we have causal senses.  All of these senses exist in us right here and right now.  It's like you go where your emotions and thoughts take you and you feel and see what has meaning for you.  It's all here, past, present and future.  We use techniques to adjust our vibrations to feel and see and hear a tiny fraction of what exists.

A lot of what we see, hear, and feel are simply projections of the thoughts, words, and feelings of people on Earth.  There's tons of that, right?  And the range of quality of these thoughts, words, and feelings goes from downright crappy to sublime.  I have to ask myself where I am in this line up.


I have to ask myself If I have actually 'gone' anywhere.  Where is the astral 'plane', the mental 'plane.  Where is 'heaven' or 'hell'.  Different points of awareness.  It seems like I have gone seomwhere but I do live within a physical body and it is the task of that body/mind to interpret my experiences.  It depends on where your consciousness and awareness is.

[E]

PS;  Zen Traveler.  That's very wonderful.

[ZenTraveler]

Thanks. I realize that this method of remembering objects in the current plane of existence as the only way to validate them as "real". Although like you said it's all subjective. Still, if you can find objects you didn't realize were there, then find them once back in your body, it sure makes it more verifiable.

Tad

[Seraphis1]

So the answer really is... we can't know for absolute sure... rite?  

I just worry because I don't want to get bad karma messing around with another being's experience.

For example... last night I chased a couple of girls down the street for fun. I scared the pants off them and ran after them making all kinds of rediculous sounds.  

Some people speak of helping others in the OOBE world as they travel to the lower planes to rescue them. But if they aren't real...?  

Hi Shine: I am a novice at this but the people who are "experts" at this [Kepple, Buhlman, Moen , Monroe] seem to have established that the worlds you visit and interact with are real by consencus... they exist as long as someone puts energy into their construction and mantainance.. some one has to decide to dismantle them and put energy into their dissolution.. so they are real if you decide to interact in them.

S