Falling asleep consciously into the theta state

[Renaisance]

hey Graupel. I don't have any full proof methods and I guess there aren't any it simply depends on the person. Of course you can always work with your standard relaxation and trance techniques which are always good. One thing I've been trying with some success is to lie down to go to sleep and while I'm doing so I tell my self over and over to remember my consciousnesss. I tell myself over and over that if I find myself in a dream I will remember my consciousness. I have had some success with this but I'm still working on it.
 The key to this and problem with this is it is not an unbroken stream of consciousness rather you have to surrender your awareness in the hopes that you'll have the ability to pick it up again. This alows you to get as deep as you need to be but at the same time you need to program yourself until it's ingrained that you'll remember to pick the thread back up. This method can be very useful because it sidesteps all the inherent problems for achieving the trance state. It's fundamental flaw however is that if you fail to pick up the thread again you'll simply sleep through the whole night.
 

Just some thoughts
Renaisance

[holy reality]

well I think the answers are

1) the mind NEEDS rest, we die if we don't get enough "traditional" sleep.
2) we are conditioned to associate lying in bed at night with losing consciousness and sleeping.... I mean I think that is why some people claim that they never dream... they just associate the bed with sleep, associate sleep with.... you know hmm i'm tired... BAM... i'm awake it's morning (i wish i could do that sometimes) and so they don't ever periodically wake up to recall any dreams they have unless they were nightmares or something.

So we have to break away from the association of sleep with unconsciousness, but even then, you really do need to get a restful nights sleep... at least a handful of hours, before you should really mess around with LD and OBE... which kind of can disrupt the sleep cycle....

So I'd venture to say you want to be going down into theta consciously (don't ask me how) during the day, once or twice, like in the afternoon after school or something... to refresh yourself.. and leave most of the sleeping to your mind until it's early morning and you've been through your normal cycles.

I think that is why we can't normally transition into a sleep paralysis right when we lay down, becuase our mind needs that sleep to do things, go over neural pathways/memories, etc.

Mediation is the key to fading into theta consciously.....

[Phong]

"Rest" is a surprisingly relative term, we take for granted that we know what we mean when we use it to mean deep sleep, dreamless sleep, REM sleep, light sleep, meditation, relaxation, reprieve, and even recreation. With so many different kinds, we seem to be pretty good at it.

The deepest rest, death, is an absence from sensual awareness - no sights, no sounds, no smells, no tastes, no touch. We may interpret the afterlife using imagery and symbolism, but it is unlikely the way we would experience it after death. Our brainwave activity gets pretty close to death in the 5 - 20 minutes of delta sleep. Ask yourself - are there any experiences you can imagine that involve no senses?

Accept that you are capable of experiencing without the senses to interpret. It involves a different kind of memory, a different kind of thought, no words, no symbols, beyond the scope of anything you could ever discuss in a forum -

[thelou]

Hi graupel,

I found this page and downloaded what they call a brain wave generator.  It plays different types of music through your stereo speakers or headphones.  The two different types come together in your brain somehow and induce different levels of consciousness.  I was never able to get to theta before.  The first time I listened I was there.  

There are several different types of music you can listen to that get to different levels of consciousness.  Best of all it is a free download!

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2645

[Graupel]

When you are first going to bed and you are probably exhausted from work and all.. what actually causes our awareness and lucidity to go when we "fall asleep"?

In every experience that I have had, I was able to have an OOBE easily from the "theta" state that I might happen to wake up from or immediately return to in the early morning hours.  But I'm trying to figure out exactly if it is possible to fall asleep consciously all the time whenever we want to in order to have an OOBE, lucid dream, or astrally project.  Why do we wake up in the theta state sometimes with unbroken awareness, whereas when we fall asleep at night our awareness and waking consciousness just seems to disappear into a dream which we have no direct control over?

What simple techniques have you all found to help you enter through the different stages of sleep (alpha, theta, delta) while maintaining a constant awareness or lucidity?  The trick is to maintain an unbroken awareness while not exerting too much focus where you just lie endlessly in bed and get nowhere.

[heinzschafwer]

Hi to All. I'm a Newbie in all of this, but I seem to be led a fairly clear way towards a ZEN-ish no-goal. What I am investigating is the term or what behind the state of Consciousness. We all assume we know what consciousness is because we live it. But there are a lot of sources that say that consciousness is not just a quality but a quantity, meaning it can be accumulated or squandered. The accumulation of consciousness can lead to great 'miracles' like moving the stones of pyramids in Egypt, etc. I'm mot postulating anything, but I am seriously inquiring as to the depth of the topic. If consciousness is a cosmic power, like electromagnetism or gravity, the prohpecies around 2012 get a different flavor  for me. Anybody interested in furthering this topic? Please contribute, greetz, Heinz.