Well, the first or second time I ever tried to project, I was listening to Boxed Nirvana II, and my eyelids started fluttering like crazy.
Since then, I can now make them do that whenever I want, just out of the blue. I never used to be able to do this...
What.. is.. this? :confused:
That's REM, short for Rapid Eye Movement - it usually starts when one falls into the dreaming stage of sleep. It starts for me when I'm in trance, too, and by it I usually tell that my body is finally asleep.
That's what I thought at first, but my eyes themselves aren't moving, just eyelids. And if it is REM.. I can do it on cue. :|
Hmm... There's no eyelid movement during REM, otherwise it would be called RELM...
The fluttering eyelids usually happen when you start to lose focus and your eyes try to readapt. In order to prevent it, you need to avoid looking at the darkness behind your eyelids and concentrate on your wider range of vision, your mind's eye.
The spots and light patterns you usually start to see when meditating have a tendency to make you look in their direction, but what you need to do is see them, not look at them, because you do not see them through your physical eyes, they are merely responses from your brain as your focus shifts towards a part of your subconscious.
i have the same issue when listening to bn1.
good tip kiwibonga :)
kiwibonga - I have an almost impossible time not getting the jittery eye lids while I concentrate on something hard. How can I train myself not to look at the darkness behind my eyelids?
The trick to conscious exit projection lies in your ability to reach the trance state, a profound state in which you are fully aware, yet the body is asleep, paralyzed.
When you are in bed, telling yourself "I need to fall asleep" is the best way to never fall asleep. The fluttering eyes problem is identical -- if you tell yourself not to focus on the darkness behind your eyelids, you can be sure you won't get rid of the problem.
In order to overcome this problem, you need to learn to focus on something that will not cause disruption.
I recommend doing this:
Focus on your breathing. Make sure you take deep breaths with your stomach, like in yoga, not with your chest.
Breathe in, picture light, positive energy coming into your nostrils, into your lungs.
Hold your breath for a few seconds and let this energy fill your body from head to toes.
Breathe out, and picture transparent, used up air devoid of energy leaving your lungs.
Do this until your body is entirely relaxed, and then adopt a normal rythm of breathing.
Keep concentrating on your breathing, and on this mental image of energy coming in and spreading through the body.
Trick your mind into concentrating only on the breath, and forget about everything else, don't even think about projecting for a second -- make sure you don't fall asleep, that's all there is to it.
You should eventually reach a stable state, provided that you do not let rogue "are we there yet?" thoughts pollute your efforts. Make taming your own mind your primary objective, rather than projection, and it will all come to you much faster in the long run.
kiwibonga - thank you for that reply. Tonight I was feeling very relaxed an able to concentrate on the darkness. But when I do this my eye lids to not flutter like I am concentrating too hard on something. My eye lids always feel like I MUST OPEN THEM or my eyes just bug out. I do not know why but I must open them and it is pretty hard to fall asleep when this is always happening.
-- edit
I believe it is hard for me to keep my eyes closed when this happens is because my body is not tired and doesn't want to sleep yet. so this is my new post...
kiwibonga - thank you for that reply. Tonight I have come to the conclusion that I must work on my concentration. What are good ways to develop concentration? Tonight I believe I learned I can not fall asleep unless I am actually tired. I was doing your breathing exercise you posted and I would begin to feel it. Can not explain really but I guess you just know? I tried multiple times and a few times I would get the tingly sensation in my fingers after losing my concentration. While I would try to concentrate a few things would lead me away from my concentration.
The first thing that would happen with my eyes closed is that they would always try to open themselves, and when this happened I would lose my concentration.
When I try to concentrate with my eyes open the room would begin to fade and I could begin to picture the energy coming into my body, spreading out very quickly, and then leaving. But after a little bit I will out of the blue have to blink because my eyes are dried out.
It is very hard if not impossible to reach the trance state while remaining completely conscious... It could take many years of training to achieve it, and I know most experienced projectors cannot do it.
Robert Peterson talks about this in his second book (which isn't free online like the first one). He has a graph of his "awareness" throughout the conscious exit process, and he explains that you need to "go under" at one point in order to reach a trance.
This means you must not be afraid of going unconscious. If you see that you are drifting into sleep, do not fight it. Let your mind slip into unconsciousness, and let your intentions, your raw willpower, "wake you up" once you've taken the plunge.
To practice not going to sleep every time, there are other exercises you can do.
There's Robert Monroe's arm trick:
Lay on your back, ready to go to sleep, but keep one of your hands up, resting on the elbow so that it takes minimal effort to keep it up. Then, simply try to fall asleep. As soon as you drift off, your arm will fall, waking you up.
Every time you are woken up, you will experience the boundary between awake and asleep states, and this will help you create this reflex that makes you realize you have fallen asleep -- you will eventually wake up in the trance state, see and hear very vivid hallucinations, etc...
If you look under the permanent topics section, there's an alarm clock method thread which is a really good alternative if you're having trouble with the arm trick.
The whole idea is to train yourself to realize you've fallen asleep without regaining your full waking consciousness.
It's -very- easy to lose this ability, by the way... Even if you get results in the first week of doing the arm trick, don't give up on it -- keep using it every night for a month or more, and if you ever stop getting results, give it a try again.
Note that it helps a lot if you are very tired when doing the arm trick, as it will make falling unconscious much easier. The downside is that keeping your arm up takes a lot of effort... It's a real torture! That's the main reason I started looking into alarms, but the arm trick is really THE best technique out there.
Ignore it.. this too shall pass. :grin: