So after 20 minutes of not moving at all I began to feel my hands go numb (in a pleasant way, not in a lack of circulation way), and the sensation creeped up my arms slowly until I was lamost 100% not aware of my body, my viiosn was flashing and pulsating, my ears got particularly noisy, my eyes started flickering, my heart beat bagn to soar and I had a tunnel in front of me that I was going down and then .....it dissipated into nothingness like a passing storm.
Was this Focus 10? How close would one assume I would be to projecting? Instead of trying to throw my body outside of itself I'm simply imagining transferring my awareness to my astral body which is already outside of myself according to Robert Monroe correct?
This was last night as well as about 10.30PM, I was very tired but stayed awake and alert for an entire hour by focusing on my third eye, very cool technique! Didn't quite make it though! I imagine if I did this at 6AM I may have been able to get out....
....I think I'm close?
Hi Jesssica.
When I first learned to AP, I only referred to one book of which the titles escapes me now. That was over 13 years ago. I do not remember the exact method but that wasn't important anyhow because all I took away from it was that I needed to relax, which was a form of meditating though I never referred to it as such. I needed to maintain a non physical focus but all I really did was stare at the blackness and the not so black spots as the rest. Which I have since learned is called the noticing technique. And lastly, I was told to ignore the physical sensations which I now know are called the vibrations. The point is that I basically went it alone.
I did not worry about nor did I even know the term "third eye"'. I absolutely had no idea of what focus 10 was and I still haven't bothered to learn much about the focus levels.
I had my first intentional projection in just over a month. For now, I would say not to worry about opening your third eye ( I still haven't as far as I can tell ), focus levels, or chakras. Just find a technique that sounds good to you and then reduce it down to it's basics like I described above. Later, after you have had some experiences under your belt. that would be the time to start incorporating these ideas into your belief system if you think they will help you. I just believe that too many beginners try to pack too much into their early attempts and prolong their success because of it.
Keep trying, but drop some of the stuff that isn't necessary to project.
Where did you land during your first projection? Is it based on intent? I expect that I'll project into my bedroom and if I can stay in that state choose where to go from there...
Well my first two OBE's were spontaneous but yes, I did initially become aware that I was "out of body" in the room that I was sleeping in. I was in college at the time so I was dreaming about a lecture. The room was filled with about two hundred or so people and I became aware of a blue, sparkly ball of light slowly rise from the front row. I was sitting towards the back and as I stared at the light I, suddenly felt the sensation of rolling off the couch that I was sleeping on. I vividly remember the 360 degree roll and thump of hitting the floor.
I opened my eyes and was in total darkness but I was completely aware of where everything was at. I could perceive, the coffee table, t.v., the kitchen bar, and most startling, myself still asleep on the couch. I'm not ashamed to admit that I was completely terrified. My belief system at the time told me that this experience was only possible if I had died and couple that with the knowledge that I was aware that I was just "dreaming" moments earlier, I sincerely believed at that moment that I was dead. I had to be a spirit if I was viewing my own body. This seemed logical in that terrifying moment.
I know this may sound absurd to a lot of people but I was raised to avoid any talk or interest in these subjects so I was completely ignorant as to what an OBE or AP was, so my being dead seemed logical at the time. I"ve written the whole experience up here somewhere so I'm not gonna go into all of it again but I had my second spontaneous OBE a short time later and I was determined to figure out what was happening.
When I used the word "intent" in my initial post, I was referring to the fact that I was intentionally trying to have an OBE and not that I had any particular intent to go anywhere. But yes, where you intend to "go" does influence your experience but not always. Just like fear and excitement doesn't always end an experience either. I was in total fear yet it did nothing to end my first two experiences.
As you gain more experience, your beliefs and perceptions will change (probably many times) as to what is actually happening. I no longer believe that we are leaving our bodies but it is a term that isn't going anywhere soon so I use it since I have no desire to get into the semantics of it all.
Like Xanth, I also believe that we have a completely ignorant (that's a polite understatement) idea as to what dreams really are and I try to avoid the term "lucid dream" altogether. The only difference between what most people consider a dream and what is considered an OBE is your awareness and control. But I don't expect nor do I want anyone else to adopt that ideology until their own experiences match up to this.
I went this alone for the better part of 12 years until I found the Pulse. If you read my early posts compared to my most recent ones, it is likely that you would think that I just quickly adopted the dominant thinking here but the truth is that I finally found the words and Ideas that matched what I had already come to believe on my own but was too afraid to admit due to my former religious beliefs. Even then, it still took me time to finally accept this new paradigm.
This is also why I am very ignorant of who many of the famous authors in this field and their interpretations although I have read Tom Cambell's, My Big Toe (MBT for short, remember that because it is used often), and I find it completely brilliant. I do not care about focus levels, planes, dimensions, or realms even though they may be very relevant. Terms like "raise your vibrations to enter higher dimensions" and other similar ideas aren't completely lost on me yet I pay them no mind during my projections. I still haven't had any experiences that would lead me to believe that I need to know what chakras are, much less clear them.
If having a third eye and opening it is important than I must have done so accidentally because that is another belief that I personally have not found a reason to explore further. I believe that access to all this information is an amazing thing but it can also hinder many people when they try to incorporate to many beliefs into their experience.
With all that said, I realize now that I had only progressed to a certain point and I had reached that point many years ago. I was definitely ready to gain some outside knowledge and this has enriched my experiences immensely. Sorry If i wrote more than you bargained for hopefully the answers to your questions were addressed somewhere along the way. :lol:
No, thank you! I appreciate the detail immensely :) I envy people's ability to have a spontaneous OBE since I have been vaguely interested in it for years but only recently became very interested, but I guess given the fear you experienced would have been terrifying for you and I'm glad you overcame that! Sorry Im very tired and not making much sense, either way, your post was interested and useful :)
I forgot to answer your question about whether or not you are getting closer. The answer to that is yes, but you are no closer than when you were before you even became interested in the practice. I know that didn't help much but a better question is whether or not you are becoming more aware.
That answer is also yes. Anytime someone places an intent on having an OBE, their subconscious is busy trying to make that happen. But in most cases, people have blocks that they don't even know they have. For instance, many people want to have an OBE or an astral projection so badly that they believe they aren't afraid to. I don't think that this is true.
To have one, is to have your entire view of the world and how it works turned upside down. No matter how much you think you are ready for that, you really aren't. Now I'm not trying to say that you're gonna have a projection and then sit down, draw in your legs, hug your knees tight while rocking back and forth saying "Oh, my God, Oh, my God, Oh, my God.", over and over again. :lol:
But you may have many sleepless nights contemplating what this truth implies for life, for death, is there a God, are there *gasp* demons, so on and so forth. You may start asking people you know questions about their beliefs on the subject and the strange look they give you will make you instantly regret doing so. If your religious, it may shake your faith mildly, to the core, not at all, or make it stronger than ever. There's just no way to know until it happens.
There are exceptions of course. Some people just think, "awesome" and go about their everyday lives business as usual but just a bit more wiser. :-)
Aaaaaaaand after a successful sleep I can reply properly now.
I aim to project without fear but also realise I could enounter things that make me fearful, I got close again last night with a Paul Santisi meditation but find myself getting exhausted if thats possible after an hour, but ultimately am grateful for the experience anyway because whenever I have been doing that I wake up happy with a clear head and my life goals in focus, so atleast if I don't succeed at this point in time I am gaining something anyway!
I have no religious beliefs, I am firmly agnostic, so there's no issues there. I am already aware that all of us are more than physical bodies and basically (and this is a quote from the book I'm reading, Astral Projection for Psychic Empowerment) I'm simply doing it to "become more than I am" and open up to worlds most humans are ignorant of. I think we can do so much more healing on a physical and spiritual level during the night and really want to become part of something bigger, and more important than all of the bull excrement we're told is important. Even though I guess It's ignorant of me to have expectations, I do expect that such experiences will perhaps detach myself from consumerism and other traps we've been told are necesseties in life and yeah, be that little bit wiser :)
Quote from: jessicalynncp on June 06, 2014, 23:23:07
Aaaaaaaand after a successful sleep I can reply properly now.
I aim to project without fear but also realise I could enounter things that make me fearful, I got close again last night with a Paul Santisi meditation but find myself getting exhausted if thats possible after an hour, but ultimately am grateful for the experience anyway because whenever I have been doing that I wake up happy with a clear head and my life goals in focus, so atleast if I don't succeed at this point in time I am gaining something anyway!
I have no religious beliefs, I am firmly agnostic, so there's no issues there. I am already aware that all of us are more than physical bodies and basically (and this is a quote from the book I'm reading, Astral Projection for Psychic Empowerment) I'm simply doing it to "become more than I am" and open up to worlds most humans are ignorant of. I think we can do so much more healing on a physical and spiritual level during the night and really want to become part of something bigger, and more important than all of the bull excrement we're told is important. Even though I guess It's ignorant of me to have expectations, I do expect that such experiences will perhaps detach myself from consumerism and other traps we've been told are necesseties in life and yeah, be that little bit wiser :)
hello jessicalynncp
Good for you, keep trying for the end results are well worth the patience and hard work. Seek inner self for the answers.