What happened to me?

[UsedToBeSkeptical]

I am new to this site and don't know where to post this story or how to go about writing, but my experience was so disturbing I felt the need to sign up to a forum and tell someone about it.
Now it seems like what happened is slipping away more and more each second becoming unreal so I apologize for any errors I'm just trying to type it as fast as I can.

I had just got done texting a friend, he was going to sleep. And it was 3 am. I was wide awake.
I was thinking like I normally do, I knew I couldn't sleep. It started raining but I didn't notice it. And I was just idk thinking.
But it started raining harder and that's when I noticed the rain. And that's when I could feel my bed moving. It wasn't fast just slow.
It felt like I was in a hurricane. I thought it was strange. I live in Florida, and I knew it wasn't hurricane season.
So I went to go pick up my phone, but my hands didn't move. And I tried again, and I woke up and the rain stopped.

At this point everything was hazy and weird, but I had read up on lucid dreaming and astral projection a few weeks ago out of boredom.
I never tried it, but I figure that had happened. The lucid dreaming part. I was just so confused because I woke up wide awake, and I guess
I fell asleep wide awake but the rain was so real.

At this point I decided to might as well try again? Because it was new to me. So I calmed back down and got in a comfortable position. And
I thought it was weird how my bed was moving, so I tried to think about that again. And then the bed did move. Very slowly though. As I moved
energy through my spine that's the way the bed felt it rocked.

I still felt very very wide awake though. I decided to just day dream about random situations because I think that's how I fell into the lucid state last time.
All the day dreams felt very real, and it felt as if I was awake just thinking and had my eyes closed. But then I felt something grip my arm, and there
was a sharp pain on my head. I thought it was just a headache and my muscles spazzing out. But I went to touch myself. And it felt as if I touched myself.
But I went to move my arm back in place. But it was already there. It hadn't moved at all to begin with.

It was then I realized I was in a lucid state. And when I had realized my entire body started to vibrate vilently, I could feel EVERY cell.
I realized what I was going through was probably sleep paralysis, and verified it when I couldn't move my arm.
But, like I said I had read up on astral projection and the likes. I could FEEL my arm. But I couldn't move it.
So I decided to try to move my unphysical arm from my physical arm. I felt it, felt the outline. Felt it's ethereal presence inside of me.
And lifted my unphysical arm up. When I did this I could see my unphysical arm was a blue silver shimmer faded into everything black around me. I felt it peeling from my real arm.
As it was peeling bright white started to flood the corners of my eyes. And it was then I realized the vibrations had almost come to a calming stop.
I was scared, I knew what was happening was very real. But I was scared of the plane I was about to enter without any experience or knowing what
could possibly happen to me. So I forced myself awake, and a collection of colors spiraled out of my vision into nothingness and everything was black again.

I have never tried to lucid dream or astral project, all of this was completely involuntary besides the second try after it randomly happened the first.
I don't know how to feel about what happened, or how to interpret any of this. If anyone could shed some light on this situation I'd be very thankful for it.

I am also perhaps interested in trying the astral projection thing again, but I am wary. And I'm not sure how to go about it.

[Lionheart]

At this point everything was hazy and weird, but I had read up on lucid dreaming and astral projection a few weeks ago out of boredom.

First off Welcome to the Astral Pulse.
This is really all you need to do to "get the ball rolling" per say. Tom Campbell a noted Physicist and Teacher of "Reaching the Larger Reality" said this in a recent interview "Until you experience this, none of this is real".
When you opened that book of yours you opened your mind to new possibilities.
The sensations you experienced are just part of the 'ride". This forum has a lot of great info and techniques to make that ride a bit more enjoyable! 
Feel free to question?
Good Luck and Safe Travels! 

[Pauli2]

What I've experienced is that when I become lucid in a dream I know that
I'm dreaming. It's just a dream and I'm lucid, nothing special about that.

But the few OBE separations I've had, even if they only lasted a few seconds,
were completely different. My mind was clear as during a normal day.

The bed movements could be a variation of the vibrational state, which
sometimes (according to Buhlman - often) proceeds an OBE.

Sleep paralysis (SP) is not vibrations, the vibrations are in my experience
a separate phenomena. SP is just a normal paralysis of everything except
the eyes and eyelids.

I would guess that you had an OBE and managed to separate.

The touch you felt, could that have been a guide who tried to help you
exit a little easier? I think that sometimes we get help.

Also if you heard any strange sounds besides the rain, that's just astral noise.

Perhaps you already know what you want to do next based on your intuition.

[Xanth]

I am new to this site and don't know where to post this story or how to go about writing, but my experience was so disturbing I felt the need to sign up to a forum and tell someone about it.
Now it seems like what happened is slipping away more and more each second becoming unreal so I apologize for any errors I'm just trying to type it as fast as I can.

Welcome to the Astral Pulse!
This is as good a place as any to post your experience.  

I had just got done texting a friend, he was going to sleep. And it was 3 am. I was wide awake.
I was thinking like I normally do, I knew I couldn't sleep. It started raining but I didn't notice it. And I was just idk thinking.
But it started raining harder and that's when I noticed the rain. And that's when I could feel my bed moving. It wasn't fast just slow.
It felt like I was in a hurricane. I thought it was strange. I live in Florida, and I knew it wasn't hurricane season.
So I went to go pick up my phone, but my hands didn't move. And I tried again, and I woke up and the rain stopped.

You either fell asleep and didn't realize it, meaning this was sleep paralysis.  Or you put yourself into a very nice Trance state.
Either way, this is a good thing if you're going towards Astral Projection.  

At this point everything was hazy and weird, but I had read up on lucid dreaming and astral projection a few weeks ago out of boredom.
I never tried it, but I figure that had happened. The lucid dreaming part. I was just so confused because I woke up wide awake, and I guess
I fell asleep wide awake but the rain was so real.

It probably was real.  You were probably manifesting within the experience what your physical body was hearing.

At this point I decided to might as well try again? Because it was new to me. So I calmed back down and got in a comfortable position. And
I thought it was weird how my bed was moving, so I tried to think about that again. And then the bed did move. Very slowly though. As I moved
energy through my spine that's the way the bed felt it rocked.

You're using your Intent here to begin this "rocking" sensation.  Just keep that going and focus upon it as much as you can.  

I still felt very very wide awake though. I decided to just day dream about random situations because I think that's how I fell into the lucid state last time.
All the day dreams felt very real, and it felt as if I was awake just thinking and had my eyes closed. But then I felt something grip my arm, and there
was a sharp pain on my head. I thought it was just a headache and my muscles spazzing out. But I went to touch myself. And it felt as if I touched myself.
But I went to move my arm back in place. But it was already there. It hadn't moved at all to begin with.

Daydreaming about random situations in order to project is an exercise we call a "Mental Rundown".  
Frank, a gentleman who used to post here, has a lot of info about that on this site.
I compiled all the posts he made on this forum before he stopped posting, you can read them here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/z0mdilfmsymjkz9/FranksPosts.pdf?dl=0

And the following two links are what I wrote on Mental Rundowns for my own website.
http://unlimitedboundaries.ca/2010/09/06/phasing-method-mental-rundowns/
http://unlimitedboundaries.ca/2010/09/17/phasing-mental-rundown-in-greater-detail/

It was then I realized I was in a lucid state. And when I had realized my entire body started to vibrate vilently, I could feel EVERY cell.
I realized what I was going through was probably sleep paralysis, and verified it when I couldn't move my arm.
But, like I said I had read up on astral projection and the likes. I could FEEL my arm. But I couldn't move it.

That's normal.  Usually the goal is a 100% reduction of the sensory input from your physical body, but sometimes you can still feel some parts or even all of it.  As long as you can ignore those sensations, you'll be fine.  

So I decided to try to move my unphysical arm from my physical arm. I felt it, felt the outline. Felt it's ethereal presence inside of me.
And lifted my unphysical arm up. When I did this I could see my unphysical arm was a blue silver shimmer faded into everything black around me. I felt it peeling from my real arm.
As it was peeling bright white started to flood the corners of my eyes. And it was then I realized the vibrations had almost come to a calming stop.
I was scared, I knew what was happening was very real. But I was scared of the plane I was about to enter without any experience or knowing what
could possibly happen to me. So I forced myself awake, and a collection of colors spiraled out of my vision into nothingness and everything was black again.

You'll definitely need to nip that fear in the butt pronto.  
The single strongest thing that keeps people from succeeding is "fear".

I have never tried to lucid dream or astral project, all of this was completely involuntary besides the second try after it randomly happened the first.
I don't know how to feel about what happened, or how to interpret any of this. If anyone could shed some light on this situation I'd be very thankful for it.

I am also perhaps interested in trying the astral projection thing again, but I am wary. And I'm not sure how to go about it.

What you did was you managed to put yourself into a really good Trance state.  For lack of a better term: Mind awake, body asleep.

To me... all of the many labels people have for non-physical experiences (dreams, lucid dreams, astral projections, obes) are just that, labels.  To me, they're all the same experience... they're all experiences a person (consciousness) has in a reality frame that isn't this physical reality.  What differentiates the experiences is how consciously aware you are during the experience.

Read my response to Pauli below to get a better understanding of what I mean.

In the end, you're doing absolutely amazing!  Keep up the great work!

The other response to Pauli, if anyone wishes to follow it, was split out here:  http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_out_of_body_experiences/split_topic_obe-t37718.0.html

[Stookie_]

Daydreaming about random situations in order to project is an exercise we call a "Mental Rundown".  

Not meaning to knock Xanth's post, but I just wanted to mention that a "Rundown" is not daydreaming and has a much more important element to it than daydreaming, which is concentration of awareness. If you're just daydreaming about random stuff, not much will happen or every kid in school would be AP'ing all the time.

Frank was very clear that a rundown should be something repeatable over and over, and for best results: it shouldn't take too long to do, it's something that will grab your awareness and senses, should be something you don't normally do, and be in an imaginary place. You don't want it too simple, but you definitely don't want it too complicated either. It should be something that's interesting but won't necessarily create a daydream scenario (meaning concentration goes out the window and imagination starts running wild... if that happens, center yourself and get back to the rundown).

[Xanth]

The way Frank taught it, yes.  His Mental Rundown was pretty strict in the do's and do not's.  hehe

However, I've found that I've had my best results when I've just "let myself go" with the scenario.  Let it go and be as creative and crazy as you can make it.
Hence why I say that "daydreaming" works just as well.  I don't usually lose focus even with a daydream-type scenario.

Anyway, this is just my personal take on it.  It's what's worked for me, so I pass that info along. 
Perhaps I should call it something other than a "Mental Rundown"... but for all intents and purposes, that's what it is.  Maybe "Overly Creative Mental Rundown"!  LoL

That's actually one thing about Franks Mental Rundown description that always bugged me... his "don't make it too complex" concept.  He never really said why... only that your attention would be caught in the physical.  I never understood why that was, mostly because over complexity of the scenario was never an issue for me.  I found the exact opposite, the more complex the scene, the easier my consciousness was to get caught in it.

Perhaps we could look into that?

[Stookie_]

That's actually one thing about Franks Mental Rundown description that always bugged me... his "don't make it too complex" concept.  He never really said why... only that your attention would be caught in the physical.  I never understood why that was, mostly because over complexity of the scenario was never an issue for me.  I found the exact opposite, the more complex the scene, the easier my consciousness was to get caught in it.

Perhaps we could look into that?

He spoke about it on the forums a lot. A complex scenario is much more likely to turn into a daydream and you'll fall asleep. There is too much to focus on. You want something that can grab your awareness but not spread it all over the place.

Keep in mind, when most people daydream, they are staring out the window and letting their imagination run wild. There is NO intent behind the process. A rundown is all about intent. You feel, smell, touch, taste, & hear everything in as much detail and absorb yourself into it.

So if you're daydreaming with focus, you're not really daydreaming. Something I might be able to relate it to is "noticing". Because with that you're not imagining anything and watching, but what makes it different than daydreaming is you're doing it with strict intent.

Obviously, you don't have to follow the rules to a T to have success, but Franks whole reasoning for creating a Rundown method was because he found it to have all the important keys to a successful AP... intent, concentration of awareness, loss of physicality/absorbing into a scene. Also, keep in mind when I say "concentration of awareness" I don't mean super intense focus that makes your head hurt. I mean you have your awareness shrunk down to cover only what you intend, in this case, your rundown. Concentration is a very important thing to have in the astral, so applying it to your practice is a good habit.

[Pauli2]

Moen has one simple thing you can do. Moen calls it "to-prime-the-pump".

You just imagine how you peel an orange, watching it getting peeled
with your mind's eye. Has helped me a lot to get retrieval scenarios
starting. If I do nothing I can lay for a full hour without getting any
impressions. So getting it starting somehow, with a simple and short
method has helped me.

[Stookie_]

I just found something that Frank told me personally:

A good rundown is something that captures the attention and engages the senses. Make it too simple and you'll get bored and give up or fall asleep. Make it too complex and you'll likely lose the thread of it, then get bored or fall asleep. Also, it would be helpful engaging the Monroe focus 3 state before initiating your rundown.

Yours,
Frank

[Xanth]

Moen has one simple thing you can do. Moen calls it "to-prime-the-pump".

You just imagine how you peel an orange, watching it getting peeled
with your mind's eye. Has helped me a lot to get retrieval scenarios
starting. If I do nothing I can lay for a full hour without getting any
impressions. So getting it starting somehow, with a simple and short
method has helped me.

Yeah, I remember reading about Moens pump priming.  Frank's Mental Rundown is what immediately came to my mind when I read about Moens example.

I just found something that Frank told me personally:

I remember that post I think.  It was in response to your Swimming Pool rundown. 

And yeah, you're post above Pauli's there definitely makes some great points regarding Intent and Awareness.
I do use a bit more "Intent" with my daydream-type rundowns.  I could see that being the key really.  I do let-go when I do it... but I guess not completely?  LOL