I need some help.

[personalreality]

Ok, so I had my first successful projection a couple weeks ago and I've been able to replicate about 10-15 times in the past few weeks.  However, replication isn't always so easy and its never very consistent.  I know that many of you experienced folk are able to achieve OBE in minutes compared to the hour and a half that it takes me.  I also know that as I continue to progress I too will learn to achieve the OBE much faster.  The time isn't so much my problem.  Plus if I asked that question (How can I make my attempts result in success more frequently) I know the answer would basically be, "Just keep practicing and discovering what works for you and keep doing it." 

I have been coming across a weird scenario lately though and I haven't been able to resolve it.  Usually when I've successfully projected, it takes an hour or more and I reach a point where I fall asleep (lightly) a few times and at some point upon waking (while my consciousness is still balancing very delicately between awake and asleep) I will feel some vibrations and I intensify them and I'm out.  But the past few times i've tried to project I get to the sleep point and when I wake up my mind is suddenly VERY alert and awake yet my body is deeply entranced.  When I get to this point I don't know what to do.  I've tried to just focus my mind to a single point, I've tried to use an exit technique (like climbing the rope), I've even tried to roll my awareness around in my body to loosen it up.  It's a really weird experience because I almost feel like I'm stuck in my body.  I'm not paralyzed or anything, if I want to move my body I can.  What usually happens is that I struggle for a few minutes and get really anxious and just get up.  This is after I've tried to calm and center myself (which I can do sometimes), but it seems that at this point my mind is too alert.  it's like I've gone from deep trance to full waking consciousness in a split second.  I can never reclaim the mind state that I had just moments before. 

I don't know why this is happening as it never used to.  Has this happened to anyone else before and if so were you able to resolve it or did you just have to stop?

Also, I've considered what RB says about it being a successful projection but my consciousness just stayed with the body.  I have tried to stay there long enough to recover/download the memory but it's like my mind is too awake for that too happen.  I just don't understand why it happens and how I can stop it or work with it. 

[Tiny]

Dear personalreality,

I think i can relate to what you're saying.

Sometimes, for some stupid reason my body just won't let go and wants to remain in full wake-consciousness no matter how much i try to calm it down. It is terribly frustrating to me because it gives me a strong sense of not being in control!

I've theorized today why this keeps happening from time to time. My conclusion so far is that the reason may be that when a thoughtform enters one's mind and anchors in the sub-consciousness (like a subtle fear or a reminder) it may cause continual unrest like internal conflicts but without the conscious mind being aware of it, hence not being able to resolve it.
The solution to that would be to do a cleansing. One may say and intend the following: "I let go and release all mental attachments". When such a cleansing is successful, briefly one will experience an inner void as the troubling energy has just been released and left a hole that is to be filled shortly after.

If this isn't the reason then there must be some solution to this. It just can't be that the mind is sometimes forcibly stuck in full waking consciousness and there's nothing you could do, but sometimes it sure feels like that.

I laid there yesterday evening, completly mentally crippled as being unable to calm my body-mind down, forcibly remaining in full waking consciousness and I never, ever want to experience that kind of helplesness again.



peace

[personalreality]

Yea, like I said, I'm not paralyzed or anything, I can get up if I want to, but I don't want to.  You know, by that point I've already invested so much time and energy and then it's like hitting a wall.  Very frustrating.  Every time it's happened I always wind up having to give up and then when I try again my energy is drained.  It really sucks. 

I will try to cleanse it away next time. 

[vipassana]

That is what happens to me. The only time I have to attempt an OBE is before I sleep at night, and of couse, I haven't has a successful OBE yet. I wake up during the night with vibrations and visions of weird dark patterns under my closed eyelids, but they quickly fade. I don't know what else to do at this point.

[personalreality]

That's not what I'm describing Vipassana. 

I get to the point of flickering consciousness and then BAM! out of no where I come back to full waking consciousness.

I resolved it about 2 hours ago though. 

Here is my explanation and theory...

One of the things that I have used to my benefit is a slightly fatigued mind.  This is why me and Kurt like to project 6 or so hours after we wake up.  This has given us time to get up and go about some things in our day and use our brain/mind a little bit.  (Kurt may have other reasons, I'm making some assumptions on his behalf)  Anyway, when I first wake up in the morning I need to actually wake up a bit before I can even try or my mind if too foggy and I lose consciousness to easily and fall back to sleep.  BUT!  If I get up, have a little breakfast, maybe a cup of coffee, have a cigarette, take a pee, then my mind is awake, but its too awake.  When I lay down to project it is going crazy and is way to hard to calm down. 

Now, if I get up, go about my day, maybe go to class for a bit or pop in to work for a few hours, when afternoon comes around, I have "exercised" my mind a bit and worn out some of the spasticness.  Now, I'm a mentally healthy person.  I don't have any anxiety problems or anything that would cause racing thoughts in the morning that would require me to tire my mind out before I can project.  It seems to just be natural to me.  When I wake up (actually wake up, not just get up) my mind is energized and isn't ready to relax, it wants to do stuff.  Maybe I've become so conditioned to robot life that I have to go through some of it to feel grounded enough to project.  Who knows.  But after I've had a few hours of doing stuff, my mind calms much faster and I can project. 

On the other end of this spectrum, if I let my mind get too fatigued I run into this situation I describe.  So if I don't get around to practice until 7pm or later, I regain full consciousness right in the middle of my projection attempt.  The conditions of my mind are very important factors for me to project successfully.  Personally I have been able to project at any time of day except, 7pm or later.  I can't do it when I'm in bed to go to sleep at night (just too much conditioning to fall asleep).  I can project in my bed, just not at bedtime. 

V, you need to try at different times.  You've gotta have a "weekend" morning (for me that's friday and sunday, so it doesn't have to be the actual weekend) where you can stay in bed.  Do you live alone or are other people a problem?  You should try setting your alarm a couple hours early one morning, get up, have a cup of coffee and go back to bed and try to project then.  I bet you'll get out.  You should knock off work or class a little early one day and go home in the afternoon and attempt.  For me, around 2-5 is the best time.  I promise, once you get out once, it's all down hill from there.  It's soooo much easier after that.  You can do this.  I know it.

[vipassana]

Thanks for the advice. I'll give it a try this weekend. My only free time during the week is usually after 9:00 PM. Of everything I have read, almost all of it says not to try to project before you go to sleep because you will ultimately not be successful. I have read that people will wake up at 3:00 AM, get up for a while and then go back to bed to project. I have managed to train myself to wake up at 3:00 AM every night. Sometimes when I do, I wake up with vibrations present and the patterns I described, but they fade because like you, I become fully awake. I would like to turn a lucid dream into a projection. Problem is, I rarely have a lucid dream.

[kurtykurt42]

This 'hobby' can be tough for people that have a busy schedule. After waking up in the morning I like to make green tea, practice martial arts & stretching for about an hour / shower / relax and then spend the next couple of hours meditating and projecting.

That's what works for me but like I've said before, everyone's different. 

[personalreality]

V,

The first time I was able to project was in the afternoon, you should try it.  

Do you think you can get an entire Saturday free?  I know if you have a wife and kids, Saturday's might be tough, the same with parents and roommates, though usually for different reasons.  It's even worse if your fellow inhabitants aren't keen on what you're doing.  I remember when I read John Magus' "Astral Projection", he recommended that on a Friday night you tell all your family or roommates to leave you alone in the morning because you're going to AP, or if they're uptight, tell them you're meditating or sleeping late.  Well, I though my mom would be nice and compliant and she was.....until I told her what I was doing.  She actually came and woke me up and wouldn't let me go back to bed.  It's funny, that was probably 6 or more years ago and I just had my first successful OBE recently.  It can take a long time.  But I didn't consistently try for that whole time.  

Anyway, tell whoever you may live with to just leave you be all day Saturday.  What I started doing over the past couple months was pretty much taking the entire day on the weekend to project.  You should try it.  Get up, have some breakfast, take an hour to let the food digest (eat some melon, it alkalizes the body and helps you relax, then wait half an hour and eat a banana, it will keep you from getting cramps or twitchy muscles and drink a SMALL cup of coffee, just enough to wake you up a little and drink a big glass of water) and the liquids get through your system.  PEE! and make sure that any other kind of bodily functions are taken care of, whatever they may be (headache, muscle aches, itchy rash, whatever).  Then take about another 30 minutes to stretch and flex your muscles to relax them.  One of my favorite things to do is get down on some Wii Fit Plus Yoga and Strength Training.  It really stretches and relaxes me.  

Then, lay down in your bed.  I know they say you shouldn't but I'm saying you should.  I practiced in a chair for years and had no success.  And I'm pretty sure you know about my history with addiction and the medication I take that makes me fall asleep constantly throughout the day.  Yet I still made it in my bed, where you're always told not to AP because you'll fall asleep (And, I know that everyone is different and can AP wherever it works for them, so no one needs to say that).  Once you lay down, get one last good stretch and then begin trance induction.  Climb down the ladder, ride up the space elevator and jump off, ride a roller coaster, fall down an endless pit, whatever you need to create the falling sensation and then remember that feeling so you can replicate it later.  Once you start feeling trance symptoms, start some energy work.

You can probably get out without the energy work, but it will make the OBE more stable and longer.  I prestimulate hands and feet, then do arm and leg bounce, then full body bounce and then a full body circuit.  Once your whole body feels tingly from the energy work, stop and start focusing on the ringing in your ears.  Then just let yourself drift toward sleep.  Seriously, just go to sleep.  The whole time just barely keep awareness of what you're doing.  Just barely know that you're hearing a ringing sound in your ear.  You want to get to a point where your consciousness starts to flicker between being awake and asleep.  Don't freak out if you feel yourself drifting to sleep, just let it go.  You want to get to the point where sleep comes and goes, but a very light sleep.

You'll dose off, wake up, dose, wake a few times and then at some point, you'll wake and your consciousness will be foggy and very concentrated down to a single point and you'll feel vibrations in your body.  Just use your intuition to increase the vibrations and feel yourself "rising" up from your body.  Then put your feet on the floor and go.

If this doesn't work, get up, do something for a couple hours then do it again (perhaps without breakfast this time, and no more coffee, but bananas and water are good).  And you know what, if it doesn't work the second time, wait a few hours and do it again.  In between each time, do some energy work to get your energy back up.  Have some water to rehydrate, maybe some kind of food that's not protein.  (The food shouldn't adversely affect the ability to AP, but it could make you feel sluggish and not clear)  Spend the whole day meditating then making a projection attempt.  

Before I got out the first time I would do this every friday and sunday.  It was this process that got me out.  I got off work early one day because of snow and I went home and started this process and the second time I did it I got out.  

You can do this.

[Tiny]

Dear personalreality,

would you be willing to give an update regarding your "hitting the wall/unable to trance" experiences?

Have you discovered any solutions to this problem?


peace