need help.. novice here.

[Fat_Turkey]

Hi.

Firstly you should research. Buy the book Astral Dynamics advertised on this website - I highly recommend it.

About the trance state - as far as I am aware the trance state is caused by a sort of simulation of sleep. You hold your surface mind clear as water - meditation sort of thing. Then your body must be deeply relaxed. Then there are visualisations you can accomplish to make your consciousness fall inwards I think. Then your body falls asleep and your mind stays awake - trance state.

Try doing a bit more research it will do you some good. And don't skip energy development stages either - you'll have to come back to them if you do.

Later
-FT

[testpattern]

i havfe the book and am in the process of reading it

im at the mind split part

[Leviiathan]

I meditate about an hour each day, just before bed, at about 12 in the morn. And I've bee committed for several months. I think I'm counting around seven.

I still haven't projected. . . .

And I still can't enter trance and hold it there.

[fredhedd]

hey test.  if you want some quick answers you can find them here but it really would be beneficial to listen to what fat said.

the trance state can be reached by keeping your mind awake as you fall asleep.  it's not necessary to keep your mind completely clear to reach it though.  i think most of us here actually think about something else to get our minds off of our body.  you want to kind of forget about it and let it fall asleep.  the problem is usually when you start to think about something else your mind ends up wandering to the point where it to falls asleep.  it's a tricky balancing act that must be learned.

try doing some of the relaxation tek's before falling asleep at night.  or better yet, try going to sleep for six hours, waking up for about half an hour, then lying back down to sleep.  try to keep your mind alert during the half an hour awake time.  reading is suggested.  don't do any strenous physical activities during this time.  you want to stay as relaxed as possible.  your brain likes to get at least six hours of sleep.  your body would like at least eight.  when you do lay back down your mind should be well awake and your body still feeling sleepy.  if you can keep your mind awake and let yourself relax there is a good chance you will enter into trance.  if you can concentrate on a point outside of your body while in trance you may be able to trigger the projection reflex.

[Greytraveller]

Trance is essentially the same state as being half-awake and half-asleep. Trance can be induced either before or after sleep (these are known as the hypnagogic and hypnopompic states). Trance can also be achieved through meditation.
Trance is not absolutely necessay for projection although, of course, it does help. Projections have been induced by people during meditation, just before sleep, right after waking from sleep and during sleep itself. Projections during sleep most often occur in dreams of flying and floating and in lucid dreams (dreams where a person realizes that he or she is dreaming).[]

[Leviiathan]

I've managed to develop a partial lucid dream ability.

When I wake up, and I'm half-asleep, I can slip back into a dream-state, without realizing it, by daydreaming. It works. Early today, I was able to manipulate aspects of my dream.

I've found that in dreams, what you believe is what happens, regardless of how subtle this belief is. If you're scratching a lottery ticket, and you think you'll lose. . . you will lose (i.e. if you doubt). It's at the point where I recognize this indirectly and I simply alter my thinking so that the result becomes favourable, or rather, I change my pattern of thinking so that the dream is hence manipulated.

Earlier in my dream, there was this very, very small bridge (which wasn't even suspended). There was someone beside me. The bridge was also very narrow. Can you say 2 walking spaces long? To my left was a portal, which I saw astral-like energy bodies slipping into. I was about to jump in, when it occured to me that it was a trap. I think I slipped my hand into the portal and there was a monster tentacle on the other side that grabbed me. I ended up doing it again and feeling the thing, actually. And I did it again and again and again.

Ironically, I can't wait to jump into the Astral Dimension. In some spiritual advice I got, I was told that my spirit guides feel I'm like a kid who wants to run out of a door too fast. But that was months ago. . . the advice to me was to get back in touch with myself because they were going to simply wait until I came to respect them more (or something like that).

- - -

When attempting to fall asleep, I've observed that I have to be relaxed (in a calm state of mind) first. After that, I simply focus my mind off my body (and off things) naturally. Third, I simply drift off until I fall asleep. That's actually how the sleep process works.

I know how to maintain the focus state when I want to fall asleep. Unfortunately, I can't find the words to describe how this process works or how one could emulate it.

[testpattern]

thank you guys for your help.
i've been reading astral dynamics... and i love it. it's an extremely easy read (not to say the language is sophomoric) and it is very detailed. however, as you can imagine.. reading just the first chapter can excite one and make them want to start progressing as quickly as possible.. so i will now go do what i think is meditation (controlled breathing and clarity of thought) and attempt trance before bed. any advice?

[MeaghanEmily]

There were so many replies to your question but i am not sure if anyone had covered this point.  Before even attempting OBE (how i learned anyway) you must first manage and perfect dream recollection.  By conciously telling yourself as you drift to sleep that you will wake up and remember after every dream.  It is important to write down all that you can remember; colours or black and white etc.  Then start off for the OBEs.
This learning may take years it is nothing to do in a hurry.

[Psypunk]

I find the easiest way to enter into the "trance" state is in the afternoon instead of at night. A lot of times when I try to induce the trance state at night before I fall asleep, I end up falling asleep and end up having a lucid dream instead of having a OBE.  When I lay down in the afternoon (after work)and do the exercises in Astral Dynamics, I find it much easier to enter into the trance state and have a OBE.  75% of my OBE's occure duing the afternoon rather than at night before I fall asleep. Maybe it is because my mind and body are tired, but not so tired as to fall asleep.   That's just me though.  I'm not sure if any one else experiences this.

[testpattern]

alright.. i'm somewhat confused as to the entire process of projecting. i understand concentrating on a point outside your body so that your astral self will then go to that destination, but when should you do this? during trance?

if so--how could i go about achieving trance? do i just concentrate on something when falling asleep?

please help!