Astral Travel

[Jeff_Mash]

Tom, that is the same method I use as well, assuming that I exit the body in the traditional OBE fashion and all I experience is the dark void.

It took me a while to master it though, mainly because while in this darkness, I feel as if I am flying a billion miles per hour, and it scares the hell out of me.

But you grow to trust the experience, and once you put the fear aside, you just "look" or "expect" the environment to come and it does.

Another thing I have done in the past while flying super fast in the dark (for what seemed like minutes) was to reach my arms out and imagine them making contact with something.  I usually will feel the ground moving below me, and the contact with my astral arms eventually slows me down to a stop....at which point, the astral scenery usually fades into view, and I am able to explore at that point.

Lately though, I have been having the most success not in the traditional OBE-fashion, but simply phasing into the scene.  No physical exit sensations....simply merging right into the experience.  It works much better for me this way, but occasionally, I won't have a choice, and I'll find myself rolling out of my body the old fashion way.

[Neo Schiavo]

I am confused by your post.  Are you saying that upon leaving your body, you decend into the ground (into the "darkness") until you find yourself in an astral realm?  Or that once you find your way into the astral planes (via an entrance structure) you enter darkness and cannot navigate?  If your problem is the latter, than I am afraid I cannot help you.  But, if it is the first, then all I can say is try to strongly imagine the astral planes entrance structure in your mind's eye (while out of body, of course).  With any luck, you should feel the dimensional shift and appear above the astral planes (it will resemble a checker-board at first).

This is the best description I can give you, as I haven't actually visited the astral planes yet.  Nonetheless, I hope my contributions have helped.

[innerpilot]

I had similar experiences for many years. the spontaneous, the letting go, the flying. The feeling is real. It feels good. I also have had the struggle before flight, I had to exert energy by taking my hands and pushing down, once up and flying it literally was a breeze. I didn't understand why I had to do that struggling with my hands for a long time until I realized it wasn't my hands so much as my will. The hands were just a prop. It was my will that was being challenged and strengthened, and now, well for a few years now, while flying, I just decide to will the goal and I'm there. I'm experimenting a lot with will these days.

[LogoRat]

My last travel was my first one aswell, probably 1yr ago.

I was moving superfast through the void and was passing through one grid after another(like those you have in 3d programs).

I could feel when i was at the location i was supposed to go.
What i felt was that i used somekind of homingthought, some key to get where i needed to go.

[Jeff_Mash]

quote:Originally posted by MajorTom
I have the opposite problem though..namely that I have difficulty gaining speed. In fact, I often struggle with a dual awareness where I feel my physical body, and the one flying at the same time. It's a problem, because if I don't control my thoughts very well, I very quickly find myself back in bed.

Yes I have experienced that before too.  As much as we hate to hear this, the only way to get around this hinderance is practice.  The more familiar you become with it (meaning the more you fail at trying), the more you adapt to it.  Some people can pick it up after the first or second time.  Others may take longer.

quote:
Anything you do or don't do to get to that speed? I think I need some more immersion while flying in the void to keep thoughts of the physical body at bay. Seems fear and speed do the trick for you

I think fear and speed may be related in my case, you're right.  I usually get scared at how fast I go, which ironically, makes me go even faster.

And the opposite has been true in my experiences in the past.  The more calm I am, the more slow (or should I say *controlled*) my speed is.

I think for me, I don't WANT to fly fast, because it can be very disorientating when you literally feel yourself moving at a billion miles per hour.  However, if you do want to travel that fast, to go to the moon, or the other side of the world, I would say that a person needs to remain emotionally detached, but not so much that you become aware of your stationary body back in bed.

quote:
Phasing is something I also do occasionaly, but I only get snapshots, and once again, have difficulty in fully immersing myself in the imagery. A matetr of practice I'm sure.

Yes, I don't plan on it happening, but when it does, it seems extremely easy.  Then when you try to reproduce it afterwards, you're left scatching your head saying, "Why can't I do it now?!"

[Kazbadan]

Fear can make interesting things. At some years ago i heard for the first time abou the existence of obes and astral p. , etc.

In the time i was younger and the only acess to information that i had it was to some old books(no net in my home), so i couldn´t share my fears to make them disapear. So, i read about obes and get scared with that. Dont ask me why. I just didnt liked the idea of getting out. I think that i had the typical fear: not getting back, possession, etc(i dont have that fears now).

At night, when going to bed, my mind started to think on obes and i fall into sleep thinking on that. In the middle of night i waked up. Everything was dark and silence and i started to thing on obes again (i was an adolescent, maybe it was that the reason....) feeling a big fear of getting out on that moment.

The more that i think the bigger was the fear and suddenly i felt my self leaving the body (my first conscious partial obe). My astral arm was out and my head was a little out to. Then i decided to get back into my body and that happened....


I mean: my fear of obes was so big that it happened!!

Sometimes i have strange and realistic dreams (not real as an obe or lucid dream, but very vivid) in wich i have TK powers. That powers, in my dreams, cause fear to me and because of that fear, accidentally i start to move objects with my mind (in the dreams of coarse).

So, what is this thing about fear?!

[Lenny26]

i'm only 17 and have known about obes for a good part of my life, at least heard about them. i've only recently started reading up about them. i remeber at one stage i made a decition, while sitting on the roof of my house, that i wanted to have an obe. i realise it is not easy. i've never really been scared of obe's as i've never seperated properly. i'm not sure if i have had one, at least not a concous one. i know i've had a number of really lucid dreams and this 'crouching tiger' ability to fly, for some reason it seams to base from the roof over my head. thats where i take off. i'm curious about that. i would really like to experience a concious obe. or at least gain more control of my dream state.

- lenny

[ralphm]

Flying just didn't seem to do much for me, at one time I realized that it would be better to stop and just focus on things. I am usually attracted to anything that is the brightest object. Early on I remembered RB's advice to fly up to get to the astral, which led me to look up a good bit, which led me finding an astral entry tunnel in the stars.
I recently reread the parts in astral dynamics about astral entry portals which has good info on the subject.

[ralphm]

Majot tom, I remember replying in another thread to my post that related to this:
http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=11603

One of the first good quality obe experiences I had I found myself looking up at the sky (for some reason there were no stars), found an area that was brighter than the rest, flew up to it and it formed into a hand and grabbed me! Of course I woke immeadiately. I didn't think it was negative, just a little too direct. After this eperience it seemed like I lost most of my obe sight for quite a while.

Since seeing stars I usually look for an area that is a different color, moving patterns. Sometimes nothing happens- I have probably had 4 good experiences and 15-20 where nothing happened.