Quieting the surface mind

beav31is · June 15, 2003, 12:42:15

Yes, you need to do that for AP. Not quiet, it needs to shut up 100%.

lateralus897 · June 16, 2003, 19:54:58

I hafta disagree. I have projected, and I have little practice with quieting the surface mind. I still remember my thoughts racing preceding the projection, but it was my determination and experimentation with different techniques/feelings that got me out.

Terry B · June 17, 2003, 03:06:43

I have to disagree too. Some degree of focus is needed. Fullfledged worrying is not very good but shutting up the surface mind one hundred percent would not be necessary. Struggling to do so will just hamper your progress. OBE is not a struggle. Just went to sleep naturally. What you need most is control of the awake asleep line. To stay awake while going to sleep is the purpose of many induction technique. Robert Peterson address this well in his free online book.

Thing · June 17, 2003, 03:51:21

What does "quieting the surface mind" mean ? can anyone explain me please

Euphoric Sunrise · June 17, 2003, 06:15:23

Thing: My understanding of "quieting the surface of the mind" is getting rid of all those annoying, inhibiting thoughts that enter your mind when you are meditating/projecting. Like if you live with other people and somebody opens a door or walks around the house and you think "who was that? what are they doing?", or just general thoughts about your day or anything that leads you astray of your intention (meditation/projection) really.

DOA · June 17, 2003, 09:13:52

to keep out stray thoughts is the goal. If you can do your projection tech and just concentrate on that or one thing like a mantra. When you concentrate on one thing it actually brings you closer to the sleep awake boarder line. So I belive its more difficult to just lay there and wait for something to happen. But just like everything esle there are people who can do that too. But they keep there mind quiet and just listen. Try differant things but have tried alot of them and the best thing that works for me is concentrating on one thing or one set of thoughts.

DOA

Thing · June 17, 2003, 09:26:08

I just try to open my mind to feelings, to see if i really feel anything like vibrations... and only think if that was natural or...

beav31is · June 17, 2003, 10:25:33

Your surface mind can be active before you AP, but not while you're leaving.

Fat_Turkey · June 18, 2003, 02:15:13

I think that there is a confusion between surface thoughts and instructional thoughts that inhibit people from learning this core skill. Surface thoughts are random instant messages that you suddenly think up out of nowhere. Whereas the instructional chain of thought is also thinking, it is focused in getting the random thoughts to quiet down so you can concentrate on one problem/thing at a time, bringing more of your attention and energies on to thinking/focusing towards fixing that problem.

Later
-FT

Greytraveller · June 18, 2003, 22:36:36

Quieting the Surface Mind is another form of meditation. It is a way to relax and focus thoughts in a passsive way and that helps to create a positive pre-projection mental state. Mind awake and body asleep is another way to describe that state. So, if done correctly, then calming the Surface Mind could be very benefial although it is not absolutely necessary.

eeb · June 18, 2003, 23:36:25

I think you have to quisce the surface mind at least to a minimum degree. With random thoughts coming in all the time, your attention is focussed on the incoming thoughts. Then you follow the thought and a stream of related thoughts come.

Quiscing the mind you shut down the surface thoughts. In that way it doesn't captivate your attention anymore, so you can change your focus to another.. dimension.

However, I also think that it's possible when you're tired, if you go along with your thoughts, to end up in a (day)dream. If you manage to get conscious again, you might be able to project from there.

Ebele

wonderboy · June 19, 2003, 01:52:19

Hi all,

I believe that the quieting of one's surface thoughts are imperative to AP. When sitting down to do one's practice, muscle relaxation climbing the rope etc. etc. thinking about work the next day, that delicious sandwich you had or why AP hasn't worked in the past is your primary obstacle. Robert Bruce has a section devoted to it in Astral Dynamics where he talks about battering the mind into quietness by stopping thoughts as they occur. I believe in his example it looks similar to the following. . . (creative license applies)

Wow, what a delicious sandwich
wow, what a delici...
wow, what a ..
wow ..
...

where you stop through practice that from coming through before
it starts. Meditators, Astral Projectors, Toltecs, Dervishes, and
every alternate state trance art I have ever run across suggest it in some form or another. Although there may be some less aggressive methods of quieting the mind for example focusing on a word, such as "intent." or "relax" where one would relax the body and each time a stray thought came to the forefront repeating their word until no thoughts come is quite common. Counting breaths from 1-4 or 1-10 or so is used to filter out the stream of crap ones mind creates. Though I have had projections where I had not consciously stopped it, they ultimately came from a quick trip to and from the sleep state where the mind is relaxed and open. To project, it might not be a skill someone needs to master, but to consciously project at will, I think it is the limiting reagent.

Wonderboy

Paukki · June 19, 2003, 02:55:02

Seems like not too long ago I was reading in the Astral Pulse forums, or somewhere similar, about the difference between subvocal thought, (wherein you might even catch you tongue mouthing the words), and...oh, shoot, what was it...the endless thoughtstream below that? Something in that neighborhood. This hit me because I was listening to Judith Orloff, (well known psychiatrist/intuitive), on tv one night, and she was telling the audience about how she doesn't >totally< blank-out all thoughts, but that they fade away into the background. There's a state one can reach wherein the usual "tape loops" just seem like a distant merry-go-round, (which is still going 'round and 'round, but it a long way from the center of the cyclone...the calm spot where YOU are at!)

--Paukki

npiv · June 19, 2003, 05:11:02

The mind likes to work through association.

One hting Ive noticed, is that whenever I hear a noise from the street,

for instance a voice, I imagine a person
a car horn, I imagine a car.

The trick is not to let the mind play this associative game and just hear the sound without trying to analyze it. The same applies to general thoughts. You can still think about issues whilst meditating but dont let the mind wander.

finn · June 19, 2003, 07:30:34

I have recently started to attempt entering a meditative state and I didnt realize I had so many thoughts running aorund in my head LOL. I have only been able to enter a light trance state due to my thoughts jumping in and announcing every little thing that comes to mind. Even subtle shifts in how the trance feels create thoughts, like "wow, it feels like your falling" or "why does it feel like something pushing against the top of my head" or "does that feel like a vibration?"

Getting the mind to just be a casual observer, ignoring any outside stimuli or internal thoughts, seems to be more difficult than I first thought. For the moment I seem to be very good at projecting myself to sleep LOL. From reading other threads here, I gather it will take some practice to give the mind a chance to just "be aware" and not have to conjecture and analyze every little sensation or sound.

then there is projecting from a LD. To me this is like taking a shortcut to the astral. When I wake in a LD, and find myself partially floating, I am already in a trance state and I just let the projection happen. I am still having thoughts but they are in the background, and my mind doesnt seem to need to announce "every little thing", and when it does think something, it does it very slow and I need to conscentrate on what exactly I want to think about in order to think it. Like thinking under water or something.

I thought knowing what it feels like to awake already in a trance state would make getting to one while fully awake that much easier, but it hasnt. I am only a week into meditating, and it looks like I will have to rely on the randomness of my LD's to project

-Finn

Phanuel · June 15, 2003, 12:09:19

Bruce, in the chapter called "Core Skills", says that quieting the surface mind is important. I was just wondering how many people out there have accomplished some skill with this before APing. How many APers think this and the other skills are crucial to APing? Are they? Or are they merely making you able to control yourself during them?

I am not asking because I want a short-cut but more because I am interested in whether or not people have different experiences based on their degree of skill with these core skills.

News:

Quieting the surface mind