Reading while OBE, part 2

[kiwibonga]

I just realized something while reading today... It's pretty much impossible to read something unless it is directly in the center of your field of vision. You can see the whole screen right now, yet you have to place your eyes over each word to read anything.

That, in itself, is not a groundbreaking discovery, but has anyone noticed how similar trying to read something that is not directly in the center of your field of vision is to reading in the astral -- or even "looking" at hypnogogics and mind's eye pictures?

Question to good astral readers -- how good is your peripheral vision?

Would developing our peripheral vision be the key to developing our clairvoyant ability?

[manuel]

While I have not particularly read things for that reason alone, I am not sure if it is some thing I have observed, how ever, if you are experiencing that in your astral travels, I can imagine it to be due to habitual experience of being human, some thing that can be unlearned.

[upstream]

The inner screen is sort of inverted in the OBE state, peripherically active I'd say. It's especially evident during the more powerful RTZ OBEs when objects even couldn't be directly looked at. They are only perceptible at the periphery. This was a serious frustration for me that led me to question waking reality itself.

We don't really perceive reality. It is said that 90% of what we "see" is driven from memory. The constant stream of sensory input just modulates the dream what we call waking reality.

I usually have no problems with reading books in dreams, although rereading a line would make it change. When the doesn't change I should consider it as important information. But dream books often read themselves by becoming as an independent thread of thoughts. It's like dreams that continue after waking up in a verbal manner.

[catmeow]

I have occasionally "played" with reading while OBE.  What I invariably find is that the words change the next time I look at them.  For instance, reading a street name (in order to be able to verify it later in the physical) always produces a different  name every time I look back at the road sign.  I find it amusing, frustrating and perplexing!  But it leads me to question the reality of what I'm seeing.  If it reflected a real physical street name surely it wouldn't change?  Same thing with clocks.  Every time I look at a clock it shows a different time!

[Gandalf]

I for one can never make sense of writing when I come across it in astral explorations. It is always nonsense. It always *almost* looks like something readable but never quite makes it. Often it shifts in front of my vision and doesnt settle into anything readable. Nowadays, I tend to ignore it when I come across it.

[Talimar1]

Every time I look at a clock it shows a different time!

Time passes no matter what.... Sorry, I couldn't resist. : D

This is a little off topic, but similar, but last night I had a dream I was back at school, but the school wasn't the same, it looked like a mall!  So there I was looking for my homeroom, gooing everywhere from the food court to just going into random doors. well one of the doors I went into looked like a submarine hatch or something like that,, and on each door it said " POOL CLOSED: CHLORINE" in red. Those were the only words I could read in the whole dream, every other word in the dream I couldn't read, and i tried to read menus, t shirts, and various other things. I don't know what to think of this, but this post brought this up.  And I never did find my homeroom in that "school"....

[catmeow]

Every time I look at a clock it shows a different time!

Yeah that does sound kind of dumb....!  What i mean is that I can glance away and look back and the hands will be in completely different positions.  They also dart around whilst I'm watching!  It's quite surreal..

[Cosmic_Ambitions]

I can't say I have personally experienced it myself, but I have heard/read from numberous NDE/OBE reports that we actually harbor 360 degree panormaic vision during our ethereal outings. I'm not sure how this concept would pertain to focusing on individual items or seeing the whole picture as a focused item per say. It's an unimaginable concept to me, but ties in well with varying notions of multidimensionality and string theory. The fabric of all realities.

PUL,
Cosmic_Ambitions

[catmeow]

Yes I have heard of many reports of 360 deg vision.  I'm still one of those old-fashioned people who thinks that LD is different from OBE.  I would see 360 deg vision as a strong indicator of OBE.  Having said that I am aware of at least one report of an experienced lucid dreamer who claims to be able to create 360 deg vision during his LD.

[upstream]

Clocks act weird when I'm close to the RTZ. If I turn away then back to check the time again it would change. But if I were keep doing this eventually the clock will show a time that is very close to the real time.

I've used this trick many times, mostly standing in the door and alternately looking at two (sometimes three) digital clocks until they shown roughly the same time. By this point  other signs of having an RTZ OBE would be also appear, such as sea legs or even total disappearance of the dream body, or peripherically active vision. Snapshots of spherical vision can appear, too, but usually remain unnoticed until I wake up. It doesn't feel strange while I'm experiencing it but does afterward.

I never done the synchronization trick on analogue clocks though. It may have some significance as getting time from analogue clocks needs interpretation. If you interested check out my guide in the permanent section. The clock trick is only part of those tools I developed for turning close-to-bed dreams to "real" RTZ OBEs.

I take spherical vision as a sign of presence of a condensed energy field, apparently electromagnetic in nature, localised at the point of observation.  I don't think though it's limited to the RTZ. It's just a raw mode of perception without the veils of the ordinary dream state.

Also, it's rather weird that clocks that even don't exist or appear at the wrong place can also be used for the synchronization trick. It's similar to checking the time at the morning without opening your eyes. You want to know what time it is and your mind tricks you into dreaming about looking at the clock. It supports the idea that something in our mind keeps tracking the consensus time and even RTZ perception is not direct but heavily interpreted on the fly.

[Selski]

Clocks act weird

I was lucid dreaming last night.  Not very lucid, I might add.  However I happened to glance at a digital clock on the side.  (I don't have a digital clock.) 

It read "12:12".

I then decided to look away and look at it again, wondering what it would read (hence becoming slightly lucid).

It read "H:43"

I started sniggering and did it one more time, just for a lark.

It read "17.05"

All in the space of two seconds...



Sarah

[Kazbadan]

Some people here says that while obing they will read different things or non sense stuff...exactly as in my dreams. Probably obes are not real and its impossible to prove that they are real because people cant read

[Selski]

Some people here says that while obing they will read different things or non sense stuff...exactly as in my dreams. Probably obes are not real and its impossible to prove that they are real because people cant read

Hi Kaz

Some OBEs are more "dreamlike" than "real-like". 

What do you term "real"?  Is everything outside of the physical unreal?  Just because experiences don't fit into our 3-dimensional physical world, does that mean they are to be dismissed?  What are dreams?  Would you classify them as "just" dreams and cast them off as nonsense, once the day began?

If we are blinkered enough to only see reality through our physical senses, then yes, I would concur that OBEs aren't real.  They are most likely some kind of chemical trip (rather like taking LSD).  Perhaps those who experience OBEs release slightly more DMT in the brain than others and are able to remember the experience. 

As much can be said that if we only use our physical senses, then surely we cannot believe that we will continue once our body dies.  That wouldn't make sense.  If our body dies, we can't see, smell, touch, taste or hear.  Therefore once our body dies, we become nothing. 

What do you want to believe?  I don't claim to know any more than you.  Even though I've had OBEs, it doesn't necessarily mean I'll live beyond my body or not.  I haven't got a clue. 

However, I've decided to take on beliefs because they make me happy.  They make my life more interesting.  The beliefs I have are just that - beliefs.  They are not knowns or truths or facts. 

What makes you happy?



Sarah

[Selski]

And I'm sorry, I've gone way off topic there... 

Sarah

[catmeow]

There are private realities and concensus realities.  Our dreams are generally (though not always) private realities. The physical world on the other hand is a concensus reality.  In a concensus reality we share an environment, and in a private reality we do not.  I would define a concensus reality as being "real" and a private reality as being "imaginary".  That's my definition of "reality":

Real = concensus world
Imaginary = private world

I've had many OBE's/LD's.  The most haunting of these have been the one's where I interacted with other beings and felt positive at the time that these beings were "real" separate individuals, rather than mere subconscious constructs.  The conviction that I was interacting with "another individual" meant that I was in a "real" world, rather than an imaginary private world.

That's the only way I can tell the difference between "real" (concensus) and "imaginary" (private).  It's a matter of simply "knowing".

[Kazbadan]

Please lets not start another discussion about what is not or not real.

When i spoke about that i mean a different thing. In my post by real in mean that when you obe you will be in a rality that is common to evrybody. Even more easy: reality is the realtime zone where thinsg dont change even if you obe ( i mean, they change even with obe because, if obes are real, thoughts have some power). By real i mean that if you obe to a place where, in real life (this life, this awaken world common to everybody) there is a paper with a code and you see that code while obing then, when u get back to your body you will confirm indeed that the code was that.

Thats my definition for "obes are real".


Of course that for everything else you are right guys: even if obes are not real (by my definition) they still be useful and fun (read some books about lucid dreams to see the benefits you may get with lucid dreaming).

[kiwibonga]

To follow up on this, I've been experiencing things of an energetic nature that helped me better understand how to concentrate on an astral locale.

Basically, you have to try and feel the astral body and make it expand, feel wires coming out of it and focus your attention on objects ; something happens automatically when you focus on something, it's as if wires came out of you and grab whatever you're looking at. As you spread this "area of influence" into objects around you, you become more strongly anchored into the dreamscape and your lucidity increases dramatically.

I am still experimenting with this, but it seems to be extremely effective -- not only for astral reading, but for pretty much anything that involves deepening an altered state and remaining away from the body.

[catmeow]

Please lets not start another discussion about what is not or not real.

Ok - I'm getting tired of it too!

[upstream]

Basically, you have to try and feel the astral body and make it expand, feel wires coming out of it and focus your attention on objects ; something happens automatically when you focus on something, it's as if wires came out of you and grab whatever you're looking at. As you spread this "area of influence" into objects around you, you become more strongly anchored into the dreamscape and your lucidity increases dramatically.

Finally someone who understand..lol. You put it so clearly kiwibonga. Basically what you described is the process by which the allocentric perceptual space turns into egocentric during the stabilization of the dream state. In the background I suspect a slowly condensing sensory field that keeps in touch with other energy fields by thread like spurs driven by pure attention. You may find my guide to RTZ OBE from LD useful. It's really an outrage against English, but I approach the problem from a very practical point of view that you might find useful. If you found something relevant please post in that topic, it seriously needs more attention.

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/index.php?PHPSESSID=1e04279b938a01c0f931316c3881e985&topic=23972.0