RTZ interference

[Re]

Today I had an OBE during my lunch break. For the sake of illustration I will briefly explain how it came about. I decided to lay down for a little bit at the office during my lunch break hour and after a little while I fell half-asleep and had a false awakening (I guess I was anxious about oversleeping), and when I realized that it had happened, almost waking up for real, I mentally told myself: "next time I wake up, I'm going to walk through the closed door" in preparation for the next false awakening, sure it that it could come.

And so I "woke up" again, and with the realization that I was not awake, but lucid, I snapped back to my paralyzed body. A side note here: I know my body was paralyzed because I've had this experience before, but I also know that if I had tested whether it was or not, I would have instantly become "trapped" trying to move my body and would have ruined the experience. A humble tip to those who still struggle with this (like we all do from time to time), is to notice how that state feels besides the fact that your body is paralyzed and learn to recognize it without testing whether you can move. As soon as you start ignoring the fact that your physical body is paralyzed, you might start to unconsciously focus on your non-physical body instead and this state will become nothing else than another milestone you may or may not notice in your way out of your body.

In any case, as soon as I passed the "paralysis" phase, I was able to move out of my body. I rolled to the floor, tentatively dragged myself out of the couch, fearing I would twitch my physical body and wake up, but in the end I simply stood up, always in total darkness. For some reason I get this a lot, and the only thing I can do about it is get away from my physical body to gain "sight". If I try to "open my eyes", I open my physical ones instead...

Realtime Zone interference
As this OBE was not planned in the best conditions, I was laying on my side the whole time, and the weight of my own body on that side was actually noticeable out of body from time to time. There was also a lot of light in the room and I sometimes got interference from my eyes (also some sounds from time to time).

In my experience, this kind of interference helps me attain the right state in order to OBE. If I'm in total darkness and silence, laying perfectly still in my bed, I might get perfectly clear experiences, but those are rare, as I frequently fall in a deep sleep instead. On the other hand, once the experience has started, the interference is obviously detrimental as sensory data gets mixed in.

What are your experiences in this regard and how can I use this to my advantage? Or should I just focus on refining my ability to achieve OBEs in proper environmental conditions?

I once read it's good practice to have clear goals before trying to go out of body. It is true that in this particular experience, once I got out and away from my body, I found myself in the street constantly distracted by what was going on around me. I visited a couple of nearby locations just because something or someone picked my interest. I felt myself losing focus and conjuring dreamscapes a couple of times and had to refocus. All in all the only "productive" thing I did while OBEing was making a mental note to come here and ask about this while wandering the streets.

Part of the problem was again the interference. Specially sound from the physical "spawned" mental images that kept intruding my non-physical environment (through the process of making me think about what they were, and thus subsequently making them "real"). This had the effect of me being unable to get out of the RTZ without risking transitioning into a dream.

A note on sharing experiences and learning
While writing this and re-reading passages, I noticed how different it all sounds in comparison with the real experience. This is specially true in regards to the first bit about paralysis, which I intend to give as an example case for anyone who might be trying to get their first OBE. It might be possible that my experiences start in a somewhat chaotic way, they sure do feel that way, but trying to explain an experience as detached to the physical and even mental world of our everyday life as this one is much harder than it seems. I guess language is not really suited for this. Or I haven't found the way to explain myself. In any case, I'm sure the only people to whom I can get my point across is those who have similar experiences, rather than the people for whom I'm speaking.

What I'm trying to say is that all this feels and "is" incredibly simple, but trying to explain it to someone that has not experienced it or may have experienced it in a different way is the real challenge. And in the same way, trying to understand what all this babble really means is really difficult. At least it was for me when I started reading about OBEs, projections and all that.

Random bit out of nowhere...
I've recently started practicing martial arts again. One of the side-effects of learning to make my body and my mind work together is that I find it much easier to control my thoughts and actions while out of body. I guess any kind of sport or exercise that requires mind-body coordination would be equally beneficial.

[Astralzombie]

What I'm trying to say is that all this feels and "is" incredibly simple, but trying to explain it to someone that has not experienced it or may have experienced it in a different way is the real challenge. And in the same way, trying to understand what all this babble really means is really difficult. At least it was for me when I started reading about OBEs, projections and all that.

I challenge anyone to say this in a better or more concise manner.

Perfect IMO.

[Re]

Haha! Thanks!
I came here wanting to share my experience and ended up writing a dissertation on... a lot of mixed stuff.

[Szaxx]

Hi there.
You said "feel", that explains basically, all of it in one word.
That feel is what you need to know, then to adjust yourself to match it if askew. It doesn't have a success rate either, it's perfection unleashed.
Trying to teach a feeling to anyone is no simple task. Finding words to the same is magnitudes harder.
I sympathize though, your attempts definately hit the mark. Noting the above, you did a fine job too.

The bleedover from the physical can be irksome (conservative statement).
It prevents the initialization from taking place and the ending where you clarify as time isn't in your favour.
I have sensitive hearing and a partner who outdoes a jet engine with snoring.
The experience in full flow, the physical is disconnected and nothing seems to manifest. I never think of it too, as that thought is enough to end the experience. The RTZ is so difficult to reach, lots of the experienced here are saying this too. Perhaps it's simply missed. I'd have to recall a long time ago to realise this. The beginning and ending I'd definately agree on. The phasing back to the physical being the sole reason goes without saying.