is mind split theory right???

[Euphoric Sunrise]

Well i haven't actually projected yet, but i too am having a bit of trouble believing the mid split theory. I don't know why, it just doesn't seem right to me. Perhaps it happens to some people and not others.
I'm interested to hear your theory.

[Fat_Turkey]

I think you've gotten the wrong ideas from the mind-split theory. First of all, it is not consciousness itself that splits into two consciousnesses that have no idea about eachother. It is a mind split, one consciousness still controls both because a plan you made in your physical body still is understood in the other body. Every memory and experience you have here is remembered on the other side, up to the split. After the split, one mind is in the body, sleeping or trancing, and the other mind is experiencing things. The one consciousness is still in both minds.

You say you find it easy to believe that one consciousness can control many bodies. Well, it's exactly like that. If they were COMPLETELY seperate, you would not feel duality when you were out of body. Think of it this way: If you were controlling three bodies at once, you probably wouldn't be able to pay attention and remember all three experiences at the same time. Body/Mind 1 is eating an apple. Body/Mind 2 is eating an orange. Body/Mind 3 is eating a pear. All at the same time. Because that one consciousness, i.e. you, is NOT outside of those bodies watching them, but rather experiencing all of those three tastes at once, you can only really remember one thing. By remember I mean you feel yourself there as it happens, as we have a constant real-time recording of memory. I do not mean that you go back to your body and THEN see yourself eating the one fruit, instead of all three. You would still feel some random duality sensations, such as eating or holding an apple or a pear while you're in or focusing on the body/mind that is eating the orange, because you love oranges more than anything so you don't give a crap about the others.

What I'm trying to say is, you sound like you believe that one consciousness watches and controls the other bodies like a puppetmaster, but really it isn't like that. Consciousness is still controlling all of them at once, but because our minds cannot understand all of that information happening at once (being in two places at once), by default it takes the most interesting or memorable experience and takes it in and remembers it as it happens.

Besides, as things are happening we are having a constant real-time recording of memory. So I don't think it too weird to say that you remember only the most interesting. That probably didn't make much sense[|)].

If you want to prove to yourself that mind does indeed split, though I do not recommend this, try to look at yourself when out of body. If your body looks at you while your out of body and vice versa, you will definitely feel a very strong sensation of duality. A compounding feeling of infinity that just goes back and forth. It is very dangerous, and the only way I know about such an experiment is by reading Robert's account of his experience in Astral Dynamics.

Hope that helps.
~FT

[holy reality]

would an example of mind split be like when you feel like you're doing two things at once within a dream but seem to be kind of stuck in only one of the perspectives while sort of mentally guiding the other?

it's not like the OBE split, but....

like last night i dreamed i was back in band at my old school and they were playing Ticks and Leeches (lol) and they sucked at it.. so I was playing clarinet at first then I decided I'd better get on guitar and show them how it's done properly...

and I was "playing" guitar and I was aware of it... but all I was doing was really playing clarinet at the same time, while thinking about playing guitar... but somehow.. like... guiding my playing.. and singing... but not singing because I'm sitting there playing the clarinet.

At one point I realized this and contemplated how it was I was playing guitar and singing....

mind split? Or just imagination.. or taking control of the unconscious and making it do the playing?

I guess it could kind of be the same thing with OBE's but I don't know... kind of a split awareness of the body and the environment you are in but one is really dominant over the other?

[rodentmouse]

trying to comprehend the mind split theory  is useless if  you havent experienced it.  Its one of those things that trancends debate because the only way to verify it is by  experiencing what Robert Bruce did, or what other projectors feel, then  youll just intuitively understand Robert Bruces explanation and most likely realise that trying to express  something like that really is beyond words or speech.

i havent  experienced it, i think its useless trying to understand it, ill just wait until i experience it and probably  think "oh, so this is the mind/split"  

It wouldnt  suprise me if the mind did/does actually split, We know far less about this thing called consciousness than what we do know.

[wojjy]

to Fat_Turkey:

I've got the book and it's clearly stated in many places that we are dealing with copies of consiousness all operating independently from each other.

to rodentmouse:

Please notice that it's simply not possible to experience any mind split at all because all we can get is a SPECIAL case of a mind split where the two supposed copies can see each other at once (as described in Astral Dynamics) but we can never experience any 'normal' mind split when those copies do not interfere (I belive there is no such a normal case at all)

[Huwie]

The concept is very plausible to me.  I don't project myself, yet, but I like to think I understand a lot of it after reading Astral Dynamics and all three books by Robert Monroe.

It's a commonly-accepted fact that you're always aware of your physical body even if you're miles away from it in a physical projection.  How else would this be possible if not for the mind-split?  Furthermore, Bruce went to great lengths to describe the phenomenon in AD and none of it sounded strange to me.  If there was no mind present in the physical while you're messing around in the astral dimensions somewhere, wouldn't the physical body just die?

I don't understand why you're willing to accept the concept when the astral body and physical body observe each other, but not when they don't.  Why's that?  Bruce states clearly (using a very solid explanation, moreover) that when this happens you get astral feedback, which intensifies the feelings of both minds, which explains why the awareness of both minds is so intense during the close encounter.

[math]

Hi

Hope you don't mind if I chip in with something else here which has been confusing me for a little while...

Does the mind split theory mean that you could be attempt a conscious OBE and succeed but have you waking consiousness stuck in your physical body. Implying your ethereal body is wondering around doing stuff you don't know about while you are busy still trying to project. Then when your ethereal body returns it may or may not download its memory. If it fails then you never remember the projection. But if it does what happens to your original memory?

Hope that makes sense

Math

[wojjy]

to Huwie:

It's called MIND-split but it is also talking about a copy of consciousness. I don't care about mind begin copied 100 of times. All I say is that consciousness cannot be copied.

There is not a slightest need for a mind split theory to explain awareness of two bodies. As I said I have nothing against ONE consciousness controlling 2 bodies which is what you are talking about. Mind Split says about 2 consciousnesses.

Talking about body dying because there is no consciousness in it is a pure nonsense:
1. Every time you go to sleep there is no consciousness in it and you don't die.
2. You can even get a coma for years and you won't die.
3. And that's simply because there is a subconscious which controls all physical functions.
4. Your physical brain cannot just fly out of your head during projection so how can you even doubt that there is no control behind?

I accept situation when the astral body and physical body observe each other because in such a situation we got ONE consciousness experiencing two bodies.
When they don't observe each other we got some assupmtion of two consciousnesses working independently but I don't belive that consciousness can be copied (or that it's very own nature is even close to something that can be copied)

[wojjy]

Of course there can also be a situation (which I of course accept, most of us had this kind of thing even in a plain normal dream) when they don't observe each other but when ONE consciousness gets input form 2 bodies at once. I would explain it that it's simply the nature of ONE consciousness to get input from many things. Mind Split theory would explain that by two consciousnesses reduced somehow in the end to the one privileged consciousness-memory by a series of some strange processes known as memory downloads.

[Huwie]

"I accept situation when the astral body and physical body observe each other because in such a situation we got ONE consciousness experiencing two bodies."

I just don't accept that at all.  That wouldn't explain astral feedback, would it?  In my opinion, limited as it is by a lack of experience, Bruce's entire mind-split theory is the only plausible way to explain it.

Have you read Monroe's work?  He stated that you actually have several bodies/minds operating on all astral levels at all times, and that for most of your physical life your consciousness is simply 'fixated' on the physical which is why that's all you're aware of.  In his later life, he was able to simply phase between these different levels and occupy whichever of his minds he chose.

[Huwie]

math:

Yes, Bruce says that that exact situation can occur when attempting to project.  He says that you can successfully project your astral body but fail to move your consciousness into it.  This will leave you paralysed inside your physical body until such a time that your astral body chooses to return to it.  At that point, depending on the success or failure of 'downloading' shadow memories, you may or may not receive all the memories of what you were up to during the projection.

[wojjy]

now why wouldn't that explain astral feedback?
ONE consciousness controlling 2 bodies that are perceiving each other = astral feedback.
what's wrong with that?

I have red all 3 Monroe books and while the first one is valuable I find the last 2 to be hardly convincing. However from what you say he wrote about having different minds and ONE fixated consciousness so again it has nothing to do with copying consciousness. If you say HE was able to phase between his minds then what do you mean by HE??

[Huwie]

Nobody said that consciousness was copied, 'just' the mind.  By 'he' I meant wherever his consciousness was at the time.

As for astral feedback, how could one of the two bodies do any perceiving if it has no mind?

[wojjy]

tp Huwie:

I've got the book and it's clearly stated in many places that we are dealing with copies of consiousness all operating independently from each other. NOT JUST COPIES OF MIND. That's all it's about here.
We do have many minds, we have one cosciousness, that's all I am about. Mind split says that we can have many consciousnesses (not only midns) and I think it's not true.

[Huwie]

I realise that, I was simply trying to argue the point from your point of view.

I really don't know what else to tell you.  I can only regurgitate what Bruce has said in Astral Dynamics as I have no experience of my own to go on.  Besides, if what Bruce says about astral feedback is true, I have absolutely no intention whatsoever of testing the theory, either. []

[michael]

This is a fascinating topic...and shows how clear we have to be re concepts eg "consciousness"..speaking personally I have experienced that sense of "dual consciousness" quite a number of times when projected..feeling conscious at both spacial points i.e. in the physical body and in the projected double....and the point that Yogis make mentioend above whereby they can "activate" many astral bodies at different positions is well known too...I hope Robert can elucidate at some point...

[Makaveli]

Right before my first projection I had an experience that seemed to be inline with the mind split theory where there were 2 copies of me that I was experiencing at the same time.  The exit and vibrations came on then I freaked out and rolled over to my side but I was seeing out of 2 different sets of eyes one set was looking straight up at the ceiling and seemed normal and my other set of eyes was shifting all over the place and couldn't stay steady plus it was viewing the side wall instead of the ceiling.  About 20 minutes after that I had my first projection.

[holy reality]

quote:Originally posted by Huwie

I realise that, I was simply trying to argue the point from your point of view.

I really don't know what else to tell you.  I can only regurgitate what Bruce has said in Astral Dynamics as I have no experience of my own to go on.  Besides, if what Bruce says about astral feedback is true, I have absolutely no intention whatsoever of testing the theory, either. []

Have any of you experienced it? I"d love to give it a go but whenever I "project" my body is nowhere to be found, or it isn't MY  body it's something/one that looks similar to me, or sometimes, nothing like me.

and I don't know how to enter the "physical" plane if it's possible.

[DiViNE]

Here is my little 'explanation' of how i percieve the mind split.

Lets assume that we have TWO minds for now, the ASTRAL and the PHYSICAL.

The following are two 'eye holes' cut into the 'wall of minds'.

______________
[  (o) (o)   ]
[   1   2    ]
--------------

Hole #1 = Astral, Hole #2 = Physical

Our consciousness can then be represented at ONE EYE.

Now, when we are in the physical, our EYE (or consciousness) is looking through hole #2. And while we are in the astral, our EYE is looking through hole #1.

Now, here is the mind-split part. When we are half in the physical, and half in the astral, our EYE is seeing 1/2 of the first hole |) and  half of the second hole (|. So therefore, it is at that moment interpreting both holes at once and since it is not trained for this kind of operation, it gets 'confused' and cant process the information fast enough for the physical mind to comprehend (or something similar?).

Now, i see our SUBCONSCIOUS, as a 'surveillance system'. In each of the holes, is a camera hooked up to the SUBCONSCIOUS SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM XP 2004 (hehe), which records and takes care of each 'hole' or 'mind' when the consciousness is not there to attend to it. So when our CONSCIOUSNESS decides to look through a hole, the SUBCONSCIOUS SURVEILLANCE turns off for that hole. Now if it's half way between the two holes, the SURVEILLANCE is off for both of them, and the CONSCIOUSNESS is left to take care of both minds at the same time.


Well, personally I find it an interesting explanation, at least it works in my mind.

Any thoughts on it?

-=DiViNE=-

[wojjy]

Please indulge me,
I can't really believe this theory and I think most of us can't do that either. All we got is consciousness and the basic feature of consciousness is its unity. I can easily accept the concept of one consciousness controlling 2 or even thousands of bodies at once (we can pay attention to many things, that's the basic feature of consciousness) but I'll never accept any concept of one conscious mind splitting into two conscious minds which don't have any idea about each other (there is no unity). And as the theory goes it's getting even worse. Despite the fact of having many conscious minds I can still feel only one somehow privileged consciousness and that's because of some strange memory downloads and limited storage capacity of my physical brain!! I find this theory to be really superfluous and artificially weird. I've been thinking on it and I've found a much simpler and elegant solution which as I hope explains everything and does not require any consciousness splitting.
I won't post it right now but it's enough to say that it revolves around 2 main points:

1. there is no consciousness in your physical body when you have a conscious OBE
(but what's the big deal, there is no consciousness there when you are sleeping or get drunk and no one worries about being possessed)
2. I introduce a concept of a lucid OBE (proper) as opposed to non lucid OBE to explain all those 99 in 100 cases which are not remembered. They are not remembered because they are simply unconscious and not because of some memory download problems.

If there is any interest I can post the whole theory (when I'll put it into some reasonable form)