I already meditate every now and then. And although I don't do it frequently it has given me the ability to listen to music in my earphones while doing homework, something my teacher told me I couldn't do.
Funny story - he tells me that for creative thinking and all that that I cannot have music in my earphones, but I can have music everywhere else. I have been able to concentrate with my techno for years, and now, thanks to meditation and a simple mind trick, I can listen to Metallica while doing my homework perfectly. What a dickhead, thinking he can tell me what's what about my mind. Anyways, the music becomes like background noise in my mind, and before I know it the song is over. If I were to concentrate on the lyrics and the beats, then I would not be able to do my homework as well because my mind would be lending more energy to listening to the song. Stupid teacher.
Anyways, meditation does help. Whenever I do meditate I go for about 20 minutes or a bit longer.
Later
~FT
quote:
Originally posted by Fat_Turkey
But I'm confused. Are you saying that I should fall asleep before I can "wake up" in the astral??
That's what I do, sort of. I fall asleep, when the mind wanders as it does I 'observe' it. There's always a danger that you will just fall asleep because there is a certain amount of balance required. If you 'think' too much you'll wake, if you just let go completely you will lose consciousness and have a sleep. Somewhere in between, if you can observe the thoughts, sounds and images as they come without actively thinking (ie, not trying to interpret them)then you will drift into sleep with certain amount of waking consciousness. Usually at that point I find the vibrations come, my body is asleep so I don't have to worry about it. From there I either project or fail. It's a kind of light sleep in which your consciousness is somewhat awake still.
I use the rope sometimes, in the period when I am relaxing and falling alseep. I have no idea if this was the intended purpose, but for me it seems to plant in my mind the idea of going upwards, which I believe puts pressure on my astral body, it is a kind of exterorised awareness, I think, but it seems to help. It's not a constant feeling, but comes and goes I guess as I remember or forget to do it as I fall asleep and my consciousness varies.
Personally I believe too much emphasis is put on the body relaxing, I think you can end up disapearing up your own arse trying to relax to the Nth degree, and it seems to have the opposite effect and you end up noticing every twitch and itch and ache. And it is not necessary to be so relaxed, forget it and let the body fall asleep like it does without any trouble normally.
If I was to sum up the technique it would be:
Lay down somwhere comfortable.
Don't worry about your eyes or body, stop thinking about them, don't worry about them, if you need to blink, scratch or swallow do it.
Start to imagine climbing something - rope, ladder, mountain or whatever, it is just the mental sensation of going upwards that counts. It only has to be the vaguest of sensations and it doesn't matter if it comes and goes.
As the thoughts come and go and change, a little part of you is still thinking, noticing these changes and silently acknowledging them.
The zone where you fall asleep is probably quite a broad one, but if you have maintained enough waking consciousness in this period you can project when the vibes hit (well they do almost invariably unless I have fallen too far asleep to notice them).
You mention flitting between techniques, I honestly don't believe that to be a bad thing. I think taking everything too literally, too rigidly probably doesn't help. And I don't think you can trully relax if you are self-critically examining your physical and mental state all the time. In a sense relaxing means not caring, forgetting, not worrying if everything is perfect.
Just my thoughts, I don't keep everything the same, or have a perfect technique, but it keeps me ticking over in projections.
So far I have read many posts and articles on how to perform astral projection. Of these items of information I have come across some very different methods of how to do this. Of these two of them confuse me:
-Jeff Mash seems to argue that techniques like ROPE are performed too much focusing on feeling the body, when it is actually body awareness...more of a mental manipulation than anything else.
-All this on Astral Phasing. It's a bit much for somebody who has only read Astral Dynamics.
It seems to me that the prime ingredients for an out of body experience are:
-Enthusiasm
-Eyes asleep
-Body relaxed
-Mind focused on something
-Exteriorised awareness
All of which I have trouble with doing.
With enthusiasm I get bored because I do not see any signs of progress.
With eyes asleep I keep thinking that I'm doing it wrong, when I probably aren't, but still, it is proving difficult.
Body relaxed seems the only exception, but it takes forever to do, which takes the initial enthusiasm to have a projection attempt out of the equation.
My mind tends to wander, but Jeff_Mash said that this is what we want - a kind of daydreaming state. But I'm confused. Are you saying that I should fall asleep before I can "wake up" in the astral??
Exteriorised awareness has usually caused twitching or tensing of some kind in my body, no matter what techniques I use.
A note on techniques
Every time I have a projection exit attempt I am constantly flickering between techniques. I think this could be a problem...
I really need help with OBE, any tips or clarifications on the ingredients or anything, please, I really really want to get out!!!
~FT