Hi:
I feel the trap people fall into is they are still thinking about their physical body. "Hmm...am I there yet... nope... little more to go."
Recall, if you will, when you were watching a movie that you were totally engaged in. Say you were sick, I bet you forgot about it, huh? Or let us say you sprained your ankle... that's right, I did forget!
This is the key here! Somehow, you need to forget about your body, because your mind only sees your body as an object keeping your attention! As your mind sees it, there is no difference between body or whatever else you happen to be focusing on externally.
-Rob
Every phasing experience I've had is when attention has been away from the body. I think even traditional techniques such as ROPE attempt to take attention away from the body by using tactile visualisation.
The best way of doing this is to practice observing the hypnagogic state without falling into sleep (the vast majoity of my consious OBEs have been a product of maintaining the right level of awareness in the hypnagogic imagery i'm seeing).
Same as MisterJingo, pretty much every - lets say nonphysical experience I have had - occured when I WAS NOT EVEN THINKING about my body. If we can learn to forget about the body, relaxing the body is not even needed. Just gotta learn to focus somewhere else (inwards).
So Rob, I completely agree with you.
I completely agree that its better when you don't think about your body but I had experience that I was thinking about the sensation of my body and I would project myself a little , at least...
If it's better not to focus on your body, does that mean it's better to focus on your mind? I have been wondering if silent chanting would help with this at all...any thoughts on that?
i found that when you reach the proper state for projection then you kinda heve 2 bodys to focus on: the physical body and the projectable double. if you then just focus on your body then you will in most cases focus on the projectable double and this is not bad since it doesnt break the state of mind but only if you feel for your physical you will snap back.