Jeff's OBE Tips

[chupacabra]

Ok lemme see if i got this straight

1. Relax your eyes, don't use your eye muscles to focus on anything you see in the blackness behind your eyelids.

2. releax your mind by being aware of the stuff going on behind your eyes but not physically "looking" at it. ignore body stimulus or the urge to make sure your body is relaxed.

3. Allow you mind to get as close to the border of sleep as you can without falling asleep then phase into whatever environment you perceive or "see"

Is that right?

How do you get to the border of sleep without crossing over? I guess practice, huh?  it's very roller coaster-ish to me. I'm wide awake and then catch myself right before i fall asleep which jolts me into awakedness, not very smooth.

[math]

Thanks Jeff

Sorry the question was a bit vague - your answer was good []

quote:There is just this 'knowing' feeling that comes along with this state of mind, where you KNOW that you can have an OBE at that moment.

Yes during my few successful OBEs I just knew I could exit.

quote:Once we get to this position, we can usually allow ourselves to LET GO a little bit, allow that forward momentum to continue, and then snap our consciousness back into place as an OBE is taking place.

The bowling ball analogy is very helpful - I relate to the letting go and snapping back but until now had never identified it as part of the process. Thanks Jeff this has really helped me.

Hi chupacabra

quote: I'm wide awake and then catch myself right before i fall asleep which jolts me into awakedness, not very smooth.

I getting to know that feeling well. lol.

Math

[Kerrblur]

Thanks, I'll look into this more.

Another question I've 'always' had is the different levels of trances.  I've never really been formally trained to mediotate or anyhting like that, i just taught myself, never got any books or anything so, I just kinda picked it up alittle.  But this rpoblem I'm having right now, is distinguishing(sp?) the different levels of trances you are to be in.

 The most common one I am aware of now is the light trance, which gives you terrible distracting ichy sensations and 'cottonballs' or whatever like what robert bruce said in his book.  Then I dont know what level after this, cause 'if' i suceed in dropper in a lower trance(and the eye thing seems to do it better than any other), I get the heavy sensation, But I dont know what trance I am in, and how to distinguish them other than the light trance.  

Can you give some input on how I can?

One last question.  Dont you have to be at a some kind of trance to even enter the astral planes?
Well i say this because, we discussed in other post if 'these' places were real or my imagination(life line technique post).  lol now I gots to find out lol

-Thanks

[Jeff_Mash]

quote:Originally posted by Kerrblur
Dont you have to be at a some kind of trance to even enter the astral planes?

Ryan, to me, "trance" and "altered state of consciousness" is the same thing.

Most people hear the word "trance" and they automatically think of it as something to do with your BODY.  In MY mind, I think of trance as something to do with your MIND.

So I can rephrase your question above to sound like this: "Don't you have to be in some kind of altered state of consciousness/awareness to even enter the astral planes?"

The answer is yes!  

So what is an altered state of consciouness?  We have them all the time, even right now.  For example, I just thought about this cool online Internet game I play. For about two seconds, I was picturing my soldier running through the game, shooting people.  Then I came back to my thoughts here, in front of this computer, to write about it.  For those two seconds, my consciousness was altered away from the physical and shifted to the mental.

You can be in an altered state of consciousness when you're WIDE awake (think about hypnotism), and you can be in an altered state of consciousness when you're wide asleep (think of deep dreaming).

All you're really doing is turning away from the "here-now" and focusing inwards...at your thoughts....at your consciousness....

There is a whole WORLD of things going on, just in your head alone.  Take that time to sit back and observe it when you lay down.  Explore it and learn from it.  If you find the right balance, you will stay conscious while this is taking place, and soon induce an OBE.

[coral1]

Hi Jeff

 I hadn`t been able to project for about three weeks. After reading your tips I searched for the "sleep trigger point" and was back in business.Thats a good way to describe a very subtle state of mind.I think it`s important to emphasize how close to sleep the mind has to get in order for projection to work.I know I spent months trying force projections from mental states that were nowhere near deep enough.Thanks for the good advice!

 By the way that projection took me to my childhood home again.I can`t stay away from the place!

  Cheers

[x_wolf19]

your post makes ABSOLUTE perfect sense to me.  very well written and makes alot of sense.  I just need to work on it more I think....I do totally understand how you do it though, and I think it sounds very plausible, and correct.  Just gotta figure out how to do that extra "step"

cheers!

[Kerrblur]

perfect stuff, all you got to do is scan the blackness till you find that one blotch of area, you focus on it, it becomes closer, or farther away, does movements on you, then your in! I wanna try to keep doing this because it minimizes sooo much energy and force! things arnt soo harsh feeling. good work

p.s: while doing this, at the end, i opened my eyes, and my aura was shining brighter than a semi's headlights. lol good work.

[alpine9]

Is that one blotch of area you are talking about those colors your supposed to see and lock onto one and it will suck you into the astral?

[x_wolf19]

hey again.  Well I tried this method the other night after I had read it.  I can honestly say it got me (for what I can tell) very close to where I should be for projection.  I felt like I had no body, and I was floating or being pushed in many different directions.  I heard whooshing noises, and could see colors and what looked like objects.  I had to stop though as I had to go to school the next day and it was LATE and I didn't want to be extremely tired.  All in all, good advice and I'll keep workin on it!  Cheers!

[Kerrblur]

Yea, even if its not color, you zoom on it! it may be a imprint black n white circle! or suttin! can be anything that you may caTCH a eye on.  .  .  After a couple days of practice, I got it, I'll post my experience later today.

[Makaveli]

These tips have been very helpful.  I really worked on relaxing my eyes along with the other tips and was able to project this morning and I also had an AP 2 days ago.

[Blackstream]

Just as a side note, I'm coming from a lucid dreaming side view of things, and I just wanted to mention a few things.  The first is that the stuff that comes out of the blackness that you watch is also refered to as "hypnagogic imagery" or something like that.  I've watched it a lot while trying to get to sleep.  Only, for me, when I'm trying to enter a lucid dream, I stare at the imagery until I'm in a full-blown lucid dream (basically to keep myself awake until the dream starts).  But I guess an obe person would at that point start pulling themselves out or something (haven't gotten that far yet).

A lot of the relaxation techniques seem pretty common to both techniques, so a look at the lucidity institute website might be helpful for relaxation methods (www.lucidity.com).  Particulary the one about 61 point relaxation.  There's also some visualization exercises and the such.  I've tried them and hit the paralyzation vibration stage thingy many times easily... only I was trying to hit a lucid dream and never hit REM sleep so I end up getting up an hour later frustrated.  If I had known about obe stuff, I might have tried to pull out at that point:)

So yes, that's all I wanted to say.

[Life_afterdeath]

quote:Originally posted by cube

On the 'mind aware/body asleep thing', while I agree with the spirit of what you're saying it IS possible for the body to sleep, that's what happens when you get sleep paralysis.

It seems like the common thread in all AP techniques is that they have the effect of making you forget about your physical bosy and begin focuing on your astral body.

You point that the body does not have to be asleep to AP is correct, however, since there have been threads about accidentally APing while driving a car or flying a plane.

I personally think that Sleep Paralysis is a normal function that works in coordination with OBE's to make sure that your physical body doesn't move along with your astral body.  You can imagine how much harder it would be to get control of your astral body without sleep paralysis, can't you?

[Blackstream]

The reason (or at least one of the big ones) for sleep paralysis is so that you don't act out your dreams (or astral projections as well I suppose).  The only things that aren't affected by paralysis are eye movement and breathing (some scientific studies have been done on this where lucid dreamers signaled with eye movements from their sleep).

While I'm sure that it helps a lot when you try and move your astral body, it is also to insure your safety as you dream.

[alpine9]

What about people who sleep walk?

[Makaveli]

quote:Originally posted by Blackstream

The only things that aren't affected by paralysis are eye movement and breathing (some scientific studies have been done on this where lucid dreamers signaled with eye movements from their sleep).

That's odd because I get SP so often that now during it I can slightly move my legs and neck.  Sometimes I have to bring myself out of it by kicking one leg with the other that can move.

[The Humble Master]

Hi, I have been trying to get OBE's for 5 years now, and not once have I acheived one. Could you guys post some help for me?

[chupacabra]

Jeff,

How the hell are you supposed to let your mind sart falling asleep but stay awake?

How can you focus on a blotch or color in the blackness behind your eyes when you aren't supposed to be using your eyes in the first place?

I'm not angry, just confused.

Prease Exprain.

[Jeff_Mash]

quote:Originally posted by chupacabra
How the hell are you supposed to let your mind sart falling asleep but stay awake?

I never said it was easy!  Think of it like this.  When you're tired and you want to go to sleep, most people have no trouble "forcing" themselves to sleep.  It just happens.

The key is to allow your body to do what comes naturally to it...let it progress downwards (both mentally and physically), while *you* remain emotionally detached from it.

In other words, just observe the changes.  You need to become very, very familiar with this process.  I'm still playing around with it, and hopefully soon, I'll be able to refine these tips to give some better ideas for you to focus on.

quote:
How can you focus on a blotch or color in the blackness behind your eyes when you aren't supposed to be using your eyes in the first place?

It's the same way you can use your physical eyes to see peripherally.  As an example, by looking straight ahead right now and staring at the computer monitor, you can still see things on the right and left side of your head, *without looking in that direction.*

Seeing without your physical eyes is kinda the same thing.  The first thing you have to do is toss out the notion that you are "seeing" anything.  You are not seeing, so don't even try. You are PERCIEVING.

So with that in mind, you want to perceive the shapes and objects that float past you.  If it helps, remind yourself that everytime you see something, a color, a shape, an object, etc., just remind yourself, "Hey, I know I just saw that, but my eyes are closed, so I must be tuning into my astral senses."

You must convince yourself that you are slowly tuning out the physical senses and acquiring your non-physical senses.  Only then will you see non-physical things and hear non-physical sounds.

[Kerrblur]

Jeff,

    I got something to comment/question you about for the people who are reading this to maybe get a better understanding on 'focus on the spot' thing.

 Tell me if what I do is correct.  What I have theorized(SP?) about with the focus thing is purely visualization or creating in your mind while looking through your closed eye lids (which i found to be pretty difficult) being two things at once, focusing, and visualizing yourself moving through a spot or bubble that you start to notice when in the trance stage.  

 What has happened to me while doing this process would be looking through my closed eye lids, and seeing nothing, but with practice I taught myself to focus and visualize at the same time kinda, AND staying in a traNCE state to get the visuals through my eyelids started.  Once the visuals are enabled and such, I would visualize myself going 'forward' through this spot in the darkness.  

 The picture I created in my head when doing this would be the spot, and when i started to visualize myself going forward, itd be just a easy visual, like when you see the cave, the radius of the cave gets larger as you get closer, but I keep in rythem to my breathing, (IN/OUT).

Is this correct, does it sound like something people should do?

[Jeff_Mash]

Ryan,

It's not really for me to say what is correct or incorrect.  After all, you may be able to induce OBE's while standing on your head, and while this wouldn't work for me, the technique would be correct for you.  []

But it sounds like you have the right idea.  For me, it's hard to explain it anymore clearly than I already have (which I admit isn't the best description, but physical words always fail me when I try to describe non-physical things!)

As another example, last night, as soon as I laid down, I tried to just relax and WATCH anything that I could percieve which would enter into my field of vision.  I'd see a quick scene or two, but it would fade away really fast.

You know, it's almost like your a passenger in a car which is speeding down the highway.  Next time you're in a car as a passenger, stare out the side of the window at a 90 degree angle, so that you're literally facing the speeding scenery.  At first, it's hard to *lock* onto an object for more than a second, because the car is going so fast that it speeds right past you.

It's like, "Tree..tree...bush...tree...cow...tree.." really fast.

Now, as the car slows down, these objects along the freeway stay in your field of vision longer.

It's now like, "Tree.........tree........bush........", and so on.

Winding your body and mind down is the same thing.  At first, these visions speed by you really fast, but as they slow down, you can lock onto them longer.  

I had a couple last night that I locked onto which I held for 7-8 seconds, and it was like a mini movie scene, with motion and everything.  But then what happens is that if you're not in the right mental place, you soon get excited that you're actually seeing something this clear, and it fades away.

[chupacabra]

thanks for the reply jeff. i think what you're saying is rather than looking around trying to find images, simply be aware of them when they come, then focus your mind on them, not necessarily your eyes.

Pretending to go down steps or slide down a pole still helps to get me closer to trance and energized, but after I get all bloated up with energy I find myself just sitting there wondering what to do next and trying a bunch of stuff that doesn't do anything.

[holy reality]

so how in the world do you take that final step out of your body or into paralysis once you get to the point where your mind is roaming free and and you have no control over it and images and thoughts are drifting out?

i mean i ask this all the time but either no one cares or no one knows.

you get these rushes of adrenaline and heaviness and vibration and then you are back into normal thinking but then it decays and your thoughts run wild and then you jolt back again and this just keeps happening over and over and over.

it's like i'm standing on a line conscious | unconscious

and whatever i try to do to make myself project or make myself STAY ALERT while I cross the line doesn't work, becuase as soon as I cross it there is no "me" there is just random stuff going on that I have no control of.. and when i jolt back i know that i was paralyzed because i feel the heaviness and the intense vibrations, but the only thing is they are gone now, becuase i'm conscious again, and have a body again, and it's just a normal body and a normal state of mind, just that it's very hard to keep it focused for the few seconds that it takes to go back over the line again into randomness.

no amount of concentration has worked, my body and mind are going to SLEEP becuase I am going about entering this state in a more or less effortless manner, much like going to sleep is... kind of similar to how you described finding a sleep trigger (the key for me is abrupt transitions, like "Hey, you lost track of your thoughts" and that realization produces a falling adrenaline like sensation in me, kind of like when i completely come out of the above described states (of total dissociation and hallucination)

i mean i can try doing this in a chair so maybe my mind doesn't think it's trying to go to sleep, but then i'm not sure if i'd be able to even hit the hypnagogic state.

what you said about finding a patch of color and holding onto it is absolutely true though, but the problem is you have to be pretty much completely out of touch with reality and your body in the first place, you can't just sit down and instantly find a color and deepen it and hold onto and pop right out.

but anyway it sounds like you are doing more or less what i am doing, and i'd really like some help. I made a thread about it yesterday or the day before http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10305

[Glacius]

    Very helpful and practical information!! And well written too. I have never heard it put in such a perspective. Its really helpful.

 Anyways your basically saying that attention needs to be mental right? when one is focused on relaxing the body it could hinder progress as well because your clearly focussing on it. I agree with what you say. There is a difference between seeing with the physical eyes and seeing with the minds eye or third eye. The body falls asleep naturally anyway so if one learns to focus internally it happens anyways. With all the perceptions. They will all become internal!!

  I seem to catch myself starring fixedly with my physical eyes waiting to see something. This strains them and they are not relaxed. Our vision is a link the this reality so its easy to not notice your eyes "looking" for something....anything.

   Once they are relaxed, then attention will focus on the minds eye perception. It seems to me that the feeling should be quite obvious. At least I perceive it quite well nowadays. Its almost like you feel your eyes turn off, and you gain a more "in depth" perception or percpective. A more imaginary state.

this might be helpful....If you try really hard to visualize something, and keep your eyes as relaxed as you can, you might induce the feeling. You wont expect to see anything physically because its not there. You will gain a fantasy sort of vision. This is just visualization and does not require you to "see" anything.  If your at this site you should know that anyways!! Keep checking for strain is really good advice I would say!! Remember what I mean by "vizualization". RB goes in depth on the subject in Astral Dynamics. If you cant get it I think its in the treatise. I would suggest also for anyone wnating to have an OBE that you read every single bit of info that you can muster. Buy every book on amazon.com. FLOOD YOUR MIND WITH IT!! If you really, want an OBE you will get one.  If you say you do but arent willing to put time and effort into it,it wont work.

  If you wake up in a vibration state your vision is already orientated to your minds perception so you should just go for it. At least with my expereince anyways.


 As Jeff was saying earlier, people can be hypnotized into detaching awarness from the physical body. You can teach yourself this like you would anything else. A sort of automatic mechanism. Many things can do this. Your subconcious mind has to be tought this. A lot of the techs that Robert Bruce comes out with can teach this to you. Its like when you fall you automatically sheild your face or other things that are very important to your servival. You dont even have to think and you do it. You can teach yourself anything like that. Its like if you play guitar a lot you dont have to think about the doing, just the notes that you want to play. Everything else is subconcious. Or when you talk it just flows from years of engrained training.
A lot of people use magick rituals and the like to accomplish this, or anything else for that matter that has to do with really putting an impact on the mind for good or bad. I am in no way suggesting this, just pointing it out.

   A matra is a good example of this. Or those tapes that are supposed to teach you stuff when your asleep. Practice all the time and think about it!!!  Thats my best advice.

   I seem to have somehow made myself into a weekly projector in the last couple months!! I cant yet do it at will, at the moment but I have learned to wake up in the state almost twice a week for the last month of so. Its great!!! I do not always have an adventure. A lot of the times I am just learning how to move and flying around aimlessly and not to mention uncontrolably!! Doing backflips and the like trying to gain some sort of control. As Robert Bruce would say " Blundering about like a drunk in zero gravity"!![][]

anyways I found the most helpful thing to acheive an OBE consistently is to think about it all the time. At least every ten minutes of everyday. I have found if I do this I dont need any techs or anything. I simply wake up in the state. Its almost as if you mind knows how to do it already and you have to confince the hell out of it that you want an OBE. Everything else is automatic. Your mind will find a way to give you results without you having to do anything someway or another. And if you think you dont have time to think about AP every ten minutes just think for ten minutes and I am sure you can squeeze some AP thoughts in with all that other useless crap going on!! Oh and a dream journal helps a lot.

Anyways thats my input I hope it helps someone to acheive an AP!! Good luck with everything. And dont give up and all that.


 

[Goldenshadow]

I have a couple questions. The first one is to Jeff Marsh. Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis before/during/after an OBE (or atall). My other question is: What do people expect to gain from an obe? I am curious...

O and one more. Has anyone ever gone from a "dream state" to a more lucid or even "OBE". Does anyone consider REM sleep the same as changing your "astral dimension"?