How I Got Out For The First Time

[rangestormer]

Man, people are trying for a week and are already successful. I get really jealous, I am a four-month-no-AP loser

[mindbenda1]

hey
im no pro or anything. Im only just getting into this stuff. I think what really helped me, my mum gave me a whole bunch of books which her mum gave to her, alot of the stories were what I interpret to be OBEs. It spun me out that my mum handed me those books, it really made me feel like i was ready.

as long as you have the intent. you will get there. its just a matter of time. dont give up man

[personalreality]

glad it works for somebody.

it doesn't work for me anymore.   

[Stookie]

That means you need to move onto bigger and better things. I find you have to constantly change what you're doing or it gets stale and diminishes in it's effectiveness. Your glass gets bigger and you need to fill it with more water.

[personalreality]

that's what i'm doing now.  i'm investing time in other, more traditional avenues.

[Fresco]

Man, people are trying for a week and are already successful. I get really jealous, I am a four-month-no-AP loser

DONT FEEL BAD BRO, IT TOOK ME ABOUT 7 MONTHS (i THINK, i LOST COUNT) TILL i PROJECTED.

Crap, I just realized I wrote all that in capslock.  Too lazy to change it 

[Xanth]

PFFT... when you get to 10+ years... then we'll talk. 
I just started having success recently.

[Fresco]

PFFT... when you get to 10+ years... then we'll talk. 
I just started having success recently.

With success you mean exiting consistently, right??

[personalreality]

no

[Xanth]

With "success" I mean successfully doing it once.

So you'll understand when I scoff at people who say they're frustrated after a few months... or a couple years...

[Fresco]

With "success" I mean successfully doing it once.

So you'll understand when I scoff at people who say they're frustrated after a few months... or a couple years...

You only exited once so far in 10 years?? 
Wow, thats commitment.  I think I wouldve quit and called it a day after 1 year, let alone 10 

[Xanth]

What keeps me trying Conscious Exits is that I can always just project through my lucid dreams instead. 
So I'm really in no rush. 

[personalreality]

most people only practice in a regular dedicated fashion for a few months at a time it seems.  the rest of that time, AP, OBE, LD are just on the brain.  i studied projection for a number of years, but at any one time i've only practiced regularly for a few months at a time (6-8 months was the most).  then sometimes we take a break and read about it and related subjects.  keeps it fresh in the mind and opens up the subconscious more and more to the idea of letting the "I" go out on it's journeys leaving the "me" (the body/ego) behind.

[eflynn]

Wow, this is a long thread.  I have some thoughts I'd like to share based on the original post but since I haven't read more than 4-5 pages, I apologize right now if this is redundant.  Moderators, feel free to delete this post if it is - I won't be hurt. 

Focussing on the ringing in my ears is actually the very first technique I used (I've probably tried them all over the years) that produced real results that forced me to change my mind from not really beliving in AP but being curious to beliving this stuff really happens to people.  What happened was that eventually (it was probably somewhere between 1-2 hours of laying in bed focussing on the ringing) the ringing just kind of became the exit vibrations.  And holy cow! They were serious vibrations.  Not the kind of subtle waves you feel when doing energy/body awareness type excercises.  It literally felt like a bucket of ice water was dumped over my body starting at my head and moving down to my feet.  Shocked me so much I forced myself to wake up (and then regretted doing that considering this was what I was trying to accomplish). 

But the thing I wanted to add relates to the focussing on the blackness behind the eyes.  This has never worked for me - it just keeps me awake, which kinda' makes sense because by doing this, you are deliberatley keeping at least a part of your body awake.  I tried doing this when I used this ear-ringing method, along with trying like heck to silence my mind of all thoughts, and nothing ever happened.  When it finally worked, I had given up on staring into my eyelids and keeping my mind silent, and instead, kept focussing on the ringing, which got progressively louder, while just letting my mind wander like it naturally does when I go to sleep at night. 

My personal opinion is that this technique could be really good for you but if it's not working, try forgetting about using your physical eyes to stare into the darkness while trying to AP.  Either let your mind wander on it's own (tricky though, could make you just fall alseep like usual) or imagine something in your mind's eye and concentrate on that.  In other words, you've got to go from physical sight to mind's eye sight (not sure how else to describe it).  At least, I do.  You can even just imagine looking into blackness in your mind as if you were staring at your closed eyelids with your physical eyes, but you've got to eventually make that subtle shift from seeing blackness with your physical eyes to seeing blackness in your mind (whatever "mind" is  ). 

[personalreality]

i completely agree eflynn.

at the time that was the best way i could describe what you do with your eyes.  in truth, what i was trying to get at was the elimination of physical eyes from the equation.  the eyes constantly make micromovements to make sure that there is no danger in the immediate environment.  This makes focusing hard.  We have a tendency to associate our 'I' with the space behind our eyes, so it can be hard to break focus from trying to see something.  the goal in the original instruction was to just stare blankly into the darkness and let your eyes go to sleep.  I have since found that it's not as easy as all that. 

So, good call.

[Fresco]

Is the ringing in the ears the actual vibrations of the universe??  Or is it something else?

[Taoistguy]

Is the ringing in the ears the actual vibrations of the universe??  Or is it something else?

Ah, the million pound question.
I feel it is the universe. Since I started, I hear it all the time now. I don't think it's tinnitus.

[Fresco]

Focussing on the ringing in my ears is actually the very first technique I used (I've probably tried them all over the years) that produced real results that forced me to change my mind from not really beliving in AP but being curious to beliving this stuff really happens to people.  What happened was that eventually (it was probably somewhere between 1-2 hours of laying in bed focussing on the ringing) the ringing just kind of became the exit vibrations.  And holy cow! They were serious vibrations.  Not the kind of subtle waves you feel when doing energy/body awareness type excercises.  It literally felt like a bucket of ice water was dumped over my body starting at my head and moving down to my feet.  Shocked me so much I forced myself to wake up (and then regretted doing that considering this was what I was trying to accomplish)

Can you give us more tips on what to do exactly?? 
All you do is focus on the ringing, and thats it??  Or is there more to it then that??

[AlanRK]

I can also attest to the "ringing sound" (one of many names) being extremely powerful for meditation and OBE'ing. I don't know what it is, but that's a pleasant mystery for now.

[Taoistguy]

I think that sound, as a sense, can be used just the same as vision. We could 'see' the blobs in the blackness, or hear the 'blobs' in the sounds. We could just as likely smell the blobs. Or taste and feel then. Maybe because our sight and hearing are the most developed apparent;y obvious senses they work best?

[Xanth]

We can actually take cues from our other senses in defining what that sound is.
And it comes down to the idea that our senses ALWAYS need to be doing something.
I believe the sound we hear is the absence of sound.  It's there so that our hearing has something to hear. 

[CFTraveler]

The sound we hear is the hairs on the ear canal, which have an electric charge.  So when there is no sound being turned into electric impulses, it's just white noise.  So technically, Ryan is right.  White noise= no sound input.

[personalreality]

not necessarily arguing your point CFT, but I can focus on the sound and hear it even when there is other aural stimuli around.

[CFTraveler]

Because the electric charge is always there.  But sure, why not?  There's more than one tone, so I imagine that some will react and some won't, and some are reacting to the ambient frequency (for lack of a better term, lol).

[personalreality]

word.