Mind Awake, Body Asleep

[NF91]

Wow it has been quite awhile since I posted last. Been lurking here for years now. Shows how long I've been at this lol. Honestly my mindset as been holding me back.

Shirt background: I discovered Robert Monroe's books in my dad's library when I was 15. Read them front to back several times. I practice in ebbs and flows. On for a couple months off for a couple months. Personal exploration is what drives me. Validation of an afterlife is my primary goal really. Call me crazy, my ego wants to know if it survives physical death.

Up until about a month ago did it hit me that OBE's weren't really "leaving your body. I used to have so many labels on everything. This whole time it's been staring me in the face. After realizing this I have made tremendous strides.

 Just the other night I laid back and tried a new focusing technique to phase into the astral. I laid back, and repeated "mind awake, body asleep" mentally over and over. Eventually my body felt really relaxed and heavy. I then added some visualization of a sign the top read "mind" the bottom "body". It seemed easy to keep focus on this sign for longer so I added a green light to flash when I thought mind awake, and a red light to flash when I said body asleep.

Not long after doing this did I feel a significant shift and it felt like the entire room was spinning around my body. No vibrations, quite a loud humming though. It was like I was super drunk with the spins, but it was not nauseating at all. It felt amazing. I didn't know what to do at this point and simply thinking "am I supposed to do something now" sent me right back to C1. Should I have simply just allowed this to continue passively? I understand phasing is a natural process and I basically kickstarted it. Idk if I was enter F10, F15 or w.e (I'd rather lay off the labeling as to not get me thinking during this event.)

Any guidance or input always welcome

[Bloodshadow]

I use the same method except I visualize my whole room and visually explore my home, waiting to hear myself snore, cause i'm passively paying attention to my body as well, it has worked once or twice, and haven't since then, people say our body goes thru changes every day, and thats probably why most techs don't continue to work for people.

[Lumaza]

 Hello NF91 and welcome to the Astral Pulse!  

 I found a focus on "Mind Awake/Body Asleep" to be a fantastic focus target. When I was new to Astral projection I used that "mantra" often. I love experimenting, so at first, whether it was a book or a  Astral related video I listened to, I learned to use the colors blue and orange for my mind awake/body asleep focus. When I thought the words mind awake, I would focus on the color orange filling my head. When I thought the word blue, I would have the color blue rushing down through my body.

 Soon I found that that color focus with the mantra was leading to energy sensations racing through my body, so I dropped the colors and instead used a focus on my brain when I focused on mind awake and of my brain excreting DMT throughout my body when I used the thought body asleep. I usually used this until I was deep in a good solid trance state, then I began focusing on whatever my intent was for that session. Soon I found myself experiencing what I had chosen first hand.

 Your method of using green for mind awake and red for body asleep is great because it has subliminal suggestions wrapped into it. I used it this morning when I first woke up and soon found myself in a "Otherworld" very quickly. After I was in a good trance state I started to try to focus on different things. First I used a "trampoline" effect. Then I moved onto simply focusing on different balls, like a tennis ball, basketball, soccer ball, etc. I did this to check how far I was into thought = action. Next I moved onto a focus on oaring and soon I found myself arriving at a Island that had a enormous Pyramid made of sand.

 Because thought = action there, I no longer had to oar to get there. I just found myself there and soon I was exploring this new environment.

 Thank You for this post. This brought me back to when I was new to this practice in general. I mention mind awake/body asleep quite a bit in my posts throughout this Forum and now people know why. It is indeed a very strong focus mechanism and your addition of the colors red and green just made it even better.  

 So to answer your question of what you should do when you find yourself deep in that state, yes, you could have just passively observed to see what you could have seen or you could have thought of your "Happy Place" or any other thing or place you intended to be and soon you would have found yourself there. When I was new to this practice I would get deep into this state and use the intent to see a simple sign on a grassy area that said "Training Grounds". I used it often and found that it led to many "Astral School" scenarios where I was taught how to navigate and control myself and my actions in the "Otherworlds". This was extremely helpful. The knowledge I gained from those scenarios was priceless for me. What I was taught there earlier on in my adventures is responsible for most of my knowledge and understanding that I have on this topic today .  I was eager to learn and whoever it was that was responsible for helping me, was eager to teach me and still is today.  Although today the "school classroom" aspect of it has disappeared and now I find my answers through tests, quests and adventures.  

[ThaomasOfGrey]

It felt amazing. I didn't know what to do at this point and simply thinking "am I supposed to do something now" sent me right back to C1.

My friends and I have tripped over this same problem many times. Here are some tips. When you are trying to put your body to sleep and start to feel heavy you are either in or getting close to sleep paralysis. When you do enter sleep paralysis there is an instantaneous change in your brain wave function from the alpha to the slower beta state.

I feel that this slower mental state is somehow incompatible with thoughts like "what now? is it happening?" because they seem to destroy it in nearly all circumstances. Altering your breathing pattern will take you out of paralysis, as will conscious thought. You need to either develop a special level of passive awareness so you balance between not rambling off to sleep and not analysing the situation with your mind, or you need a focus so strong that it overrides everything else, including analysis thoughts.

I face this issue on both sides. From within a lucid dream the more aware an analysing my thoughts become the less stable the experience. When the dream reality starts to collapse it really does feel similar to something you see in a movie like inception. It is possible to get in there quickly with a strong present focus and maintain a grip on the scenario but the moment you lose that focus it is over.

Work on these aspects - not having the thoughts at all during transition, maybe you can achieve this, I haven't done it yet. Alternatively when you would normally have those thoughts, instantly transition into the strongest focus you can muster on the current scenario. This latter part is difficult to describe if you haven't clutched a fully formed dream, you are trying to clutch the beginning of the dream as that is what you are experiencing with the spinning and so on.

The way I often anchor myself is by grabbing an object and pouring all my focus into how that object appears and feels. Maybe you can apply that to the spinning sensation.

[NF91]

Thank you all so much for the responses. It's really strange to step back and realize something that I thought I knew. Getting to sleep paralysis for me has been easy for me for years now. I just never knew that THAT was sleep paralysis. I always thought the shift or phase in conciousness would be some big dramatic obvious event. It's so subtle it was easy to discount. Even when I don't successfully project, waking from SP and realizing that 30 minutes or more had passed when it only felt like 5 (should have been a big clue). I've read hundreds of Xanths posts, franks posts, lumazas, Blue FP, etc... over the years and just recently it all clicked and I've been makin great strides. There's no fear, I believe everything is conciousness, and all I'm seeking is to have a full astral experience with full conciousness. The type of experience where I can actually interact, connect with my higher self, etc...

So at the point of the spinning event I mentioned earlier I will try to passively observe it and not analyze, as well as try to focus through it the next time? And see how that goes. I don't mind getting stopped up at that point. That was truest an awe inspiring sensation.

Thanks again for the kind responses.