Phasing: Noticing and Running Down

[Perseu]

Hi people,

I´ve been reading all Frank and other people posts about phasing, and I have some doubts here, will be very grateful by any answers:
Well, noticing is the first step we take to calm our mind and body without falling asleep and, after being confortable with this "condition", then we create the rundown to phase into Focus2 at at some point (that is what I understood so far). The question is: Only with the noticing exercise alone is it possible to phase directly into Focus2? If this is the case, since I don´t have a mental scenario (because Im just noticing, not creating a rundown), what I´m supposed to "focus" to make the transition?

Thanks!

[kiwibonga]

The technique of noticing won't work too well for beginners because it assumes that you're able to remain in trance for a certain length of time without going unconsciously asleep.

Mastering trance is a tricky step in one's development because it goes directly against everything you've experienced every single night for as long as you can remember -- when you fall asleep, you're not usually conscious of anything, and when you wake up, your memory of sleep will be extremely muddy, if you're even lucky enough to remember anything.

Phasing is about being able to stay aware while "the body goes to sleep..." For most people, this lasts only a few seconds... They're in their bed, waiting for sleep to come, they lose focus, and poof! They're unconscious!

It's all about being able to witness the process... First you lose physical sensations, then you start seeing patches of light, then you start seeing hypnogogics (vivid mind-pictures and sounds), and it's only after the hypnogogics "die out" that you'll be in "Focus 2." In other words, you're going to have to extend what lasts only a couple seconds for most people to several minutes!

And it's really quite amazing how fast you can develop when you acquire that skill... Falling asleep will almost invariably push you into a lucid dream, or you'll start vibrating like crazy for a chance to have a "traditional" projection... You'll also wake up in an altered state every 90 minutes or so throughout the night..

In order to train towards this, there's really only one way that I know of -- you have to keep trying the 'noticing' exercise as often as possible... And eventually, you'll see your few seconds of trance slowly grow into minutes.

When I started out with projection, I used a few methods to accelerate this process.

The first one is the "arm trick" which requires you to try and fall asleep with your hand straight up, arm resting on the elbow. If you fall asleep, the arm will fall and wake you up... What this allows you to do is try and witness the process many times a night instead of only once a night. Doing it for about a week should allow you to get to the hypnogogics without conscious effort.

The problem with the arm trick is that it doesn't let you get far enough. After a while, you'll hit a wall and you'll have to do the noticing exercise again, without any help. What you'll want to do at this point is use an alarm clock to wake you up after you've fallen asleep, just in case you do fail to stay aware all the way to focus 2. Set your alarm to ring in 20 minutes, for example, and then try to go to sleep. If all goes well, you should go into trance, see the hypnogogics, and perhaps go into a dream. The alarm will ring, and that's when you have to try and remember what happened. Write everything down, set the alarm again, and go to sleep again... Keep doing it as many times as possible... At least 3 times a night...

I don't know how long it may take until you actually get anywhere beyond the hypnogogics... When I used this method, it took me 3 weeks to have my first OBE, but I didn't have all the information I have now... If I did, I think I could probably have had my first OBE in just two weeks of practice :p

[Perseu]

Hi Kiwibonga,
thank you very much for you help!

In fact trance state is something that we don´t maintain so easily, as you say (I know because I always tried to project in that traditional way. Very nice experiences, but extremely low rate of sucess). I´ll start with Phasing now and use a run down to help me keep conscious without falling asleep. Take deep breaths always helped me to mantain a focus on my body, but this focus always prevented me to "project". Since Phasing doesnt require an extremely relaxed body (at least thats what I understood) maybe I will have a higher chance of sucess mixing these two techniques. Well lets see what happens!

[Novice]

A rundown isn't necessary either, although it is very helpful in the beginning. It helps pull your awareness completely away from the physical and 'inside' yourself. However, even without the rundown, if you can maintain a trance long enough, you will get to a point of seeing swirling colors, hypnogagic images, 3D blackness, etc. With the images, once they become stable, you can phase into one of them simply by thinking it. If you reach the 3D blackness stage, the blackness opens up and creates a tunnel type thing that you enter. Once in the tunnel, focus on a person/place -- also called placing intent. And the tunnel will take you there.

I think the run-downs and noticing exercises are very good though. It really helps you get more aquainted with your body as well as your mind/thoughts -- always a good thing!