So is the astral actually the spirit world?

[4everaspirit]

Would like more proof. I've left my body several times. It seems very spiritual and very hard to pass off as a delusion.  How can you explain having similar delusions each night where you feel a second self lift our of your body, not to mention all the creepy noises during the process?

I almost did one the other day...I haven't done them in awhile. My issue is that I'm too "awake" when I'm in the zone. I kinda get really excited  and all of a sudden, it dies down as soon as I hear something in the physical. It's honestly weird how one minute I'll be vibrating but I'm also aware of literal physical sound, not just those weird creepy sounds. Someone was making noise in our hall and it kinda lulled me out and the vibrations subsided....and they were still making noise so yeah.

Is this the spirit world or an oddly designed trick of the mind?

[rezaf]

It's a complicated thing and your own thoughts and preconceptions are part of what you experience but it's not a delusion just happening in your mind. In my experiences I have come across things that I couldn't have known before both accidentally and intentionally and it has proved to me that it's not a delusion for the most part. I can sense and sometimes see astral beings like spirits even when I am in my physical body and as far as I have seen people have an astral body attached to their auras and I assume they shift their awareness to those bodies when they are out of their bodies. It is a world where you can heal or hurt others and others can also do the same to you.

[Volgerle]

I think it's more part of the physical world than the spiritual world. But actually, it's "in-between". The (purely) spiritual world is where we go after each death of a physical body incarnation. It could also be what is termed by some as "higher astral" but not the lower astral. Higher Astral and "above" is more of a stable consensus environment which the middle/lower astral is not necessarily or only partially.

The astral hence is the borderzone, so to speak. You can get stuck there after death of course, but it is also a chaotic place where you meet dreamers, probably even other projectors (or their 'projections'), belief system territories (with stuck people), "hellish" areas where people work out issues (be they physically alive or not), your own (or other individual's) thought forms or environments. So you can stay in your own zone created for yourself and I still think it's "the astral", just a kind of own garden or house you built for yourself (but visits from other consciousness is possible) on astral territory in a way, as we do in our normal dreams too, so I believe.

[Szaxx]

The creepy noises are very similar to tuning a radio. One station (the physical) is there during the day. At night you retune to another frequency (dreamland). In doing this  your going to hear all the inbetween background noises.
That's basically it in a nutshell.

[Greytraveller]

Hello 4everaspirit
The nonphysical spiritual world must be inconceivably HUGE. Much more like a multiverse than simply a higher dimensional counterpart of the physical universe.
Here's my conception of this vast (limitless?) multiverse. I theorize that there is both an ethereal plane which translates as Four dimensional space-time and a separate Astral plane which is a higher Five dimensional realm. The ethereal (4 D) plane is simply a four dimensional extension of 3 dimensional space. In other words there IS a 3 dimensional counterpart for all of the ethereal plane (sometimes called the etheric plane or real Time Zone). An out of body experience, which typically begins in one's own bedroom, house or apartment, occurs in the ethereal plane.
An astral projection, strictly speaking, occurs in a higher five dimensional astral plane. There are no physical world/universe counterparts to the Astral plane. Therefore true astral projections are often much more exotic and unearthly.
Admittedly this is a personal definition. Many people use the terms ethereal, astral and etheric interchangeably. However this definition fits  most of my OBEs and APs. So hope this helps.

Regards 
Grey

[TylerSnotgern]

The nonphysical spiritual world must be inconceivably HUGE. Much more like a multiverse than simply a higher dimensional counterpart of the physical universe.

Here's my conception of this vast (limitless?) multiverse. I theorize that there is both an ethereal plane which translates as Four dimensional space-time and a separate Astral plane which is a higher Five dimensional realm. The ethereal (4 D) plane is simply a four dimensional extension of 3 dimensional space. In other words there IS a 3 dimensional counterpart for all of the ethereal plane (sometimes called the etheric plane or real Time Zone). An out of body experience, which typically begins in one's own bedroom, house or apartment, occurs in the ethereal plane.

An astral projection, strictly speaking, occurs in a higher five dimensional astral plane. There are no physical world/universe counterparts to the Astral plane. Therefore true astral projections are often much more exotic and unearthly.

Admittedly this is a personal definition. Many people use the terms ethereal, astral and etheric interchangeably. However this definition fits  most of my OBEs and APs. So hope this helps.

Regards 
Grey

Meets my personal OBEs/ATs to a "T", well done. 

[Lionheart]

Hello 4everaspirit
The nonphysical spiritual world must be inconceivably HUGE. Much more like a multiverse than simply a higher dimensional counterpart of the physical universe.

The term "Multiverse" is very fitting here! 

I tend to stay with the term "Non Physical Exploration", for anything that I experience other than this "Physical Existence".

When I become "consciously aware" that I am in another location, experiencing something else, while my physical body is either meditating peacefully in a chair or lying dormant in my bed and that I have some measure of control, I classify this as a NP experience.

It doesn't matter whether it is RTZ or not. If I can't interact "directly" with this physical plane, then it is indeed a NP experience.

[Xanth]

I know this post is several days old already, but I'd like to chime in...

To me, ANY reality you experience is a spiritual reality.  That includes this physical reality which we experience on a daily basis.
Anything you experience can be as much or as little "spiritual" as you desire or want it to be.  That makes the "astral" as much a spirit world as this physical reality.