Is APing just dreaming?

[Shaykai]

I don't want to start a flame fest, but i'd like everyones opinion on something. From what i've gathered Astral Projecting seems to be different for every person, and some peoples astrals sound very much like dreams (I read one post where someone was throwing fire balls at a dog... sounds a little DBZ/Dream to me).

I guess i'm just trying to figure out if there are any standards and absolutes when astral projecting. Here are some questions i've had:

1. Have you met anyone else astral projecting, and you both remember the experience later? For example Jim and George know each other in real life, and both decide to astral project and meet each other on the astral plane. While APing they talk about oranges and various fruits, so when they come back to this reality, they both write down their conversations they had with each other and they switch papers. Did they both write that they had talked about fruit? Has anyone had an experience like that?

2. It also sounds like that its hard to differentiate between 'real' astral objects, and objects that you create in your own mind and are manifested in the astral plane. If thats true how do you know that everything isn't made up in your mind? Question 1 could answer this to some degree.

3. How long are astral projections generally? It seems like most are only a couple minutes max, but maybe i have only been reading beginner posts. My reason for learning to AP is my craving for knowledge, and i don't know what i could learn in two minute journeys.

Basically those are the questions that have been bugging me. I look forward to everyone's answers.

Shaykai

[Shaykai]

I apologize MajorTom,

Normally when i enter a new forum i'm a lurker for about 2 months while i read all the back posts, but for some reason i just decided to post my questions right away! Thank you for the prompt response and for moving my thread so it wasn't cluttering up the wrong section, I'll take a look at the FAQ, than you for the link!

Shaykai

[catmeow]

Hello Shaykai

AP/Dreams - difficult area!  But I can answer at least one of your questions:

Have you met anyone else astral projecting, and you both remember the experience later?

Yup, I did this with my mother when she was alive.  I AP'd over to her house, went in THROUGH the front door and met her in the hall.  She was shocked by my coming in through the door. Then we went through to the kitchen where I did various tricks like make things float around.  When I returned to my body I phoned my mother who had had the exact identical dream to the minutest detail.  For her it was a dream, for me an AP.  But she was really shocked by her dream and thought I must surely have died. No way was this coincidence...!

catmeow

[beavis]

Its often hard to tell the difference between AP and dreaming, since you can get them combined, but they're not the same thing. Dreaming, by definition, is the firing of neurons in a brain operating at about 4 hz. AP, by definition, is real outside your brain.

[Frank]

Hi:

There are many similarities between what people typically call "astral projection" and what we commonly call dreaming. This is because they usually take place within the same area of consciousness, i.e. Focus 2 of consciousness.

Within Focus 2 of consciousness is where most of us do our dreaming. If a person develops a degree of lucidity while they are dreaming then this is where they will have a lucid dream. Or if they purposely enact some kind of "projection technique" then they will enter this region with certain expectations, which will pan out as an "astral projection" experience as opposed to a dream or lucid dream. But these actions are all essentially the same. What changes is your level of awareness and your expectations.

Unfortunately, what many people have yet to realise is it is quite possible to change your perception in consciousness and not actually shift your area of consciousness. What I mean is, you can be having a dream in Focus 2 of consciousness, perhaps you become a little lucid, so you start playing around with your dream characters and creating all kinds of scenarios. In this case, you have changed your perception in consciousness but you haven't shifted your area of consciousness. You may also become lucid to the point where you gain a high degree of control over your experience. So you may act out an "astral projection" adventure. But you still could be situated within the same area of consciousness. All that has changed is your level of awareness and your expectations.

To get outside this particular "box" it is necessary to learn how to shift your area of consciousness. One of the great pioneers in doing this was a chap called Robert Monroe. He realised after a number of years projecting in a traditional sense, that there were actually different areas of consciousness that he set about identifying and labelling with an arbitrary series of numbers. It is on his work that my own work is based and the "Phasing" concept was born, which is a development from the somewhat haphazard list of numbers Monroe originally produced. Not that that should be taken as a criticism but it is a little cumbersome. It's just that Monroe was something of a particularist.

Yours,
Frank

[Kodemaster]

Someone should post this question in the Astral FAQ or the Permanent Astral Topics.

[greatoutdoors]

Frank,

Thanks for your very informative post! If I'm following you correctly, you're saying there are both genuine OBE's and dreams that mimic OBE's. My take is the "real" ones are when you shift your consciousness outside your body. I have not been able to do that consciously yet.

A question though: as I've said before (likely ad nauseum for some), my only genuine AP was when I was wide awake and doing normal things. All at once "I" was behind my body and just watching "me." In the few seconds it lasted, and in between a thought exchange, "I" had time to notice there was not room for both of me in the room I was in. I realized I had no body and my perception was above my normal visual height. It was as though "I" was a small of energy, but I could see everything just as I normally would. I have never come close to duplicating this on purpose, but I plan to keep trying! What focus level would this have been? (If I'm phrasing that inquiry correctly...)  

[Psan]

AP and dreaming are among many of the numerous states that one finds himself into during an ASC (Altered state of consciousness). An ASC is any state other than normal waking state of day today experience. Drug induced states, music induced ones and day dreaming are also covered in this same broad category. We go through many ASCs during our 24 hour routine.

Now, these ASCs are distinguished by a 'level' of consciousness. A level of consciousness (LOC) denotes the number of brain functions active at that time, higher the level, more brain functions are active and you feel more conscious. Brain functions include - sensory, perception, cognition, reasoning, motor(Muscle control), emotions etc.

The fundamental discovery is that, that ASCs are independent of LOCs. That is any state of consciousness can have any level of consciousness. Higher the LOC, greater is the perceived reality of that ASC. For example, during a boring lecture, your sensory abilities are normal but judgment and reasoning are switched off and when the lecture is over, you remember next to nothing of it except that it took place for real. While talking on phone you may switch off the visual processing but still remain logical.

Similarly in sleep states, one can operate on various LOCs, starting from zero consciousness to the unexplained higher ones. What makes these states interesting is the fact that there are no physical stimuli being processed by the brain, which open its doors of perception into the non-physical.

Depending on the LOC one experiences various situations, dreaming denoting a lower LOC than AP, which is lower than say a Buddhic projection. One can infact experience LOCs higher than those of normal waking ones, making those ASCs more real than ordinary world.

As Frank says above, there exists unexplored ASCs which can be experienced by increasing the LOC while being in that particular ASC. You come in tune with supernatural beings whose natural LOC resides in that ASC, so called higher beings. You perceive environments that your waking ASC wont allow.

You need a lot of self training to even become aware of such ASCs, not to speak of mastering them. You can easily confuse among them, as you mistook a dream for an AP or vice versa.

People who spend a lot of time in ASCs with high LOC, find the normal physical reality resembling a dream, Maya. Just as we find normal dreams a degenerated view of physical reality.

[Hopefully I didnt make it very complicated ]