What is the scientific theory behind F10/F12--beyond

[Snow Pellets]

What is the scientific explanation/theory for maintaing conscious awareness while changing brainwaves from beta to alpha, and then to delta and theta?  Scientifically speaking, when we "enter F10/F12" and fall asleep consciously, does the trained mind learn to RECOGNIZE the change in brainwave pattern, and use the symptoms that come with it as a preoccupation to keep the mind from drifting, thus loosing conscious will and awareness?  Supposedly when the brain released Melatonin it is supposed to shut off most, if not all, sensory and motor areas of the cerebral cortex.

The other night I was falling asleep and it seemed like if I became so relaxed and then passively imagined a falling feeling, then I remained awake and could slowly feel my brainwaves changing states, and the "tingling" and "vibrational" stages slowly setting in.  Is this technique of passive (NOT ACTIVE.. it seems like when I try to imagine myself descending too much then I remain too preoccupieid on the thought itself and I get nowhere).. but just let the quietness engulf me and the peace and serenity.. until I feel myself falling asleep then slowly and as passive as possible start to imagine what it would be like to descend or "sink" into the bed.  Is this a good start?

[Agntneo]

I suggest you read up on different techniques to maintain awareness.
Hmm Science, yes I'd say you somehow go into the Beta and Theta stages aware, but this is very different from a dream.
Because you don't go to dreamland. You are in your bedroom.

This is why the whole OBE experience is so special and wierd.
I wish we could have some scientifical explination someday.

[Frank]

SP:

I do not quite understand your "science" question but the last paragraph of your post hits on an important aspect that people find hard to get to grips with. It's where you say, "... it seems like when I try to imagine myself descending too much then I remain too preoccupied on the thought itself and I get nowhere".

Intense beauty and intense pleasure are always gratuitous, and are revealed only to senses that are not straining. Our nerves are not muscles! To push them is to reduce their efficiency. What you say serves as a classic example of this. I have said ever so many times on this forum that projection is a natural process, but often we need a little metaphysical imagery just to kick-start the process. First, you create the imagery, and then you just let it flow along naturally while allowing yourself to drift with it. The moment you try to force it, that's when the experience starts leaving you.

So, yes, I would say you are making a good start.

Yours,
Frank

[Snow Pellets]

Frank, do you think that somehow the sensory awareness area of the cortex bypasses the sleep-inducing effects of melanonin when it is released, thus enabling the lucid dreamer/astral traveller to remain conscious during the experience of separation or inner-mind projection/lucid dreaming?

[Frank]

SP:

I hear what you are saying but experience has taught me that it is a mistake to think of the process in such physical terms. Our waking consciousness "shuts down" through habit. There is no "separation" in consciousness. The only barriers that exist between Here and There are the ones that we create for ourselves.

In the past, people have chosen to live their physical experience encased in what you might call a smaller identity, while living out well-defined roles. Nowadays, however, people are seeking to break down those habit-formed barriers and take on a wider sense of identity. This process is entirely mental, there is nothing physical involved. The brain is simply a kind of central processing unit that runs all the physical processes in the body. No thinking goes on in the brain; no memories are stored there, etc. All those kinds of mental faculties are products of the mind.

HTH

Yours,
Frank

[Donal]

Hi there, i'm just curious

What do you think about what Robert Bruce said about when he is in Raised Kundalini state and hundreds of fat fleshy fingers appear to be coming out of his brain, and they form various geometries. And when he thinks of a person the fleshy fingers point to where that person is in the physical world.

Thanks.

[Frank]

Donal:

In answer to your question (you are a fairly new member so you obviously do not realise) but I've said many times before on the forum that I do not do any "energy work" of the kind you read about in Astral Dynamics, for example. So I really have no idea what a "raised Kundalini state" is.

In the process of my work, I can obviously feel various bodily energy centres become more active. But this is not something I ever dwell upon.

Out of curiosity, I did once go through a phase of purposely activating these areas to feel what it was like. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think doing this is more aligned to traditional mysticism. Which wouldn't surprise me as Bob Bruce openly describes himself as a mystic.

I suppose whichever line of study you take, it all leads to the same place at the end of the day. It's just that my origins are what you might call, Monroe School. Whereas Bob Bruce's origins appear to be more Eastern Traditional.

Yours,
Frank

[Snow Pellets]

Frank,

So in simple, what is your take on what happens to our consciousness.. is it that we are conditioned from a very young age to "let" ourselves go to sleep and become unaware of the consciousness that occurs after going to sleep.

To break that cycle, what simple exercise/technique would you recommend?  Just go with the flow and keep the mindset that everyday, when you fall asleep at night, you try to observe as best you can the changes in your perception and keep focusing on that until the distortions themselves are enough to keep ourselves aware of our consciousness evolving beyond F10?

[Potatis]

Frank, I hope you are writing a book! I can't get enough of your posts! It's always fascinating to read everything you write!

Potatis

[Frank]

SP:

Every new arrival undergoes a period of transition. This transition phase is necessary because it takes a while for people to integrate themselves within objective reality. The opposite is also the case in that, after a long period of immersion within objective reality, following disengagement, there is a period of readjustment needed in order that a person can begin living within subjective reality, once again.

However, by puberty (or thereabouts) 99.9% of people have chosen to integrate themselves as fully as possible within objective reality. What we do is place a distinct mental barrier between Here and There, to the extent where we shut ourselves off more or less completely with our subjective aspects, and concentrate our attention almost exclusively on our objective aspects. We still interact with our subjective reality, but we do so in what we call our dreamstate. Most people barely remember their dreams and shrug them off as mere mental meanderings. Our imagination is another strong link we have with subjective reality, which people shut off to a large degree by continually dismissing it as "unreal".

As I say, by puberty, people have largely aligned themselves to the basic mass belief constructs of our society. (Note: when I talk of society, in this context I mean western or western-style society generally.) One of the mass belief constructs we have is that adults (though "acceptable" for children) who go around hearing voices "in the head" and seeing things that "aren't there" and such like, are nut-cases who should be locked up for their own good. So most people get the message of what is accepted and what is not, early on in their lives; mainly through parental reinforcement, but also through schooling, and other forms of mass-belief indoctrination systems such as television. Mainstream religion plays an interesting role in that it exploits peoples' wanting to recognise their wider reality, but does so in a way that actually suppresses and controls it at the same time; thus locking people into a kind of spiritual double bind, which is all very mind-numbing stuff (to say the least).

Anyhow, times are a changing, as they say. Which means these days; progressively more people are "coming awake" so to speak, and allowing certain aspects or elements of their subjective-reality awareness to come into their objective existence... but only under certain circumstances. For example, people might start keeping what is commonly called a "dream diary". Basically, what they are saying to themselves is, "Under certain circumstances, I will allow a portion of my subjective reality, to bleed-through into my objective-reality awareness, so I can write about it."

The same basic principle applies to any method or technique, such as meditation, or energy-work, for example. Essentially, what the person is doing in these exercises is setting down the terms and conditions, so to speak, under which they will "allow" a certain aspect of their subjective self to bleed-through into their objective awareness. As I say, there are no barriers within consciousness, only those that we create for our purposes. Most people create barriers early on in their lives in order that they may comply with socially accepted physical norms. But these barriers can be removed by the same act of will that constructed them in the first place.

I have been engaged in this topic 20-odd years, and if someone were to pin me down on which single aspect would be most beneficial for beginners, in my experience it wouldn't be a method or technique, as such, it would be that of acceptance. And the other most important aspect to my mind is trust. But acceptance is the key to all of this IMO. A person has to accept their wider reality; allow it back into their lives and greet it like a long lost friend. Then simply do as you suggest, i.e. go with the flow of that and observe the changes in your perception.

Unfortunately, many people are in the position where they feel they have tried every method or technique going, yet still haven't achieved any worthwhile effects. In which case, I would say chances are virtually certain they have an underlying acceptance problem. It's not the actual technique in itself that causes a person to project. Projection is a natural process, but one that can often take a little meta-physical imagery, wrapped up in a kind of method or technique, to kick-start the natural chain of events.

But pre-requisite to every technique or method, is that it must be performed on a solid basis of acceptance. Because without having that acceptance, whatever you try is just not going to work.

HTH

Yours,
Frank

PS

Potatis: thank you for that wonderfully kind comment. Yes, I am in the process of writing a book which I hope to publish in Spring 2005.

[Potatis]

Excellent Frank! You can count on at least ONE customer.. hehe

Thanks for your contributions on this forum, I have learned a great deal from you.

Potatis

[JAW]

I have been engaged in this topic 20-odd years, and if someone were to pin me down on which single aspect would be most beneficial for beginners, in my experience it wouldn't't be a method or technique, as such, it would be that of acceptance. And the other most important aspect to my mind is trust. But acceptance is the key to all of this IMO. A person has to accept their wider reality; allow it back into their lives and greet it like a long lost friend. Then simply do as you suggest, i.e. go with the flow of that and observe the changes in your perception.

Hi Frank,
How do you propose that people go about accepting their wider reality? I have had certain experiences that make me accept there is more to what I used to think was a pretty normal physical reality. So I say to myself, I accept its definitely not all that straight forward, but how do I know if I REALLY feel this way deep down? Its like, you might say "I'm not scared of dying" but then if put in that situation you might be terrified. Sometimes you just don't know. So I wonder how you would get people to go about this very important aspect called acceptance? I would say there would be a huge amount of people out there that haven't experienced anything out of the ordinary, who would have nothing to base any alternate beliefs on, and you are asking them to "accept"? When you say acceptance do you really mean "knowing"? Are they both sort of the same thing? Really *Knowing* something requires direct unequivocal experience. What are your thoughts?
Regards.

[Telos]

Acceptance and trust.

Frank, I believe what beginners need most is demonstrable proof. It doesn't have to be absolute proof. Science is inductive after all, and any new evidence can bring down millennia of established thinking. You've said that we are on the verge of a new science, and I agree. So where are our experiments? The Rob's books and our stories are a good start, but no where near enough. Shouldn't we be accumulating more (and better) data and let the data speak for itself?

Beginners need a curious mind and willingness to put their experiences to reason. Acceptance and trust are powerful and can be misplaced, especially in a circumstance where they don't appear to do anything, leading a person to try and put in more acceptance and more trust until they are dilluted and completely brainwashed.

I know that's not what you have in mind, so I'm not accusing you of anything   However, I think we'd serve the beginners much much better by demonstration rather than lecture.

[edited slightly for word choice]

[mactombs]

I second JAW's question. I don't think by "acceptance" it's so easy to understand precisely what you mean, or how you mean it.

I also agree with that Telos says, although I don't think how he uses "acceptance" and how Frank uses it are the same.

[Potatis]

After listening to the recordings of dead people on cassettes I bought from leslieflint.com, there is no doubt there is an afterlife, and death is only an illusion. The spirits describe things that agrees a lot with what Frank says. Listening to what these spirits say certainly widened my reality. Obes and the importance of learning lessons from spirit guides is also discussed, so people should not be afraid to have obes, or even think twice of the reality of them.

Death is an illusion, the spirits vibrate at a higher rate and so we can not see them. If we increase our vibrations, we can go to their sphere, learn lessons which they are always desperate it seems to teach us, and we can return to the physical. Listen to the recordings and you will realise there is so much we don't know, but can explore.

Nobody could be afraid of dying if they heard those recordings, because it is obvious there is no death. So we must use our time here to learn why we are here, and learn lessons. Mistakes are not to be feared, make lots of them and learn. We are all here to learn. If we all persist in trying to raise our consciousness, we will succeed in learning much of what we need to learn from our life experiences and from our guides.

Charlotte Bronte talks about the power of thought, and how what we think manifests in certain spheres. Her example of millions of people who read the same book actually create the visual aspect of those people and their lives in certain spheres, is fascinating. Even though those visual aspects have no spirit, they are there as thought forms. When the book is no longer read, or so popular, those visual aspects fade. Isn't that what we read about here? Human thoughts creating things in the "Astral" world or RTZ? When you hear a spirit talking about it, decades before this forum was ever here, you see that people's experiences here do add up. They are not hallucinations. There are many more examples too that people should explore. It widens one's reality and belief, and strengthens one's determination to grow more spiritually.

Sorry I've written a rant

Potatis

[JAW]

Potatis, I think you are talking from a persons viewpoint that already "accepts" a different reality, whereas if a skeptic listened to those tapes, he would come up with a million ways of how they faked it. I was a hardcore skeptic as well, and had to be slowly introduced into this topic in the most round about manner possible, through a mainstream tv program which talked about the science of the effect of sounds on the human brain. One thing led me to another and whilst before I would laugh at this sort of stuff, now I am open to it. Its going to be pretty hard to get most people to jump straight into this "wierd stuff" from nothing but skepticism.

However I think good ways to get people with more open minds to "accept" might be to do things like feeling energy sensations in their body, trying meditation, yoga, or any other easy/low level excersizes, but I cant think of much that might convince people of things like the afterlife and OBE. I personally think the best bet for this stuff is reading about the well documented cases of NDE where the patients have been medically dead, but explained who was next door/what illness they had and so on. Even then youll find people coming up with explanations of how those people must have met before or something like that...

[Telos]

No, potatis, that's alright. I had never heard of either of those two people before. Thank you for sharing, it looks like some good evidence.

Science is inductive, which means it starts with pieces of evidence and builds its way up. It's like how detectives work. That also means that theories are provisional - we only really know what we know, not what we think we know. So the more evidence the better, even if it is circumstantial.

I recommend that beginners practice their curiosity in dreams. They would be surprised at what they can know and what they can do, just by playing around in dreams and having fun. I don't think acceptance and trust are needed at all, actually. Just dilligence in dream study and an open mind!

[Potatis]

Leslie Flint was tested many times, and there can be no faking what he did. Many skeptics tried to find him faking, but it was impossible for him to do so. If you read his autobiography, you will understand the truth.

JAW, you would not have written what you wrote in the last paragraph of your last post if you studied Leslie Flint and his recordings. So much information was given from the spirits about how they were communicating, the evidence is more than overwhelming. The best Leslie Flint website is here:

http://www.xs4all.nl/%7Ewichm/deathnoe.html

It's a good start, but the recordings on the cassettes will blow your mind.

Potatis

[JAW]

Hey Potatis,
I just spent two hours looking through all the leslie flint material I could find, listening to recordings, how they tried to prove it was real, etc. However I still remain steadfast on my opinion on skepticism. I would literally have to be in the same room with this guy (if he were alive), talking to someone I know has died, ask them some impossible to know question, etc to KNOW its real. All those audio samples and "this was actually real because they gagged him" etc, seriously does nothing to assure me its for real. Im not saying its not real or it is, just that Im not sure and Id have to have, once again, solid proof, knowledge.

[Telos]

Forgive the brief anecdote:

When I was real little, my science teacher asked our class, "which object will fall to the earth faster - a billiard ball or a bowling ball?" What a stupid question! Obviously, the bowling ball is heavier, so it will fall faster.

"Wrong," my teacher said, "they both fall at the same speed and will reach the ground at the same time."

"No way," I said. I was skeptical.

After our teacher proved it through demonstration, I was still skeptical. I went home and found all sorts of things to drop - plastic cups and pitchers, basketballs and baseballs. My intuition and my convictions were just plain, flat out wrong. It hurt. If God was standing next to me, I would have asked him, "why did you make me stupid?"

To this day I still harbor the conviction that somewhere in the universe, in some time in history, or maybe even sometime in the future, heavier objects have fallen or will fall faster to the earth than lighter objects. (It is debatable whether or not I am an extreme fool or a budding genius, however I am most presently the former).


So don't be offended Potatis. I'm skeptical of even Gallileo and the centuries of science which followed.

[Potatis]

There's nothing wrong with skepticism, we all have to be. Only a fool would believe ANYTHING. Unfortunately some skeptics are so closed minded that they are too stubborn to accept anything no matter what the proof.

Good examples are in Leslie Flint's autobiography where he was gagged, they had a microphone at his throat, and had to have liquid in his mouth which was measured before and after going in his mouth, and the voices still spoke. Remember that at times he was demonstrating in halls with up to two thousand people (witnesses), and giving information constantly from deceased relatives on the other side which nobody could have possibly have known. We all know about fraudulant mediums who gather information about people in various ways, but here was information that could not have been known. Examples in the book are letters from people saying they had not used their real name etc, and the voices gave accurate information, spoke with the persons voice, accent etc. The sustantial evidence there is, has to convince, even if a skeptic cannot be given the exact detail of how it all works. Somehow a skeptic has to accept it does. In Leslie Flint's case however, the spirits do describe how it is done.

I used to think people who believed in spiritual stuff were looney, namely my mother. Then one day I thought very consciously to myself that I should not knock it, until I explored it fully. I had to open my mind. That is how I got to this forum in the first place. If I came here and read stroy after story about people's obes, then I could conclude that people were just making it all up. Instead I read about problems people were having, getting stuck when half out, or bouncing around the bedroom with not much control, and they were annoyed by it. They were looking for help. Hmm that made me open my eyes to the fact that pehaps obes are possible, because they could have made up any story about wonderful adventures. It did not prove to me that what they said was true, but there seemed to be no reason to lie. At least it opened my mind, when before it was completely closed.

If you ever read the autobiography of Leslie Flint, you will read about how he did not want to be a medium at one stage, and how it took 7 years to develop to be a good medium, and other problems he had. He was a poor man who did not seek fortune for what he could do. Why would someone not seeking fame or fortune fake seances? He only gave comfort to people.

If you are skeptical, at least be open minded enough to explore fully any information you are skeptical about. But do follow it through, and you will learn something either way. I am convinced of the truth from my explorations, rightly or wrongly. At least from this I can ACCEPT all of this, even if I personally can't explain it fully, and I feel I am moving forward rapidly, spiritually. I believe at some time it could be explained. And when it can, I also believe a device CAN be made that can talk to people who have passed on, much like a telephone. Sounds crazy? Once I would have thought so, but now, no way. Leslie Flint or a spirit, I forget who now, suggested that someday it could be done. It was done before using Flint's ectoplasm, it's a miracle it could be done at all.

Be skeptical, but keep yourself moving on. Accept things at first, then try to find the answers as you go, but move forward. Don't be a skeptic who doesn't move forward because they say "no, I don't think that's possible, I see no evidence or proof". With SOME things, for now, you just have to accept it.

Potatis.

P.S I'm sorry, I never meant for my posts in this thread to be a lecture. These are just my thoughts, and can of course be taken with a grain of salt.

[Telos]

Oh no, it's not necessary to apologize. I'm definitely going to find time to study Flint in more depth because you've piqued my interest. I enjoy reading your posts because I find them clear and lucid.

I believe I know what motivates closed-minded people of any kind. For example, I mean both groups of people who are closed to the idea of God's existence and closed to the idea of God's nonexistence. That motivation is, of course, fear.

But I believe it's a special kind of fear -> a fear of the knowable absolute truth. It appears that no human being has ever known the absolute knowable truth. If the Jesus of the Bible existed, he is perhaps our best candidate, for he could demonstrate it through acts of miracle. The Buddhas may have known it, but they didn't exactly go around performing miracles. Closed-minded people fear that they will arrive at the absolute knowable truth and it will be something horrible.  I suppose the classic example is Luke Skywalker discovering that his father is Dark Vader. How upset would we be if we found out the happiness and joy were illusions and that the universe, existence, and our souls were created by the devil? Would we come back and continue to suffer endlessly on the Wheel of Samsara?

Closed-minded people use closed-mindedness as a substitute for hope. I suppose I can't blame them, for hope is rather fragile. The best thing we can do is let them be and trust that they, like ourselves, will find peace, one way or the other.

[catmeow]

Hi all

Unfortunately these days, the art of conjury, magic, mentalism, fraud and deception is now so advanced, that a skilled pratctioner can produce irrefutable proof of just about anything.

I recently saw a "card sharp" on TV demonstrate in slow motion how he could keep shuffling a deck of cards and always keep the Ace of Spades on the bottom, top or anywhere in the middle that he wanted.  He was flawless. He then went through a series of about a dozen different casino shuffles of all types, shuffling this deck in every which way, splitting it, splicing the cards shuffling, splitting, splicing over and over.  Hen then layed out the entire deck face up and it was sorted perfectly, as if it was a brand new deck, not a single card out of place.  I played it back over and over again, and the artistry of this craftsman was unbelievable.  The fraud was undetectable.  This wasn't a trick in which he substituted a new deck right at the end, it was a demonstration of card control.

There is also a "mentallist" in the UK called Derren Brown who performs mind-reading, suggestion and ESP-type illusions of all types which are pretty hard to distinguish from the real thing.

Today we cannot trust any photographs or video evidence, since it is now a trivial matter to fake these easily using video software on any PC.

So how do we tell if evidence is real or fake?

I don't know.

Personally, I'm lucky in that I have had a number of ESP experiences which demonstrated to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that ESP does exist.  The reason I know this is because I was the only person involved (well more-or-less) and I know there was no trickery involved!

Evidence is very tough.

But please check out the Scole Report.  This was an investigation by the SPR in the UK of a series of sittings in which a huge variety of physical manifestations were captured and recorded, under conditions which would seem to completely exclude trickery.   The participants were all of good character, and it is said that there has never been even the remotest hint of any trickery or dishonesty every discovered.

Do a Google search on +"Scole Report", here's a couple of links:

http://www.victorzammit.com/book/chapter05.html
http://www.esalenctr.org/display/confpage.cfm?confid=9&pageid=91&pgtype=1

And the book can be bought here (I've read it):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0900677066/qid=1103483224

If the Scole phenomena are real, then these go quite a long way to proving life after death.

I'm going to take a look at the Leslie Flint material now too... it looks interesting!  

catmeow

[Frank]

Major Tom:

Again, you give some interesting insights.

Speaking of Focus-12 and beyond, I discovered Focus-15 for the first time last week. Or at least I think I did. I'm not exactly sure how it came about, but I was lying on my bed just letting my thoughts drift and I felt a kind of shift. Didn't really notice it so much at first, it was something that dawned on me perhaps a few minutes (not exactly sure) after it came about. It felt like I was entirely physical, so I slowly opened my eyes expecting the state to break, but it didn't. The only way I can explain it, is it felt as if everything within the physical had just stopped, freeze-frame like.

Within my mind, it was as if there was no future and no past, and all that existed was the present moment; which felt expanded or widened somehow, and I was living in it.

I expected the state to break any second but it didn't. Within my awareness came the description of "no time" that I had read before about Focus 15, that we talked about previously. I can say that that's exactly how it felt. Like time had just stopped. I'm sure that it hadn't. I'm sure the world outside was continuing as per usual. But it felt like, for me, it had stopped. What also felt doubly weird is the fact that I was fully awake and alert within the physical! But there was a sensation of being ever so slightly removed from my normal, fully awake self. But I do stress the word slightly.

I stood by my bed and slowly walked to the window. As I was doing so, I got a distinct sensation of travelling through time. Which I know sounds weird but it did feel weird. I then walked back to where I was before and got an incredibly strong feeling of déjà vu. It was as if I had gone back to the time when a minute previously I was standing by my bed. So I walked back to the window and the same feeling came about. I experimented by repeatedly walking to various points in the room, and each time I would return to a point, it was like I had returned to the time when I was there previously. It was exactly as if I was reliving the same moment, over and over.

After about 10 minutes (or that's how it seemed) I got a distinct feeling that "I" had come to the forefront of my awareness again. I was still in the physical as before, but without that strange feeling. In other words, everything became normal. I am absolutely certain that I was within the physical at all times. I touched various physical objects, for example, and everything felt just as it usually does.

I'm sure this is the Focus-15 state. Because the description, "no time" just captures the feeling absolutely. But, as I say, I'm sure that time, in a wider sense, continued as normal, and the state pertained to me only. If I were to try to expand on the "no time" description, to me it felt as if I had my past and my future, and a large area had opened up between them. My mental focus felt as if it were situated right in the middle of this area... as if all that existed was a perpetual "now" and everything I did was time-referenced to that.

I hope to enter this state again and experiment further. The enchanting aspect is the fact of being fully awake and alert within the physical. Difficulty being I cannot recall how I got there, but I'm sure it'll happen again before long. The fact of it being so physical is why I missed it before. I was thinking of the state in the sense of it being more of a non-physical state. But it would appear not. Based on my experience it would seem to be a different type of physical focus!

I keep searching around the Internet for more info, but haven't found anything more than the usual bog-standard description of "no time". It looks to me like yet another one of those situations where no one really knows, so everyone parrots everyone else. Of course, there is always the possibility that what I discovered is not Focus-15 at all. But the "no time" description suits it to an absolute tee.

Yours,
Frank

[karnautrahl]

The Monroe Institute, does it still train people in these states of mind?
I ask because I'm having difficulty doing anything more than move energy on a normal waking level. These alternate states of mind seem elusive and difficult for me to reach, at least so far.