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Strange OBE

Well the good news is that I had my first OBE for a while last night…but it was odd!  This is what happened…

I went to bed at around 10pm and read for about 45 mins then lay down to sleep.  I probably fell asleep around 45 mins later after getting vibrations once whilst trying to focus on hypnogogics.  I then awoke later and knew I was in a good state to try for an OBE…but I had already moved a bit.  I decided not to let this deter me; while not moving is much more favorable, I have determined that its not the be all and end all of having an OBE from waking.  My mind was relaxed and even though I moved, my body was very relaxed – much more so than I can currently achieve from wakefulness.

I decided to focus on something, my usual red ball , but what happened instead was a series of crazy designs or patterns being displayed in my minds eye like a slide show – the only thing I can liken them to are the patterns Robert Bruce draws in Astral Dynamics, but they weren’t exactly the same.  I then started thinking maybe I was moving to a dream so made the decision to try to move straight to lucidity in my dream.  With this thought the slideshow sped up but I had full consciousness and then appeared my trusty ball!!  But this time the bugger wasnt planning on just sitting there allowing me to visualize it!  It started moving around, it was the marble in (for all you guys who were born in the 80′s and had a Nintendo!) Marble Madness!  Well, I decided it was going somewhere interesting so I decided to chase it.  At this time I was still aware of being in my bed, but also aware of the visualization of the ball moving fast through some kind of maze / pathway / something!  I kept telling myself to remain conscious also. Then after what seemed like a few seconds, maybe 5, I felt the familiar (although missing of late!) feeling of vibrations (much stronger than those I feel when wake inducing).  I then was back lying in bed but my focus was still mixed between the maze / pathway / something I had just been traveling along and my room it was weird and hard to describe.  Anyway, I knew I could separate so did so but as soon as I did it, I realized I was not fully separate and could only get my shoulder and what seemed like most of my left side out.  Normally when this happens I literally yank myself away but in this case, because I was in a mixed frame of reference I decided to fly up and hopefully pull myself out this way.  So I tried, and I looked at my shoulder and at the same time felt a tugging from my body, which made me think of the physical and boom there I was and I woke up…

or so I thought….

I got up and wrote down my experience in my new hand written journal.  I was fully 100% consciously aware of writing each word.  I even made mistakes and crossed them out.  I could feel the pen in my hand, the feel of it writing on the paper.  I can even remember exactly what I wrote (keywords: ball, maze, slideshow, patters (AD?) etc).  I checked the time and made a note in my hand written journal and it was 2:20am.  I woke up my wife and told her my excitement as she knows I havent had an OBE in something like 7 weeks ish.  I discussed the ball and the maze and the partial exit in detail.  Basically, I was as awake as I am now writing this.

Then I woke up.  At first I couldnt get my bearings because, in my mind, I was already awake!  Ive had a false awakening before as a preclude to a Lucid Dream in which I thought I was recording a dream, but this was much realer. I was awake, I know I was…but I wasnt!

I immediately checked the time…0225am.  How very odd that the time in my false awakening matched the time of my physical awakening.

Some points I want to record which I feel are important for me

• Waking and failing to stay still is not the end of the OBE attempt as I have been allowing myself to believe – body and mental state are far more important
• Yesterday I spent a lot of time reading about OBE and posting on Astral Pulse (www.astralpulse.com) but still did not specifically plan on one last night.  This mirrors most of the times I have had an OBE previously, spending all day reading about them but not having the specific goal of an OBE that night.  I guess this could be described as dedicated passiveness or something!  Immersing myself in the subject, without the over effort of trying to have one.
• Subject immersion is important, but so is passiveness.  Aggressive goals for OBE on a given night will (for me anyway) just serve to hinder.  I have not yet had an OBE when I have expected one or wanted one on a particular night SPECIFICALLY.  That’s not to say I don’t want one every night, its just that I don’t aggressively chase that goal.

Some questions I have which I will ask on Astral Pulse are

• What the feck were those patterns?  They were very detailed and vivid – not something I could easily visualize myself!
• How was my reality of chasing the ball and my bedroom merged?  It was an odd feeling.
• Why was the time in my false awakening the same as in my physical awakening?

Overall, I am happy with this experience – especially as it was induced when I actually moved!  This was something I was struggling with and when I moved (i.e. every single night!) I wrote off my OBE attempt.  Now I know I need not do this!

Its About the Journey

Ok so still no more OBE’s and as was clear in my previous posts this was causing me concern, annoyance and frustration.  But its ok!  Ive crossed that bridge and now I feel much better.

Basically, a realization came to me over the last few days when I have been meditating.  I was meditating without the goal of projecting, which I have never done.  I realized that meditation feels good.  Then it dawned on me; this whole journey feels good!  Already I have experienced OBE’s and things most of the human population never will.  I have answered the age-old question of is there life after death for MYSELF and not been told to believe.  I have experienced my consciousness without my body.  I have flown, I have walked through walls…

I realized that this journey is not a quick fix nor a fad I can pick up and then drop.  My whole life changed the moment of my first OBE and it will be changed forever.  This is something I will be doing my entire life and I now realize that getting frustrated about any part of this ruins the experience (without mentioning the hinderence this emotional response will undoubtedly have on my spiritual and OBE progression).  I mean, if I don’t enjoy the experiences, whatever they are, why should I choose to take part?  Every “failure” is really a success; a step further on my journey.  Sometimes it may feel like I am walking backwards, but I am taking the steps none-the-less and when I actually look at the steps, I enjoy it immensely.

I have been focusing on the destination without looking out of the window at the scenery.  That is not to say I am not looking forward to my arrival (after all, why start a journey without wanting to get to your destination?) but instead of sleeping through the trip, I now realize all of it is part of the journey.  I think there is a reason why its called “following a spiritual path” and not “take a spiritual plane ride” – when you take a path it takes longer – but you also see more and experience more, making the entire journey part of the experience and not just the end.

So with that in mind, I will continue doing what I am doing.  OBE’s have happened before and they will again, its all about finding my groove – what works  for me!  Frustration is a negative emotion which I think is definitely hindering my progression and after all, why should I be frustrated?  Its all about the Journey.

Almost Phased?

I lay down to meditate just now (first time in over 2 weeks I have had proper time to do so without intruding thoughts).  I was concentrating on my breathing and also pushing surface thoughts away for around 20 mins.  During this time I observed hypnogogic imagery quite a bit (maybe 5 times in the 20 mins) each time getting stronger.  On the last image it lasted for what seemed like 20-30 seconds (which is very long for me!) an I then felt myself literally being pulled.  Whether I was being pulled into or away from the imagery I couldnt tell but there was a distinct feeling of a pull.  Unfortunately this sparked my consciousness as usual and I became fully alert but had mild vibrations (nothing compared to vibrations felt when traditionally exiting).  I was now too “buzzed” and couldnt get back into the passive state I was in previously so I gave up.

I am encouraged by this because meditation and phasing practice has been almost non-existent the last 2 weeks due to work and for this to happen on my first time back is good news to me.  Still not there yet but practice makes perfect!

First “Real Trance”

Well, I’ve definitely been in a trance state before, no question, however last night was what I would class as the real deal, simply because I deliberately induced it and whilst in it, I had full control.  It was amazing.

I am someone with a very active mind and keeping it intentionally quiet is very hard, and therefore previously whenever I realized I was moving to Trance, or Focus 10, I would snap out of it on all but very rare occasions.  Last night was different.  Its worth noting I was on my back with my arms by my sides, as normally I try lying on my side more.  Basically, I allowed myself to drift towards hypnogogia but remained fully aware at all times.  I could watch my thoughts and pull myself away from them to prevent sleep at my choice, rather than having myself snap back violently at the realization of a trance.  It really was wonderful. I want to record the fact that something that was very powerful whilst in the trance was Robert Peterson’s “swaying” technique.  I imagined swaying side to side and in a few seconds thats all I could feel.  I have no doubt that with further practice this method could certainly lead to a Wake Induced Exit.

After what seemed like 30-45 mins I started getting weird sensations in my lower abdomen and I started thinking “hmm, never had this before, wonder if this is what phasing feels like”….then I realized I just needed to use the toilet! haha.

This is not really directly linked to OBE, as nothing happened in that regard, but this is a big step for me as being able to control my mind in this manner has never happened in my entire life. Later last night after this happened when going to sleep I started mild vibrations but then I fell asleep very deeply.

Still no OBE for 3 weeks, but a very enjoyable experience non-the-less.

Oh and I hate word press spell check – I’m English and I spell things the English (correct ) way, not American so stop changing my S’s to Z’z!

Feels like I’m Going Backwards

Lately, there has been very little progress.  My wake induced OBE practice has stagnated and I am having huge difficulty remaining still when I wake during the night to induce via a more indirect method.

I have tried analyzing the reasons and I have come up with the following:

• Busy during the day with a photography assignment I am not enjoying – this is fairly constantly on my mind.  When I say “busy” I don’t necessarily mean physically busy, although that is of course a fact, but I mean more mentally.  Thinking about it etc is shifting my mind away from things I would rather be thinking about.
• I am becoming disheartened.  I made some great early progress, better than I could have hoped for.  I now haven’t had an OBE for 3 weeks (3 weeks today in fact).  This is certainly causing me concern.  I am a very dedicated person and pride myself on progressing constantly with whatever I do.  Having 4 OBE’s in the first 2 weeks of practicing was great and I just assumed my progress would increase, however this is not the case.  I think I am at the point where I am thinking more about this “failure” than I am about just letting it happen.  One common theme in all of my OBE’s was passiveness.  I didnt expect an OBE to happen on each occasion and yet, they did.  Trouble is I don’t know how to become passive about this because it really is frustrating.
• Too much effort.  I personally don’t feel this, because as I said above, I am used to working at something and progression normally follows, however after analyzing the situation, it seems over effort can cause issues, and even if this goes against my personality, maybe I need to chill on the whole thing.  I guess you cant rush things of a spiritual nature by applying brute force.  The more I try, the more frustrating it all gets and then the more steps backward I seem to take.  The spacing of my OBE’s was:  #1 and #2 11th April; #3 19th April (8 days between); #4 24th April (5 days between) and #5 9th May (15 days between).  As you can see, after the first 4, my gaps seemed to be decreasing and I was strapping myself in for a fast downhill ride, but then for whatever reason the gap between 4 and 5 increased to 15 days!  Now its at 21 days and still no OBE.  Is this a backwards step in regards to my progression, or is this just how it goes?  Not sure if anyone reads this, but if you do and if you have had similar road blocks to overcome, I would love to hear about them.

I think at the moment, the above are the main causes, but I dont really know.  All I DO know is that Out of Body Experiences and overall spiritual progression is something that is meant to be in my life and no matter what, I will not give up.  I’m sure even the well-known OBEers of our time suffered setbacks, and I guess what is important is not the setbacks themselves, but overcoming them and moving forward.  I naively thought that after my quick successes that the rest would follow as a matter of course – this is certainly not the case!

My goals from now remain unchanged however I want to focus more on the indirect / Vehram method more.  This is the main way I have had OBE’s and I think that just having OBE’s is what is important and not how you have them.  I think we need to “wear in” our OBEs before they become regular occurrences and so therefore want to get my OBE wheels well oiled in whatever way I can.

Quick Update

To be honest, not much has happened this week apart from what I feel are big steps forward with wake inducing an OBE.

Any time I want (almost) I can lie down and relax to the point of bringing Vibrations. I am still having problems maintaining them as I always find my consciousness gets a “jolt” and because I am still not sufficiently relaxed (maybe both mentally and physically) this causes them to reduce.  But just the fact I can now get to the Vibrational stage 90% of the times I try is a huge accomplishment for me, and im sure that simply practice will get my mind and body used to the vibrations from a waking state and come to accept them without the jolting effect.

I havent had an OBE for a couple of weeks.  I think there are a couple of reasons for this.

1. I am drinking far too much liquid before bed.  This means when I do wake up at my auto-programmed time, I have to go to the toilet and this instinct is my first when I awake and so I move!
2. Tiredness.  I am finding when I go to bed its hard for me to motivate myself due to physical tiredness.  I mentally want to attempt, however when I wake up and dont need to use the loo, my first instinct then is to move onto my belly to get more comfortable.  The moving and the fact I dont think I can project from my belly ruin all chances of the OBE.

Also, I have noticed a very strange change in how I feel in general lately.  I dont know if its the daily meditations or something else, but I am starting to feel “different”.  Kinda more at peace.  Some days I feel normal of course, but others (which are becoming more frequent) I feel an unusual sense of happiness at nothing in particular.  Now, I have a good life – I live in a beautiful place and have an amazing wife so I AM happy, however the happiness I am talking about here is different.  Its not happiness about my location or my gorgeous wife – its just about being happy!  I dont know why I am feeling this as there is zero reason but it is there and its increasing in frequency.

So, all told I am happy with the Wake Inducing OBE progress, I am certain it wont be long before I succeed.  I am of course annoyed at my current lack of discipline when waking up to attempt an OBE, but so far, when I DO manage to remain still upon waking, I have 100% success rate in moving into an OBE, which is encouraging – maybe I will tie myself down!

Current Progress and Annoyances

Since my last post I have made noticeable improvements to my wake induced OBE attempts.  Pretty much on every occasion I try, I get strong vibrations, but I guess that because I have not yet mastered total relaxation, particularly of the mind, the vibrations cause me to tense up.  This doesn’t happen when I wake up from sleep then induce OBE by staying still -  I think this is because my mind and body are already totally relaxed so the vibrations don’t cause me to tense.  I am also experiencing strong hypnogogic imagery which I can now observe passively for much longer than I previously could, however I still “snap back” to waking consciousness after a short while.  Last night for example, I was getting lots of images and as time passed they were getting more and more real.  I then got fairly strong vibrations and felt I was about to exit, then of course my mind snapped back and my body tensed, ruining the whole thing.  This happened around 5 times last night, with no improvement on controlling myself each time.  Its worth noting I was listening to Isochronic tones during all of this…

In addition to the above frustrations, I am suffering from Post-Nasal Drip – sounds lovely I know!  Basically this is a build up of phlegm / catarrh at the back of my throat.  This is very noticeable  when trying to enter trance, and the constant urge to clear my through or swallow is ruining any possibility of success in moving to an altered state. This single factor, I think, is hindering my wake induced OBE’s due to my inability to relax and “lose” my body.

So at the moment, while progress is certainly being made, my main way to induce OBE’s is by waking up during the night and going from there.  This is still great of course, but my goal is wake induced experiences.

Overall, I am still happy with my progress – I never thought I would ever be able to clear my mind for more than a few seconds, let alone enough to bring on Vibrations so I cant complain and im sure with continued practice I will stop ruining the exit by tensing, but I need this flippin Post Nasal Drip to disappear – and quick!

Also, I want to mention a strange “dream” I had last night after my failed OBE attempts.  I don’t recall the exact location, or in fact who I was talking to – but I got a clear voice talking to me telling me that the reason all humans are now in physical reality is because they are being punished for an act they committed in the non-physical.  Kind of like the physical reality being like a prison.  I found this odd mainly because I do not believe this to be the case, and for my mind to have created this phrase seems very unlikely when it goes against my beliefs.

Weird

So…I am currently using the Vehram method for OBE’s but as ive said previously, that is not how I want it to stay. I want to be able to wakefully induce the OBE state at will (within reason).  With this in mind, I have been both practicing deep relaxation and basic meditation (Gateway CD) during the day, and at night I try Phasing (noticing my hypnogogic images).  Both of these areas are showing really good signs of improvement which im happy about.

Tonight the phasing approach showed MASSIVE improvement for me.  Instead of the “fleeting” images fleeting away, I could spend around 10 seconds noticing them before my mind kicked them away.  This is a huge improvement from the literally split second images I was getting previously.  This went on for around an hour and a half with the duration of me being able to notice getting longer as time passed.

By the end, I was viewing a scene for a while, then suddenly the scene disappears and I could see through my eyelids into my room accompanied by mild vibrations and I thought “Wooo ive separated!”…and then I hear a voice, clear as day, as if the person was literally right next to my right ear saying “Is someone here?” and I shit myself.  Not literally (thankfully) but I really got a shock.  It was not just some hypnagogic voice ive had in the past, it was a REAL voice.  Feminine and sounded like she was surprised someone had arrived.  Needless to say, this stopped all OBE sensations and I then couldnt sleep with thoughts about what this was.  So now, its 0311AM Abu Dhabi time and im writing this!

The Missing Basic…

Aside from entitling this post by quoting Robert A Monroe, I think I found MY missing basic.

I was analyzing my OBE’s yesterday morning after not having much success with the Vehram method recently (although I am making progress with Wake Induced OBE’s, but more on that later).  The (apparent) answer hit me in the face whilst I was sitting on the…er…while I was sitting thinking   In ALL of my OBE’s excepting the LD induced one, I was trying to induce a wake induced OBE before I went to bed.  This resulted in my ALWAYS sleeping on my back, or more specific, my back and side.  Hence, when I then awoke at the time of my auto-programming I was on my back or back/side and the OBE triggered from there.

In my recent attempts, because I have been relying on the auto-programming method described above I have not been trying to induce OBE before bed and just made myself comfortable and slept…on my stomach.  Whilst “sitting thinking” yesterday I recalled every failed wake up attempt – they were all perfectly on time, like clockwork…and they were all identical in the way I woke up.  I woke up each time on my belly, and trying to breath better I moved up and around as a reflex without my being fully conscious of it until it was too late and I had realized I’d blown my OBE chance.

This seemed to click with me instantly, it was the only major difference.  And I cant believe I did not cotton on to this earlier.  Everything I read about OBE’s normally states back lying is best.  Its depicted in all images, and is the standard image in most peoples minds when they think of trance – someone on their back.  Why I did not realize this earlier, I have no idea.

So yesterday we had a house warming “party” so I had no intention of projecting at all as I would be drinking a bit.  I went to bed around 10pm an fell asleep.  I then awoke at 2am for the toilet and from then on was waking and dreaming and waking and dreaming for quite a while, but all the time I was conscious of NEVER lying on my stomach.  Some time around 0440 I was lying on my side and had just woke up but my body felt different and I knew that if I remained still the vibrations would come. And they DID   I then made a half-arsed exit and couldnt get control once I was out.  I tried to steady but I couldnt stand or stop rotating and was banging into (and through) my bedroom walls.  My goal for next (i.e. this!) projection was to walk through the wall at the same point as last time and see if I knock anything over again.  Part of me thinks it was a coincidence last time, but another part feels the resistance when going through objects and therefore could be logical that if the same resistance is shown by small objects then they may get knocked over.  Anyway, as I was bouncing around like a crack addicted yo-yo this goal wasnt possible so I decided to just fly up!  I flew up and the feeling was indescribable.  I seem to have forgot after my last flying OBE just how amazing it feels!  Once I was above my building I asked for more light, and it indeed became lighter.  I am a skydiver in my physical life but I havent jumped for a while so I wanted to remember the skydiving feeling so I just dropped and it was amazing!  As I neared the roof I slowed down and inadvertently thought of my body and then I kind of “clicked” back into my physical body.

A couple of points to note:

• When I was flying, I noticed I had a tshirt on when I didnt have one on Physically.  I wonder if my consciousness knows id prefer a Tshirt when outside so it kind of added it? Obviously my etheric body has no need for clothing so this was purely there for comfort purposes (I assume).  Would love to hear any thoughts on this.
• Also in regards to the Tshirt, I noticed that it was unaffected by wind.  This may seem obvious as it is not made of matter but when skydving in the physical im damn sure my tshirt would be moving!  But then, as I thought this it seemed to move.  Im not sure the relevance of this but I found it interesting that my thoughts changed this.
• After exiting my body, I literally felt drunk.  Not mentally, but physically.  I couldnt stand up.  My mind was extremely clear (hmm, come to think of it, this OBE lacked clarity in vision compared to my last one) but I couldnt control my “body”.  I wonder if this is the effect of alcohol?  Again, if anyone has any experiences regarding alcohol and OBE I would love to hear them.  I dont drink too often but the effects of this on OBE are interesting, especially as alcohol can only affect physical matter one would assume it leaves the projected double unhindered…

Something else which is none OBE related and something I would ordinarily just record in my personal dream journal, but happened last night…

I am a professional photographer in my work.  In my dream this morning (after the OBE) I was receiving money from a client who I often work for.  He was saying “here, I still owe you this but havent gotten round to it” – or something along those lines.  I remember feeling a bit bad in my dream because I thought he had over paid me.  Anyway, I woke up a short while later and went to sit on the…er…went to think.  When I was “thinking” I was reading a copy of this weeks “Time Out Abu Dhabi”.  I opened up the second page to find a full 2 page spread advertisement for a world class hotel…using MY images which I shot for the aforementioned client.  I am not sure if you are familiar with usage rights, but as I shot this for MY client, and not the hotel, this is a breach of usage rights.  For a large hotel group to use my images in a large publication, I would charge them quite a bit of money!  Hence the strangeness of my dream.  This guy does in fact owe me money!