I got fascinated by astral projection/lucid dreaming in the last couple of months, although I've been more drawn towards AP. I've attempted it a couple of times, but never had any success. I always fell asleep and woke up hours later. Until this morning. Initially, I set up my alarm clock at 3 am, because I had some work to do and wanted to finish the day early. Also, I could use this chance to try again some astral projection.

I woke up at 3, but postponed the alarm for 5am, and went back to sleep, as I was pretty tired. Fast forward 2 hours, and I get out of the bed, start my laptop and attempt some work. I realize I'm too weak for that at this early hour, so I put on some Seinfeld. After about an hour, I'm slowly drifting towards sleep. So I pause the show and lay on my back, allowing myself to relax more and more with each breath.

This time I didn't feel like I was tired though, and my only intention was to astral project. I stated my purpose - to get out of my body and travel to the other room through a wall to visit my girlfriend sleeping, and also to remember what I will be dreaming - and remembered these key points several times during the 45-50 minutes preceding the sleep. Thoughts were still present, but it was very easy to not get caught in them. After a while, some visual hallucinations started: I was seeing different patterns, shadows and lights which I associated with neural discharges. A couple of minutes later, as I fell asleep and then woke up multiple times, I entered the sleep paralysis phase.

Normally, when that happens, I instantly panic and want to wake up. But this time, I kept my calm, and remembered that I wanted to astral project, so I will continue with it. I was feeling like I was "transforming", there was this sensation like my whole body is pulled apart in different directions, and a mild pain was experienced (well, maybe just actually the sensation of pain, which was just plain weird - not quite unpleasant, but weird). After this "transformation" process came and go a few times, I finally got "there". The transition was so smooth I couldn't even tell where I was or how I got there.

At this point, my purpose for being here didn't came to mind; I am curious though, so I "look around". Looking doesn't really do much justice to the actual experience, but I'll use this word for the sake of convenience and lack of a better word. I recognize the room that I am in, it's very familiar (it was my actual current living room, but slightly different). The room is very bright, as if it's bathed in direct sun, but this is weird, because my apartment is at the lowest level, and there's usually not much light coming in, because of the outside trees. Anyway, I move on to looking at this huge ficus like plant that's sitting in the middle of my living room, which I just noticed. I don't know where this came from, I don't have such a plant in my house; however, I could swear that it looked a lot like a ficus my parents had while I was a child. Except it was like 10x bigger. This got my attention, I knew this wasn't the ordinary reality I was used to, and I knew that I reached a magical place.

At this point, I "move" towards a door, not remembering to go through the wall. I wanted to see my girlfriend and check her reaction. However, as I'm moving towards the bedroom, I'm surprised to see that she's in the bathroom (in reality, she was sleeping in the bedroom). She looked at me, but for some reason instead of speaking to her, it seemed more logical to me to grab an empty bottle and to kick it against the desk I have in the living room, to get her attention (I can't remember hearing any sounds, though). I think I was sensing that I'm drawn back to my body, because the next thing I know is my arms and legs slowly landing on the couch, as if I was standing on my back this whole time and was transported through thin air and gently landed back on the bed. I vividly recall my arms and legs looking like some sort of ethereal objects, and I again felt the sleep paralysis for a few seconds before regaining my physical senses and waking up. I checked the room, and there was indeed a bottle of water identical to the one in my dream, but this one was full!

I tried to continue, but I was so excited and decided to give it another try the next day. I've noticed that I've woken up in the exact same position before falling asleep, not even the blanket I was covered in was disturbed!

I also wanted to ask you if the sleep paralysis phase is usually this "painful"? It's hard to describe because it wasn't pain per say that I experienced, but it was like my bones were twisting and moving inside my arms and legs. Not painful, but simply weird and totally out of place! Haha

Also, is it normal to jump in and out of sleep paralysis? Or is the transition going to become smoother once I get the hang of it better?

Thanks for taking the time to read this lengthy post and I hope I haven't bored you too much.

Kudos.

You have taken your first baby steps into an artform that many still don't believe is real. Even here in the Nexus, there are a ton of nay-sayers who will poo-poo the very notion of Astral Projection.

Lucid Dreaming has become mainstream enough that people have stopped dismissing it as fantasy, but AP is at least a decade or more behind LDing in this.

Sleep paralysis is usually not painful. Pins and needles at times... and it can certainly be weird.

As you get better at it, you will be able to avoid any discomfort, but in the beginning, loud booms, jumping in and out of SP and other such things are rather common.

Good luck with your journeys.

Be well brother.

Thanks, HF! Yeah, my baby steps As for is it real or not, I like to believe that everything I am aware of experiencing must be real on some level. I don't disregard crazy ideas any more, because I've been shown impossible things become possible through psychedelics. It IS fun though, if you don't go crazy about why or how it works...

The difference between reality and non-reality is belief, or lack thereof, really. I'm sure most of you here can agree with that.

Astral projection and lucid dreaming are the most amazing and puzzling features of our own mind imo. Congratulations on ur (first?) taste of astral projection. Far greater than I. I've been obsessed by the very thing for months now and still haven't consciously APed. I think there's a fine line between lucid dreaming and astral projection tho. If you ask me astral projection is just a word to describe a far deeper lucid dream. It's also been described as exactly the same thing except in astral projection you believe it's real. Most lucid dreamers see it more as a very advanced video game.

Some people will meditate in a lucid dream and attempt to astral project from there. It's an amazing skill. I'm sure it will impress a lot of people if you tell them you meditate inside a lucid dream.

Sleep paralysis is weird. Completely nuts at times. Some people get abducted by aliens in sleep paralysis. I know a woman who has felt herself being sexually abused by a non-physical entity and sometimes thrown around her room for months before she learned to control the situation. I've never gotten to a good SP state unless i was just coming back from a dream. Usually after i had a really big lucid dream or just a very realistic dream i wake up vibrating heavily. The presence of an omnipotent voice and hearing loud footsteps and screams has been there in both two times i was in full-blown SP. Sometimes i actually scream myself for no apparent reason. It's a very physical feeling you feel in ur throat just like screaming for real. I'm not even sure if i didn't. Usually i'm not really awake right then i just wake up in a dream and then i wake up for real, still vibrating. One time I even witnessed a transparant ghost floating trough my room and trough my bed while i was wide awake.

Point being that, sleep paralysis seems a different experience for everyone. Maybe physical pain is just ur version of what happened. I would try to find a way to not have this happen to you every time you into SP if you find it discouraging.

Also. My very first lucid dream flying around was in an environment i've never seen before, it looked like nighttime except there was this glow on the ground that looks like bright sunlight just as you describe it. It was also very blissfull. I saw people there with their eyes closed for some reason.

I really recommend listening to Albert Taylor's interview on a radio show where he briefly goes over some of his experiences with SP and OBEs if you are interested. It opened up a doorway of thinking which i didn't have before. It gets so surreal that i'd say he was bluntly lying about his experiences if i didn't know better. The first 1 or 2 parts are mostly introductionary but it gets really interesting. I'm looking forward to reading his book called "Soul Traveler" . Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDdsetSiMQA

This was indeed my first AP experience; that is, the first time I actually knew what was happening; I've experienced the paralysis before, but never jumped into AP, but rather into a lucid dream. I wasn't aware of those terms at that time though, I realize those things now, looking back in time.

Analyzing the AP and the LD experiences (admittedly with my limited knowledge), I would go ahead and say that an AP is an LD and vice versa. I mean, in a lucid dream you don't really have a physical body, right, and neither do you in an astral projection. You're aware that you're dreaming, in both of them. The realization comes later into the lucid dream though, so that would be a difference.

It seems hard to me to distinguish the 2 at the current time, so please help me out if there's anything I'm missing.



If only I knew how to...



Thanks, I dig the guy. Interesting stuff, too. Now I need to buy that book, too I have the Robert Monroe books in line, plus some McKenna and Castaneda books on the way. Plenty of stuff to read in the next 6 months or so...

Actually, AP's and LD's are quite different phenomena.

In lucid dreams where you enter directly from sleep paralysis (WILDing) you leave your body and enter a dream state without a break in consciousness. (Wake Induced Lucid Dreaming)

With astral projection, you don't leave this world at all, but exit your body and are able to travel in THIS waking life without your corporeal form. It is possible to have lucid dreams that resemble this, and it is only clear to you that you are truly astral projecting when you can travel around your waking world and find information which can confirm that you are indeed still in this reality to check up on later.

Generally, this involves the seeing of your sleeping form.

Some suitable tests might include going into a neighboring room that you have not had physical access to or finding something you have no knowledge of (like today's newspaper or some unseen mail), and then going ahead and checking with your waking corporeal form to make sure that the info is the same. The first time you do this is generally a life changing event.

However, once you become familiar with the differences, it becomes rather easy to ascertain which state you have achieved without bothering to check it out, as they are experientially somewhat different.

Good luck to all who attempt these somewhat advanced techniques. They are not all that easy to achieve, and many people doubt if they are even possible. I can tell you that they are indeed possible, and that anyone with sufficient intention should eventually be able to master them.

Be well friends.

So HF, are you saying that you used to be interested in AP but had never done it...and then at some point discovered a technique to achieve it (i.e. your first experience wasn't just spontaneous and unexpected)?

Can you share with us what were the breakthrough discoveries/techniques which worked for you?

I think a lot of us here have tried all the various traditional techniques with absolutely no effect, and would appreciate some help from someone we know/trust.

The closest I ever got was when I had binaural beats playing through headphones, and had this experience like someone had grabbed my shirt at both shoulders and was violently shaking me up and down as I lay there. Wayhay, I thought, here we go...but after 10 seconds the feeling just faded away, and that was it.

Would love it if you could suggest a technique which actually gets results - or maybe it's just something only some people are wired up to achieve? My wife spontaneously had the experience of floating up to the ceiling and looking down - so at least I know for sure it is a 'real' thing.

Of course it's easy to prove them wrong.

Agree on a remote location were an object will be replaced.
The other person will then pick a random object that you do not know about and place it in the agreed upon location.
You then simply astral project to that location and then report back what object was hidden.

If you, or anyone else, does that then EVERYONE on the nexus will believe in Astral Projects.

My personal belief...and it's just a belief...is that Astral Project = Lucid Dreaming.
I say that as someone that has had a few lucid dreams...but nothing as of yet has convinced me
that I can remotely see things which would seem to be a trait of Astral Projection.

Believe Nothing. Allow Anything. Question Everything.

I humbly allow for the possibility of Astral Projection, but I have not seen a shred of evidence to suggest it is anything more than lucid dreaming or a dream like state.

I tend to think of lucid dreaming and astral projection as two sides of the same coin, so to speak.

Dream reality can merge with waking, "real time" reality.

For example: I once woke up from a dream about spiders and (with my eyes open) saw the dream spiders crawling on my wall next to my bed, fading away slowly. Scared the Bejesus out of me!

Another example might be how schizophrenics may be dreaming during their awake state so they confuse dreams with reality.

So, even though consciousness might be able to detach and perceive "real time" reality, it may be able to dream at the same time and perceive two realities at the same time.

I'm starting to confuse myself so I'll leave it at that! Isn't reality weird?

@joedirt

I have already posted such an account on the Nexus. The response was basically what you would imagine from a den of skeptics...

Actually, I would expect nothing else. Tests along the lines you have laid out only prove anything to the astral projector themselves, and perhaps the friend who helps lay out the test. And even then, the friend can not be sure that you didn't cheat somehow... Anyone who hasn't experienced astral projection for themselves will simply have to take the word of the projector as to the nature of their experience.

This is as it has been since time immemorial. And, truth be told, anyone who has accomplished such a feat should care very little what other people think about it.

I imagine that any aliens present on the Earth are not overly concerned with proving the alien nature of their physiology to human "scientists."

@Limeni

I can't say that there is any great secret to it. It generally involves a different exit technique from the sleep paralysis state. If you exit out of the top of your head or go within, you end up in a lucid dream. If you exit by sitting up, floating out, or (my favorite) twisting out by spinning the form 90 degrees on the horizontal plane... you will likely end up astral projecting. This is not fixed though, as it is a matter of your intention. You can exit any way you want, but if you intend to dream you will probably dream.

It is also quite possible to go into either state, as well as some very diverse altered states from deep meditation without ever experiencing sleep paralysis. Again, the limiting factors tend to be the innate barriers holding your consciousness in place, intention, and will.

All I can really say about these skills is that they are indeed skills. These are not things you can read about and try a few times to master. They are abilities that may take years of practice to get a grasp on. I often compare it to learning how to walk. It took you years to do that, and these skills make walking look like breathing.

I don't know anyone who just got on a bicycle and was able to ride the first time... skateboard, surf, snowboard or cook a meal either.

Anyway, good luck. You will get there if you are sincere in your efforts. You must hone your intent like you would a samurai sword. Keep it sharp and ready, and you can accomplish any number of things that our left brained colleagues here would never believe are possible.

An accurate and respectful name for them. Very nice, HF.

I too find AP hard to believe, but after psychedelics, at least for me the range of what is possible and impossible has been greatly extended. The language used to describe things such as AP surely doesn't help (much like the "energies" elsewhere). I remain highly skeptical.

As for the comparison with walking, skating etc, one thing they all share in common is that you can intuitively gauge your progress (minus maybe walking, due to age). It seems this AP stuff is either hit or miss, that being the case the analogy doesn't apply. But I could be wrong, zero experience with it, as stated before.

As for sleep paralysis, I've never even had that my whole life! It sounds scary though.


How would you go about proving this? How far can you project? Say, if I placed an object somewhere and gave you GPS coordinates, could you find your way around ?

Could you AP to the moon, Mars and beyond?

Honest questions, I never really read much more than superficially about it.

Being skeptical just shows that you are smart and not prone to believing things on faith. And, why should you have faith in anything someone says who you have no reason to trust or believe in?

I think that there are ways to gauge your progress with AP. They are more like gates or plateaus than they are gradual ascents. A bit like reaching levels of a step pyramid. For AP, reaching a total body relaxation to the point that you feel the tingling sensations all over would be step 1. Sleep paralysis would be step 2. As you approach the exit, there are other distinct hurdles such as hearing tones, waves, buzzing... and then the BOOM. Sometimes you can free your astral arm, but still be stuck in your body. So you have the sensation of lifting up your arm only to look up and see a ghost arm rather than your physical arm.

The actual amount of steps might not be that great, but you can tell as you get better that you are, in fact, improving. The same could be said of riding a bike. Being able to get on it, riding with training wheels, riding with training wheels barely touching the ground, warbling along without training wheels... and so on.

In the end, AP is more difficult than bike riding. And, there are no commercially available training wheels. No bunny slopes... Even with surfing, you can start on a long board.

The only real advantage you can get with this art is to find a competent teacher... or someone who knows what they are doing to give you advice and serve as an inspiration over the long time it will take you to master this skill.

As for range of astral projection...

Hard to say. I suppose anything is possible.

I don't see why one couldn't astral project to Mars, or some GPS coordinates, though I don't know how having those coordinates would be helpful in AP considering the fact that you wouldn't have access to GPS while projecting.

IME, the silver cord that tethers you to your form seems rather tenuous at times... even if you don't see it specifically. I have never personally feared becoming permanently separated from my body. But it does seem like something that could happen when you are projecting. There is a feeling of not wanting to wander too far away.

I don't know why. When lucid dreaming I can fly through space and travel to distant galaxies... but I don't think that I am going to the actual places in my waking world... certainly not with the astral body I have here. (who knows?) When we throw an open air concert on a gas giant, I am not checking for details that I can confirm later...

I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try. Perhaps tonight I will pick a moon of Saturn that I know nothing about, and go explore it. Then in the morning, a quick check of Wikipedia will confirm whether I was actually there or not.

Of course, every dream has a different reality quotient to it.

The thing about Lucid Dreaming is that it is pretty clear that the realms you travel to are either mental constructions, alternate universes, or other spiritual realms. With AP, you really feel like you are a ghost in your actual home, flying around your neighborhood etc.

I have never projected much more than about 50 km from my body... generally I don't go more than 1km. I am careful not to go anywhere where I might find it hard to find my way back with my knowledge of the area. It is said that you can just tug on your silver cord and get pulled back... or simply will the experience to be over and just open your eyes. All of my AP's though have ended with me flying back into my body, with the exception of a few where I decided to try to go from AP to LD directly and managed to meditate from a hovering lotus position near my body directly into a lucid dream.

Also, I have rarely ever actually seen any silver cord connecting me to my body. Maybe once or twice. I can feel some indescribable sensation that indicates which direction my body lies in... but I don't think I want to push the envelope with this too much. I do believe that it might be possible for some other spirit to enter your body when you are not there...

I know it sounds crazy, but there is a reason that mystic have tended to have cats or other guardians watch over their bodies while they journeyed.

Whatever. Let the skeptic flame session begin.

No skeptic flame from this poster HF, you know I've already talked to you personally about this matter.

You really should get around to those Robert Monroe books, specifically "Far Journeys" and "Ultimate Journey" (also recommend books by his prodege (sp?) Rosalind McKnight "Cosmic Journeys" and "Soul Journeys". In fact (and lately I feel like I'm pushing this material on every thread I post on for that I apologize), these accounts of 'professional' astral projection has such strong parallels with my own experiences of hyperspace that it cannot be just conicedance (to me anyways).

The only thing I will say in regards to what HF says about being harder than learning to ride a bike is that I think that's only true for us as adults. For instance, in my own experiences, I have vivid memories of astral projecting as a small child. I used to be able to fall asleep at night and have real-time 'dreams' (which is what I thought they were for most of my life until reading about AP). In these dreams, I'd float around my kitchen as my mom would be doing the dishes and I would want her to notice me but it was like I was a ghost and she didn't respond to me at all. Then I'd move to my dad who would be reading the paper under the spiral staircase we used to have at our old house. To try and get his attention, I would climb to the top of the steps and tell him I could fly. I'd then jump off the stairs, and float about 6 inches from the top of his head and just sort of levitate there until I'd wake up totally startled (and unsettled) in my bed. This happened very regularly until certain events in my life forced me to 'grow up' (and accept Christianity as my belief system and thus decry astral projection as some work of the devil).

Another time while undergoing surgery when I was about 10, the anasthesia had an unusual effect on me that I never really understood until my first breakthrough on psychedelics. While undergoing surgery, I was floating in the corner of the room in an ephermal body. Like, I could see I had hands but they weren't really hands more like the after image of a hand. I could look down on all the surgeons in the room and what was happening and I could even see myself lying unconcious on the operating room table. Had I had any clue that I was AP'ing, I could have quite effortlessly picked an object's orientation in the room or overhear a conversation and repeat it later. However, since I was totally stunned (and still very young) I had no idea what was happening and thought it was all a dream.

Nowadays though I have the most difficult time even having a dream I can remember (likely due to my cannabis habit), let alone mastering the process of seperating from my body. I understand, based upon my life experiences, why this probably is but it's been one hell of a battle trying to get back to what was so intuitive as a child.

As I'm typing this I'm reminded of Jesus' words: "Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." This definately seems to apply in my situation.

Lots of valuable information gathered here. Thank you. I personally have been away for a short vacation, so I only got the chance to read all this stuff now...

I've been attempting AP-ing lately, without success of getting to the SP stage anymore, though It seems that one needs great persistence with this. I only managed to get to the first stage, the tingling of the whole body. After that, I couldn't keep myself calm in order to advance to the SP phase. It seems to me that it takes me a long time to be able to fully relax my whole body to the point where I don't feel it anymore (this is when the tingling starts).

I also have to note a sensation of "lift off". It's like my astral body is trying to float its way out of my physical body, but I can't completely detach, just like HF said. After about an hour or so, I fall asleep, involuntarily - probably because by then my mind is exhausted from all the focusing. It feels like it's getting better each time, though, so I'll keep practicing.



I can totally relate to that. I've had dreams where I suddenly woke up, only to be surprised and frightened when parts of the dream world were in the room with me. It was hard to distinguish the ordinary reality from the non-ordinary one, and that's what made it frightening. Things like non-existing objects in the room or right next to me in the bed (toys, towels, blankets, photographs, etc.) melting into other objects or being drawn by "shadow hands" through the room or under the bed became very natural occurences for me. What made it worse was that neither my parents, nor my sister believed any of that. After a while - maybe less than a couple of minutes - the dream world would slowly melt away. I have to note that these kinds of things happened to me only as a kid, I can't recall having those after 10 or 12.



I was wondering if that was possible. But how would that be happening? I mean, how can you protect yourself against something like that when in the astral plane? Can an entity detect and mess with the silver cord without your will (or sneak behind your back)? Isn't this supposedly impossible to harm except for NDE experiences or death?

Abilities as a child...

I think everyone has noticed that there were things they did regularly as a kid which became rare and then basically impossible as they grew up. After years of trying to be an adult, many people rekindle interest in those forgotten abilities... along with a wealth of new information and terminology with which to describe and understand the phenomena.

Only the rarest kids, raised by the most enlightened parents or guardians can hold on to their natural mystic abilities. This is because everyone you meet as a child (especially the adults), is effectively teaching you how to view and construct your reality. It is a deep and lengthy period of indoctrination which takes an open and naturally connected baby and smashes them into the box we call our consensual reality. It is kind of a brutal and horrible thing to do to someone, but unless you were discovered as the reincarnation of a Tibetan Lama at birth and raised by supernatural tantric masters... I am guessing you all underwent this.

I remember being able to clearly see and communicate with spirits, ghosts, angelic beings and even more alien intelligences as a child. I retained these abilities and others fairly long, and could still do them to some degree in Elementary School. However, I distinctly remember meeting with a group of my "invisible friends" (not invisible to me, of course) during summer camp one year when I wandered away from the group. They told me it would be a loooong time before I saw them again, and that I had to go through this dumbing down and retardation that we call growing up... I begged them not to go. I said I would be like Peter Pan and stay young forever. The interesting thing about that event was that it only seemed like 5 or 10 minutes that I was gone, but my camp counselors were in a panic when I emerged from the forest... they said they had been searching for me for well over an hour.

Anyway. We can all just be happy that we are at this point in our spiritual development that we can see the "grown up" worldview indoctrination for what it is. We are now able to have the best of both worlds. We can participate in the consensual basic reality as we see fit, while redeveloping the magical abilities we may have enjoyed as children. On the path to mastery, we will be able to transcend the thesis of childhood, the antithesis of adulthood... and find a synthesis that unlocks all the mysteries of creation for us.

That's what I think anyway.

I'm not sure about this, but the annals of history are overflowing with accounts of spirit possession. Naturally, most of the victims weren't astral projectors and certainly not projecting at the time.

I do believe there are significant and powerful safeguards that are in place automatically when we journey. But still, it doesn't hurt to clear your space well before you go away, and avail yourself of any and every advantage you might be able to gather to your aid. Setting up & strengthening one's shields... having guardians and allies assist you.

The whole "having a cat thing" is very common. This is because cats seem to be able to see spirits, and (more importantly) scare them away if they are distasteful. In ancient Egypt, killing cats was punishable by death.

If I had to guess, I would say it takes a rather strong (and malevolent) spirit or entity to take over someone's body. They also have to be somewhat deranged. All the higher beings I encounter seem rather glad to be free of such a gross and limiting shell, and wouldn't take on a body if it was offered to them free of any strings.

I think the person being possessed must also be rather weak and damaged in some way. Chronically depressed, incredibly fearful, or something like that.

Perhaps there is some Karmic bond between the entity and the person.

Who knows?

There are beings of great power and malice that could probably enter one's body against one's will and take it over, but I think your typical spirit possession is more of a parasitic relationship. They hide in a corner of your mental or astral body and rarely even make themselves known. Ayahuasca circles have shown me that many people carry around dark passengers without even realizing it. People will actually mistake the thoughts of the parasitic being as their own.

Be wary if you have thoughts goading you into fear or rage, have odd visceral reactions to things, or feel drained and weak all the time.

Whether or not such things happen during projections... looking down on your vacant physical form, it is quite striking that this glorious meat machine is a house, or a suit of clothes you wear. It doesn't feel like too much of stretch to imagine someone else wearing or inhabiting it.

HF

Disclaimer: I am not an accomplished Astral Projector, and if I have ever done it it was when I was a child and thought I was dreaming at the time.


That being said, I've been doing a lot of research on AP lately because I'm trying to relearn the ability (which I think is true of all of us who can't do it, we used to be able to when we were children or that's a theory I have anyways). One of the things that has always alarmed me about the phenomenon is exactly what the question above relates to: if I'm not in my body does that mean that someone else can come up and take it over?

I've been passionately studying the work of Robert Monroe and listening to taped sessions he had with explorers who would channel entities from non-physical reality, and the question of spirit possession did come up and I'd like to share that here.

Just note that not being an accomplished AP'er myself, I have no idea if this information is totally valid or not but it's worth sharing for the sake of discussion.

In Robert Monroe's 'different overview' of looking at reality, he comes to a couple of startling conclusions. First of all the human individual existing in 3D space/time is actually a multi-dimensional creature existing in several different 'bodies' at once. There were five that were discussed in detail, which were your physical, etheric-substance, emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies.

Now, in Monroe's view, when one AP's into the real time zone (i.e. physical reality but in spirit form), they have actually moved past only the physical body and are travelling in their ether body which is similar to the physical although not bound by physical laws. This ether body is also what is commonly associated with ghosts and other phantom apparitions. In short, the ether body likes to hang around physical 3D earth long after the physical body is left behind. In fact, they are so similar that a lot of people who have died suddenly are unaware that they have died due to still having this very human-like body called the ether body, but I digress.

In Bob's findings, there are certain forces in physical reality that cause a soul to get trapped in the physical. Beings who die with a strict belief structure about what happens to them after death end themselves up in an in-between (purgatory if you like) state in which they are no longer alive in the physical but have no idea how to move on into higher dimensions since they were so bogged down by their earth life experience. This is the origin of what we call ghosts and apparitions in his view.

Now, these souls who are trapped in this in-between state are desperate to try to find a way to re-enter the physical (since they are, at that point, unaware of anything but the physical). If they come upon a body that is alive and has no 'soul' in it (that is, the ether body of the AP'er is out and about doing stuff), these lost souls will try and assume the physical body and some succeed in this. At this point, it becomes hard to seperate the lost soul (due to it's ignorance of anything higher than the physical) to release the body back to it's original owner. Some, when confronted with the possibility of bodily evicition become even more violently possessive of their newfound physical body. Think of a small child who finds a toy that belongs to someone else, refuses to give it back and screams 'MINE!!' whenever a parent tries to come near it.

Now, this danger is predominant when the AP'er is projecting in the real-time zone. The explanation for this is because these departed souls are stuck in the real-time zone of earth that when an AP'er projects into physical life reality it can encounter all the negative things that float around in the astral realms of planet earth. This is how one would typically encounter the spirit possession problem.

Now, there is another way of astral projecting and I won't go into great detail about the differences between the two, but the other type of AP'ing Monroe discovered took him into a place that, by his and his subject's descriptions, is very similar to the way we describe hyperspace in this community (including the concept of 'phasing out of time' and 'entering other reality systems'. In this form of AP'ing the odds of spirit possession are greatly lowered, about as low as getting possessed randomly by a spirit in your dream (not saying that's not possible I have no idea either way).


However, like I said I make no claims that this information is valid, having not perfected the art of AP'ing myself. However, this and other phenomenon that Monroe describes in the out of body state has close parallels with my experiences in non-physical reality so I place them here for the sake of discussion.

Specifically I'd like to here HF's opinion on this material since he is an AP'er himself. Does any of this ring true in your experiences HF?

^^^
Yeah. This stuff has some things that dovetail with my experiences.

I think terminology is difficult to agree upon, and whenever we try and pin this stuff down with language it proves impossible.

I agree that we are multi-dimensional beings. I agree that we have multiple bodies that kind of nest together...

For my purposes, it is enough to speak of our material self, our astral (etheric) body, and our spirit (or causal) self. Perhaps it makes sense to talk of a pure soul that inhabits the causal body... and in fact, you can divide any of these arbitrary distinctions into further divisions.

Where I differ from Mr. Monroe perhaps is my idea that we also exist in many other places in the Omniverse as well. We inhabit alternate timelines, other universes and various other dimensions of this vast thing we call existence. In various other places, we have various other bodies. Thus it is possible for the same "soul" to inhabit legions of physical or astral forms. (Physical forms inevitably have their own astral bodies.) This seems quite a bit more multi-dimensional than what Mr. Monroe has said above, but again, it is really difficult to talk about this stuff.

As for spirit possession, I have been present when people took on other spirits... and it is hard to doubt in person. While there are plenty of fakes and charlatans out there, if you meet a real channeler, witch doctor, or voodoo priest... you will find it difficult to argue with the hairs standing on their ends all up and down your body.

I see ghosts fairly easily. In my travels, I have met hundreds of them. They are usually confused, and like it says above... clinging and attached to this world. Often they are just echoes of their astral self reenacting some mundane sequence over and over... Walking down a hall, turning around, opening a door and entering. They often have very low functioning consciousness... and are usually tired of being stuck. You can aid these poor souls by opening a dimensional portal for them to pass through. If you can get them to use this doorway, the hauntings associated with them will stop. I have seen ones that will flip circuit breakers and blow fuses... cause lights to flicker... even turn on electric equipment.

The second type of AP that Mr. Monroe talks about, I don't consider AP so much as a form of dreaming. Thus, as with dreaming, you have a dreambody to travel with instead of the astral body associated with your physical form... hence, no vacancy for marauders. It is wise to hold and keep a very clear and high vibrational space if you want to AP. The light spirits will never possess you... certainly not against your will. Plus, they scare away any spirits that might want to do so.

I don't think spirit possession is limited to ghosts, though. I really believe that there are some types of dark entities that can also do this. These "demons" (for lack of a better term) are the kind of spirit possession that you see in the Bible. (& exaggerated for screen in the classic film the Exorcist.)

I would like to wrap this up by saying that I am not 100% sure of anything I have said here. I have a great deal of experience with this stuff, but I would never claim to pronounce the absolute truth of these things to anyone... certainly not the objective truth. I can recount hundreds of crazy subjective experiences, and perhaps people who hear them would come to different conclusions about what is going on than I have. I am still processing a lot of stuff.

That said, I am not talking out my ass.

Blessings,
HF

Thanks for that post HF.

The only thing I will add is that Monroe does discuss being incarnated in multiple dimensions simultaneously. In fact, while he was alive he was told he had another aspect of himself, a female in the then Soviet Union, who was working on the same type of AP research Bob was. When Bob asked about her, his non-physical friends told him that if he ever met her she would seem like a long lost sister and her primary function (as it were) was to serve as a 'backup' in case Monroe had ever abandoned his work. I thought that was interesting as there have been people I've met in my life that I have had these impossibly close connections to, like being able to finish their sentences and know their intimate feelings without them saying anything.

I like what you say that instead of a different type of astral projection it's exploring in a dream body. That makes a lot more sense in my opinion. When Monroe had described it (and having no reference myself) I kept thinking he was just projecting in two different directions. Like to AP out into the real time zone, he had to sort of wiggle out into his room and then proceed to explore, where when in the 'dream' body he described it as a sort of 'tuning into' other realities. This phasing into other energy systems is what primarily caught my attention as very hyperspace-like.

Another thing Monroe talks about in his programs is forming what's called a REBAL in your mind. If I understand this correctly, this is a basic type of mental shield to put up through some sort of visualization technique that is supposed to ward off negs (if I may use that term). Any experience with this type of protection energy HF?