OBEs with the Body Awake?

[dreamosis]

How many of you have had OBEs while your body was awake?

The vast majority of OBEs happen in conjunction with falling asleep, awakening from sleep, and sleep paralysis. Or, you could say, they happen during the type of trance in which the body is deeply relaxed to the point of heaviness.

How many of you have had OBEs from a light trance while sitting up? Or in other ways with the body relatively active?

All of my OBEs have happened from a state of full or deep trance.

I remember in Astral Dynamics Robert Bruce describing a "remote-eye" type of projection during a time in which he was entranced but actually standing and moving around slowly.

I've had one experience, which I would probably call an astral projection, which was induced by trauma. Once, when having my blood drawn, I passed out and immediately found myself floating over the planet. I was confused and could feel and hear voices(/information) coming from the Earth that sounded like a news cast. It felt very much like an astral-type projection. I wouldn't call it a dream because I wasn't even remotely sleepy or falling asleep at the time -- and you can't really say I was unconscious, I was perfectly awake! I did totally lose awareness of my physical surroundings and when I regained awareness of my body, I had amnesia for about thirty seconds. I panicked because I had zero idea where I was or why there was blood all over me and the table (the needle had come out and spilled when I passed out.) I thought the nurse was trying to hurt me.

Dreams are possible in non-REM states, but at the very least this was a lucid dream entered from a full, physical awareness in about ten seconds as I got woozy.

Has anyone had OBEs/astral projections/lucid dreams that came on very quickly, with the physical body not resting?

[Alienor]

I just sit down and close my eyes, that is what people call "phasing", I think.

And if your question was not about OBE, but about projecting, I came to realize that people do project very often without even noticing. So it is not an experience of being out of body, but someone who is seeing the astral can see the projections.

Therefore it seems to be not that much the projecting, what is difficult, but the part of shifting ones awareness.

[dreamosis]

Therefore it seems to be not that much the projecting, what is difficult, but the part of shifting ones awareness.

Sure, I get that. And yes, I might have been unclear, but my question is about OBEs -- that is, the experience of leaving, or feeling like you're leaving, the body.

So, when you "phase," what do you feel? Do you feel vibrations? Hear noises? Or, with phasing, are you talking about an OBE-like experience at all?

[CFTraveler]

How many of you have had OBEs while your body was awake? I do, but it's something that developed sometime last year. It's annoying, because I have to focus on not moving.


The vast majority of OBEs happen in conjunction with falling asleep, awakening from sleep, and sleep paralysis. Or, you could say, they happen during the type of trance in which the body is deeply relaxed to the point of heaviness. That is correct. I think the thing that makes it happen is the state the brain is in- the thing is, that when you get some experience you can reach this state without the paralysis, which actually makes it more difficult, if faster.


How many of you have had OBEs from a light trance while sitting up? Or in other ways with the body relatively active? Me, me and me.




I remember in Astral Dynamics Robert Bruce describing a "remote-eye" type of projection during a time in which he was entranced but actually standing and moving around slowly. I would characterize this as phasing.


I've had one experience, which I would probably call an astral projection, which was induced by trauma. Once, when having my blood drawn, I passed out and immediately found myself floating over the planet. I was confused and could feel and hear voices(/information) coming from the Earth that sounded like a news cast. It felt very much like an astral-type projection. I wouldn't call it a dream because I wasn't even remotely sleepy or falling asleep at the time -- and you can't really say I was unconscious, I was perfectly awake! I did totally lose awareness of my physical surroundings and when I regained awareness of my body, I had amnesia for about thirty seconds. I panicked because I had zero idea where I was or why there was blood all over me and the table (the needle had come out and spilled when I passed out.) I thought the nurse was trying to hurt me. This is not rare- I would say it was an OBE related to trauma, or even a mini-NDE. Who knows, but trauma does cause this type of thing.
I think you tapped into the M-Band.


Dreams are possible in non-REM states, but at the very least this was a lucid dream entered from a full, physical awareness in about ten seconds as I got woozy. The last I heard, dreams happen in all sleep states, but they are not remembered unless the person wakes up afterward.

[dreamosis]

...when you get some experience you can reach this state without the paralysis, which actually makes it more difficult, if faster.


I'm not sure I know what you mean here. Are you saying having OBEs without paralysis are more difficult to have, but the projection process happens faster?



I think you tapped into the M-Band.


Is "M-Band" a reference to Robert Monroe's research? Mental-Band?

[CFTraveler]

I'm getting a weird Deja-Vu with this thread. But never mind me.



...when you get some experience you can reach this state without the paralysis, which actually makes it more difficult, if faster.


I'm not sure I know what you mean here. Are you saying having OBEs without paralysis are more difficult to have, but the projection process happens faster? I mean that the trance state necessary to project happens earlier than when I started projecting consciously, but more difficult to achieve or to keep, because any little movement can break the trance, so there is a dual awareness that is constantly 'on'. You don't dissociate from your body as you do when 'a beginner'.
For example, when I began consciously projecting, I would be able to project as soon as the vibrations began (and I was paralyzed)- and there was a state of 'not being a body'- but the trance and it's disassociation from the body made the exit easy.
Now, I am barely in trance and already seeing (clairvoyance/hypnagogics) I can be hearing sounds and voices and not be ready to project- and when I do project from this state, I am completely awake and have to keep very still. The exit is difficult if I want to have an RTZ OBE because of the 'movement related' exit techniques- phasing is easier as long as I don't try to 'lean into' the environment too much and actually move.
The state comes on quickly, almost too quickly, and I have to be careful not to move. The good thing about it is that I can come back to trance fairly quickly after breaking it, but I don't always have the time.




I think you tapped into the M-Band.


Is "M-Band" a reference to Robert Monroe's research? Mental-Band? Yessir. Or Ma'am.

[Alienor]

I'm getting a weird Deja-Vu with this thread. But never mind me.



...when you get some experience you can reach this state without the paralysis, which actually makes it more difficult, if faster.

I'm not sure I know what you mean here. Are you saying having OBEs without paralysis are more difficult to have, but the projection process happens faster?


Same here, I think the same kind of question and answer by CFTraveler I did read some weeks ago :D

@Dreamosis: You have not been unclear, guess I was - as I meant to say "if your question would not have been about OBE, but more general", being aware, that it is about OBE. I found it interesting myself, when I noticed how people are "out of body", but not aware of it. Some people are even aware, but think they are just having some kind of lucid dream - it took me a while to realize that.


So, when you "phase," what do you feel? Do you feel vibrations? Hear noises? Or, with phasing, are you talking about an OBE-like experience at all?
With phasing I do have a body in astral, do feel, hear, see things which my astral body feels, hears and sees - that is what I call an OBE. But I can still also feel my physical body and even scratch myself or such, that just does make concentration/focus much more difficult, that did need some practice.
Exit vibrations are more rare with phasing - I do not have those. But I did read, that even with the other techniques the vibrations after a while might not come anymore.

[dreamosis]

I have had very "smooth" OBEs in which I didn't feel much in the way of vibrations at all. Usually noises are prominent with me. I know I'm close to an OBE when I hear rushing like wind.

I don't think I've ever had a phasing exit into the RTZ; although I have, while in trance, suddenly developed RT sight along with a "smooth"er transition out.

This thread of conversation is intriguing to me because I've recently been talking with skeptics of OBEs who are concentrated on the fact that OBEs happen with sleep paralysis or in or out of sleep, like lucid dreams. One friend of mine, who's recently become a self-described militant atheist (I mentioned this in another thread), tried to dismiss many of my experiences with the catch-all categorization of "dream." What I attempted to convey to him is that there's a lot of nuance between these types of experiences, even if there's also a lot of overlap.

Much of the skeptical review of OBEs, challening their reality, focuses on the concept of dissociation from the body's sensory input -- but, as this thread shows, while that is a common feature of OBEs, it doesn't describe all OBEs. Just as paralysis isn't a feature of all OBEs. Just as hypnogogia isn't a feature of all OBEs (I've had OBEs without any "dreamlets" beforehand whatsoever).

Also, the fact that the way in which OBEs happen, and feel, changes over time, especially with conscious focus on having them, is significant. I've noticed it myself, but haven't paid a lot of attention to it.

A meditation teacher of mine once said that the ability to astral project is very related to one's ability to run energy through the energy body. If that's true, it makes sense that as one achieved more flow, that astral projection would be easier and smoother.

Edit: @Alienor: I have felt what it seems you mean about some being "out of body" when they're awake and talking, but I've never seen this.


PS: @CFTraveler: it's sir.

[Korpo]

Hello, dreamosis.


How many of you have had OBEs from a light trance while sitting up?

I was sitting on a chair in my office. I closed my eyes, I counted myself into Focus 12. I had no expectations, I just wanted to trance a little. Suddenly I had the feeling of the room vanishing and changing over into a vast space. I could switch perspectives from the body and how it felt the space in the room it was sitting in and whatever body I was in and fully touch on the sensation of being in a wide space of indefinite proportions. It took an act of consciously shifting awareness to perceive what space my physical body was in while doing this.

I had similar shifts in light trance while riding on trains (so when sitting again). Suddenly the feeling of the presence of others would change. One by one the felt presence of others sitting next to me would just go away. It felt like bit by bit the persons I felt in my vicinity (whose presense I wasn't consciously aware of before) would vanish.

I would say this is a symptom of shifting consciousness into another energy body and to its senses.

Cheers,
Oliver

[Beekeeper]

How many of you have had OBEs while your body was awake?

One for certain through focus on the heart centre with lots of noise and difficulty getting out and a hooded dweller on the threshold. This was in the early days of attempting OBES deliberately and I had taken some decongestant medicine that might have messed things up (or helped them along, you never know. :wink: )

Another time I didn't leave the body but I was meditating with a group. We were chanting and my legs became waves of energy and parts of my body seemed to cease to exist.


The vast majority of OBEs happen in conjunction with falling asleep, awakening from sleep, and sleep paralysis. Or, you could say, they happen during the type of trance in which the body is deeply relaxed to the point of heaviness.

This is more typical for me and works better because I can just float out without difficulty and without noise and drama.

I've also had fairly frequent astral sight during trance and I've seen people (perhaps projectors, maybe deceased folk) without even being in trance and they've been as solid as living people look. I've also felt others as energy bodies while I've been in trance, dreaming and out of body, even finding myself sandwiched between my physical husband and an astral visitor who wanted to cuddle up a couple of times.

I've had a few episodes of realising that there are two of me: one in a dream body and one in an etheric or other astral body. It's then been a matter of transferring to the etheric/astral body, though the dream can still intrude. Last night, for example, I became lucid in a dream where I was taking roll call in a classroom because I heard the M band kind of noise where people are talking and I detected a voice just like my deceased stepdad, saying something over and over (which I forgot but I know wasn't very important).


Dreams are possible in non-REM states, but at the very least this was a lucid dream entered from a full, physical awareness in about ten seconds as I got woozy.

I've found myself out of body suddenly and not as a result of a dream or a deliberate attempt to get out. It happened to me as a child and as an adult, always in the real time zone and in verifiable ways where I've seen things that existed but sometimes of which I was not previously aware.


Has anyone had OBEs/astral projections/lucid dreams that came on very quickly, with the physical body not resting?

Not as such but I've remote-viewed this way and experienced clairaudience, again accurately, sometimes spontaneously, sometimes deliberately.

I haven't managed phasing probably because I tend to fall asleep :oops: . Theoretically it should be possible because I do get vision screens with moving hypnagogics. The best I've managed is a game of tossing a ball. The ball came towards me and I sent it back with my mind and it returned and so on. Sometimes I've felt etheric limbs move in response to hypnagogic imagery.

[dreamosis]

I've found myself out of body suddenly and not as a result of a dream or a deliberate attempt to get out. It happened to me as a child and as an adult, always in the real time zone and in verifiable ways where I've seen things that existed but sometimes of which I was not previously aware.


Can you talk about that a little more?

[Beekeeper]

Sure, as a kid I found myself in my grandmother's room, floating over her. I hadn't been in there physically and didn't know she had dolls but she did.

Later we were going to Melbourne to stay with friends. I projected to the airport, where I'd never been. When we went there within the next few days it was familiar and I would announce to my sister what we'd see next.

A party across the road a few years ago disturbed my sleep and caused me to project out of body and across the road. There were a lot of inebriated people and I told them to turn the music down. Shortly after, someone did turn it down. They were evicted a few months later and my friend wanted to check out the house that was for sale. The room I entered OB was as I'd seen it.

Another time I was just out on an recently finished but unopened bypass that we'd walked on earlier that day. As with the other experiences, there was no preliminary dreaming, I was just there and fully aware. It was a very brief OBE.

[CFTraveler]

Interesting that this thread went this way- most of my more 'verified' OBEs happened when young, and were spontaneous OBEs to relatives. :D

[ButterflyWoman]

How many of you have had OBEs from a light trance while sitting up? Or in other ways with the body relatively active?
*raises hand*

Doesn't happen very often, but it has happened.


Has anyone had OBEs/astral projections/lucid dreams that came on very quickly, with the physical body not resting?
Yes. Generally when it does happen, it just hits all of a sudden and I find myself somewhere else (or on my way to somewhere else).

[dreamosis]

Those of you that have had these OBEs while the body is awake on purpose (that is, by consciously inducing them), how would you describe the differences in inducing them?

[CFTraveler]

There is no difference in inducing them- they just come on quicker.
I usually follow the same routine until I get symptoms- the symptoms determine what I do after that.



Same here, I think the same kind of question and answer by CFTraveler I did read some weeks ago
Which is why I think this subject is an inevitable result of experience. Inevitably it happens to projectors along with the disappearance of vibrations, and other stuff.
So, if you stick around long enough, you'll be reading the same question and answer routines many times again.

[dreamosis]

Yeah, I have more work (or play) to do in regard to this type of OBE.

[Alienor]

I think the most important difference is between phasing and the "moving out of the body" (how does one call it?) technique, not between wake or being in trance.
While phasing it is more like in a lucid dream, you have immediately full control over your body - it comes all very natural. While with the other method, it is difficult to move - I guess one needs a lot of practice to get anywhere and to start being efficient and precise in ones actions.
This is my own experience (even though I did the trance method only by accident while falling asleep). But from the accounts of other, that I have been reading of their experience, that seems to be for most like that.

[dreamosis]

I think the most important difference is between phasing and the "moving out of the body" (how does one call it?) technique, not between wake or being in trance.

Interesting. I've had a few experiences with pushing out of body into a "picture-window" that appeared in trance. Some of those experiences I might call waking-induced lucid dreams, but a few of them felt more like an astral projection both in terms of the feeling and look of my body and the locale.



While phasing it is more like in a lucid dream, you have immediately full control over your body - it comes all very natural.

I found that to be true of the latter experiences I described above. On reflection, I'd say those experieneces were different from lucid dreams in terms of my bodily presence. While I can float and fly in a lucid dream, or become an animal, etc., the typical default is that I have a very physical presence and gravity is somewhat stable. In the experiences I call astral, my presence is usually less physical, I'm almost always floating, and control is easier.

[CFTraveler]

To add something- when I phase I usually have no body to speak up- the control is one of will, not of body. The only time I have a discernible body is when I etheric project (as in OBE), and not every time either.
FWIW.

[dreamosis]

The only time I have a discernible body is when I etheric project (as in OBE)

By "etheric project (as in OBE)" do you mean what Robert Bruce calls a "real-time projection"? In which you're projecting into a space that's more or less like the physical world?

I know that I've had real-time projections in which I appeared to be only an invisible point of awareness.

Would you say this is a recent development? Or have projections always been like this for you? Did you have more of a discernible body in your earlier experiences?

I've certainly had the experience too of movement being a matter of will instead of body. Sometimes my projected double seems paralyzed... I haven't kept track, but I wonder if my double has been paralyzed only during the projections in which my physical body underwent significant, deep sleep paralysis. But, then again, there have been projections during which my body felt heavy and stiff and I had no trouble "swimming" out with my double (having a lot of mobility). And times where my double felt paralyzed in the same position as my body until I was able to move a certain distance away. During those times, willed movement worked better for me than "swimming" or flying away from my body.

Edit: I should add that those experiences were all etheric, or real-time projection experiences.

[CFTraveler]

The only time I have a discernible body is when I etheric project (as in OBE)

By "etheric project (as in OBE)" do you mean what Robert Bruce calls a "real-time projection"? In which you're projecting into a space that's more or less like the physical world? Yep.

Would you say this is a recent development? No, I would say it's been like this:
When I first remember having an OBE (the first one I realized what was happening, at around eightish) I had an etheric body, and going through a wall was a very intense experience.
After that, most of the etheric projections (aka RTZ) for years, I don't remember noticing a body. I don't know if I had one, but I didn't pay attention to it, because my focus was on the adventure of it, on the "where next?" of it.
As an adult, I remember having an etheric projection in which I had no body, in which I felt I was a point of awareness. It's one of those verified ones, so I call it an RTZ projection.
After I learned to project consciously, I saw my energetic hands, (etheric hands) and became aware of having an etheric body, and things like going through a wall or a mirror became deliberate ones, and the awareness of the body was part of the adventure.
When I phase or project to the astral from the RTZ, I don't have the awareness of having a projected vehicle, although this is not a given- I find that even though I may be in an astral locale I may have a body, I just don't have the awareness of one. Sometimes, the body becomes a symbolic vehicle, so that there is some sort of body awareness, it's just not a human body awareness. It's hard to explain.
So, I think the awareness of a body may have to do with the specific area of the astral or etheric you may be in- not so much on the type of exit you have, especially if you transition from one environment to another.

[dreamosis]

So, I think the awareness of a body may have to do with the specific area of the astral or etheric you may be in- not so much on the type of exit you have, especially if you transition from one environment to another.

Hmmm. What do you think might account for the difference between RTZ projections with body awareness and RTZ projections without body awareness?

[CFTraveler]

Possibly the reason or content of or for the projection. I've had RTZ projections that were mostly mental in content, (that is, there was a lesson to be learned from it that was fairly abstract) and the lesson did not involve having a body, while most of the projections that involve a fear content feature the body- so it may not be just about the reason for the projection, but the level of awareness at the time of the projection.
Of course, this is just supposin' on my part.

[dreamosis]

I've read that the type of double formed depends somewhat, or all, on expectation. I wonder, though, if the type of double formed has something to do with the "position" of the attention at the moment of projection. That is, if the attention is concentrated in the formless essence of being, your double might tend to be formless. If the attention is somewhere in the energy body...

[CFTraveler]

Possibly, but on the first projection I had there were no expectations, since I was basically motivated by my desire to be somewhere else, and I didn't quite understand what had happened, and I had an energy body. Later on (after 2005) yes- I can say that I was more aware of an energy body because I had read I was supposed to have one- but before then it hadn't been even part of my thinking.
So I think the reasons may be so many that they can't really be classified individually- something more like in QM where you look at statistical trends instead of making a rule based on individual experiences.

[dreamosis]

So I think the reasons may be so many that they can't really be classified individually- something more like in QM where you look at statistical trends instead of making a rule based on individual experiences.

Definitely.

The first spontaneous projection I had as an adult (I was half-in, half-out), I experienced myself as having an energy body.

[dreamosis]

I just wondered if the "bodiless" projections could be so-called mental body projections as opposed to etheric double or astral body projections. (?)

I guess it doesn't really matter what it's called...

[CFTraveler]

I just wondered if the "bodiless" projections could be so-called mental body projections as opposed to etheric double or astral body projections. (?)

I guess it doesn't really matter what it's called... I believe so, maybe. :D

[dreamosis]

I'm suffering from an information bias with this thread. That is, I'm seeking information that may not necessarily help me to act.

[Korpo]

Hello, dreamosis.


I'm suffering from an information bias with this thread. That is, I'm seeking information that may not necessarily help me to act.

What is your actual intention - what do you want to accomplish?

And with what fact in your mind is it clashing or what expectations seem to be your problem?

It helps to spell it out, I'd say.

Cheers,
Oliver

PS - sometimes a concept needs to be broken down to have an experience. Worked for me before in other cases.

[dreamosis]

Well, I think this thread was mostly inspired by it hitting me that not all OBEs occur with sleep paralysis. And that's exciting to me from a skeptical point of view, because it punches a hole in the theory that OBEs are paralysis hallucinations. One of my good friends has recently become very skeptical and so I've been nudged to look at the inductive logical argument that OBEs aren't merely hallucinations. I don't really have a desire to convince him or defend myself or my experiences, but I've caught myself defending myself in my mind anyway -- it's just been weird having him change like this.

Also, though, I'm genuinely curious whether or not different types of OBEs can be had with different "postures" of awareness pre-projection, if you will. And my projections from a non-paralysis state have been limited; accidental, in fact. So I was curious what others have done to achieve OBEs from a non-paralysis state. It seems like most do it through careful, light trance phasing.

I feel like the fact that people experience projection differently as they practice more and gain familiarity with the process, is worth discussing more. Maybe it should have its own thread. On the one hand it shows that projection is a learnable skill. That's no big surprise to the forum, but in itself is incredibly noteworthy from a more material-scientific standpoint. On the other hand it shows that experiences are more variable than doubters would have you believe. Much of the argument against the reality of OBEs is built on the fact that the experiences are more or less uniform. What you deny you usually box.

I'm not hugely invested in debating the reality of OBEs with this thread -- that's been done enough -- but, again, I just find it particularly noteworthy that OBEs can happen out of the context of paralysis.

[Alienor]

One of my good friends has recently become very skeptical and so I've been nudged to look at the inductive logical argument that OBEs aren't merely hallucinations.

Now that offers the question, are hallucinations really just figments of imagination?

[dreamosis]

Now that offers the question, are hallucinations really just figments of imagination?

It does for me. I know that I've had "hallucinations" at the edge of sleep, or even in the full waking state, that have been objectively verified and others that, at least, seem highly coincidental.

For one thing, I often hear patterns in white noise, in the same way I might see an image in clouds. Hidden in the sound of a construction crew, or porch chimes, I might hear a familiar melody. Sometimes I cannot tell if I'm only imagining that I'm hearing a song or a voice, or if I'm really hearing it. A small example: one time I distinctly heard my cell phone ring right before it rang. I heard the ring, saw that there were no incoming calls or missed calls, then it started to ring. At the time I was walking on the beach and wondered if I was only imagining the sound in the white noise of the waves.

A slightly bigger example is a time I stayed in a New York motel room. I was extremely tired, after walking all day, laid down, and almost immediately began getting visual impressions of prostitutes in the room I was in. It hit me as odd even at the time because, assessing myself, I wasn't feeling sexual. I never got confirmation that the room was used for prostitution, but the fact that the images seemed random relative to my internal state sticks out to me. Occurences like that are easy to dimiss as random or subconsciously-driven, but the images were so clear and persistent, and while I often have pre-sleep impressions, these came while I was still quite awake and were especially coherent relative to the norm.

A bigger, although still ordinary, example than that would be a time I was walking with a friend as he was excitedly telling me about an opportunity to travel out of the state for an acting job. I began feeling deja vu (which is usually understood as a kind of hallucination), that I had dreamed all of it before, and when he said to me "Guess what show?" I said "Macbeth" and I was right because I'd remembered it from the dream. He was nonplussed that I knew because he hadn't talked to me about it previously.

Once I also dreamt of watching of a plane crash, woke up, wrote down the dream, turned on the TV a few minutes later and saw a news report of a plane crash in Queens (shortly after 9/11, if anyone recalls).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_A ... Flight_587 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587)

In the dream I was driving through my old suburban neighborhood (in Utah) with my brother. I noticed my dad panicked on the side of the road when we suddenly saw a plane nose dive and crash. It noticed a blue stripe on it and wrote that down when I woke up. AA 587 crashed about 9:15am EST, in a suburb, and I had the dream about 9:00am MST. The blue had a blue, red, and white stripe on it.

The dream I was having at the time was pedestrian, with nothing particularly "dream-like" happening, until the plane crash. It was sudden, violent, specific, and unexpected, and added to seeing a similar plane crash on the news minutes after I'd awakened, it was difficult to dismiss my dreams as "just" a dream (or random neural firing in my visual cortex following a process of association, i.e., an hallucination).

The dream wasn't psychic in the sense that it didn't happen before the crash but actually happened after. The crash happened while I was sleeping, but I "learned" about it before I woke up.

My now skeptic friend had an "hallucination" of our friend's mother's ghost coming to visit him while he was awake on the night she died (before he knew she was dead) and had a conversation with her...He now dismisses it, which is mind-boggling to me. I might dismiss it if I regularly saw and talked to people who weren't there and had somehow reality-checked these events and they proved to be regularly unverified; but if it only happened once or even three times over thirty years and each time I was fully awake and external events appeared to confirm what I had experienced, I'd be much less likely to wave it off.

[ButterflyWoman]

I often hear patterns in white noise, in the same way I might see an image in clouds.
Years ago, when I used to partake of a certain mildly hallucinogenic substance, I loved to sit in front of the tv on a non-broadcasting channel and watch the noise. I saw all kinds of stuff in it.


Hidden in the sound of a construction crew, or porch chimes, I might hear a familiar melody.
I get that, too, sometimes. Fans are good for that, the little squeaks and whirs and so on.


I never got confirmation that the room was used for prostitution
In a New York hotel room? I'd be surprised if there are any hotel rooms in the entire city that haven't been used for that purpose, at some point.

I don't think that's an hallucination so much as a psychic impression taken from the surroundings. I get that ALL the time. Very busy places are less likely to have specific impressions, but they do carry the "hustle and bustle" energy very strongly.


My now skeptic friend had an "hallucination" of our friend's mother's ghost coming to visit him while he was awake on the night she died (before he knew she was dead) and had a conversation with her...He now dismisses it, which is mind-boggling to me.
People tend to dismiss from their reality things that don't fit their worldview. Talking to dead people obviously doesn't fit his worldview, and he is NOT open to the possibility, so he just writes it off. Happens all the time, and not just with metaphysical things. People ignore the signs that their spouse is cheating, for example, or that their workplace is becoming hostile and they're about to be fired, or any other area you can think of. It's just a form of denial, at which human beings excel.

To me, hallucination is something that is clearly not really happening. For example, some years ago I'd been awake for many hours due to a medical event, and when it was over, I went to use the bathroom, which had floral wallpaper. While there, I looked at the wallpaper and was watching the flowers move around and change shapes. I am pretty sure that they weren't really doing that, because there's no reason for it.

It can be argued that when we're very tired (or stressed, or other conditions like extremely ill), our ability to keep our reality coherent becomes weakened, and I can buy that, but I don't think it necessarily means anything, other than when you're tired you can't keep your reality coherent.

I also don't think that the patterns I saw in the noise on the television were in any way meaningful. I can't remember any of them, none were messages of any sort. It was just weird mental entertainment, and, yes, hallucinating. Reality goes a little wobbly sometimes because we're creating it. ;)

[dreamosis]

People tend to dismiss from their reality things that don't fit their worldview. Talking to dead people obviously doesn't fit his worldview, and he is NOT open to the possibility, so he just writes it off.


Yeah. Although, in my friend's case, it did fit this worldview and he wasn't only open to it, he lost friendships over defending his spiritual worldview (particularly his experience of talking to dead people) to others. Now he's done a 180.

Almost three years ago he stopped seeing deceased spirits. He was in a bad relationship, which involved a Neg attachment to his girlfriend, and when it ended, he got hugely depressed and tried to kill himself. About that time, his ability to see spirits or sense others' energy -- which had been with him since we were kids -- stopped more or less cold.

He had never been one to meditate or pray (or exercise or eat well, etc.) For a while he tried to do those things and hoped to be able to see spirits again. Without his spiritual senses, after a lifetime of them being naturally there, he got severe anxiety attacks. He couldn't sit through a movie in public or go to a party. He's always been somewhat antisocial, but he became severely so.

After giving up on meditating, etc., he turned to atheist material, got consumed with it, and now is a total denier of everything he experienced. He has a hard time being around me because I "believe in woo" and I'm a reminder to him of his previous life.

But bringing us back to the topic: I have found with myself a tendency to cut off OBEs-while-awake from my worldview. Lately I've noticed an unconscious bias toward believing I can only have certain experiences while I'm deeply relaxed and entranced. I've maintained this bias contrary to experience too! I've had plenty of powerful, informative, weird, and uplifting experiences while perfectly awake, but for some reason I continue to believe that I need deep relaxation and trance to really open up. Make sense?

[ButterflyWoman]

he turned to atheist material, got consumed with it, and now is a total denier of everything he experienced.
Oh, gee. There's nothing more irritating than a converted zealot. :roll:

I feel for him, though. Having some aspect of your identity taken away like that is very disturbing.


I have found with myself a tendency to cut off OBEs-while-awake from my worldview. Lately I've noticed an unconscious bias toward believing I can only have certain experiences while I'm deeply relaxed and entranced. I've maintained this bias contrary to experience too! I've had plenty of powerful, informative, weird, and uplifting experiences while perfectly awake, but for some reason I continue to believe that I need deep relaxation and trance to really open up. Make sense?
Well, it makes sense in that I believe you, but it makes no sense as to why you maintain this belief. The phenomenon of "split reality" is not terribly common, but it's common enough and perfectly well documented. In fact, I would say that for most people, the ability to experience OBE or visions or similar trancendent things while awake is a sign of spiritual growth (not crazy about that term, but I can't think of a better one at the moment).

[Korpo]

Hello, dreamosis.


Almost three years ago he stopped seeing deceased spirits. He was in a bad relationship, which involved a Neg attachment to his girlfriend, and when it ended, he got hugely depressed and tried to kill himself. About that time, his ability to see spirits or sense others' energy -- which had been with him since we were kids -- stopped more or less cold.

Maybe he just saw the negative energy inherent in the relationship, but did not want to place the responsibility in either his or her actions.


He had never been one to meditate or pray (or exercise or eat well, etc.) For a while he tried to do those things and hoped to be able to see spirits again. Without his spiritual senses, after a lifetime of them being naturally there, he got severe anxiety attacks. He couldn't sit through a movie in public or go to a party. He's always been somewhat antisocial, but he became severely so.

There are people who need to know the other side is there. It suggests meaning, going on after death, and many other things they remember within from the other side without being able to articulate it.

But getting cut off, or cutting yourself off through damaging beliefs or holding on to a hurt can show you how much you needed that was not appreciated while there. If you have a pattern of blame towards hurt, you will automatically assign blame to anything that hurts you, no matter where the real responsibility lies. This is one way people cut themselves off from the soul or God. They chose a way of blame and run from the very things they need for healing. Kind of like "existential hate." Hating existence itself. But the only one ruining his life and perpetuating the hurt in this scenario is that person himself.


After giving up on meditating, etc., he turned to atheist material, got consumed with it, and now is a total denier of everything he experienced. He has a hard time being around me because I "believe in woo" and I'm a reminder to him of his previous life.

Well, he's in pain because of what he is denying himself. He chose the thinking mind over the soul, and this resistance causes existential pain. But being invested in a certain world view can also cause pain if it is endangered. So, hurt by hurt he's painting himself into a corner. The most rewarding connection there is, the one to the soul, he's deliberately cutting off in order to maintain a world view and belief system.

At the same time there are unconscious misgivings towards his soul, which he tries to "talk out of existence." It's a bit like "If there would be a God he wouldn't allow this to happen to me." He's unconsciously blaming the hurt he lived through on his soul and now tries to go the path of mental will instead. That is in itself deeply unsatisfying, and he can possibly feel the disceprancy whenever he encounters someone who doesn't share this attitude and fares better with his or her own soul.


But bringing us back to the topic: I have found with myself a tendency to cut off OBEs-while-awake from my worldview. Lately I've noticed an unconscious bias toward believing I can only have certain experiences while I'm deeply relaxed and entranced. I've maintained this bias contrary to experience too! I've had plenty of powerful, informative, weird, and uplifting experiences while perfectly awake, but for some reason I continue to believe that I need deep relaxation and trance to really open up. Make sense?

Yes, you do. Deep trance and relaxation are actually extremely beneficial for you, regardless of anything else. But there may be some worldview investment, too. Maybe you've even read too much about OBE to trust your own judgement, even though you have valid and beneficial experiences and your own judgement to trust in.

Experience is where it's at. Expectation is the killer of experience. How many people go through their life limiting themselves with having too much expectations of what is possible. They "know" better. I don't think we know a lot, actually. Embrace your experience. It's valid and it's the real thing.

Take care,
Oliver

[Xanth]

Now that offers the question, are hallucinations really just figments of imagination?
I've come to realize that "hallucinations" are what I refer to as "Focus overlay experiences".

If you're a fan of Robert Monroe or Frank Kepple, then you'll know where the term "Focus levels" comes from.

I guess it's rather self explanatory, however: A focus overlay is when you experience one focus overlayed upon your current focus.

That's what I feel that Hallucinations are.

~Ryan :)

[dreamosis]

...it makes no sense as to why you maintain this belief. The phenomenon of "split reality" is not terribly common, but it's common enough and perfectly well documented. In fact, I would say that for most people, the ability to experience OBE or visions or similar trancendent things while awake is a sign of spiritual growth

It's not so much a disbelief in split reality that I've noticed, as much as a belief that there's only one way for me to experience the other side of reality: deep trance. I'm generalizing myself and my own experience in saying this, because I've experienced the "other side" of reality plenty while perfectly awake.

Why do I maintain it?

Well, there have been a couple of issues for me over the years. One, within the first couple of years of being consciously active in the astral and sensing energy, I had a slew of negative experiences. I had experiences that scared me and I lost my original enthusiasm for unfolding this awareness. Two, I think I held onto the fear from those experiences way too long -- even after a number of positive experiences. From that I think I reflexively and unconsciously developed an aversion to having higher levels of awareness in the waking state. I guess I wanted to keep it contained in order to be safe. I'm only realizing some of this lately...

I've felt "safe enough" to occasionally see auras and feel energy pretty intensely, but I have noticed twinges of fear if the visual impressions I'm getting in meditation get too realistic. While I'm lying down and in trance I'm much more comfortable with seeing clear visions.

In the OBE arena this has meant that I've tended to only try getting out-of-body in the early morning. Recently I've begun doing trancework during the afternoon and late afternoon, acclimitizing myself to the experience during that time. It's weird, it's illogical, and yet I have compartmentalized my experiences in some ways.

[Alienor]

I've come to realize that "hallucinations" are what I refer to as "Focus overlay experiences".


I totally agree :!:

I had just the other day a conversation with two spirit beings: I thought I had heard someone talk and went to check, but could not see anyone. Then I was made aware of the two spirits presence and told them, that I thought I heard someone talk. They said, that would happen quite often, that people do hear or see snippets of the astral. They continued, that in the past in more "native" cultures, when someone did hear or see stuff, the "shaman" would go and have a look, to see what was there. Now in modern times, people who hear or see stuff get called "crazy" :wink:

[dreamosis]

"Focus overlay" as hallucinations make sense. Some focus overlay may be astral bleedthrough, some focus overlay may be subconscious bleedthrough.

I've begun to think that human beings really never stop dreaming. Maybe our subconscious minds are always playing games of association with images. Some "crazy" people may just be people who are dreaming while awake all the time, with their subconscious superimposing dream images over what they see with their physical eyes. Some "crazy" people may actually just be seeing the astral, but what if it's more a mix of both -- they're seeing subjective dream images and the etheric and the astral, just like we do when we project.

[Sinera]

hallucination = focus overlay

I'd agree, too. It gets nearer to the implications of hallucinating.

Many people define hallucinations as (or even equate it compeltely with) delusions or illusions. I did once too, but I do it differently now.

First we need to ask then again: What are illusions anyway? For me, now, every THOUGHT FORM that enters the mind stems from a level of a REALITY - be it experienced in hypergogia, dreams, lucid-dreams or semi-dream states, daydreaming, meditative states, letting phantasy flow in waking state, subconscious thoughts and memories that just "pop-up" uncontrolled, every image or concept i willfully create in my mind, etc....

And don't we "see" these (our) thought forms ourselves "in the astral" to prove this? Yes, the astral is "thought responsive", if we "imagine" a thought (form) in RTZ or elsewhere it immediatley can emerge and we really "see" and experience it there.

Thus, every phase or focus of attention tuned into or astral level projected into or dimension of mind/body or however you might call it in fact IS per se a level of REALITY for me.

Level of Reality = Attention Focus Level.

So, in my view, if we still view hallucination as something rather PATHOLOGICAL -- and we must because it's something that causes people "mental problems", with many of them even ending up with regular visits to their shrinks (or even worse: in the nuthouse) -- it has to be defined differently.
Not by illusion (for me there are no real illusions since "ALL" is reality now) and not as seeing something which "isn't real" but only by something that belongs to another level of reality.

What makes it problematic or pathological is the fact that these generally hallucinating people cannot DISTINGUISH between the different levels of REALITY
It might be they suffer from (in psychological jargon) a lack of "latent inhibition" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_inhibition), so they receive inputs from several "realities" at once - but cannot differentiate.

Example: You are standing in the street (in "real") and imagine or suddenly "see" a funny yellow elephant with wings on the street. The street and your surroundings are still "real" and belong as usual to the material dimension you inhabit.
Your "reason" tells you that the yellow winged elephant does not belong to this material dimension, but is rather a "thought form" and/or an element of another dimension of reality.
The "insane" or "mentally disturbed" person cannot tell it apart. It thinks it is the same level and attributes the elephant to the material dimension.

(Of course, every person can cause these hallucinations by taking substances or inducing it by meditative methods, too. But still these experiences might not be hallucinations then but just "insights" if you are still able to attribute them to the different levels of reality.)

To sum up: For me the attribute needed to characterize or define the term HALLUCINATION is not ILLUSION in the first place (or not at all!), but rather CONFUSION / MIX UP (caused by influx of different levels of realities at once).

Makes sense? Maybe, maybe not.
Maybe I'm hallucinating about this. :mrgreen:

[dreamosis]

From observing mentally ill people, and contemplating mental illness from a spiritual perspective, I don't see the problem as just the fact that they're perceiving other worlds or levels of reality.

Many mentally ill people on the street will be talking to invisible people. From a spiritual perspective I see two possibilities: (1) they're talking to real, out-of-body beings; (2) they're talking to fragments of their own ego which they perceive as absolutely real. I have no idea which might be more common, but both could be equally destructive.

Also, there are people who snap not because they saw another level of reality, but because they gained an insight from another level of reality that they cannot handle. For instance, when I was 16 I had a conversation with my girlfriend's brother who saw what I believe were astral spiders everywhere -- all over his friends, the place they were hanging out, etc. He was high on heroin. He was telling me about because he was certain that, although he was on a drug, that that specific time he had seen something very real. He observed these "glowing insects" as he called them on his friends, on himself, and in the environment and it left him shaken for weeks. He was scared to even tell me about it. And I've heard similar stories of people seeing Negs on hallucinogenic drugs.

...There's a passage in Dion Fortune's Psychic Self-Defense where she says you should never share psychic information with someone who really has no way of acting on it. I think a lot mentally ill people see things that they have no coping skills for. The problem isn't so much that they see things, or even that they can't categorize what they've seen, but it's that they don't have a way of healthily responding to it. A healthy response in this case, of course, requires correct contextualization...

Also, though, I feel it should be noted that with hallucinations happening while the body is awake, the perceptions are/can be/may be potentially very different. What you see of the etheric or astral, while in the physical, doesn't necessarily look the same as it would if you were in the etheric or astral itself. I think possibly that we're more subject to beings' valences (the images they project of themselves), for example, when we're perceiving in the physical or using clairvoyance with the physical eyes.

[Korpo]

He observed these "glowing insects" as he called them on his friends, on himself, and in the environment and it left him shaken for weeks. He was scared to even tell me about it. And I've heard similar stories of people seeing Negs on hallucinogenic drugs.

Yet I think that this tells more of the people having the experience in a subjective way than about perceiving an objective reality. There's also always the issue of translating the energies perceived with suitable symbols, which in my opinion often goes terribly wrong. It's not enough to be clairvoyant - without understanding the information is so distorted, it's no good. I think therein lies the danger of hallucinogens - they open up the perception without supplying understanding or a way to translate experiences.

Cheers,
Oliver

[star]

Making "awake" projections is more about learning how and less about anything else. Its like when your throwing a baseball, if you think too much movements can become jerky and awkward.

A big reason why people meditate without expectations is becuase it helps you get out of your own way. So, if you can stay happy and confident and run this through your body without any sort of expectation you can have mystic experience without cutting yourself off, and can learn more about how these things tend to happen, especially if you turn your third eye inward and watch.

My first concious projection I was just sitting in a chair and attempting it, and I popped right out of the top of my head, and I did "hear" a pop! too.

[dreamosis]

Yet I think that this tells more of the people having the experience in a subjective way than about perceiving an objective reality. There's also always the issue of translating the energies perceived with suitable symbols, which in my opinion often goes terribly wrong.

...I think to "truly" perceive Negs or anything else from another world, while you're in the physical, is a matter of becoming comfortable with something you could call perceptual overlap. Where you just get "bleedthrough," I think, what you perceive will tend to be a simulation -- that is, a representation, a symbol.

But as far as astral spiders go...enough people have had this perception of them as spiders/squids/insects that I think it's fair to say that that resembles their actual anatomy pretty closely.

[CFTraveler]

Just to be contrary, the spiders I have seen look more like scribbles than spiders, but behaved like spiders in the way they moved around. Creepy.

[dreamosis]

What do you mean looked like "scribbles"?

[CFTraveler]

If you ever saw the cartoon Foster's home they have an episode called "The trouble with scribbles (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w06aJFy8xw)" which is a spoof on the old classic Star Trek "The trouble with tribbles"- in the cartoon the scribbles look just like what I saw. And, I saw the 'spider' before the cartoon, so it wasn't influenced by the cartoon.
ps. you start to see the scribbles around 4:30 in the video I linked.

[dreamosis]

Thanks, that's more or less what I thought you meant by "scribbles."

Do you think you're viewing them "more directly" perhaps than other people who see them as spider-forms? Perhaps the spider-form is a simulation of their actual form. Which relates back to the topic, sort of. Maybe you see them more like "scribbles" because there's more integration between your physical perceptual system and your higher perceptual system -- whereas, maybe, people who perceive them as spider-forms are more or less seeing the etheric valence of the beings.

Could be a matter of integration/awakeness between levels of beings?

[CFTraveler]

I think it's a matter of viewpoint- I'm not afraid of spiders and consider them a positive, because they eat ants- and consider them beautiful- but most people don't.

[dreamosis]

I would be tempted to say it's a matter of viewpoint too, but not all people see them as spiders exactly, but spider-like (i.e., a central body with many legs -- which could be squid-like, octopus-like, insect-like et cetera).

I felt confirmation when I read PPSD because it included an entry for "astral spiders," and although I'd never come across the idea in print, I'd seen such things clairvoyantly. Also, when my first meditation teacher talked about them I felt confirmation, too. I hadn't had clairvoyant experiences of them at that point, but I'd had several bad dreams involving spiders that didn't seem to be symbolic, and I'd heard another person talk about them (as "glowing insects").

[Aunt Clair]

How many of you have had OBEs while your body was awake?
I do.

How many of you have had OBEs from a light trance while sitting up?
I do .

Or in other ways with the body relatively active?
I have had spontaneous projections while riding in a car and I have become aware of bi location of consciousness
which I had not initiated.

I remember in Astral Dynamics Robert Bruce describing a "remote-eye" type of projection during a time in which he was entranced but actually standing and moving around slowly.
I have had these , it is quite possible to maintain and action and enter a trance or to enter a trance and begin a physical action.

I've had one experience, which I would probably call an astral projection, which was induced by trauma
Phyaical pain, fear , attack , trauma, and similar triggors can facilitate spontaneous projection.

Has anyone had OBEs/astral projections/lucid dreams that came on very quickly, with the physical body not resting?
I have too.
Congrats on your expanding awareness.