SoulSail's 4th Outing.

[SoulSail]

Following the advice of a friend I've made here, Frozen Astral, I had another successful projection early this morning.

Now, this one was rough, but cool. Slipping out was the hard part. I thought my body was being taken over by some huge force beyond my control and I fought it. I think I had already slipped out and was trying to control the sleep paralysis and got scared. Anyway, not much detail to report as the whole thing was a little dream like, but I finally settled myself and navigated by thought instead of trying to move my physical body, which was impossible obviously.

I slipped out around 5 a.m. and hung midair in my kitchen like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible where he's breaking into that security center and is hooked to all those wires just a few inches above ground. I was about three feet up, splayed out and just chilling there, enjoying the floating sensation. I watched my hands melt twice, told myself I MUST remember this, and then I woke.

I do have a question for the pros:

What does it mean when your projections aren't very lucid, but have more of a dream quality to them? I keep seeming to have an incomplete mind split. I'll be in my astral body, but then aware I can't move some direction because my pillow is blocking me. This is very frustrating. From reading MAP, I understand this may be due to not enough energetic flow in the astral body, which makes sense because I have a wicked cold going on right now and could barely breath in through my nose going into the trance state. I'm over the virus rodeo this year...it's messing with my Chi.

Thanks, and I'm happy to share the approach if anyone is curious. It's plain simple, but worked my first try.

Soul.

[LPCF]

Hello, SS! I'm no pro, and I'm sure you will get better answers from those with more experience. However, all my experiences of astral projection (well, almost all) have been with "dual consciousness". Some people seem able to leave their physical body "behind" and be totally "there" in the astral. I almost never achieve this, and even on the most realistic projections am aware of my body somehow (I can't explain exactly, sorry) in the "background" of my consciousness.

Yet a dual consciousness projection is quite common. It would seem that is what happened to you. I searched the net for the best description of this, and in the end settled on a quote from AD.com! Here it is:


"It never occurred to me from then on to question the "empty body" theory. But then, when I experienced the well known "dual consciousness" mode..conscious in the physical body and conscious in the astral body at the same time..."Hey! What's going on here?" This cannot be!"It flies in the face of all logic derived from one's experience of physical world space and time.But then the astral world has its own logical structure and the only way to get a grasp of this is to experience the phenomena and , most difficult of all, question all assumptions."

The full text is at http://www.astraldynamics.com/home/obe-techniques/147-back-to-basics.html

Hope that helps a little!

[CFTraveler]

Hi guys.

What does it mean when your projections aren't very lucid, but have more of a dream quality to them?
I can see what yours is but I'll list all the possibilities that I can think of:
You projected into the RTZ but didn't move your consciousness completely away from your physical body- because you may be too close to it (causing energetic and sensory feedback). This is what I think your specific case it at least this time. The subreasons for this may be not enough energy (not this time, IMO), your physical is too close and exerting pull (I don't think so either) or that your flu is causing such discomfort (bingo for you, IMO) that it's not 'letting go', and you can't relax adequately- your physical body is competing for your attention due to your discomfort.
Another possibility: You're in a simulation designed to test your abilities. I don't think so either, at least this time.
And the last one, that you are so tired that your subconscious is taking over and sucking you into a 'dream reality' in which you lose consciousness. This one may also be the case, but I think discomfort is the culprit this time.

[Korpo]

You might be in your etheric body. The etheric body regulates the energy of the physical body, so maybe your cold affects you. But it might also have to do with learning to master the abilities of the astral body:

Lucidity will grow over time, and the dream-like quality will recede. The sixth chakra coordinates all your sense impressions into a coherent picture. (It also is related to the Perception sense described in "The Multidimensional Human".) If the picture is still rather dream-like, its development for out-of-body uses might need further time. Lucidity and full clarity are like the crowning glory of that development.

If you follow Kurt's ideas about the energy body chakras, this development might proceed through these stages: ability to feel an energy body, ability to perceive a space surrounding you, ability to move, ability to detect beings and their function, also the function of places, ability to communicate at all, then finally ability to communicate more clearly, analyse/process/understand and have lucidity.

There will be always some sixth chakra activity, but it might be rather weak. This makes for problems in rendering a coherent, logical picture of the reality surrounding you, and especially impair communicating. Seeing visually is not the same as seeing accurately. The sixth chakra will render a full picture even if you have not all the inner sense information present from all the chakras. It would seem like beings do not talk to you or don't hear you (no 5th chakra activity to allow doing so) or no beings at all (no 4th chakra activity).

You seem to expose activity mostly associated with the 2nd and 3rd chakra. Watch out for experiences where you can move more easily (3rd chakra activation) and for dreams where you can read signposts, labels and markers (4th chakra activation).

People tend to think they have no energy when other causes might be the source, including not-yet-mastered chakras like the 3rd (problems with moving or no movement at all), problems to attain and maintain a state of consciousness conducive to the experience (hit-and-miss affair during learning to do so) and simulations (one or more chakras deliberately inhibited to emphasize the role of a chakra, for example).

[SoulSail]

Thank you all for the responses. So much here to break down and consider, but all three responses are very accurate. I knew I was calling you all pros for a reason.

After getting some distance from the experience, I can remember now feeling like my body was a massive black hole, one exerting such gravitational pull that I was simply terrified and overwhelmed. I could not move away. My body did not, in fact, want to let go, but mind prevailed in this case, albeit somewhat oddly. Plus, my fever was really going at that point so the whole thing was likely muddied up by that as well.

As for the chakras, I didn't know this and will need to go back and read a bit more. I haven't focused on them lately in my energy sessions. Must address.

It's strange how I thought all this would go down when it finally happened. It's so much different in reality. It feels like I'm in Kindergarten, and just figuring out the absolute basics. I had this impression I'd get out and zoom through crystal clear sky. Not so. Actually, my astral vision is far superior in terms of lucidity, meaning, what I see behind my eyelids during trance states and meditation. But once I'm out, it's like soup or an out of focus image that I must put under light to refine, but I'm never out long enough to refine. I know it will come in time.

I'm getting there. I'm getting there and not turning back. The whole world is now upside down, inside out...and I love it all.

Soul

[CFTraveler]

:thumbsup:

[Korpo]

It's strange how I thought all this would go down when it finally happened. It's so much different in reality. It feels like I'm in Kindergarten, and just figuring out the absolute basics. I had this impression I'd get out and zoom through crystal clear sky. Not so. Actually, my astral vision is far superior in terms of lucidity, meaning, what I see behind my eyelids during trance states and meditation. But once I'm out, it's like soup or an out of focus image that I must put under light to refine, but I'm never out long enough to refine. I know it will come in time.

Hello, SoulSail.

Kurt and Charles told me that there's two sides to the development of an energy body - the faculties and the vehicle of consciousness. The faculties are what this energy body can do to enhance your present state of conscious accessible from physical reality, while the vehicle of consciousness is what you use when travelling out of body. I myself have a pattern of developing faculties first and vehicle later.

On the other hand, it could be that you access different energy bodies of different state of development during meditation and projection. Even further, you could have simulations while being out of body that specifically target certain chakras and attenuate others to maximize effect.

BTW, I don't think regular chakra work and the development of this out-of-body chakra aspects is directly related. Your dreams and experiences do help to develop this organically, it's a process. Knowing this might help curb frustration.

Oliver

[greytraveller]

Hallo SoulSail
Prior intention can be important. Have an action that you would like to perform while OOB or a location to visit. Those provide a motivation to get out of the immediate area and go/do something else.
I have managed to act on prior intentions deliberately during OBEs. Surprisingly the subconscious mind can also act on these intentions as a few times I have unwittingly shown up at an unfamiliar location but forgot what I was supposed to do there.


Regards
Grey

[SoulSail]

I'm printing off all these replies. Also, now that I'm getting out of body, I'm going to go back to Leland's works as well as Astral Dynamics and few others. Having a touch of experiential knowledge always illuminates a text in parts and pieces you may have glossed over before because they were too foreign.

I'm planning to get out tonight again. I've limited myself to trying once a week, but I'm very excited and curious in new ways. We'll see what happens.

Soul

[LPCF]

Bon voyage! I look forward to hearing more.