Astral Projection and Dreaming (Blog)

[Erin Pavlina]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Erin Pavlina's blog:

Astral Projection and Dreaming

[The David]

Are you familiar with Edain McCoy? She wrote a book 'Astral Projection for Beginners' (Llewellyn). She claims to have found virtually no difference between AP and LD. She also says that most "regular travelers" don't really distinguish them, either.

She's been a subject of controversy for other reasons. I wouldn't be too surprised to find that she had never even done real AP. I just thought I'd bring it up since it's such an unusual viewpoint.

[Erin Pavlina]

It doesn't surprise me that some people think they are projecting when they are just dreaming they are projecting. You know that old adage, "How do you know if you've ever had an orgasm? If you have to ask, you haven't." It's the same thing. Believe me, if you have ever had a true astral projection you know it is nothing at all like a lucid dream, anymore than getting in your car and actually driving to work is a dream, or going to the grocery store, or taking a shower.

not familiar with Edain though.

[kikkifiji]

I was so thrilled to see Erin's article this morning. I had the most confusing experience during an afternoon nap yesterday and today's article was just what I was looking for to clear up what happened. Synchronicity is a great thing!

Yesterday I was reading a book I just got by William Buhlman on OBE's. I decided to try a couple of his techniques and ended up falling asleep (at least I'm pretty sure I was). Either I was in an "in-and-out" state of sleep, or in an ~extremely~ realistic lucid dream.

I "dream" that I wake up from my nap, I feel vibrations coursing through me and try to lift up my head, to my elation I'm able to sit up and look to see my body still there. My vision is blurred so I shout "clarity" and it doesn't work, but i find that if I close my eyes everything is in brilliant technicolor. I walk across the room and try to touch the wall but get snapped back to my body. When I return to my body I try to raise my vibration again and able to get out of my body with similar short term results.

I even "fall asleep" for a short time during this process and have a traditional style lucid dream with characters and dreamlike absurdities. When I wake up from that "dream within a dream," I again feel tingly and decide to really focus on the vibrations before getting out of my body again. When I apply this focus the vibrations suddenly shoot through me and I get out of my body and walk towards the window. When I get to the window I push my hand through and watch the glass and it's like I can see every molecule ripple as I do. It was so realistic and so trippy I start to lose my concentration and fall into my body for the last time.

The moment I fall back into my body I open my eyes I know that I am definitely 100% awake. I lay there for a few minutes just trying to make sense of what happened. Since I've never experienced astral projection before, I was really confused as to whether on not it actually happened. After reading Erin's article this morning I'm pretty sure that it was just a lucid dream of extremely realistic proportions.

So anyhow..Thanks for anticipating my needs Erin, you're very gifted that way! =)

[The David]

I've never had an OBE, but I have dreamed of having one. I know it isn't real because too much time passes between the experience and me waking up. I think real AP would be more abrupt.

[supertom]

----"I think it says volumes that the US Army Intel, US Airforce Intel, CIA, NSA, National Security Council, and every government agency in the US sent it's best and brightest officers to train with Robert Monroe. To this day the US Intelligence community continues to use OBE, Remote Viewing, and many of the "nutty" stuff Robert Monroe learned."------

[Sentient]

I loved this post, but I'm still left a bit confused.

Pretty much any time I want to now, I can take a nap, feel vibrations, and then "wake up" looking out of my physical eyes. I can rotate around and move maybe 1 foot, and I can a silhouette of my arms waving in front of me, but I can't do anything else.

A lot of the time what I see is *exactly* what i would see if my right eye were shut. It's as if I'm looking through my left eye only. Today, I had my heaphones lying near my left eye, so predictably I saw gigantic black plastic that appeared to me as if it were like a tree trunk or something. I was about as awake or lucid as you can be though, so I immediately recognized it for what it was. If someone was there I could have carried on a full discussion about what was going on (provided I was capable of speaking..it didn't feel as if I was).

However, random stuff happens. I was constantly hearing voices throughout the whole ordeal that I identified as mind chatter. Other little parts of my restricted visual field would also morph around a bit.

I've never heard of this but it is so super predictable that it will happen to me at this point.

I'm going to try to ask my girlfriend if I am dreaming with one eye open because it literally seems as if it's a super lucid dream that is drawing upon a visual feed from one of my eyes. I don't sleep with my eyes open, but I guess I am doing it during these naps

Maybe this should be the 4th category on your list Erin

[Blueskied]

Are OBEs/APs unstable like (lucid) dreams -with spontaneous changes of scenery and such?

[Erin Pavlina]

There can be spontaneous changes, yes, but it's more like you're teleporting to another location than that the location is morphing before your eyes as it would be in a dream.

[daj]

I've read on some remote viewing forums that some people when trying to remote view/obe to a certain guarded place, or view a secret document are met with malicious guards who try to kill them in that "dreamland". Quite crazy!

Originally Posted by supertom

----"I think it says volumes that the US Army Intel, US Airforce Intel, CIA, NSA, National Security Council, and every government agency in the US sent it's best and brightest officers to train with Robert Monroe. To this day the US Intelligence community continues to use OBE, Remote Viewing, and many of the "nutty" stuff Robert Monroe learned."------

[Sentient]

So I've been massively confused about this, and instead of just asking around, I thought I'd provide some value for others.

I spoke to a very skilled intuitive about this and she pretty much told me that this was neither a lucid dream nor an out of body experience. She said it sounded a lot like I was in an altered or heightened state of awareness similar to what I might reach in a certain type of meditation. She said that I was struggling with it because most likely I wasn't accustomed to dealing with that vibration yet. She also told me to keep going

So, my joke is actually sort of true. It's not crazy to think that there are more than the three categories (dreaming of AP, lucid dreaming of AP, real AP).

Originally Posted by Sentient

I loved this post, but I'm still left a bit confused.

Pretty much any time I want to now, I can take a nap, feel vibrations, and then "wake up" looking out of my physical eyes. I can rotate around and move maybe 1 foot, and I can a silhouette of my arms waving in front of me, but I can't do anything else.

A lot of the time what I see is *exactly* what i would see if my right eye were shut. It's as if I'm looking through my left eye only. Today, I had my heaphones lying near my left eye, so predictably I saw gigantic black plastic that appeared to me as if it were like a tree trunk or something. I was about as awake or lucid as you can be though, so I immediately recognized it for what it was. If someone was there I could have carried on a full discussion about what was going on (provided I was capable of speaking..it didn't feel as if I was).

However, random stuff happens. I was constantly hearing voices throughout the whole ordeal that I identified as mind chatter. Other little parts of my restricted visual field would also morph around a bit.

I've never heard of this but it is so super predictable that it will happen to me at this point.

I'm going to try to ask my girlfriend if I am dreaming with one eye open because it literally seems as if it's a super lucid dream that is drawing upon a visual feed from one of my eyes. I don't sleep with my eyes open, but I guess I am doing it during these naps

Maybe this should be the 4th category on your list Erin

[supertom]

Originally Posted by daj

I've read on some remote viewing forums that some people when trying to remote view/obe to a certain guarded place, or view a secret document are met with malicious guards who try to kill them in that "dreamland". Quite crazy!

AWESOME, erin be a good girl and go to area 51 unless your too scared

[Erin Pavlina]

Been to Area 51. Just too scared to report on what I saw there.

Sentient, I've had something similar to waht you describe when I'm trying to astral project and not making it out of my body easily. I have dual conscoiusness and I can pull my astral hands out of my body and wave my arms around, but I can't get my trunk out. Frustrating. But that's the beginning of an astral separation.

[Sentient]

Thanks for the response Erin!

If I make any more progress I'll post about it to help other people who might be in a similar limbo state. I've found a lot that when I ask people skilled at something they often are not entirely sure how to teach it. It's tough remembering things that you stopped thinking about a long time ago because you surpassed the need to worry about them.

[supertom]

when you're astral what do you see in the mirror..

[Erin Pavlina]

you won't see yourself in a mirror if that's what you're asking. sometimes you may not even see the mirror. Depends how out of phase you are or what plane you're on.

[supertom]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

you won't see yourself in a mirror if that's what you're asking. sometimes you may not even see the mirror. Depends how out of phase you are or what plane you're on.

i had a experience that i was being floated off my bed, and i remember looking into my mirror, but i dont remember what i saw, but it felt REAL, if astral feels more real than that,

[Sentient]

Originally Posted by Sentient

So I've been massively confused about this, and instead of just asking around, I thought I'd provide some value for others.

I spoke to a very skilled intuitive about this and she pretty much told me that this was neither a lucid dream nor an out of body experience. She said it sounded a lot like I was in an altered or heightened state of awareness similar to what I might reach in a certain type of meditation. She said that I was struggling with it because most likely I wasn't accustomed to dealing with that vibration yet. She also told me to keep going

So, my joke is actually sort of true. It's not crazy to think that there are more than the three categories (dreaming of AP, lucid dreaming of AP, real AP).

So I said I would post any updates in the hope they'd be useful to someone else.

I spent about 10 uninterrupted minutes in my between state this morning. Here's a bit of what I learned while I was playing around with it.

I noticed that whenever things started shifting around, I was just falling into a dream. When I noticed this, everything tended to stabilize back once again. So that should explain why things were morphing a bit during my previous experiences. It's not actually a feature of whatever state I was in, it was a feature of instability between states.

I could move my hands again, and feel them on all different parts of my body, though apparently I wasn't moving my hands at all in the physical sense. I say that because I was unable to move anything, like my pillow more fully out of the way of my eyes.

I felt an incredible crushing sensation every time I tried to pull my head out. Seriously, it was so intense I pretty much felt it inside my head...almost as if my jaw was being clenched or even someone was pushing me back and using the roof of my mouth to push on! Maybe it felt like I could get all of 2 inches of movement before I hit a brick wall.

Feelings of vibrations built up and then dissipated several times. I never quite got as far as the really distinct electronic whining that I've heard a few times before and that people talk so widely about. When they were at their most intense, my vision looked a little bit like a TV that just had the cable pulled out. Almost like a 50/50 blend of that and whatever I was seeing.

Also, I was sleeping on my other side today, and it always seems as if it is my bottom eye that is open. That means when I lie on my right side, I see out of my right eye. When I lie on my left side, I see out of my left eye. I assume it's my eye (as opposed to say a 3rd eye in my forehead) I'm seeing out of because I can see my nose. I was praying that my girlfriend would get up at some point during this and look at me or take notice of whether my eyes were open or not. Alas, no luck.

What finally pulled me out of state was my girlfriend shifting her body in the bed. She nudged me and it felt really strange..almost like she was nudging against a bubble and not a solid body if that makes any sense. After that I woke up. My vision was exactly the same as I woke up. In fact, the only reason I knew I had woken up was because I could move the rest of my body. Nothing in my visual field changed one iota.

Hopefully that is useful to someone. I seem to learn a bit more each time I land in this experience. Now I just need to figure out how to keep the energy from dissipating when it builds up.