Lucid dreaming, astral projection, out of body experiences, etc.

[RandomJohn]

I have a question for the experienced lucid dreamers or astral projecters. I've heard that lucid dreaming is one way to astrally project, and some sources even claim (and I don't quite believe) that lucid dreaming is equivalent to either OBEs or astral projection.

Has anyone ever used lucid dreaming to induce an out of body experience or astral projection (or had it spontaneously happen)? I'm curious to hear of your experiences with this.

[sourceofmiracles]

The only astral projections I can recall seem to move from Lucid dreams. And they have all been by accident.

Carlos Castaneda talks about it in The Art of Dreaming. He discusses 4 gates of dreaming (though there are appearently 7). the gates represent doorways to states from lucid dreaming - waking in the "energy body". Incredible book. One of my favorites.

[Erin Pavlina]

In my experience, lucid dreaming and astral projection are entirely different experiences. In lucid dreaming I am inside my own consciousness, able to affect the entire dream world. When I'm astral, however, my consciousness moves to another realm where I cannot control or populate it just with my thoughts. It's a different place.

With lucid dreaming, I am going to more of an inner space, while with astral projection I am going to a different space, outside myself.

[mrDarcyMurphy]

My experience has been that lucid dreaming can be a way to have an OBE, though I've had far more success without going that way.

[RandomJohn]

I've experienced many more lucid dreams than OBEs (which I've only had really minor success with). I guess I found it odd when I saw it mentioned (elsewhere) that OBEs=lucid dreaming.

Since it seems to be accepted that one can induce an OBE from a LD, does anyone have any experience with this? How did you do it?

[stellabeam]

I had a profound experience while sleeping which was both lucid and OBE.
I was flying along a forest path. I felt a tightening round my waist like a drawstring being pulled tighter and tighter as i flew. I realised my sleeping boyfriends' arm was around my waist, stopping me from progressing. I flew back down the path into my body, "woke up" long enough to move his arm off me and instantly was back flying up the path. This time free to follow it. I became lighter and lighter. Flying has often been a bit awkward for me but I have never experienced the freedom I felt in this dream. A thought, and I was there.
I became lighter and lighter and felt myself expanding away from the earth. It was the deepest peace. The sweetest freedom. In this state I entered a timelessness.
I was given a choice about whether to return or not. I instantly chose to return. Then i was back on the path and flew back down into my body. Instantly awake. And I could not concieve of why on earth I had chosen to leave that beautiful amazing place to be back here. It seemed a completely ludicrous choice to have made.
Later I was grateful to have been given the chance to remember a conscious choice to live here. To remember how strongly I said yes to that, even though it meant leaving the most divine place.

[Erin Pavlina]

Cool Stellabeam! Nice experience.

[Anagogy]

The only experience that I can remember having involving a possible Astral Projection happened after becoming lucid in a dream. I said to myself, "I'm gonna leave my body!" And proceeded to allow the dream scenery to dissolve. At first there was blackness, but then it began to feel as if I was lying on my bed. The problem with my experience is that my consciousness was extremely "muddy" during the whole thing. So it probably wasn't as mind blowing as the other posters' experiences. I think I may have pulled an arm out or two and waved them around -- I seem to recall my entire astral body feeling really tingly, sort of like your arm does when you sleep on it only to wake up and find it deprived of blood.

I did a roll out and my memories of it are really sketchy at this point, and walked out into the downstairs living room. I remember finding it interesting that it felt very much like being in the body as far as the sensation of walking was concerned. I think I may have tried to go upstairs and then I blacked out, and found myself in sleep paralysis in bed a few seconds later.

I don't know if it was a dream, but it certainly was cool whatever it was. Can't wait to do it again with clearer consciousness.

[cameroncameroncameron]

i remember having a lucid dream when i was tiny, it was more lke a lucid nightmare, my whole family was in a room, then there faces started changing into differennt colors and shapes, and i became lucid.it was realy freaky, and i experienced the waking-paralysis and i was stuck in my dream, not able to get out.
i also recently had a lucid dream, were i had, before hand, been meditating and creative visualizing alot, and i think thats why i had one, because now im only 14 and this lucid dream was a month ago, before that, i hadnt had any lucid dreams since 7 and 8. but in my recent lucid dream, i found it realy hard to fly, and i read or heard about somewhere that if you fly straight up, you can exit youre body and make a lucid dream, an astral experience. but i couldnt fly, and when i did, i only hovered about half a meter of the ground. and i realy had to concentrate, it sucked. but i then tried to focu all my atention on flying, and found myself rising, and i then looked around and i was about 10 meters of the ground. i then landed on a rooftop[the whole background was downtown klamath falls] i then tried to exit my dream and my body but right before lift off, i woke up. i probably could have gone straight back into the dream, and i realy wish i had, but i was too excited to so i got up and wrote in my journal.

[dreamerYYZ]

I just watched the movie Waking Life and decided to google lucid dreaming. I haven't really thought about it much. I know I have realized I have been dreaming on several occasions but that is usually when I wake up.

I have read that some people have solved problems in their dreams and others are highly creative, inventors, authors, painters ect.

The one thing I hadn't considered is that lucid dreams are probably still only taking a short amount of real time compared to perceived time will dreaming.

Therefore these complex problems are being solved in a fraction of the time that they would be when awake.

Makes me wonder if lucid dreaming is truly an untapped resource. You could be lucid do hours or days of problems solving/thinking in a matter of minutes maybe seconds?