[CaseyFronczek]

Thanks! That clears things up. I have some more questions though
Is it true that while projected and separated from your physical body, you have no sense of touch at all?

No, not true. You can touch objects and feel them as though solid. It all depends on how deep the phase is. Sensory amplification techniques can deepen the state and the environment will become more realistic to the point of emulating or even surpassing the physical world perception. All senses are possible in the phase. Likewise, you can also switch them off at will.

Also recently while attempting to project, I actually started to see my room around me as if I was floating, but my bed was empty and the bedsheets were the wrong colour, so I passed it off as an LD. Do you think it was just an LD?

That is your answer right there, from you PERSONAL experience, in that OOBEs and lucid dreams are the same phenomenon. Your mind will try to get your bedroom environment replicated after a perceived separation from the body but it is very often inaccurate. Why can it afford to be inaccurate? Because you can handle it and it doesn't put you in any harm. It is a mental construct manifest from expectation but possibly slightly altered due to other thoughts from the unconscious getting in the way. You can think of it as a mental playdoh mold with dents.

Now this is what confuses me. I've heard this theory before but I've also heard many people say the difference between the LD state and the AP state is very clear once you've actually projected.

The different depths of the phase can often lead people to believe that they are in different realms. When there is fuzziness and no apparent anomalies are spotted, one can believe that it is a RTZ or Locale I projection. When the phase is deep, the environment is hyper-vivid, realistic, surreal, and, especially when anomalies are spotted, one can believe that it is the astral plane they are in.

In three years of entering the phase I have not really noticed any clear distinctions between OOBEs and LDs. To me, OOBEs are just WILDs which include a perceived separation from the body and the bedroom replica is simulated. There have been some instances where there is apparent telepathy and it seems that we have explored the minds of others...but that is as far as I go.

From my experience, it is the same state which can be enter before, during and after sleep. By no means take this as gospel. I'm only expressing the conclusion I have arrived at after putting all my experiences into perspective. I have gone through many paradigm shifts but, when applying a pragmatic outlook...this is it.

It has become apparent to scientists that both brain hemispheres are involved in dreaming. They have performed experiments on split-brain subjects. It was found that their dreaming lacks imagination. However, the content was very utilitarian and true to life.

When it comes to the phase and the possibility that it may be governed by the amazing potential of the subconscious mind, it is feasible to think that some experiences will be more accurate or more true to life than others. Hence a perceived dichotomy within the phase phenomenon such as Locale I and Locale II (to use Robert Monroe's terminology).

Let's also remember that some individuals appear to have photographic memory (which can help). Isn't it interesting that Locale 2 projections and lucid dreams are more common than RTZ in general?

Anyway, just pointing a few things out and offering you to consider other avenues besides the New Age, Spiritualist and mystical views. Feel free to believe what you want, of course but, pay more attention to what your experiences tell you and less heed of what has been written by someone else.