[CiccoineFed]

I'm not at all sure why you suggest that a conscious mind requires a body??

According to my own experiences, and many books I've read about the spirit realm and afterlife and from psychic mediums, they all suggest that the conscious mind is the body. Right now we live in a dimension of conscious energy.

You can be aware while dreaming though, and it'd be a lucid dream. But it still wouldn't be your conscious mind doing the latter.

There's ways to be aware without a conscious mind.

I hope you get what I'm saying.

I don't claim to know it all though. Maybe the spirit has a conscious mind of it's own?

[Dyerryjex]

I think (and this is just me supposin') that when we use our brain to think we do it in a 'judging/comparing' manner, and this is called 'conscious'- Like for example, this cloud is green. Should this cloud be green? Have I ever seen a green cloud? *searches memory to see if clouds should be green* comes to a conclusion "no, clouds shouldn't be green" and then goes on to form an opinion as to why the cloud is green (I'm dreaming, I'm projecting, I hit my head, the gov. is doing some awful experiment)- this is called conscious or sequential thinking, and it is deemed a property of the mind as it uses the brain to think. (aka known as left-brained). It uses the brain because it has to immerse itself in physical reality and what it has learned with a brain to form an opinion or a conclusion given the data.
When you speak of the mind in terms of the spirit, the mind doesn't think this way. It just observes, no judgement. It sees a green cloud- "Look, a green cloud"- and that is it.
So in this case, you do need a brain to have consciousness as described in this post. Yes, there are many types of consciousness, and this is the one Ryan is probably talking about.

[iroxmxinau]

Back to the duration aspect though -- aren't there areas of the Astral in which time is distorted? Or techniques to make time go slower during your experience? In a Lucid Dreaming FAQ that has been floating around the internet for years, this was stated:


2.23. How can I stop real time in my Lucid Dreams?

Stopping real time in your Lucid Dreams means making the Lucid Dream last far more than the time passed by in the physical world. Like having a dream that last a few minutes in real time, while you might experience it as a few days in the dream. By doing this can you enjoy the dream scape a lot more, since you can spend days in the dream while it really just last a few minutes. Robert Monroe even reported experiencing 100 years in a 2 hours OOBE. But to experience this might be difficult, little research have been done on this area. And those that experience it don't consciously try to have them. Still, there are a few techniques you might try. First of all, set your intention to stop real time. Have that intention in mind while having your Lucid Dream. Picture yourself being in the dream for days, maybe even weeks before you wake up. You might try to saying out loud: "Stop time now!" You can try looking at your clock in the dream, and imagine that the clock slow down and stop. You might try to expect the dream to last for days. You might try visualize two pyramids, connected at their bases counterrotating. And maybe visualize multiple pyramids rotating inside each other all rotating. This is something worth going for, as it may give you incredible long Lucid Dreams.
Although this focuses on lucid dreams, the point about Robert Monroe is very interesting, since it refers to an OBE. I've only read his first book and have just started on the third, so I don't know for sure where this is referenced. Stemming off of that however, has anyone experienced anything that has dramatically increased their time in the Astral or Real-Time(the concept of distorting your perception of time in the real-time is almost oxymoronic), while affecting your perception of the actual time lapsed in the physical?

[Dyerryjex]

Not in my experience. Even though I have had very long dreams (weeks' worth in one night, months' in a week) when I wake up it doesn't distort the time spent in the physical, whatsoever. It's like two different 'departments' in my consciousness.

[iroxmxinau]

I worded that awkwardly -- I was trying to get at changing your perception of real-time, but during a projection. For example, experiencing 3 hours in a projection while only a few minutes or so have passed when you finally go back to your body. You say you've had a week's worth in a night -- even though that was a Lucid Dream and not a projection, did you do anything special to get that type of duration?

[Dyerryjex]

I didn't do anything special, but it was during a time when things were happening about/around me- I was 12, and we were having poltergeist phenomena, and other things. It was a very 'psycho-active' year. Things like that have happened to me since, but not to that extent.

[ZenDers]

Great topic!

Well I'm sorry if i missed something but isnt time a man made illusion? ill be short, i woke once to my alarm and did what most people do,i pressed snooze i had a epic dream that was very vivid not scrappy. if i didn't know better i would have to say it lasted about 3-4 hrs real time? i was waken 2min later only to press snooze again and start where it left off,again the alarm and again snooze.Who knows how long this could have gone on for great fun? but alas i had to get up for work.So really who knows you might live a life time in one night and not even remember it!! Personally i like my food too much We can do all that later, life is for the living, you come this far

Kind Regards Martin

[Dyerryjex]

Great topic!

Well I'm sorry if i missed something but isnt time a man made illusion?

Time is the measurement of changes in space. If you believe that man creates reality, then I suppose this is true.
But if you believe that changes in spacetime don't happen if man is not there to measure it, I have to disagree.
I think the problem with modern philosophy is that it presupposes that something that doesn't exist (time isn't an object, it's a measurement) is an illusion, and an illusion has no reality whatsoever- but in reality an illusion is the misinterpretation of something- and that something can be bigger that the illusion. So I'd say time is a phenomenon we hardly understand, and only manmade if you believe you create the universe.
ill be short, i woke once to my alarm and did what most people do,i pressed snooze i had a epic dream that was very vivid not scrappy. if i didn't know better i would have to say it lasted about 3-4 hrs real time? i was waken 2min later only to press snooze again and start where it left off,again the alarm and again snooze.Who knows how long this could have gone on for great fun? but alas i had to get up for work. It has been measured that brain synapses fire at a different rate when confronted with certain type of stressful situations.* So you can actually think faster than normal in the middle of an accident, which accounts for the 'slo-motion' effect (something I've experienced). So yes, time can be experienced differently, but that doesn't mean it's alterable by the human mind. I'm not saying it's not possible, it's just that I haven't seen any case in which this seems to be what happened. Yet.
Since we know time is relative (time stops if mass gets large enough) we know it can be manipulated. However, being able to manipulate time isn't the same as saying that 'time is a manmade illusion'. Close, but not yet, anyway.

So really who knows you might live a life time in one night and not even remember it!! Personally i like my food too much We can do all that later, life is for the living, you come this far

Kind Regards Martin I believe this actually does happen, but in the bigger picture we do remember it, I think.

* http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/n ... rdick.html