[awagsFare]

My first real experience occurred on Tuesday morning, after downloading and utilizing the saltcube timer. I'm hoping someone else here can help me define what it was that actually happened.

Somewhere in the midst of the alarms and the dozing, I heard my sister in another room, walking towards me, calling my name, and knocking on my door, and as I began rolling over to look at her, I remembered that she wasn't living here anymore, and I immediately let go of the idea of moving my body. Vibrations began. Since it was my first experience, my first instinct was that I needed to capitalize on it in case it never happened again. My energy hands immediately went to work pulling on that rope.

But again I caught myself and remembered that I didn't want to get too excited and break the fragile in-between state, so again I relaxed.

A moment later, the vibrations ceased, and although I was initially disappointed, I drifted off back to sleep in the hopes of catching the memories during the download and reintegration.

Just before the actual awakening, I had a dream experience more vivid than any I've ever had (and my dreams are usually so vivid, specific, elaborate, and abundant that I sometimes burn an hour of my morning trying to capture it all on paper).

The dream entailed rolling out of bed and standing up in my room, then immediately falling to the floor -- at the time, I thought my lack of strength was weird, but I didn't attribute it to anything except still being in a post-sleep state where the fuzziness and groginess was exacerbated by the near-OBE experience earlier. Anyway, lying on my stomach against the cool hardwood floor, I pulled myself forward with my hands and arms, made it to the staircase, and slid down head-first. At the time, the rest of the experience seemed just as normal, but in retrospect it was at the bottom of the stairs that my house began looking different, adding on rooms and windows, and then I descended into a short narrative that felt more quick and distant and detached, like I'm used to dreams feeling. It was, perhaps, almost lucid in that I remember being out in the backyard, underneath the moon and the early evening sky, floating uncontrollably until I thought to myself that I could will myself where I wanted to go and made my way back inside.

That is when I woke up. From what I've read in all of Robert's materials, especially the mind-split, I would surmise that it's possible I did actually have an OBE, albeit with so little etheric energy that I could only afford a few moments of consciousness with highly-restricted mobility, and then fell into an actual dream.

Does anyone know of case histories where this sort of thing happens? Could my more-conscious mind have stayed in my physical body, falling back to sleep and then experiencing the OBE as a sort of dream as the real-time body reintegrated and downloaded the memories? Or is it more likely that it was just a "traditional" dream influenced by all of the astral projection-related reading and theorizing that I've been dumping into my conscious and subconscious minds?

Best,

Vic

[Raj_Copi_Jin]

Hi Vic,

I think you'll know the answer to your question as you have more and more experiences.

Sounds like a low energy RTZ OBE to me.

[Irravepem]

this supports my theory that whenever you experience exit sensations you are going to have an obe, except you somehow prevent it. once you feel vibrations there are two possibilities: 1. you make the exit and have a conscious OBE or 2. you fall asleep and have an OBE where you are unconscious (or very slightly conscious). so i think this was actually an OBE that turned into a dream but this is normal. concratulations on you first OBE.

[awagsFare]

Since this forum is peppered with OBE journal threads, I'll use this as my own for now. By the way, I appreciate the comments from both jalef and Beekeeper. Thank you for your insight thus far.

On with today's post.

(Note: what I'm truly interested in is hearing feedback and postulation on this morning's experience, detailed at the bottom of the thread.)

The day after the "low energy RTZ OBE" (thanks, BK), I used the same saltcube timer process to induce another experience, of which I'm positive occurred in real time and was not a dream.

I saw nothing but blackness the entire time -- literally a few seconds -- but I was aware of my position in space as hovering off to the side of my bed and about a foot below my physical body.

As I floated down to the floor, my mind's voice demanded "Astral Sight NOW!" and "Clarity NOW!" to no avail, and then I was intensely aware of my naked back (specifically, the area surrounding my left shoulder blade) smacking into the hardwood floor of my bedroom, after which I woke up.

Today's experience:

During meditation just before sleep last night, I kept feeling my arms, wrists and feet occasionally twitch, and after reading some of the horror stories about "puppetry" in the Psychic Self-Defense forum (a practice which I have officially given up, as in my opinion it causes more harm and invites a sort of metaphysical hypochondria, which fuels fear and probably invites negative influences in a self-fulfilling prophecy), I spent the night in a state where my fear grappled with my willpower's overpowering desire to overcome it.

It may be relevent to the following, it may not. I appreciate any and all insight anyone can give.

Again, using the saltcube timer, I attempted OBE induction. After many awakenings, my experience began with vivid tactile sensations. My eyes were open and the sun was streaming in, and the earbuds I wear to bed were draped across my chest. Instead of the two, one left and one right, there were three, and they were wriggling around like angry snakes, or livewires. They were smacking me in the face, and from them I could hear the voice of Hashmeer Shashmeer, frontman for Arabian Rap Group X. (Yes, I am a fan. For those of you unfamiliar, you can go to Flash video repositories like ebaumsworld.com and watch some of their music videos like "Bang Bang Bang" and "Schfifty-Five.") Hashmeer, in his traditionally offensive, condescending pseudo-Arabic tone, tossed some insults my way.

A moment later I woke up with the earbuds still in place inside my ears.

So, I've read about the cold, damp hands as a common sort of pre-OBE distraction, in addition to the visible "dweller" and the sounds. Has anyone had experiences with such intrusive tactile, auditory and visual distractions like this? I'm sure further experience will allow me to condition myself to fall deeper into myself to ignore the stimulation, but I'm curious what others have to say.

Best,

Vic

[Raj_Copi_Jin]

Hi Vic,

I've pm-ed Matt letting him know about this post. I consider him the real expert on the saltcube timer method.

I have to admit that I try not to read too many posts on the psychic self defence forum for the same reasons as you've posted here. It is reassuring, though, to know if anything ever does happen I know where to go for advice.

You do know it's possible for a dream to overtake your OBE, don't you? It sounds like this is what happened to you perhaps.

I'm planning to experiment with this method again sometime in the next few nights. There's definitely something to it.

Cheers

[awagsFare]

Hey Beekeeper--

From what I've read and what I've experienced, the idea I have is that dreams are sort of low-energy, passive astral projections. Once I'm awake, I seem to be able to distinguish between OBEs and dreams, but for the purposes of defining what actually happens (the processes and mechanisms involved, etc.), I'm not sure there's a lot of difference besides the amount of lucidity and control.

So I'm not sure what you mean when you say that dreams can overtake OBEs, unless you're talking about the kind of process where there's a second or two of actual, conscious OBE and immediately the mind starts losing consciousness and lucidity, allowing dream elements to bleed into the OBE experience and, in that area between conscious OBE and dreams, those dream aspects can seem very vivid and real -- followed, of course, by either a startling awakening, or a further slip of the mind into passive dream mode.

Either way -- using the rhythm napping method roughly two-thirds of the mornings since I discovered it last week, I've had less than impressive results, and I'm trying to figure out why. I've read a little bit about energy storage requirements, and the building up and usage of energy reserves, but as much as I'd love to fill my sub-navel center, I'm not sure if I even have any idea how to properly perform the full-body circuit (or, to take it a step further, how energy requirements play into the conscious projection process).

I don't think I've ever been able to achieve anything more than a very deep version of a light trance. While I'm able to easily put myself in a state where I fall deep inside myself and away from outside stimuli (a state where I lose most of the sensations of my physical body), I can't say I've ever experienced a full trance because I don't recall ever being in a state that I could label "mind awake/body asleep." It's just too easy to pull myself out of it, and my intuition tells me that "mind awake/body asleep" should be harder to come out of, like sleep paralysis. Because of this, the traditional MAP/Astral Dynamics stuff hasn't worked for me, nor did BWGEN by itself when I discovered it back in 2003; the only results I've ever gotten from any of these are even more crazy, elaborately orchestrated dream sequences.

Therefore, I'm not sure whether to take some time off and hope that the energy storage is working, in order to build up enough of a surplus to allow conscious projection, or to keep at the rhythm napping method every morning hoping to spontaneously OBE enough (or at least to creep closer and closer each morning) that my energy body is forced to evolve and adapt -- not unlike the karate master pounding his fist and his willpower against hard surface after hard surface until he becomes stronger than the hard surface.

Or, for you Superman fans (or those into offbeat metaphors), the genetic engineering of Doomsday, sent by his scientist father out into the unforgiving climes of a harsh alien planet, time and again, death after death, DNA collected, cloned and improved until the process gave rise to the single monster so unstoppable that it would slay the Man of Steel.

Such is my dilemma.

And if you think this post is long, rest assured that I excised quite a bit when I decided it would be more appropriate to put it in my forthcoming introduction post.

Best,

Vic

[Raj_Copi_Jin]

"So I'm not sure what you mean when you say that dreams can overtake OBEs, unless you're talking about the kind of process where there's a second or two of actual, conscious OBE and immediately the mind starts losing consciousness and lucidity, allowing dream elements to bleed into the OBE experience and, in that area between conscious OBE and dreams, those dream aspects can seem very vivid and real -- followed, of course, by either a startling awakening, or a further slip of the mind into passive dream mode. "

Pretty much.

"Either way -- using the rhythm napping method roughly two-thirds of the mornings since I discovered it last week, I've had less than impressive results, and I'm trying to figure out why."

I think you could try asking Matt what he recommends. I believe that you can get results from this method in the period of days or even weeks following an attempt, even if you didn't get the desired experience at the time of the attempt . The results aren't always an OBE. I had a pretty great lucid dream experience and some interesting experiences with what I perceived as invisible hands after I had a go at rhythm napping. OBEs are cool (and mine haven't typically been very prolonged high energy experiences) but I'm happy as long as life maintains some degree of freakiness. That's just me.

"I've read a little bit about energy storage requirements, and the building up and usage of energy reserves, but as much as I'd love to fill my sub-navel center, I'm not sure if I even have any idea how to properly perform the full-body circuit (or, to take it a step further, how energy requirements play into the conscious projection process)."

I suggest you read a bit more. Post in the other sections as you go. Experiment for yourself if you're curious. You've already had enough experience to know this stuff isn't made up.

"... the only results I've ever gotten from any of these are even more crazy, elaborately orchestrated dream sequences. "

so, you're dreaming more vividly or just recalling more. Is that so bad? Perhaps a lucid dream will be the way out of body for you. In any case, judging by the creativity and expressiveness of this post, you're probably an imaginative type and should be used to vivid dreams.

I suggest you follow your intuition on whether to take a rest or continue. I don't always work towards OBEs but I raise energy daily because it makes me feel good in lots of way and it helps my dream recall, which gives me pleasure and insight. When I feel movements in my etheric limbs, it reminds me of other possibilities that may or may not happen again anytime soon. When I find life's demands abate, then I return to serious OB work.

Cheers