ASTRAL PROJECTION

According to Wikipedia.com : Astral projection (or astral travel) is an interpretation of out-of-body experiences (OBEs) achieved either awake or via lucid dreaming, deep meditation, or the use of psychotropics. People who say they experience astral projection often say that their consciousness or soul has transferred into an astral body (or "double"), which moves in tandem with the physical body in a "parallel world" known as the astral plane. The concept of astral projection has been around for thousands of years, dating back to ancient China. The mystical model includes a large variety of belief systems and astral maps, but they are tied together by their belief that astral projection takes place outside of the actual physical body. In this model, a more subtle energy body is believed to carry the consciousness outside of the physical body. In their book Projection of the Astral Body, Carrington and Muldoon detail how consciousness is transferred into a secondary "energy" body (the etheric body) to allow travel into the astral planes. This idea is also described by other authors such as Robert Peterson in his book Out of Body Experiences: How to have them and what to expect (chapters 5, 17, 22), and Robert Bruce in his book Astral Dynamics (pages 31-33, 404-410, 538). Bruce expanded on this idea in his book Astral Dynamics, stating that higher planes of existence are reached through the progressive projection of subtler energy bodies from previous projected bodies (pages 33-42). The subtle body is attached to the physical body by means of an energetic connection which usually takes the appearance of a silver cord 'plugging' into the chakra system like an umbilical cord. Robert Peterson describes this in chapter 13 of his book Out of Body Experiences, Robert Bruce in his book Astral Dynamics (pages 27, 52-53, 84, 397-403,544) and by Carrington and Muldoon in their book Projection of the astral body. This description raises the question, which is connected to which? Are our physical bodies powered by our 'spirits' or 'souls', or vice versa?
Achieving Astral Projection:
A) Meditation: Choose a position in which you will be comfortable for a prolonged period, but will not make you fall asleep (if you do don't get discouraged, many do in the begining). Here's the 2 visuals I have used in the past:

1: Chakras: Breathe deeply, ground yourself. Feel every fiber of the chair pressing aginst you clothes. Feel every fiber of your clothes pressing against your skin. Start at your toes. Concentrate on how your toes feel. flex them then relax them to move up to the calf. Tighten your calf then relax it. Move up to your thghs / butt tighten / relese. Go up the whole body - belly, lungs, fingers, forearms, bicep, jaw., eyes. Once I get to my third eye I visualize it opening like a door. Through that doorway is the destination I had in mind. I can soo throguh the frame of the dor whever I wanted to go. Slowly I walk through the door - and there I am. I've also projected to people imagining them through the door.

2: Beach Scene: for those who need help clearing the clutter from the mind: Close your eyes and take three deep breathes. Imagine you are sucking in a white smoke as you inhale picture the smoke spreading throughout your body. Relax EVERYTHING! Continue taking deep even breathes - in for a count of 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4 - just to find a rhythm (don't count) Imagine yourself on a long empty beach. Feel the sand beneath your toes. Hear the seaguls, hear the whoosh of the waves, feel the Moonlight tingle on your skin. There is a long stick in your hand. Use the stick to draw a circle. In the center of the circle draw the number 10. Let the waves wash the circle and number away. Draw another circle with the number 9. Let the waves wash it away. Repeat this process until you finish number 1 at this point you should be extremely relaxed and ready to travel. Lay down/sit down on the beach in the same position you are in in your home. Close your eyes. Continure deep breething as you begin to visualize where you want to travel. Hear the sounds, smell the scents, etc. Open your 'astral' eyes again and you should no longer be on the beach but wherever you chose to travel.

3: Forest Scene: For those with vivid imaginations who need help clearing the clutter from the mind: Close your eyes and take three deep breathes. Imagine you are sucking in a white smoke as you inhale picture the smoke spreading throughout your body. Relax EVERYTHING! Imagine yourself in a forest, next to a rumbling brook. Feel the moisture in the air. Hear the birds and the animals running around, hear the wind through the trees, feel the scattered Sunlight (scattered through the leaves on the trees) tingle on your skin. You have a pouch of small pebbles attached to your waist. Take one of the pebbles and toss it into the brook.Wait fo r the water rings to vanish. Repeat with teh next pebble. Repeat this process until you are out of pebbles (usually aanywhere from 10 - 20 pebbles are needed. At this point you should be extremely relaxed. Sit/lay down on a large stone or the forest floor. Close your eyes. Continure deep breething as you begin to visualize where you wnat to travel. Hear the sounds, smell the scents, etc. Open your 'astral' eyes again and you should no longer be on the beach but wherever you chose to travel.

B) Lucid Dreaming: Lucid dreaming (lucid from Latin, lux "light") is the conscious perception of one's state while dreaming, resulting in a much clearer experience and can be as if you were awake, even sometimes enabling direct control over the content of the dream, a realistic world that is to some degree in the control of the dreamer.[1] The complete experience from start to finish is called a lucid dream. Stephen LaBerge, a popular author and experimenter on the subject, has defined it as "dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming."[2]
LaBerge and his associates have called people who purposely explore the possibilities of lucid dreaming oneironauts (literally from the Greek ονειροναύτες, meaning "dream sailors"). The validity of lucid dreaming as a scientifically verified phenomenon is well-established.[3][4]

Common induction techniques
1) Wake-back-to-bed (WBTB)
The wake-back-to-bed technique is often the easiest way to induce a lucid dream. The method involves going to sleep tired and waking up five hours later. Then, focusing all thoughts on lucid dreaming, staying awake for an hour and going back to sleep while practicing the MILD method. A 60% success rate has been shown in research using this technique.[27] This is because the REM cycles get longer as the night goes on, and this technique takes advantage of the best REM cycle of the night. Because this REM cycle is longer and deeper, gaining lucidity during this time may result in a more lengthy lucid dream.[27]

2) Reality testing
Reality testing is a common method that people use to determine whether or not they are dreaming. It involves performing an action with results that are difficult to re-create in a dream. By practicing these techniques during waking life, one may eventually dream of performing a reality check—which will usually fail—helping the dreamer realize that they are dreaming. Common reality tests include:

• Holding one's nose, then breathing through it. Often, it is possible to breathe through the nose, even though it is pinched shut.
• Reading some text, looking away, and reading it again, or to look at one's watch and remember the time, then look away and look back. Observers have found that, in a dream, the text or time will often have changed.[25]
• Flipping a light switch or looking into a mirror. Light switches rarely work properly in dreams, and reflections from a mirror often appear to be blurred, distorted or incorrect.[26]
• Pinching oneself or hitting an object hard. The acute pain usually cannot be felt in dreams.
• Counting one's fingers. The number of fingers will often be higher or lower than 5, or not be easily counted, or even shift before the dreamer's eyes.

Another form of reality testing involves identifying one's dream signs, clues that one is dreaming. Dream signs are often categorized as follows:

• Action — The dreamer, another dream character, or a thing does something unusual or impossible in waking life, such as photos in a magazine or newspaper becoming 3-dimensional with full movement.
• Context — The place or situation in the dream is strange.
• Form — The dreamer, another character, or a thing changes shape, or is oddly formed or transforms; this may include the presence of unusual clothing or hair, or a third person view of the dreamer.
• Awareness — A peculiar thought, a strong emotion, an unusual sensation, or altered perceptions. In some cases when moving one's head from side to side, one may notice a strange stuttering or 'strobing' of the image.
• Cohesion — Sometimes the dreamer may seem to "teleport" to a completely different location in a dream, with no transition whatsoever.

Though occurrences like these may seem out of place in waking life, they may seem perfectly normal to a dreaming mind and learning to pick up on these dream signs will help in recognizing that one is dreaming. Since a lucid dream starts in an instant and looks and feels like real world inside the person's head, some people panic or are slightly frightened by it, and consciously pull out of it feeling that lingering might cause them to be trapped inside their own head. This cannot happen. You cannot be trapped inside your own head when fully conscious.h the understanding of lucid dreaming into a less speculative realm.

3)Wake-initiated lucid dream (WILD)
The wake-initiated lucid dream "occurs when the sleeper enters REM sleep with unbroken self-awareness directly from the waking state".[28] There are many techniques aimed at entering a WILD. The key to these techniques is recognizing the hypnagogic stage, which is within the border of being awake and being asleep. If a person is successful in staying aware while this stage occurs, they will eventually enter the dream state while being fully aware that it is a dream. There are key times at which this state is best entered; while success at night after being awake for a long time is very difficult, it is relatively easy after being awake for 15 or so minutes and in the afternoon during a nap. Common techniques for inducing WILDs abound. Dreamers often count, envision themselves climbing or descending stairs, chanting to themselves, exploring elaborate, passive sexual fantasies, controlling their breathing, concentrating on relaxing their body from their toes to their head, allowing images to flow through their "mind's eye" and envisioning themselves jumping into the image, or any various form of concentration to keep their mind awake, while still being calm enough to let their body sleep. During the actual transition into the dream state, one is likely to experience sleep paralysis, including rapid vibrations,[13] a sequence of very loud sounds and a feeling of twirling into another state of body awareness, "to drift off into another dimension". Also there is frequently a sensation of falling rapidly or dropping through the bed as one enters the dream state or the sensation of entering a dark black room from which one can induce any dream scenario of one's choosing, simply by concentrating on it. The key to being successful is to not panic, especially during the transition which can be quite sudden.

Note: Prolonging lucid dreams
One problem faced by people wishing to lucid dream is awakening prematurely. This premature awakening can be especially frustrating after investing considerable time into achieving lucidity in the first place. Stephen LaBerge proposed two ways to prolong a lucid dream. The first technique is spinning your dream body. He proposes that when spinning you are engaging parts of your brain that may also be involved in REM activity, helping to prolong REM. The second technique is rubbing one's hands. The idea behind rubbing your hands is that you are engaging your brain in producing the sensation, preventing the sensation of lying in bed from creeping into awareness. LaBerge tested his hypothesis by asking 34 volunteers to either spin,rub their hands, or go with the flow while lucid dreaming. Results showed 90% of dreams were prolonged by hand rubbing, and 96% prolonged by spinning. Only 33% of lucid dreams were prolonged by going with the flow (doing nothing)

Coming Home

To end my astral projections / out of body experiences I close my eyes and again resume the deep breathing. I usually use the reverse of the Chakra meditation. Closing the door of my 3rd eye. Then becoming aware of sensations from my head odwn to my feet. Send out all your senses to once again connect with your howm and physical body.