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OOBE the World Around.

Neale

Debonaire Rationale
"Astral Projection" (don't write me off yet ;) ), "Out-of-body-experiences", "soul-wandering," "lucid dreaming:" all of these and more synonymous terms are something in which many world philosophies/religions believe.

What are you understandings, experiences, and thoughts on these metaphysical concepts?


 

Feathers in Hair

World's Tallest Hobbit
Hmm... I'm almost nervous to voice my opinon. I don't know if this will be treated as a debate thread or a discussion thread. Hopefully, the latter, since I doubt I could prove my experiences to another.

I think lucid dreaming is pretty straightforward. If your intent is to be aware that you're dreaming while dreaming, it can be achieved through practice. (Or at least you'll be dreaming that you're aware while you're dreaming.) AP is something that people are kind of wary of talking about their personal experiences with on open forums, though.
 

Gentoo

The Feisty Penguin
Feathers in Hair said:
Hmm... I'm almost nervous to voice my opinon. I don't know if this will be treated as a debate thread or a discussion thread. Hopefully, the latter, since I doubt I could prove my experiences to another.

I think lucid dreaming is pretty straightforward. If your intent is to be aware that you're dreaming while dreaming, it can be achieved through practice. (Or at least you'll be dreaming that you're aware while you're dreaming.) AP is something that people are kind of wary of talking about their personal experiences with on open forums, though.

Agreed... touchy subject..
 

Neale

Debonaire Rationale
I didn't realize it was that touchy. I figured it was all part of some non-touchy meditative practice akin to a typical sitting meditation where one visualized a place/etc to better gain insight into something else.
 

Gentoo

The Feisty Penguin
Neale said:
I didn't realize it was that touchy. I figured it was all part of some non-touchy meditative practice akin to a typical sitting meditation where one visualized a place/etc to better gain insight into something else.

It can be to start with. But people generally don't like talking about their personal experiences simply because they are that, personal.
 

Gentoo

The Feisty Penguin
tlcmel said:
Really? I wonder why?

Well, maybe not for others, but at least for me it is. I'm not about to go around telling of my adventures. They're more meaningful if they are left to myself.
 

YmirGF

Bodhisattva in Recovery
Neale said:
"Astral Projection" (don't write me off yet ;) ), "Out-of-body-experiences", "soul-wandering," "lucid dreaming:" all of these and more synonymous terms are something in which many world philosophies/religions believe.

What are you understandings, experiences, and thoughts on these metaphysical concepts?

This is a subject that is rather dear to my heart as I have been "blessed" with a certain affinity for such things. I dunno, everyone is really good at something.

Tlcmel asks why? Hmmm. It IS a touchy subject simply because the things encountered can indeed sound pretty outlandish by conventional standards.
The other reason WHY I personally am loathe to mention things is that I don't want to "blow people out of their shoes" and make them feel that their own wonderous experiences are less "panoramic" or dazzling. They are not.

I have spent a great deal of time in recent years documenting my own inner adventures and quite frankly, fully half the time I sit wondering how on Earth I am going to describe something. Often it is like trying to put into words bizarre morphing GCI effects. Easy to imagine, very difficult to describe.

The greatest difficulty is describing "things" and "perceptions of reality" in ways that actually make any sense. I think this is where most people tend to buckle. They open their mouths and quickly feel like a fool because they cannot adequately describe what they are attempting to describe. They get tongue-tied, their audience gets confused and the speaker usually ends up wishing they had let the whole thing slide.
 

Feathers in Hair

World's Tallest Hobbit
Neale said:
I didn't realize it was that touchy. I figured it was all part of some non-touchy meditative practice akin to a typical sitting meditation where one visualized a place/etc to better gain insight into something else.

Sorry- didn't mean to phrase it that way. It's not a touchy subject for me, just one that's hard to talk about since it can be very personal. It would be kind of like trying to describe prayer but instead of attempting to describe an interaction between oneself and Deity, you'd be talking about interactions with hundreds of Deities, the possibility of connecting with all types of souls (animal, plant-spirits, the sleepy voice of a forest, icy but warm crystals, the hive-mind of a planet). Not only is all this happening, but one is suddenly able to see in at least ten directions at a time, and one of those directions is within oneself, seeing things that might be previously hidden and gifts that are yet to be revealed. As Gentoo said, it can start off as a meditative practice, but it soon becomes apparent that there's even more to it than one is able to describe. (I know I've failed spectacularly. :sad4: ) It's kind of like trying to describe one's dearest love, and knowing that you could never quite convey how beautiful their dark hair is, or how their nose seems to turn up when they laugh. Hope that makes sense!
 

YmirGF

Bodhisattva in Recovery
Feathers in Hair said:
Sorry- didn't mean to phrase it that way. It's not a touchy subject for me, just one that's hard to talk about since it can be very personal. It would be kind of like trying to describe prayer but instead of attempting to describe an interaction between oneself and Deity, you'd be talking about interactions with hundreds of Deities, the possibility of connecting with all types of souls (animal, plant-spirits, the sleepy voice of a forest, icy but warm crystals, the hive-mind of a planet). Not only is all this happening, but one is suddenly able to see in at least ten directions at a time, and one of those directions is within oneself, seeing things that might be previously hidden and gifts that are yet to be revealed. As Gentoo said, it can start off as a meditative practice, but it soon becomes apparent that there's even more to it than one is able to describe. (I know I've failed spectacularly. :sad4: ) It's kind of like trying to describe one's dearest love, and knowing that you could never quite convey how beautiful their dark hair is, or how their nose seems to turn up when they laugh. Hope that makes sense!

It makes perfect sense. I loved how you said, "but one is suddenly able to see in at least ten directions at a time". That is so true. I've described this before as being like watching a thousand TV stations simultaneously. In the oddest way, you have no difficulty following them all... and can wander into each, at your leisure, sort of like how you could just walk in and enter a running play or movie set.
 

Hacker

Well-Known Member
Well I guess nobody wants to reveal their out of body experience, oh well.:eek: ;)
I just find it facinating.:rainbow1:
 

Hema

Sweet n Spicy
I think that I have had out of body expereinces a couple times. The first time was when I was asleep. I woke to find myself staring at the ceiling. I didn't seem to be blinking or moving. I really didn't want to. I felt like I was hovering a couple inches off my body. I never felt so free and so relaxed. I felt like I was absorbing some sort of cosmic energy. I did some resaerch on the net and found out that in out of body experiences, one can see souls of dead people. The next time I had an out of body experience, I forced myself to wake up because of that. Never had any since and don't want to. The last time, I just sat up from my body and sort of went upside down. The astral body sometimes travels when we sleep. Sometimes, when we wake up too soon and the astral body is partially in and partially out of the body, we can feel paralyzed. This is called astral catalepsy. This has happened to me often. It is very painful and very scary but I pray for it not to happen. It didn't happen in a while. I saw on the net that when the astral body travels, there is a silver cord that attaches from the physical body to the astral body, thus keeping them connected.
 

Mike182

Flaming Queer
i've not really managed to force myself into any OBEs, but i have a lifetime ahead of me to practise and wait for it to come naturally, maybe i'm supposed to be focusing on other things at the moment, and focus on OBEs later in life :shrug:
 

YmirGF

Bodhisattva in Recovery
Mike182 said:
i've not really managed to force myself into any OBEs, but i have a lifetime ahead of me to practise and wait for it to come naturally, maybe i'm supposed to be focusing on other things at the moment, and focus on OBEs later in life :shrug:
I don't know whether you realize it or not Mike, but you make a very good point.

It is my "feeling" that incidents like this only occur when the individual is ready or "mature" enough to "handle" them. In essence, the individual has to be very well "grounded" and mentally stable before approaching these subjects. The other side of this is that one also needs to have time to digest the experiences and if you already have your "hands full" with life, the individual will not be able to spend the time to unlock these areas. The reason is that such experience can alter dramatically ones sense of what reality is.

In theory, one has to be ready to take the plunge as it were. One sure sign that one is not ready to tackle these topics is if they implicity believe in evil and or evil spirits and demonic possesion. If one embark on such inner journeys while holding those types of beliefs their experience will reflect those beliefs and could have the potential for being quite terrifying.

In my hundreds, if not thousands of experiences, I have had two or three that "got the better" of me and it took me awhile to break away from the experience. It was only through sheer force of will that I was able to pull back, as it were.

Oh heck, I might as well just spill the beans.

One night I had "popped out" and was just bobbing around, as ususal. Everything was just dandy, as usual, when for some reason I thought of "evil" and how amused I would be to encounter a supposedly "evil" being. (This was directly related to how "powerful" I felt I had become by that stage.) Imperceptibly my experience changed at the point. Suddenly, out of the corner of my (inner) eye I began to detect something flying around me. INSTANTLY, I recongized this was the "evil" I had mused over moments before. At first, it was just like an annoying common household fly. (KEY POINT, remember this.) It began to annoy me, as by now I had moved on to other things and the musing over "evil" was now largely forgotten.

Well, this pesky little bug kept bothering me, as if it was trying to get my attention. (Here is the bizarre part... hang tight.) As my annoyance grew, so did the fly. In retrospect it was feeding on my annoyance and grew in size with my increasing annoyance. After awhile, I could no longer ignore the now sparrow sized critter and it was continuing to "buzz" me, just like that annoying common house fly.

Now, I was getting very annoyed and began to try to will it away. Literally just will it away. To my surprise, and further annoyance, it only got larger. Now I was looking at something the size of a large and increasingly detailed ugly "bird". Trust me, if you are being "dive bombed" by a critter the size of a vulture... it is a bit hard to ignore.

Well, now I was getting into a lather. You see, you still think as you do normally while you are out of body, and as my frustration grew I just couldn't get "away" from "IT".

After another while of mulling how to get rid of it, it continued to grow. At one point, when I was at my most anxious, I was seeing something in front of me that "seemed" to have a wingspan measuring in the lightyears. It was immense and completely filled my field of vision. What to do? Oddly, I didn't feel so "powerful" anymore, lol. I still just didn't "get it". Then it dawned on me... I was dealing with my own mental creation and the more I focused on it the more reality I gave it. IT IS AS SIMPLE AS THAT.

I had failed to grasp that the "fly" was my own creation or mental construct. I had broken my own cardinal rule and had blissfully passed "go" without picking up my $200.

It took me the better part of an hour to "pull away" and deflate the image. I had given it so much energy that it was hard to ignore. It took me awhile of chanting, "This is not real. This is my own creation." before it began to deflate.

Eventually it got back to the size of a fly, and then winked out of existence sort of like the ceyotee on Road RUnner... "Pffft". I use that description, because the whole event had a wildly cartoonish aspect to it. It was like being within some bizarre cartoon.

This illustrates how maliable or pliable inner reality is and I learned to be careful what I thought and how strongly I projected thoughts ever after this experience. To quote the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it." has always kept me on my toes since then.

The amusing part is that if I had swatted it out of existence at the start, none of it would have happened. But, I learned a valuable lesson this time "out". Well, I did tell you these inner experiences can be pretty bizarre. You outta get a load of some of the really cool experiences. The bottom line: Thought forms the experience and so, take care with that which you "dwell" on while in these environments.
 
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