Lucid Dreaming as a Jumping-Off Point for Astral Projection...?

[MercuryCrest]

(Mods: I know we have threads about both subjects, but I thought that this was specific enough to warrant its own thread. Feel free to move it if you see fit.)

I've long thought about this and finally had a chance to try it last night.

Once I attained lucidity (it happened naturally), I tried to go with the flow of the dream so that I wouldn't awaken too soon. At a certain point, I distinctly recalled that I had wanted to use my lucidity to draw myself out of my body and try some astral projection (something I've done before, but it was almost always spontaneous).

The idea in my head was to recall my bed and myself sleeping on it, as though I were standing just to the side. It worked to a point, except it was a "dream" bed, not my actual bed.

It seems I wasn't allowed to see my secondary dreaming/dream body while I stood there because every time I turned my head towards where I should have been sleeping, my vision got all wonky and I froze until I tried to look the opposite way.

Does anyone else have any tips for going from lucid-dreaming to astral projection? My next thought is to simply "be aware" of my body laying in bed and to let myself float up from that.

 

[Ulalume]

(Mods: I know we have threads about both subjects, but I thought that this was specific enough to warrant its own thread. Feel free to move it if you see fit.)

I've long thought about this and finally had a chance to try it last night.

Once I attained lucidity (it happened naturally), I tried to go with the flow of the dream so that I wouldn't awaken too soon. At a certain point, I distinctly recalled that I had wanted to use my lucidity to draw myself out of my body and try some astral projection (something I've done before, but it was almost always spontaneous).

The idea in my head was to recall my bed and myself sleeping on it, as though I were standing just to the side. It worked to a point, except it was a "dream" bed, not my actual bed.

It seems I wasn't allowed to see my secondary dreaming/dream body while I stood there because every time I turned my head towards where I should have been sleeping, my vision got all wonky and I froze until I tried to look the opposite way.

Does anyone else have any tips for going from lucid-dreaming to astral projection? My next thought is to simply "be aware" of my body laying in bed and to let myself float up from that.

Hmm. You pose an interesting question, MercuryCrest.

Since almost all my own experiences with lucid dreaming and OBEs have been related to sleep paralysis, I always use the sense of "vibration" occuring in the body during SP as the method of turning it into an an OBE. Basically, intentionally speeding up the vibration until the paralysis relents and OBE occurs.

It's possible that simply being aware might help, though finding some internal, bodily signal might be more effective. Give you something physical for a jumping off point. The sound or sensation of breathing, perhaps? That should always be there (well, one hopes!) and unobtrusive. As long as that awareness doesn't wake you up, it might help.

Also, I've always thought that rapidly switching your vision from one point to another was essential for maintaining lucidity in dreams, to keep things from fading as you look at them (practice this enough, and you can finally hold the object in your field of vision). This might be the reason your vision became wonky and you froze when trying to look at your sleeping body.

 

[gattino]

I'm so envious of people who experience either one of those things. So many people casually talk about their lucid dreaming its clearly a real and common human experience that's completely closed to me. The OOBE business would doubtless terrify me, but obviously fills the imagination with possibilities.

Oddly my whole precogntiive dream fixation was a byproduct of trying to learn tolucid dream...the first step, I read, was top learn to remember your dreams, hence the dream recordings and the accidental discovery they incorporate images from the future.

The closest I've come to lucidity, I suppose, is the few occassions onwhich I've had false awakenings. And there was that one time I had the sensation of being pulled backwards at speed out of bed.

 

[FrKadash]

I'm so envious of people who experience either one of those things. So many people casually talk about their lucid dreaming its clearly a real and common human experience that's completely closed to me. The OOBE business would doubtless terrify me, but obviously fills the imagination with possibilities.

Oddly my whole precogntiive dream fixation was a byproduct of trying to learn tolucid dream...the first step, I read, was top learn to remember your dreams, hence the dream recordings and the accidental discovery they incorporate images from the future.

The closest I've come to lucidity, I suppose, is the few occassions onwhich I've had false awakenings. And there was that one time I had the sensation of being pulled backwards at speed out of bed.

I learned to perfect both astral projection and lucid dreaming many years ago over a period of 9 months daily practice during my initiatory probation with the Ordo Typhonis (Typhonian Order), after my involvement with the OTO. It's one of those things that once perfected never leaves you. When it's really consciously controlled or willed it can create some really intense energies and gives off an internal feeling of something akin to a sexual orgasm but much much more pleasurable. And it sort of feeds off this feeling in a self-perpetuating manner.

 

[gattino]

In terms of the "astral projection" aspect, or oobe... can anyone specify that they mean they believed themselves to literally travel through the physical world in spirit form,and if so if they tested the objective reality of this perception, in terms such as seeing and confriming what was in a locked room, or what a friend was doing in another city etc?

 

[Tribble]

There's a pill on the market now that can allegedly help with lucid dreaming.

Dream Leaf, available through Amazon , contain herbs and nutrients which encourage lucid dreaming, the manufacturers say.

Those who by the £21 bottle are told to take one blue pill and a red pill - each containing different supplements which affect sleep.

In the blue pills is 5-HTP - an freely available supplement sold in health food shops as an anti-dpressant.

The red pill contains herbs and nutrients, including Alpha-GDC, which the company say "promotes rational thinking while in REM sleep".

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/dreamleaf-tablets-sold-amazon-claim-7220799

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dream-Leaf-Supplement-Experience-Revolution/dp/B00IP25N20

 

[skinny]

Sold!!

Oh no hang on. Isn't that a bunch of marketing horseshit?

 

[FrKadash]

In terms of the "astral projection" aspect, or oobe... can anyone specify that they mean they believed themselves to literally travel through the physical world in spirit form,and if so if they tested the objective reality of this perception, in terms such as seeing and confriming what was in a locked room, or what a friend was doing in another city etc?

No I don't believe it has anything to do with any spirit dimension. I think there is something of the Akashic realm to it though. So it is possible to receive accurate information from another area.

 

[skinny]

spirit dimension / the Akashic realm

Always assumed the Akashic was a spiritual dimension. I don't know what the difference is. Would you be so kind as to explain it?

 

[FrKadash]

Always assumed the Akashic was a spiritual dimension. I don't know what the difference is. Would you be so kind as to explain it?

Like when I say spirit I mean the realm of spirits, entities and any other ultra-terrestrial intelligence. And then with a term like ''Akashic'' I denote it as a useful word for the inter-connectedness of the ultimate human, astral presence and awareness, which can transcend the terrestrial and physical realm to pick up on anything and everything under the right specific conditions.

 

[skinny]

So internal phenomenon as opposed to external phenomenon. Gotcha.

 

[Ulalume]

I'm so envious of people who experience either one of those things. So many people casually talk about their lucid dreaming its clearly a real and common human experience that's completely closed to me. The OOBE business would doubtless terrify me, but obviously fills the imagination with possibilities.

Oddly my whole precogntiive dream fixation was a byproduct of trying to learn tolucid dream...the first step, I read, was top learn to remember your dreams, hence the dream recordings and the accidental discovery they incorporate images from the future.

The closest I've come to lucidity, I suppose, is the few occassions onwhich I've had false awakenings. And there was that one time I had the sensation of being pulled backwards at speed out of bed.

Well, I'd had years of the horrors of sleep paralysis before learning the "trick" to an OBE, so that was certainly a relief and not at all scary. Lucidity was more of a job to learn. I used the methods in Carlos Castaneda's book, Journey to Ixtlan, I think it was, which worked - though they were really more leading up to how to achieve an OBE, starting with lucidity. The hardest part for me was learning how to move around in that state, but again, Castaneda's book helped with that.

At any rate, this freed me from the miseries of sleep paralysis, so that was a good thing.

In terms of the "astral projection" aspect, or oobe... can anyone specify that they mean they believed themselves to literally travel through the physical world in spirit form,and if so if they tested the objective reality of this perception, in terms such as seeing and confriming what was in a locked room, or what a friend was doing in another city etc?

I don't feel confident in stating whether or not the journey is internal or external, but I do have several very definite occurrences of things learned/found/seen in that state that I could not otherwise have known. I don't really want to derail MercuryCrest's thread by describing them here, though, so maybe in another thread.

 

[JimELUCIER]

Yes, MeruryCrest. I believe this is how it begins in a natural state. Lucid Dreaming and Astral Projection are often the same thing. The only difference is that at some point during the travelling, a person is conscious through the experience. Or as the cat would say, sleeping with one open.

 

[mr_nic]

I don't feel confident in stating whether or not the journey is internal or external, but I do have several very definite occurrences of things learned/found/seen in that state that I could not otherwise have known. I don't really want to derail MercuryCrest's thread by describing them here, though, so maybe in another thread.

That is interesting! I'd love to hear your thoughts on your experiences. Reading this thread has re-awakened my desire to get better at this (it's been a long time since I had a truly lucid dream), so I've just purchased 'Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self' by Robert Waggoner for a spot of bedtime reading.

 

[Ulalume]

That is interesting! I'd love to hear your thoughts on your experiences. Reading this thread has re-awakened my desire to get better at this (it's been a long time since I had a truly lucid dream), so I've just purchased 'Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self' by Robert Waggoner for a spot of bedtime reading.

You're in luck then, since I just wrote about them here tne other day.
http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/out-of-body-experiences.1778/page-7#post-1561492

Whoops, wrong link, let me find the correct one...
This one
http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/out-of-body-experiences.1778/page-7

 

[Iris]

The lucid dreams I've had have been from other times so I can't prove if they were real.
One out of body experience I had was when I floated outside through the wall and saw a rabbit undoing our rabbit's cage.
We had been wondering how he was getting out.
When I returned to my body I went outside and there was the rabbit.

 

[escargot]

One out of body experience I had was when I floated outside through the wall and saw a rabbit undoing our rabbit's cage.

Slightly off-topic, sorry, but years ago when we kept rabbits we'd often see them tearing round the garden with the dog in hot pursuit.

They'd been bolted into their hutch so we don't know how they were getting out, until I hid and caught Rocky carefully undoing the bolt and letting them out so he could chase them. He didn't harm them, just wore them out a bit.

 

[gattino]

Last night I had my first ever..that I know of.. Lucid dream. Or did I? On waking and trying to record the details it began to fade like all dreams do, which begged the question did I have a lucid dream, or did I just dream that I did? :/

It started off with a regular dream plot involving friends and then me walking along a sunny city road, not unlike the one near my house but different in detail. And passing fences and the foliage through them I with mounting excitement became aware that the visuals, colours, the perception of objects was becoming ever more sharp, solid and real. Dreams are generally only experienced in the memory of them..that's to say, in my case anyway, they are visual reconstructions which are imprecise, blurred and in soft focus in the mind's eye. But in this moment the world around me was coming sharper and sharper into focus and had all the quality of real life...and I was noticing the fact. I was amazed and excited ..I don't think I used the term lucid dream to myself, but hte concept was clearly in my mind. And I decided to test it by conjuring up someone..who..I struggled to think of who I wanted to appear, but one of the names was a particular friend, and at first nothing. Meh. But then, a moment or two later, there he is on the other side of the street, crossing over to me.

His face was different from in real life, thinner, bonier perhaps (he never did look like that but the sense was this was him younger, when I first met him). And again I was consciously aware of this discrepancy. He told me about his day and I was impatiently, excitedly, waiting my turn to explain to him that something extraordinary was happening..and that he wasn't real. I told him about his future, real self. And then became aware of the quality of sharp reality I had been noticing was fading back into fuzzy dreaminess. When I woke I tried, after a few minutes to record the details but as with any other dream they began to disappear...and the sharp reality became a memory of the concept, and therefore by definition soft focused again.

So never having had an LD before I find myself facing a conundrum. Was I conscious in dream world, as a lucid dream suggests? OR did I merely have a dream about having a lucid dream?

Oh, one final detail. I was aware of the rustling of the pages of a newspaper being turned and had the sense this was going on in the real world outside the dream and my ears were picking it up. It was 3am so there was no such activity around my sleeping body...but, curiously, that very sound has been heard for real coming from family downstairs as I type this.