I've decided to start keeping a journal of my out-of-body experiences (and hopefully, in time: explorations) here on the AD forums. My aim is to contribute back to the community here. I've learned a lot about people's differing experiences from reading threads on this forum, and have been inspired by others' success, so hopefully what I share here can help other members, too.
Thanks in particular to Beekeeper for encouraging me to start a journal here on AD!
Table of Contents
I'll keep this list up-to-date with the main entries I make, as a way for people to quickly scan for things that might interest them.
Background - a few notes about my personal history prior to learning about OoBE
Development Events - significant events during my development prior to any OoBE
OoBE Routine - the routine I use for daily development and OoBE attempts
3/4/2007 - borderline LD/OoBE
3/31/2007 - borderline LD/OoBE
4/10/2007 - exceptional LD
4/11/2007 - borderline LD/OoBE
4/20/2007 - internal projection with lucid dreaming
5/3/2007 - body loosening while dreaming
5/10/2007 - dark, confused OoBE
Background
I want to mention a few things about my background, since it seems to me that one's personal history almost certainly plays a role in the nature of one's development work and out-of-body experiences.
While my upbringing was Christian, I had the good fortune of both the opportunity and the encouragement to explore other systems of religious belief. I have also had the good fortune of always belonging to churches which had "spiritual journey" groups of one kind or another. My experience of Christianity is deeply spiritual.
My education is equal parts science and philosophy, and my career is in information technology. The science and the IT might tend to offset the spiritual facet of my life, but with the background in philosophy, I find that each part enriches the other parts.
I've done some meditation in the past connected to (Christian) retreats and prayer, but only for a short while. Part of my philosophy training introduced me to Zen, which revitalized my interest in meditation, but which was also too-soon replaced by 'practical' matters. I'm very excited to have meditation once again be part of my day-to-day life.
On the personal side, I am blessed with a loving family of origin, true-to-the-core friendships, and a beautiful family of my own.
Development Events
Prior to beginning the spiritual / OoBE development presented in the AD and MAP books, I had had a few experiences which now seem likely to have been related, but mainly many years ago, in my early 20's:
* Like most people, I would only occasionaly remember my dreams, but I have had several lucid dreams in my life.
* On several occasions, I felt a strong, loud, almost electrical buzzing or zapping in my head, which I always attributed to tension, but which I am now confident saying were probably projection vibrations. In all likelyhood, however, I probably don't naturally project more than a typical person (i.e., perhaps during sleep as Robert Bruce suggests, but nothing notable).
* And once, I felt the most extraordinary sensation sitting in the cafeteria with my two best friends in college, marked first by inexpressible joy and contentment and secondly by the feeling of filling up the entire space (which was 3 stories tall), able to see both my perspective and a perspective from high up near the ceiling at the same time. At the time, I called the feeling "glory"; later, after learning something about Zen, I thought perhaps I had had the briefest flash of satori. Now, it seems I might have projected in some way, ever so briefly. It also occurs to me that perhaps all three terms apply, each from its own context.
In the course of the development work presented in the AD and MAP books, I have had several remarkable experiences:
* For one, I started to remember dreams every morning within two days of starting MAP. This definitely slips away if I neglect saying affirmations, writing key words, and other regular practices that are a part of the training.
* Once, while meditating (with closed eyes), I quite suddenly 'saw' a steady image (not hypnogogics, and not dream imagry) which very much resembled what would have been, given my position, the view of my bedroom, but in fuzzy grey shapes. As I moved my head, the image changed in just the way one would expect from looking at something 'out there' instead of something imagined.
* I have had a couple of lucid dreams that were much more substantial than my lucid dreams from earlier times.
* One morning, just as I awoke, I felt a distinct sliding / slipping feeling, very much like when a recliner shifts out unexpectedly. The feeling was so noticeable, that I had to check to see whether or not I had in fact physically moved, which I had not (and, could not have). This was very sudden and dramatic, very unlike the gradual, comfy sense of spinning or tilting as one falls asleep. I thought about it for a bit, but then relaxed ... and I felt the very same slipping feeling a second time.
* I was meditating in the library at church during the usual Sunday service, and while in light trance, the Hosanna was sung for Communion, and it caught my attention. I was struck by the beauty of the tune ... as the hymn reached full cycle, I was suddenly caught up in a poweful sensation. This sensation was like the tingles one gets on the back of the neck, but I felt it over my entire body, it persisted, and it had a distinct outward-in and upward direction or flow. This sensation grew in waves, and became so strong that I actually responded physically, arching my back a bit, in the way one responds so as to not "fight the current".
* At the end of a meditation session, I felt a sensation like a large blob slowly shifting back and forth from one leg to another. It was a bit as if I had my legs in a sack of some thick liquid up to my knees, and the liquid was sloshing sloooowly back and forth.
OoBE Routine
[under construction]
3/4/2007 - borderline LD/OoBE
This was the first of several "borderline" experiences I have had, which seem like either (a) exceedingly lucid dreams conforming to the physical world to a very high degree, or (b) OoBE projections into the RTZ with heavy reality fluctuations. (reference) For the sake of simplicity, I generally journal these as dreams.
As the dream begins, I feel a kind of upward pull in my chest, and I seem to be sitting up in bed, in front of my sleeping body. My vision is totally dark. I immediately think to move away from my physical body, and I feel the sensation of walking on the hardwood floor and I feel a kind of resistence as I pass through the wall. I move about, trying to keep track of where I am. Then, I can see again, and find myself back in my house. I pause to take in the scene, noting how very 'realistic' it is, in the sense that it matches my physical house.
I then move across the room, walking/floating, toward the window to the left of the fireplace, and go outside. Outside, I am again taken by how realistic the scene is. Here is my house; here are the trees near the house; here is my backyard, my garage, the trees and houses beyond; here is my neighbor's house and the driveway between. I even notice the car sitting in the driveway, where I left it to unload groceries -- but then I remember that that was the night -before-, ... and instantly the car disappears. "There's a reality fluctuation," I say to my self. (I did not notice it at first, but there was no snow around, and it is certainly very snowy out. This could be further reality fluctuation, but it also seems like a strong marker of a lucid dream.)
I wander down the driveway, to the front, to have a look at the street. Again, everything is as it is in physical life. I even feel the deep, silent majesty of the night. I suddenly decide to try travelling to the Moon, find it in the sky, and focus on moving toward it. This doesn't go so well after a few attempts, but at one point it does seem like the Moon is moving toward me ... but then suddenly I am looking at the Earth. Focusing again on the Moon, the image of the Earth fades, but what I took to be the Moon now looks like a cluster of stars. I scan the sky for the real Moon, and find it, obscured by what looks like a cloud.
As I try to focus on the Moon, the 'cloud' breaks apart and several large bats descend, and attack. I fight them off mentally, but the same thing happens twice more, each attack more aggressive than the last, increasing the effort needed to fight back. At one point, a tiger appears which at first I mistake to be part of the attack, but who in fact dispatches most of the second wave for me, at my direction.
After the third wave of bats is gone, I scan the sky again, but now I notice that the neighborhood that is normally beyond my garage is not there, and instead there is a vast, expansive landscape of forests, hills, a river, the lights of a peaceful city, and a magnificant night sky, filled with stars and the Milky Way. A tangible feeling of unity / oneness / joy dawns over me. I feel filled with energy, confidence, and a grand sense of vitality. Whatever enemy attacked me seems to still be present, but I feel as mighty as the sky, and shout out loud, "Bring it on! BRING IT ON!!!". At this, a gigantic stag beetle the size of a mountain appears, towering over nearby hills, angry and clearly bent on destruction. In my triumph I simply pour out a powerful counterattack thought, and the beetle crumbles and evaporates. A second beetle appears, just as large and tinged with fire, but even in its enormity I see that it is merely finite, and I banish it instantly.
It is difficult to overstate how alive I felt when I awoke from this dream / possible OoBE.
3/31/2007 - borderline LD/OoBE
I had this experience while on a trip to Virginia.
As the experience begins, I feel a distinct sensation of moving up and away from the hotel bed where I am sleeping, and am lucid right from the start. I immediately consider the possibility that I am projecting, and hunt around the room for things I can use as indicators that I am looking at the physical world instead of a dreamscape. The room is dark, and there is not much that I did not see before I went to bed, since it's a single room, I stay aware of my belongings when travelling as a habit, etc. I think to move something with my foot, but that doesn't work. So, I leave the room. I travel out through the sliding glass door into the night, and realize right away that if I am projecting, my mind is heavily filtering reality: in this hotel, each floor is a square ring, and the inner rooms' sliding glass doors open out to an indoor atrium the full height of the hotel. I am in an inner room, so I should not have found myself outside. Nevertheless, the rest of the experience remains quite vivid and quite coherent. I generally have fun soaring through the air over I suppose an imagined Fair Oaks / Fairfax night scene, and thinking all the while about what I am seeing, what I might try, where I might go.
I certainly experienced the main symptom of the mind-split effect. That is to say that while it was happening the dream/projection felt as real as waking life, and afterwards the memory of it felt like the fragmentary memory of a dream fliting away as one wakes up. The explanation in AD for this dual sense of the experience is the competition in long-term memory for two experiences which took place during the same time frame, one from the sleeping self and one from the roaming self, adding weight to the notion that at least some level of projection was taking place.
4/10/2007 - exceptional LD
I had a very vivid lucid dream this morning.
As the dream starts, I find myself in a bright, sunny, open landscape of rolling hills, meadows, forests, and ancient stone buildings. I am feeling full of life, joyously happy to be alive. Right away, I consider whether I am dreaming or projecting, and I say to myself out loud, "Well, I can check my hands!", and I do. They remain normal looking, so I say, "This is a lucid dream, then!" As a double-check, I look for the moon in the sky, and see a moon-sized earth in the bright blue sky. This confirms for me that this is a dream. Even so, I am nonetheless delighted with such a vivid dream, and gleefully leap into the air to fly around.
Soaring over forests and castles is a delight. Soon, I see a small airplane in the air, colored brightly blue and yellow. The configuration is one with swept-forward wings, sort of like the Grumman X-29, but shorter, stubbier. I don't see anyone in the plane, but the plane and I engage in some friendly competition flying maneuvers. The plane is generally much more capable than I am, but at one point it looks like it is going to hit a hillside (but does not). I then try to out-fly it by flying straight upwards. I give this my all, but don't seem to be going much of anywhere, and when I ease off and look down, I am only a few feet over a small lake. I plop into the lake -- I can remember such vivid sensations of splashing in, bobbing, and swimming.
I make my way back to land, and find myself on a quiet, serene campus of what seem to be ancient univeristy buildings and chapels. Again, I feel such an overflowing sense of joy, just being there. No one is around at first, but presently, a person made of oblong stones exits a building nearby and walks quietly along the path. I call out, "Hello!", and the person (who has the aspect of a kind but shy professor) ventures an unassuming, polite, "Hi" in return as he walks. I call out a joyful, "Nice to meet you!", and he replys with a welcoming, "Later!". (Written here, it seems aloof or superficial, but in the dream it was all very warming.)
The dream continued for a bit more, but I've forgotten the rest.
I was struck by the vivid quality of this lucid dream. This isn't the first exceptional LD I've had since starting with the AD and MAP books, and I must say that my LDs these days make my LDs from earlier years seem pale by comparison.
4/11/2007 - borderline LD/OoBE
I slept on the couch last night, and awoke somewhat at sunrise. I was fully awake at points, but also very settled, relaxed and cozy. I drifted back toward sleep, and hovered in and out of partial sleep.
At one point, I began feeling murmers, ripples, and vibrations in my body, starting in my legs and moving up/along my body to my torso. I also started 'hearing' strong buzzing and similar sounds in my head. These felt like what are described as the most notable projection symptoms, so I thought I might be nearing an OoBE. After a few moments, I simply tried to 'sit up' without moving my physical body (which, by the way, felt immobile), and I felt a distinct sensation of pulling away from my physical body as I 'sat up'. I stood up and began walking, and started considering ways I could demonstrate for myself that I was actually out-of- body. I want to emphasize that in these moments, while it was happening, this experience felt as real as waking, conscious life. While the overall memory afterwards is more like recalling a dream in the morning, I can distinctly remember the sense that the experience at the time felt very real. This seems like exactly what is to be expected during early OoBE events, before the skills for shadow-memory recall are honed.
At first, I could not see well -- only blotches of light in an otherwise dark setting. But, the placement and size of the blotches of light gave me the impression of window size and placement just as they physically are in the living room and sunroom, where I was 'walking'. I asked for sight, but perhaps not very convincingly. I decided to go outside; I'm not sure why now, but perhaps I thought that with no walls the daylight would help me more. Gradually, I could see a little better -- similar to when one's ski goggles are fogged up on the inside: I could see in blotches, some clear, some blurry; moving my head did not let me see past the blurry spots, since they simply moved with my head. Outside, major features of the physical world were all in their usual places -- my backyard, my driveway, the house next door, the street, the houses across the street, etc. I wandered down my driveway, seeking to explore and find some way to verify this as a projection. I did look at my hands when I first stood up, and they became all wavy and started to fade away. That hints strongly at OoBE, but I sought a less subjective indicator. I was fully lucid; fully conscious. I held a continual line of thinking as I looked about, noting how my vision changed from moment to moment, classifying things as within the realm of reality fluctuation, etc. In fact (and this is worth some emphasis, too) my experience from the first hint of vibrations, through the sensation of sitting up, during the whole time I walked around, and through to when it all ended was of one unbroken thread of consciousness. I ended the experience consciously, too. I had walked down to the end of my driveway, and turning around I saw my house as one made entirely of large asphalt roofing tiles and the neighboring house as made out of a single large rock. I decided that the reality fluctuations were beyond my ability to compensate, and "let go" so that it could end.
Also, the whole time, I would also catch snippits of conversation and other kitchen noises as my family started breakfast. This points to split-mind / bilocality, which also seem to indicate OoBE.
4/20/2007 - internal projection with lucid dreaming
This experience began just as a dream was fading -- somewhat like a new chapter in a dream already under way.
I am driving my car, coming to a stop at a T-intersection. For whatever reason, there is snow on the instrument panel, but this doesn't seem odd to me; in fact, I am using the snow to clean the clear plastic in front of the odometer. In my mind, I am thinking of the cross-street as a certain specific street, but in appearance, it is more like another street; relative to how far I have driven from my house, it is an entirely different street. (But, such is the way with dreams.) I turn right, and drive down an urban street: it is crowded with businesses like gas stations, auto body shops, beauty parlors, small delis, etc. There are people about, and an urban concentration of cars, trucks, and various 'working' vehicles -- vans, wreckers, cranes, bobcats, etc. More or less at my willing it, the car lifts off and I am flying low, over buildings, drifting generally higher; I am observing the scene below with pleasant interest. I note to myself that the sky is overcast, and that seems a disappointment to me at first, but then I feel content to soar slowly about.
After a bit, I "lose my vision", and all I can see is whiteness. I still feel as if I am flying, but I quickly feel disoriented, spinning. I think "I need to have my vision back", and start composing a request for astral vision. At this point I consider the posibilty that I am out-of-body. My vision fades back, very much like the sun breaking through the clouds ... Indeed, what I see is a wide, green, grassy field below me, drenched in yellow sunlight from behind me. I am no longer in a car. I drift down toward the ground, and see my shadow on the grass. My shadow grows, and the sun seems to shine more brightly, and I am filled with a glorious feeling! I recite the prayer I've been using lately as I stretch my arms out, slowly turn and gently land, lying in the grass.
At this point, I sense both my dream-self and my physical body; I even try to move my dream-self's hand but feel my physical hand move (or rather, not move much) instead. Still aware of the possibilty that this is an OoBE, I remember to "keep it short", and I attempt to -feel- for my physical body, so that I can return and stand next to it, and then re-enter. That seems to send me toward actual waking, so I stop. But right away I start to see things like a progress bar, status numbers, small graphics, etc. like one might see on a computer screen -- all visible "in the air" even as I can still see the green grassy field and the blue sky around me. These strike me as reality fluctuations and decide it is best to "go back", whether it wakes me up or not.
Back in my bedroom, back to being aware mainly of my physical body, I contintued to feel exceedingly -- completely! -- relaxed; I reflected on the experience I had just had; and I slowly changed my breathing to breathe deeply. I'm not sure if I was actually smiling, but I -felt- like I feel when a smile is spreading across my face -- and I mean that I felt it both emotionally and physically/facially. I thought to myself that I should sit up and write down key words, but remembered that my notepad was downstairs. After a few moments, I did (or felt that I did) sit up, stand up, and walk out of the bedroom and downstairs to go find some paper to write down keywords, and I was struck by my continued sense of utter relaxation. I felt just as if I were walking across the floor and down the stairs, except that I could not feel my body, but for the lightest sense of physical contact. It struck me that this must be what Robert Bruce means by "walking on pillows" when walking in a trance state. Then, to my surprise, my sense of location faded -back- to the bedroom, still lying in bed, still utterly relaxed. I realized then that I had had a false awakening.
Smiling with profound delight at it all, I sat up, stood up, walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs to find some paper to write keywords, distinctly aware of the sense that I had "just done this a moment ago". It was very pleasant and odd at the same time.
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