MAP works! Success in 1 week.
First, a short intro. I've been interested in OBEs since high school (14ish years ago) when I first picked up Robert Monroe's book. I think I've always been a natural lucid dreamer and projector to a point. My first childhood memory is of floating through the sliding glass doors of my home.
Unfortunately, and as much as I admire the man, Monroe was never able to put his techniques into a concise instruction booklet, and certainly not with such detail and research as Robert Bruce and Brian Mercer have with MAP. It was the overwhelming detail that made me truly believe in OBEs. I'd had the racing heartbeat sensation many years back and wondered what the hell that was, but now I find out it's a common occurance! In college I heard my own voice telling me to "breathe" during vibrations, but had no idea what that was until I read about astral noise in the Astral Dynamics book. But the most frustrating part before I had MAP was that I'd never had a successful OBE that wasn't purely spontaneous or part of a dream! I was never able to have a willful projection because I didn't know what was required of me. The best I had to go on was "relax, clear mind, float out".
Okay, onto the experience. This occured on Day 8 of the MAP book. This is taken from an e-mail I sent my brother, so please pardon the >.
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> I was napping on the futon when I had what I consider to have been
> either a weak OBE or a WILD. I was watching (napping through) some
> marathon of fake documentaries about dinosaurs on the Discovery Channel,
> and was awoken from a light nap to buzzing sensations. I instantly told
> myself to remain calm, which I did. I couldn't remember any exit
> techniques, so at first I just imagined myself floating up. That didn't
> work, so I tried lifting my limbs. My arms separated & I felt them
> raise up. However, I couldn't seem to get the rest of me out. So I
> rolled to the left and felt like I was rolling inside my body.
>
> I felt myself slowly drop to the floor, but couldn't move. I managed to
> will myself to the corner of the dining room before turning around to
> look at myself. Unfortunately, I kept turning and so it became more of
> a spin. I backed out of the room at about a 35 degree angle upwards
> until I was outside. I could still hear the TV, and my vision was
> greyish and weak, like a half-lucid dream during a light nap.
>
> I soon found myself back in my body with the same vibrations (can't
> remember if the return was intentional or if I slipped out of
> consciousness). This time I didn't immediately force it, letting the
> vibrations continue while I examined them. There was an intermittent
> sensation like when your ears pop during elevation change. This
> sensation seemed to occur whenever I thought about "lifting out".
> Lifting once again didn't work, so I rolled and dropped to the floor as
> before. This time I crawled to the hallway and into my bedroom, then
> out the north wall, falling swiftly but softly to the ground. I noticed
> I could still hear the TV, and while crawling through the hallway it had
> seemed as if my physical eyes were slitted open, which gave me double
> vision. I closed my physical eyes more tightly and continued outside.
>
> Back down on the lawn I tried floating, but without success. So I
> started running toward the north fence, then jumped over it and went a
> bit further before recalling my old flying technique in lucid dreams.
> This worked. I found myself about 1000 feet up looking toward downtown
> Denver and thought about moving toward it. I stopped short and decided
> to get back to my body so I could recall the experience. I returned,
> felt no more vibrations, and decided to get up and write this down.
> ---
> I don't know what to make of this. Was it a real-time projection or
> just a hazy dream interpretation of what I've read? Perhaps the
> vibrations were the trigger for a dream. First my vision was almost
> fleeting in its solidity. Second, some of the scenery I encountered
> doesn't match the real world (position of buildings outdoors, absence of
> vacuum cleaner in hallway). Third, I feel like my consciousness after
> separation faded in & out, and there were a few instances (while
> crawling through the hallway) where it felt like time jumped ahead a bit
> or I momentarily dipped below an acceptable level of lucidity. Also,
> the whole memory of the experience feels condensed or edited like a
> dream memory. Perhaps that is due to shadow recall failure rather than
> an actual fragmented experience. Anyway, it was pretty cool, and I got
> some experience in staying calm during the outing.
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This was back in August. After week 2 I took an extended break because the energy exercises were sapping my energy through the rest of the day and I just didn't want to do it anymore. Finally I started back up in earnest at the first of the year and am starting week 8 today. This morning I woke up early and listened to Week 8's Brainwave generator. The following attempt wasn't successful, but still it's great to have progress with MAP, and so quickly after so many years without an instruction manual!
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Woke up by alarm clock around 5:45 AM and listened to BWG week 8 CD, went through OBE prep and started rope, but kept dozing off during the rope technique. After 15 minutes or so I think I drifted off to sleep and woke up after the CD was done, then went back to sleep.
Maybe an hour later (lying on my right side) I was in a half dream in which I was in the kitchen running water or doing dishes when I remembered my body. I tried to stay in the dream image of the kitchen as a loosening technique and felt the vibrations come on suddenly which brought me out of the dream. The vibrations were strong, but smooth and not uncomfortable. I hear a lot of whispering around me including what sounded like Stacey talking which I thought was a good sign. So I immediately ignored the whispering and started the rope technique. Unfortunately the vibrations went away quickly (10 seconds or so after starting rope). I quickly tried the 3rd eye trigger to recover the vibrations but couldn't get them back. I also wiggled a finger to make sure I hadn't projected and wasn't paralytic.
So I relaxed and let myself drift off again, hoping the vibrations would come back if I let my focus drift from my body. No such luck.
