Re: Trance Practice Problems
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Originally Posted by
Eris
Hello all, I'm new here and to OBEs and AP in general.
Hi Eris. From your post I think you are probably gifted at clairvoyance and thus might gravitate more towards phasing. But I'm getting too far ahead of myself.
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I've been practicing putting myself into various levels of trance states recently, and have been having a little difficulty. I can get to the point where my body is very, very relaxed and difficult to move, but have never been able to fully dissociate my awareness while remaining conscious throughout; I don't think I've ever felt the famous "vibrations" that are supposedly a precursor to the OBE exit.
Can you describe the techniques you are using to get yourself in trance? I always recommend the techniques (or schedule) delineated in the MAP program- a copy of the techs are in the OBE R & D subforum, and many of the techs are stickied for further research.
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What I have been noticing, and I'm curious as to whether anyone else is familiar with this, is a sense of my vision (the blackness behind closed eyes) expanding and contracting or "bouncing" briefly and a whitish light flickering behind my left eye. Neither of these sensations last long, and seem to occur as my mind is waking up or falling asleep while in trance. I've also been awakened by the camera flash light, which I believe is described as a "vision screen" by RB.
The flash is known as 'third eye flash', and can be a precursor to the vision screen, but not always. We call the expanding blackness a few terms: 3D Black, the Void, and sometimes just 'space', and is a precursor to either phasing or OBE, but in the beginning.
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Also, more troublingly, I have found that practicing trance disrupts my sleep. I've been practicing in the evening, before I go to sleep (no other time is convenient), and have found that after I'm done practicing for the night and am just trying to fall asleep, I'll be woken up in this very brief, but frightening and uncontrollable, state of being dissociated from my body, with my mind buzzing.
This is also not unheard of, and it's why I recommend you change your practice time to early in the morning. I know it sounds terrible, but if you get up two hours before 'regular' wakeup time, stay in bed and then practice, you get to deep trance easier (you skip all the relaxation time necessary to get to the threshold of trance) and if you fail, you just fall asleep for the prescribed time, but more importantly, it doesn't mess with your sleep cycle, and avoids setting you up for all this waking up.
Unfortunately, OBE practice disrupts your cycles, because most people have delta sleep in the last part of the first cycle, and all of this gets messed up when you are trying to stay aware as you fall asleep- it can cause an alpha intrusion and train you to 'not sleep' when it's time to sleep.
I personally practice on a recliner (very comfy recliner) that I have set up in my bedroom and don't practice every day- I practice on and off throughout the week and try a projection on the weekend, to avoid the sleep cycle mess up. The good news is that when you get used to a routine the fatigue and sleep messup does resolve.
I have to go but I have more thoughts.
Re: Trance Practice Problems
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CFTraveler
Hi Eris. From your post I think you are probably gifted at clairvoyance and thus might gravitate more towards phasing. But I'm getting too far ahead of myself.
I'm unfamiliar with phasing. What is it, exactly? The descriptions I managed to find in other threads were a little confusing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CFTraveler
Can you describe the techniques you are using to get yourself in trance? I always recommend the techniques (or schedule) delineated in the MAP program- a copy of the techs are in the OBE R & D subforum, and many of the techs are stickied for further research.
I've been using the physical relaxation and falling visualization techniques in RB's books. I've also found that deep breathing techniques help at first (I'm used to using them for meditation) and are more effective than visualization, but it becomes physically harder to expand my chest/stomach the deeper I go, what with paralysis setting in.
I actually only own an old copy of the '99 version of "Astral Dynamics", so I don't really have a praciticing schedule. I'll take a look at the online guide as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CFTraveler
The flash is known as 'third eye flash', and can be a precursor to the vision screen, but not always. We call the expanding blackness a few terms: 3D Black, the Void, and sometimes
just 'space', and is a precursor to either phasing or OBE, but in the beginning..
I only get the flash when it wakes me up, so I thought it was just a hypnagogic hallucination.
The black void seems only to occur as my brain waves are shifting into or out of sleep, and last all of two seconds.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CFTraveler
This is also not unheard of, and it's why I recommend you change your practice time to early in the morning. I know it sounds terrible, but if you get up two hours before 'regular' wakeup time, stay in bed and then practice, you get to deep trance easier (you skip all the relaxation time necessary to get to the threshold of trance) and if you fail, you just fall asleep for the prescribed time, but more importantly, it doesn't mess with your sleep cycle, and avoids setting you up for all this waking up.
Unfortunately, OBE practice disrupts your cycles, because most people have delta sleep in the last part of the first cycle, and all of this gets messed up when you are trying to stay aware as you fall asleep- it can cause an alpha intrusion and train you to 'not sleep' when it's time to sleep.
I personally practice on a recliner (very comfy recliner) that I have set up in my bedroom and don't practice every day- I practice on and off throughout the week and try a projection on the weekend, to avoid the sleep cycle mess up. The good news is that when you get used to a routine the fatigue and sleep messup does resolve.
So do those brief episodes I described sound like mini-OBEs?
I'll have to change my practice schedule to weekends then, I suppose. Thank you for the advice.:D
Re: Trance Practice Problems
Phasing is the same as WILDing, in that you merge into a vision screen while awake, and there are almost no exit sensations, you sort of 'merge into' the landscape. It is not an RTZ OBE, because you usually end up in the astral plane. The techs are in the OBE Research and Discussion threads.
The brief episodes do sound like mini-OBEs.
ps. Here is the workbook (schedule) http://www.astraldynamics.com.au/con...p?442-workbook
He divides it by weeks, so I'd skip the first one and go with that. It's obviously geared for someone who is learning, and eventually you drop what you don't like or doesn't work for you, but I consider it important to try all of it in the beginning.
I follow a simplified version of this, which consists of:
physical relaxation (sequential muscle relaxation)
Mental relaxation (various breathing and cleansing exercises)
energy raising
Then I do the trance work (the 'falling' visualizations you mentioned), and from then I do energy body loosening.
After loosening I go into a noticing exercise (fixed-point meditation which I also add 'listening to the earhiss' in my ears, and I go from there.
I then try an exit technique that corresponds to any exit sensation that I may be having. I switch around the techs.
As you can see I try to keep my mind busy without actually thinking about stuff, and this works well for me.
Re: Trance Practice Problems
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CFTraveler
Phasing is the same as WILDing, in that you merge into a vision screen while awake, and there are almost no exit sensations, you sort of 'merge into' the landscape. It is not an RTZ OBE, because you usually end up in the astral plane. The techs are in the OBE Research and Discussion threads.
Thanks for the info. I'll have to research this further.
My only problem with what I've read about phasing so far is that for me, hypnagogics are very, very hard to experience consciously (just like OBEs). I can sit there with my eyes closed for hours and see nothing. It's only when I'm drifting off that I'm awakened by them. I don't really see a stream of visions, either. I spend maybe all of two seconds in this state before I'm woken up by odd voices or images.
So it seems my mind absolutely has to be drifting and not focused (i.e.- my brainwaves are transitioning into sleep), which presents a problem for both phasing and OBEs, I guess.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CFTraveler
ps. Here is the workbook (schedule)
http://www.astraldynamics.com.au/con...p?442-workbook
He divides it by weeks, so I'd skip the first one and go with that. It's obviously geared for someone who is learning, and eventually you drop what you don't like or doesn't work for you, but I consider it important to try all of it in the beginning.
I follow a simplified version of this, which consists of:
physical relaxation (sequential muscle relaxation)
Mental relaxation (various breathing and cleansing exercises)
energy raising
Then I do the trance work (the 'falling' visualizations you mentioned), and from then I do energy body loosening.
After loosening I go into a noticing exercise (fixed-point meditation which I also add 'listening to the earhiss' in my ears, and I go from there.
I then try an exit technique that corresponds to any exit sensation that I may be having. I switch around the techs.
As you can see I try to keep my mind busy without actually thinking about stuff, and this works well for me.
Thanks.
Re: Trance Practice Problems
Quote:
So it seems my mind absolutely has to be drifting and not focused (i.e.- my brainwaves are transitioning into sleep), which presents a problem for both phasing and OBEs, I guess.
It should be focused at the threshold of sleep, focused on staying with it, so to speak- that's why I use so many techs to keep it occupied until the very last minute, and then I go into focusing.
Re: Trance Practice Problems
Hi CFTraveler,
Do you stimulate the chakaras after raising energy?
baby
Re: Trance Practice Problems
I do generic energy work (that is, all the brushing, sponging, bounces, and chakra work) separately from an exit attempt, during the day, and the only thing that I classify as energy work during an attempt is energy raising (the full body circuit and similar things), because it relaxes me.
Short answer: No.
I have done chakra work as part of an exit attempt, but on rare occasions that I have lots of time, and do it earlier in the practice, not while I'm doing trance practice.
Re: Trance Practice Problems
After downloading a theta binaural beats/white noise track onto my ipod and listening to it during trance practice yesterday, I can say that it helped significiantly with putting my body into an extremely relaxed state as well as helping my mind start to dissociate.
I still haven't experienced hypnagogics during trance however, and am practically convinced that I have to have fallen asleep and be woken up by them in order to see or hear anything.
Re: Trance Practice Problems
Hypnagogics are weird animals- I've gotten them right after closing my eyes (when very tired, not necessarily sleepy) and other times it's been months without one hypnagogic hallucination- no matter how hard I try. It's easier for me to get a hypnopomp (upon waking) although they don't last too long.
