Hey all,

I've been a lucid dreamer since an early age, about 4 years old I was having a recurring nightmare, which led me to discover the ability all by myself. I didn't learn it was called lucid dreaming until much later in life. After learning it was called lucid dreaming, I soon discovered astral projection and spent many years practicing that.

I've always felt that reality is an illusion, like something is not quite right, like something is missing or out of place, it has just never felt solid or real to me. The only thing that ever felt real was my self, not my physical body but my self inside, which made me always question everything. When you are constantly questioning reality like this, it's like performing a reality check all the time. It increased my level of awareness at all times and as a result I have lucid dreams regularly and naturally.

Anyway, to get to the theory...

In my opinion, there are many words used to describe the term astral. They basically all reference same thing, and the astral IS the afterlife, it IS heaven and hell, but you are the one who navigates through it.

Astral = aether, aetheric, aethereal, energy, energetic, psi, psionic, psychic, prana, pranic, quantum, qi, chi, ki, spirit, spiritual.... The list goes on and on. Each of these words describe same thing... An invisible force which we can tap into consciously, a place we transition to, pass on to when we die, or when we project into it.

It's written in books like the Tibetan book of the dead. Often the deceased will start on the 'bardo' where all their worst fears come to life (like hell right?) but if they can get past it, will move on to higher planes (more like heaven). The bardo in christian literature is called Limbo. NDE literature and accounts of OBE all point to it. The experience is both subjective and objective, often in NDE's the person will float out of their body and transition on, pass on to another place, where their beliefs shape what they experience. We also release DMT (the spirit molecule) from our pineal gland (third eye) when we are born, when we die, and each night we sleep which is further evidence of this. And my own personal experiences and research suggests this to be true and correct.

My theory as well, is that we keep ending up back here in a new body, reincarnating over and over again, not so much because of karma, but because we can't handle it well enough on the other side. If you die on the other side you end up here, die here and you end up there. Back and forth we go, across the veil of two worlds or states of being, until one day we can learn to stay on one side, or maybe even both at same time. On the other side, it can be more vibrant, vivid and more real than this side. Time over there is more fluid and malleable, hours can pass in just a few seconds compared to here, we move through time differently over there like in a dream you are just suddenly in a new scenario and skipping unnecessary parts of the experience.

I've heard enlightened masters say that when our body dies, we simply move into a new body. However, Being incarnated in a new body within the physical world means going through the process of death and rebirth, which on this side of the veil means growing up again from a baby to an adult. Science also tells us that energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed. So it all makes sense if you agree to the notion that we exist eternally as a living conscious being.

Try to think of it more in terms of subtle energy, it's everywhere and everything, very hard to detect or even become aware of. Our subtle energy body is self-automated, running in the background on optimal or minimum power so we don't usually notice or become aware of it. There are methods to increase the power level of your subtle energy body such as practicing meditation, conscious breathing (e.g. pranayama), taking substances, etc. But one has to become aware of it consciously, which is easier to do when the power level is increased.

I joined an astral projection meetup group one time, and they all spoke about it like they do it every single night. When I asked how they all do it so often, the one thing they said which helps the most, is doing pranayama breathing every night. I started practicing it, and even that same night when I tried pranayama breathing the first time, I had multiple vivid astral projection experiences.