Michael's MAP Journal

[michaelsaganski]

OBE/Astral Projection Trial Day 64

Life did a good job at kicking my pants this week. I really had to push hard to find times to sit down and do the exercises, and it was usually not the optimal place or time. Today being the weekend I was able to get a great session in and still found that I had made progress throughout the week!

It’s pretty amazing at just how deep meditation can get, and I know I’m still only scratching the surface. I’m finding it easier to get into a trance state, and it also happens more quickly and at a deeper level. All it takes is steady practice.

I would say my main trouble right now is relaxing too much and going off into dream imagery too easily. Once I get too deep into it I find it hard to focus my mind on anything for particularly long, which includes any sort of OBE exit technique.

In some ways I’m sort of feeling a fork in the road between meditation and OBE’s. It’s almost as if I’m at a level where the two are becoming mutually exclusive. In other words, when I meditate too deeply I can’t focus on doing an exit technique… or if I focus on an exit technique my body/mind tenses and resists it to the point where I can not keep a focused mind either. Perhaps it’s just a lack of focus on either side. In MAP, Robert Bruce says OBE exit work is a very fine balancing act and I am really starting to see that.

I just thought of another way of looking at it. When I meditate it’s like I’m focusing into my consciousness, while an OBE exit technique requires focusing outside my physical body. Both techniques require focus, and either way leads to the same result – disassociation between mind and body. Which means understanding that I am more than my physical body, i.e. that my mind is not my brain. And that is the whole point of this 90 day trial.

Right now I just seem to be feeling much more success and progress with focusing inwards, rather than outward. I haven’t had any mind-blowing experiences such as floating over my own physical body, but my belief systems have been slowly chipped away with unusual experiences. My body seems to resist any sort of external focus, and absolutely loves focusing inward. Perhaps yogic meditation or Robert Monroe’s Phasing/Focus Level system is a better path for me than the classic OBE techniques?

One example from today happened while I was meditating. I lost focus for a period of time and started seeing dream imagery, but then quickly realized that this had happened and regained awareness. I came back to staring at the back of my eye-lids, but for a second or so I saw a very distinct dark form stand out from the backdrop. It was extremely unusual from what I normally see with closed eyes, and it kind of felt like a presence. That is a very exciting thought.

A question I have for people is should I be encouraging the dream imagery while meditating or should I be resisting it? I can see benefits to either strategy. I know that Bruce Moen talks about balancing between the perceiver and interpreter; he thinks that cutting out all non-physical perception is a mistake. Perhaps I should practice his strategy of slowing the image process down.

[CFTraveler]

I personally enjoy the imagery, and find it can be a platform to OBE or phase.
I think we tend to draw boundaries between what is 'real' or 'unreal', labeling what is produced by our brain as 'unreal', but I don't agree- I think everything we see is important (equally important, not 'more' or 'less' important) and can be use as a focus-switcher.
I do know that many people meditate to 'empty' their mind- but other than for the purposes of relaxation, I don't see this as an ultimate benefit- because (at least most of the people I know personally) think 'emptying the mind' is what you do to get messages from a 'higher source', discounting themselves as the higher source, or at least as a channel for this 'higher source'.
I hope this was coherent, I've just had one cup of coffee this morning.

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[michaelsaganski]

Yes I think I understand, I will definitely explore the imagery as has been recommended by quite a few others as well.

[eyeoneblack]

Still just cruising around this huge board, trying to become aquainted with people and things. Had this little anecdote, not sure it's pertinent:

In MAP, Robert Bruce says OBE exit work is a very fine balancing act and I am really starting to see that.

I've always considered this 'balancing act' in light of the ancient wisdom of the East; it is something one learns to do by not doing. But how do we manage that? My approach is to program the subconscious, which is what you're doing with the exercises. Still, as long as you believe you have something to do, this or that, meditate or OBE, you're frustrating the effort.

Let go and trust your instinct. The little success I've enjoyed in AP and remote viewing has depended on this trust. Stop chasing it and it'll chase you. But deep programming is the secret.

My fav example of this balancing act comes from a few years ago around Christmastime. I had decided I wanted to meet an elf, so I immersed myself in 'elf' stuff. I checked out books at the library dealing with Celtic lore. I thought of the 'little people', elves, sylphs, the shee many hours a day so that I began to even think of them when falling asleep. I tried to so saturate my consciousness with 'elves' that it would overflow into my subconscious.

Then one morning in an LD I encountered a couple of leprechauns arguing over a leg of roasted critter of some sort. I didn’t approach them, they were rough and nasty little beings, but it occurred to me what was going on and I woke up just briefly enough to think, “Aha! I wanted elves but I got leprechauns” and dove back into the dream again. Then one of them convinced the other that if he could have or at least share the leg of meat, he’d throw a party for everybody (next week or something), an obvious lie. But they were leprechauns, after all.

It was probably six weeks from the time I decided to meet elves to the leprechaun dream and it may not be a great example, but my point is - let go and trust a process you can’t see or think about - you can’t DO - without spoiling it.

Just my thoughts.

[michaelsaganski]

Good point eyeoneblack. Saturating the subconscious works well for any sort of "skill" I think. It's a weird paradox, doing AP by "non-doing".

[michaelsaganski]

OBE/Astral Projection Trial Day 69

I had a very interesting experience last night, at around 4 am. I had woken up from a dream but had not opened my eyes yet, and I felt a distinct presence in my bedroom. I used to be skeptical of the idea that we can detect “presences” without using our 5 physical senses, but I definitely FELT something/someone close to me.

So I naturally decided to open my eyes. I wasn’t fully awake yet and the room was fairly dark, but I saw a human-like form or figure approach me at the side of my bed. I became a little scared but then my vision blanked out and I felt like it merged with me. How do I even begin to describe what that feels like? I just knew it at the time. The typical OBE sensations of vibrations, tingling, whooshing noises were there. I also briefly saw some random colors/patterns and felt some pressure in my head. I was so confused as to what was going on I thought to myself “WTF… am I being possessed?”. It happened very quickly.

I regained my vision and apart from the tingling/buzzing I felt relatively normal for maybe a second. I then saw ANOTHER form/figure, but it was more of a diffused sphere this time. It approached me hovering over the foot of my bed, and then merged with me as well. The tingling/buzzing/whooshing happened again with a loss of vision and head pressure. After a second or two (I think) I regained my vision and the tingling/buzzing reduced in intensity. I mentally said “Hello?” still wondering what was going on, but didn’t get much of an answer (I might have heard myself say “hi” but I might just be making it up in my head). I then began to realize what had happened and decided to see if I could go for a conscious OBE exit.

The trouble was I was so scared/excited that I wasn’t able to focus and just decided to log it in my notebook and stay awake for a while to solidify the memory. It’s a good thing too because I know that if this had happened before I learned about OBE’s I probably would have brushed it off as a dream, forgotten about it, or whatever. Maybe it has happened in the past and I know even know, I’m guessing it probably has. Even now as I write this I can hardly believe it happened.

It’s possible that the affirmation I used before going to sleep may have played a role. This week’s affirmation in MAP for evenings is related to waking up in the middle of the night for astral projection. I think it’s pretty clear to me now that the forms were two of my energy bodies, like the etheric (real-time zone) and astral. You guys can correct me if I’m wrong though.

If only I had waken up during the beginning of the projection instead of the end! Oh well, this experience was still huge for me. I think it has tremendously helped at chipping away my old belief systems.

I also now see much more validity to Robert Bruce’s AP model (mind-split effect, energy doubles, etc.). It’s just a matter of focusing my conscious awareness in those other bodies. I still don’t quite understand how all of Robert Bruce’s model fits in with Robert Monroe’s focus levels, but I do feel like they’re both “right”.

[CFTraveler]

We have a concordance of sorts in the OBE R & Discussions forum.
Here it is.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10282

[michaelsaganski]

We have a concordance of sorts in the OBE R & Discussions forum.
Here it is.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10282

Yeah, that makes sense to me. Where I get a little lost is how Robert Bruce uses multiple energy bodies to explain travel in the different planes while Monroe says it's all just a different way of focusing your consciousness.

[CFTraveler]

Well, if you look at it from a broader metaphysical perspective, energy bodies are vehicles of consciousness, in a very physical sense- and since most metaphysicians believe 'everything' is consciousness, 'focusing awareness' is one way of describing the same thing- we exist everywhere everytime, but can access reality by 'tuning into' a specific 'state' that is the same as our perceptual apparatus, and that's what an energy body is-a perceptual projection that is in tune with the specific environment we're trying to access-consciously.
Wow, I couldn't put it simply.
Oh well.
So, IMO it's just two ways of describing the same thing- one phenomenological, the other 'technical'.

[michaelsaganski]

Well, if you look at it from a broader metaphysical perspective, energy bodies are vehicles of consciousness, in a very physical sense- and since most metaphysicians believe 'everything' is consciousness, 'focusing awareness' is one way of describing the same thing- we exist everywhere everytime, but can access reality by 'tuning into' a specific 'state' that is the same as our perceptual apparatus, and that's what an energy body is-a perceptual projection that is in tune with the specific environment we're trying to access-consciously.
Wow, I couldn't put it simply.
Oh well.
So, IMO it's just two ways of describing the same thing- one phenomenological, the other 'technical'.

Yeah I get that. And the mind-split effect, or having multiple energy bodies at one time (like what I saw) is kind of how people can be aware at different focus levels at the same time. The thing is, I wasn't aware of those other energy bodies.. but yet it was me? That's also still a little confusing. Like I'm pretty sure they were me, but apart from knowing they were close by I didn't have much of my conscious awareness inside those bodies. Does the conscious mind really split that much?

If you can explain that to me you got a hat trick.