Astral Projection

[YellowTwo54]

Has anyone ever heard of this? Or tried it? I heard about it for the first time today from a friend of mine. Supposedly you sort of meditate while you are going to sleep at night and after a while you feel tingles all over. They get worse and worse and suddenly you "leave" your body and are able to manipulate the world and go wherever you want and it all feels totally real. When people wake up they seriously think these things happened to them and that they actually went to the places they thought they went to.

Is there any sort of psychological explanation for this?

 

[hkfiesta]

wow!
thats kinda cool
hmm, interesting, mind to ellaborate?

i read somewhere it is possible for one to be conscious while dreaming, as in, they may be sleeping in reality, but their mind consciously *knows* they are in dreamworld, that they can wake up anytime, but they choose to continue sleeping on, any truly "control" their dreams, where they go/what they do.
whether this is exactly that, or just related, im not gonna make conclusions.
just kinda confused~ what does he/she mean by 'leaving the body'? is it like feeling light? or is this within the dream, actaully seeing him/herself physically leave the body?
sorry if anything was misunderstood, no offense..

 

[Ash]

i read somewhere it is possible for one to be conscious while dreaming, as in, they may be sleeping in reality, but their mind consciously *knows* they are in dreamworld, that they can wake up anytime, but they choose to continue sleeping on, any truly "control" their dreams, where they go/what they do.

It's called lucid dreaming and while it *can* be done, it's wise not to try too often because then we defeat the purpose of our dreams.

 

[YellowTwo54]

What exactly is the purpose of dreams?

Yeah I meant literally leaving the body. People who do this can actually see themselves sleeping below them as the float away... or walk away.

out-of-body experience (OBE) - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com
That explains more about Out of Body Experiences, but Astral Projection is like the voluntary method to OBE's.

Astral Projection - Crystalinks
That is a site on Astral Projection.

 

[beautiful19]

There is a book where this girl can do it. It's called Stranger With My Face by Lois Duncan. It's a pretty good book. I have a friend who believes in this and says she is able to do it. It's basically where you can leave your body and go somewhere else.

 

[Nex]

Nice topic!

I've been involunarily having astral projections for as long as I've had sleep paralysis, and that's been forever.

I don't know of any explanation in psychology, I'd suppose scientifically speaking all they could say is that it's an all too real lucid *dream*, created by your desire to leave your body. Thing is, anyone can say they've had an Out of Body Experience (OBE), but who can prove it?

You can find alot of resources on the internet, including how to do it. If you can meditate into a state of "mindness", where you can no longer feel your body, then you have a higher chance of projecting.

I'm also consequently a natural lucid dreamer, it wasn't till recently that I realized lucid dreams aren't common in everyone. It is possible to induce a lucid dream, you should look into it, but I've only had it naturally every once in a while. One technique I've heard of is during your day, everywhile or so ask yourself outloud "Am I dreaming?", when this becomes a habit, you might end up asking that same question in your dream.

Basically, you realize that you're dreaming. With your "conscious mind" awake, you can control anything and basically play Dungeon Master. Like remove walls, fly, etc; but it all depends on how certain you are that you're dreaming. You might also, as I do, realize fantasies and commit evil deeds since you are free from consequences. I find that if there's an element of doubt "I think that I'm dreaming, but there's still a chance that I'm not", will not allow me to change anything, but still think freely.

I usually go lucid when I notice something completely out of place. Or when I try to remember something, and think "What am I doing in school?"

Astral projections can be frightening, but are awesome nonetheless.

**From what I remember** vv

By the way, lucid dreams and OBEs are very different but at the same time aren't. Theoretically, a lucid dream is just like any other dream, except that you know you're dreaming -- it's all in your mind. Now with astral projection, you are projecting your astral body (replica of your physical, who reports data to the physical - which is how you can remember what happened after you're awake) away from your physical body, onto the astral plane (basically a replica of the physical plane, except that there are things that are exclusive only to the astral, such as "astral entities", etc).

On both, however, the unconscious mind is attempting to create a dream. So that's why astral projections are fuzzy, you theoretically are seeing the astral plane (replica of physical), while your unconscious mind creates your dream. Get ready to see some real strange shizzle.

Now, to bring them real close together, there's a theory that everytime you dream, you dream with your astral body on the astral plane, which means that everytime you dream you are having an astral projection. So a lucid dream or any other dream would = an OBE.

There are some other real strange but interesting theories, which are considered facts to those who proposed them, that everytime you sleep your astral body meets with other astral bodies on the astral plane, to make decisions. According to theory: You want a new job, so your astral body meets up with your future boss's to make negociations, and see if it's possible at the time being. This creates destiny. And since your astral body doesn't necessarily have to report everything to the physical body, you don't remember it happening.

I'm getting carried away here... =]