Weekend wrap-up

This morning I again woke up at 5am after a little more than 6 hours of sleep. It may have been closer to 7 hours actually. I had a small bowl of cereal and half an apple. Then I stayed awake for a little longer than usual. It was probably closer to an hour or more before I laid down again.

Because of these things I think I had a little harder time getting into the near-sleep state:

-A little more sleep than usual: I felt more rested than I did on previous attempts. The goal here is to catch myself in between sleep cycles but I may have just caught myself a little too well rested perhaps
- Food: I hear that apples have a lot of sugar and can spike your insulin levels. This may have been a possible problem today.
-Stayed awake for too long: By the time I laid down again I was pretty damn awake. While laying there trying to focus on energy work and energy body loosening, my mind was drifting heavily toward physical-reality concerns. This made it pretty tough to move toward the state I am looking for.

Well, after what felt like a long time of laying there I did catch myself in the state and started bringing on the exit sensations. For some reason though I said something aloud in my mind as I started to "move down into myself" (that's the best description I have at the moment for what it feels like). I said something like, "here we go" or "this is easy" or something and that snapped me out of the state and I had a hard time getting back there again before I fell asleep.

I did learn from this nonetheless. While laying there in the state that I did NOT want to be in, I was able to contrast the waking-life consciousness from the near-sleep or trance-state consciousness. It really is much like a tuning dial on a radio. The near-sleep state is much more focused inward, while in normal waking consciousness your focus goes outward toward all the zillion things in the world. Little hard to describe.

Well, the weekend is near over and I'm very happy with what I've learned. I got to see a lot of friends and family, and also got to go to a kickass college football rivalry game (FSU vs UF) and my team won! Hopefully during the week I'll have some time to try OBE. Maybe I should start working on night-projection. We shall see.

2nd Success!! Sort of...

Today I ditched the alarm clock method for the way I had my first success a few weeks ago. I woke up at 5:45am but this time I didn't eat anything because I didn't even feel slightly hungry. Yesterday was Thanksgiving and I pigged out like a starving kid in China. Then I picked up Energy Work by Robert Bruce (highly recommend) and did a bunch of energy work for about 30 minutes. Finally I went and laid down in the back room on the futon and continued doing energy work and trying to get into trance.

I can't say I'm proficient at getting into trance... at least not at getting into deep trance. When I meditate I try to get into trance and I might get to the point where I begin to lose some sensation in my body, particularly my hands, but after that I generally don't "feel" like I'm in a trance at all. This is something I want to work on because my goal is to be able to induce astral projection at will.

So anyway as I'm laying there and trying to get into trance and doing energy body loosening I finally catch myself going to sleep. Once I caught myself at this level I exhaled deeply... or really, exhaled twice and the exit sensations came on very strong. It's such a strange energetic feeling... maybe this is the vibrations that people describe often.

The exit sensations feel to me like a lot of floating and movement and are always accompanied by auditory noises. This time was a little strange though - I thought I was out of my body because of the exit sensations. I was hearing my own voice talking and I could see but it was hard to tell where I was. I "willed" myself to go see my son and nothing happened. Then I figured out that I was still in my body was completely disassociated with the physical. Around the time I figured this out I re-associated with my body and then I couldn't get back to the exit sensations.

So I'm definitely considering this a success as I definitely had the ability to get OB, but got confused during the process. Nonetheless, I have to consider the fact that both times I've done the above process I've had more success that at any other time. I will definitely continue this in the future and most likely every day this weekend.

The only drawback of this method is that it takes a full morning to do, so it would be really difficult to do during the work-week.

2nd day of alarm clock method

This morning was another wash for the alarm clock method. This time I tried 30 min, 9, 12, 3,17,10,10. No luck but I did remember a couple dreams. Also I woke up again exactly 1 minute before my initial alarm clock went off. Very interesting. However, I'm starting to think that this alarm clock method isn't for me. I have this uncanny ability to sleep straight through alarm clocks, which has proved true in the first two days of this experiment. Maybe I should go back to what worked a few weeks ago: wake up after about 6 hours of sleep, eat a little bit, do a bunch of energy work and then lay down doing more energy work.

Alarm Clock Method

For the next two weeks, I'm going to follow the alarm clock method to obtaining lucid dreams and/or astral projection(s). The "alarm clock method" means that you use an alarm clock to keep you at the border of sleep and hopefully into the full-trance state.

This morning I woke up at 4:16 (exactly one minute before my alarm clock was set to wake me up, cool), used the restroom, and went to our back room where I had the laptop setup with a timer that I downloaded from SaltCube. I used the settings recommended here which recommends the alarm go off after 30 min, 22 min, 30 min, 15min, and then 37 minutes. I got situated and put the headphones on and laid down on the futon on my back.

Well, I guess I was kind of excited or SOMETHING but I just couldn't fall back asleep. As I was beginning to drift off the first alarm went off and really startled me. I think I should have been focusing more on getting into trance or doing energy work or something. At the same time, I was wearing these huge headphones that were a pain to sleep in because I couldn't turn my head. Not stellar pre-planning, but it's my first try so I'll give myself a break.

So it ends up that I wake up to my normal alarm clock at 6:45am without remembering much of a dream or anything else. The headphones eventually came off altogether. Here is what I plan to correct on next try:

- Use earbuds so that they don't fall out so easily
- Focus more on getting into trance and doing energy work. Especially when I first lay down and am still a little restless.
- Set my intent more intensely
- Get to bed a little earlier. If I'm dog-ass tired my body isn't going to care what I'm trying to do and will be more than happy to sleep through numerous alarm clocks.
- Use a different timer method. I think it needs to be set to go off more frequently.

Vegas tomorrow!

I'm headed to Vegas tomorrow for a business-related conference! I plan on having fun and hopefully having a little extra time to practice OBE stuff. My plan is to try once in the afternoon and once before the sun comes up. Wish me luck!

Not a lot to report...

Very little to report over the last couple of weeks due to "extenuating circumstances" (wow, I just used the word extenuating). I had a ridiculous cold for almost two weeks so I was trying to get as much rest as possible, work has been very busy, my son has had a lot of school work to do, Halloween activities, etc. The big one, however, is that I've been working very hard to get ready for a talent show of sorts that I'll be performing in this Friday (tomorrow). The "talent show" part sounds the ghey, but this show is a big deal to me. It's at a big event downtown that thousands of people attend. A lot of friends, family, and co-workers will be cheering me on, plus the video will be online, so you can see what I'm putting extra effort into getting ready. Plus the winner of the whole thing wins a trip to New York City, so that's a nice incentive.

From being sick I noticed how much my energy levels affect practicing AP. My dream recall was far less and my desire to get out of bed and attempt AP dropped significantly. This makes a good case for exercise and good diet if you are attempting to learn AP. Keep the stress levels low and the energy levels high!!