First, let's get to basics. When we sleep at night, we phase into a dream state that little know about. In Virginia, at the Monroe Institute, they have documented information where people loose weight I think 3 ounces when they go OOBE. As well as EEG Brainwave patterns when one is in this state.
They conclude, with several psycologists in support of, that we enter this state everynight. The re-entery is associated with falling, jolting suddenly awake and other variables of this.
When I have a disscussion with people verbally, I usually aske the group to look at their experiences. First we address Deja Vu. Every one says, "Yes, Deja Vu, I've expeirenced that!". Then I'll ask about dreaming something and having it come true. The number lessens ... but not much ... and people start talking about their expeirences, some more intense than others. After a while of discussion, I say, "Well, it appears that a lot is going on when we sleep at night? This is happening whether you want it to or not ... so let's find out the reasons for it."
And that will begin a discussion of what I have experienced and what I have found out ... such as OOBE's, shared dreams, shared OOBES, and other things that I will talk about later. And the most important piece of factual information is, You are doing this naturally anyways, so all you have to do is become AWARE that you are doing it.
Awareness has always been the keys to the doors of perception. And a induced OOBE where you are fully conscious is just taking your physical consciousness, your logical left brain functions along for the ride.
The left brain is vital to memory and recording this experience, also when the left brain and right brain are working, you become aware, that part of you that you associate yourself with that say's, "I think therefore I am."
So I guess the key for successful anything in the dream state or OOBE is knowing you do it anyways in deep sleep, and all you have to do is join in on the adventure with your conscious awareness. The rest will fall into place.
Since we are just going to flick a switch to activate you in when your physical body sleeps, the key is awareness, and the action is mind awake, body asleep. This is achieved without any fancy rituals, no medatating in ashrams, seeking the great Makullu ... eating special herbs ect ... ect ... those are focuses that can and do distort this experience with expectations and beliefs.
The best technique I can offer is the most natural one you can think of. To let this experience occure with natural sleeping patterns so that you can achieve it as you should naturally. It's called the "Lazy Human Release Technique"
You will begin to pattern your awareness into the dreaming state as we speak ... when you sleep at night, all I ask of you to do is just this.
Tell yourself:
"I am going to sleep now. I know I will be dreaming.Then, when you first go to sleep, watch what happens naturally. What does your mind do to trick you into sleeping. What feelings and thoughts occure ... If you start to see colors, images and/or find yourself thinking in abstract form, that usually indicates the right-brain taking over and the left-brain ... lazy, tired, uninterested in the right-brain kicking off to sleep. You might even begin to see three dimentional shapes and even hear audible sounds such as music, voices, banging anything ...
I am going to be aware of what happens when I fall asleep.
I will remember what I dream in full conscious detail."
That shouldn't frighten you, it is a dream coming into your awareness. The sounds and images if left alone will blossom into a full sensory 3-dimentional dream that you can explore consciously, change willingly and learn from. You will dissasociate with your physical life and body as normal in a dream state, but you will be fully conscious if you followed this sleeping pattern while being aware that it goes on when you sleep anyways.
That's a good formula for Lucid dreams. But same principle applies to the OOBE.
After sleeping for four to six hours, wake up, record your dreams or remeber them as much as you can, think about them, analyse them, use a voice recorder if you want or write them down, it helps train you to remeber them more clearly.
Then, use the washroom, stretch, check E-mail, do something to activate naturally your left brain and wakefullness. It doesn't have to be fancy, even waking up registering mentally that you are awake and then doing an induced OOBE is enough, but I find that we are lazy left-brainers who drop off to sleep like eating fast food ... we always hurry and miss the bigger picture ... we forget to savour our food and savour our sleep.
As soon as you feel awake, but physically tired, lie back down. The mind needs only four to six hours of sleep, the body likes a good solid eight hours. You have now created a naturaly occuring state of physical being where your body would like two more hours of sleep, but your brain will be more active and into things such as dreaming and OOBEs since it has already slept.
Now you are ready to induce a fully waking concscious OOBE. And You may on your first try, this is common if you follow a natural pattern and keep your awareness about you.
The process is simple, you are going back to sleep. That's it. But we like to prepare the left-brain for it's task of staying with us for the experiment. So we can do this by just letting ourselves know that we are going to be fully conscouse in the sleeping state. And acknowledge that we will be asleep physically and awake mentally. It is that simple, but simplicity does not always satisfy the left brain, so a good pattern is nice to follow.
When you lie down, again, be aware of the techniques your mind uses to trick you into falling asleep. This is so vital as you can learn so much about yourself and your own natural patterns this way. Being intellegent and able to learn, you will teach yourself how to stay afloat and remain awake by letting this natural pattern occure without interfering with it by preventing it, thinking too much about it, dragging in all your worries, concerns and fears. This occures naturally, so we are going to let it happen, be aware of it, and allow ourselves to be fully conscious while our body sleeps.
Fall asleep normally, except for the fact that you are going to let yourself be conscious while it happens ... if you are finding it difficult to relax and sleep because you are exerting to much alert mental control, let go and relax ... play around with thinking in sounds and images rather than words ... speak the language of the right brain. Occupy as much of your left brain with your own sleep inducing techniques so that it follows a natural pattern to sleep as well. Instead of dreaming naturally you are controlling your dream just like you do when you breath ... it happens naturally, but you can control it when you desire.
Sometimes you'll have to just let go and fall asleep hoping that you have triggered enough interest in yourself to pop awake naturally.
If this is not working so smoothly, we can try to formulate more mental techniques to induce this state, but in the end, it all comes down to falling asleep naturally, but just being aware in those states.
Take the Monroe Instatutes example. They use HEMI-SYNC, and follow a series of conditions that help, but this is again, a focus technique to do something that occures naturally. And it does not require HEMI- SYNC to do this, but apparently HEMI-SYNC helps ... I always think that it's a placebo(sp) effect ... but if it works, great. And it does.
We'll create a simular pattern but with using suggestion.
While going back to sleep ...
If you are thinking to much and have too much on your mind, drop the excess baggage, it will just get in the way. Here's a great technique using visualisation to release your fears, anxieties, and concerns as well as anything else blocking your experiment.
Visualise a bright white balloon glowing vibrantly with white light. Place the anxieties, concerns, fears, and anything else interfering with your experiment into the balloon. Attach a : This won't bother me anymore, it wont inteferre with my OOBE. And let the baloon float up and away from your imaganitive sight.
Do a deep breathing technique to help relax you if your not relaxed enough. Breath around 10 to 20 deep breaths. As you breath in, visualise vibrant energy entering from all parts of your body, and when you breath out, visualise used up, tired energy pouring out from every part of you and relax.
Say an affirmation:
I use a blend of the Monroe, and my own ... you can review both and add to it like you would a signature according to the desired experience you wanted.
" I will be fully conscious as I am now when my Body falls asleep. I will be fully alert and will remeber in full conscious detail what I am experiencing. I desire to go out-of-body and explore this state with all my awareness."
That is a great simplified one to program yourself if your not as successful with following the natural patterns of sleep into waking OOBE.
"I am more than my physical body since I am more than physical matter, I can percieve that which is greater than the physical world.Therefore, I deeply desire to expand, to experience: To know, to understand, to control, to use such greater energies and energy systems as may be beneficial and constructive to me and to those who follow me.
Also, I deeply desire the help and cooperation, the assistance, the understanding of those indaviduals whose wisdom, development, and experience are equal to or greater than my own. I ask their guidance and protection from any influence or any source that might provide me with less than my stated desires."
As in any affirmation, your making a conscious effort to state what you desire and think so that you will do what you wish to achieve.
After the affirmation, the visualisation, and you desired intent, let yourself go out-of-body. Allowing yourself to and forcing yourself to have two very different results, you get farther with a gental push rather a forceful punch. Allow yourself to do this, and don't create an emotional response such as fustration due to no results or anything that will require that much more re-programming so that you can do this. The simpler the better.
Just fall asleep after some of these focuses and let go of being awake ... I find I just pop awake, especially if I had some audible sounds and images prior to dropping off. If I can stay conscious, I will feel my body suddenly go numb and I instantly pop out by sitting up or rolling out. Sometimes, you can just let yourself sleep after you state your intent and it works.
If you can't do it first try, don't worry, keep practacing, and learn as much as you can about your sleeping patterns. Learn, learn and learn as much as you can so that you Know and understand what this process is.
This is some of what I have experience and some of my friends in a consciously induced OOBE, so don't worry if you experience the same thing.
You may add to this list ... :) But don't let it frighten you ... these are normal as you phase between states of consciousness ... it is multi-layered so expect different states of awareness to reveal themselves to you.
I call one state Secondary Consciousness where SUPER-IMPOSED REALSIM kicks in and you think you are awake. So you get up, eat breakfast and fret about not going OOB. Then you wake up. That's a good example of your mental ability to project a reality. There is more to it though ... we'll discuss this later, quote me on it if you experience it.
Record the information when you wake up.
You may feel a strong pull like a magnet pulling you back towards your body, you can resist by focusing on an object, grab it and confirm that you are going to remain consciouse.
You may be limited to just five or ten feet ... (self imposed limitations)
You may phase into other areas of the human space/time areas of experience and view 3-D sensory locations where it's accumilation of human thoughts and emotions ... I highly recommend knowing that this area is where a lot of HUMAN thinking/ fretting/ believing/ screaming/ loving/ ect is stored and is best left to itself. The ideal goal of your OOBE is not to stay in these thought circles, but to rise above them to the more intellegent and orderly ones where you can actuall learn practical information regarding your human experience and the reality you were once so completely focused in.
Expect to go forward and back in time. View locations you have never been to. Go to other planets and reality systems ... it is a very, very big and vast universe ... you have much to LEARN LEARN LEARN!
I suggest visiting friends for the first part, learning to phase into the dreaming spheres where we gather in groups, there is so much ... but never fear or worry about revealing truths.
Remeber, you do this anyways, so the best thing to do, is ask that part of you that knows the territory to show you around ... when OOB, just acknowledge that there is a part of you that knows this, and ask it to be your guide, that's the best advice I can offer, who better to show you the territory than your self :)
Expect to turn unknowns into knowns, and beliefs in to truths as you LEARN LEARN LEARN all you can about yourself and your relationship to this vast universe, you may uncover just how damn important you really are.
Post me your findings and questions, I'll help with all I have available to me ... Most of all, have fun and make these expeirences ones of joy, love, learning and personal self discovery ... all will fall into place ...
Cheers,
Ian