I first became interested in the phase experience (termed astral travel at the time) when I was 19 years old, several years ago. My guidance was an audio cassette by a guy named Rick Stack who had a thick New York accent. I remember him talking about direct techniques and how learning the skill of leaving your body and flying around town was much easier than learning how to play tennis, but considerably more difficult than learning Parcheesi.
He spoke about how you wanted to watch your body go to sleep and become aware in the hypnagogic state where you might hear weird sounds and see right through your eyelids. Your body would likely be unable to move. I put the instruction to work right away, and caught myself in the hypnagogic state very early in the morning- but I was stuck in a sleep paralysis rolled against my wall unable to move, and still unable to separate. I have had great difficulty with this concept of conscious separation.
Later that same year, I visited Sedona, AZ USA. The draw here was that there was a strong Native American and New Age following in this resort area, and I wanted to see what it was all about. I visited some new age shops in the area along with some points where I and my foster brother had been told there were energy vortexes. One of my purchases there was something called a dream pillow which was packed with some kind of herbs and was supposed to help with astral travel. That night, we slept in the car at the foot of an area that led to the point of where one one of the energy vortexes were supposed to be.
At some point during the night I recall "dreaming" that I was walking up to the back of my car. I remember mischievously thinking, "push it!" The effect of this was that inside the car, in my physical body it felt like I had been rammed from behind by another vehicle which jolted me immediately awake. In all fairness though, my foster brother was still sleeping like a baby, so the likelihood of a physical jarring of that intensity was unlikely. Perhaps what was so realistically jarring was felt at a personal internal level. It was a very notable experience.
I had a number of lucid dreams during that period, some of which could have been interpreted as either coincidence, or guided spiritual learning. I am not going to go into detail here about that- at least not yet. One reason is because I'm intrigued, though skeptical about 12padams post regarding Tony and the expanded Phase experience being more than just an internal recreation and awareness. I have had what could be construed as teachers or guides while in the phase, and I have had some people in my life who have claimed to be teachers or spiritual guides.
At this point I feel like the physical people are just in need of attention and want to feel special (we all do), and those within the phase were probably my own creations (because I wanted to feel extraordinary). I will say that there are specific, strong, spiritual guide associations- so 12padams, since you are eager to thoroughly research the phase, you are welcome to have Tony (phanes) reveal what those are.
There are specific, formative and strong events, memories, and impressions that if they are real, and if Tony is real, he should be able to determine. To be clear, I am not in any way trying to make a mockery of this- I really want to know. On the flip side, I also don't want you to be misled or disillusioned by someone who is feeding you a line of bull, because that is how I felt eventually felt after I came to my senses and matured a bit more. Just be careful how much you believe in someone. It is great to act in faith, but I think it is just too much to act in BLIND faith. I think Mr. Raduga would even feel better about life if the phase turned out to be more than just an internal communication with the subconscious. We all would.
Moving on-- as the years have gone by I would say that my greatest successes phase-wise have been lucid dreaming- though now that I have learned about deepening and maintaining I am hoping for much richer experiences. I have also had a few occasions where in a somewhat "dreamy" state of mind, I have felt myself separate.
There was one single occasion when I was 20 where it seemed I was conscious just after waking up in the morning, then it seemed like just my head separated and was floating in place about a foot from my face. I couldn't move, I couldn't speak and I was just frozen in place. It freaked me out. I was looking around the room (where at the particular time I was surrounded by other people in bunks) and was screaming for someone to wake me up because I was in a panic about being frozen. I'm not consciously sure of how I rejoined- my guess is that time just passed and it happened. That was a really bizarre experience.
A common sensation in both "dreamy" and conscious separation is that in my experience there is 1) INTENSE vibration, almost like a constant electric shock 2) a perception of pink or purple clouds or merging colors- like a lava lamp. As I see these I often think of my perceived body head is one of these lava lamp-blobs and is floating from inside my physical head to outside of it. 3) A "hissing" sound as separation is taking place, accompanied by or followed by the sensation you get in your ears when you put your head underwater.
Flash forward to present day-Recent developments causing me to lose my religion and question the true nature of being led me to revisit OBEs. I was very excited to find MR's Guidebook on OBE's and read it eagerly except for the section designated for advanced practitioners. Since I have gone through it, along with the instructional videos, I have practiced about 6 days and in those experienced three short lucid dreams one of which I just became aware and started deepening techniques (but it was the MIDDLE of the night and I may have been too tired), the the vision and light increased but then sent me back to my body. While have "dreamy" and headed to my body, I protested and started a thrashing rotation to get back out again. I remember seeing purple and having the sensation that I had physically spun in the air at least twice. I was then in a situation where I had nearly no vision, and when I tried to palpitate to receive vision, I saw what looked like a floor full of giant white tiles (like you would see in a sliding puzzle) starting to come into view. About the time I was trying to start peering- I woke up.
I have practiced using doors and doorways (any door with hinges) as an anchor for lucid dreams and to internally question "Am I dreaming?". This has not really shown a benefit yet because the next two lucid dreams I had were alerted by the action of flying. The first time I was headed toward a window and knew I needed to deepen so I took the time to land and try to palpitate. I started getting sucked back to my body so I grabbed an armful of weeds and clenched them to my chest. This resulted in me finding myself in my darkened hallway at home. Again I tried to deepen to gain vision and this time woke up completely. My other dream was the same way, except I landed on a roof, and before I could even start to palpitate someone in reality thought that a breakfast burrito notification was more important than my sleep and woke me up by knocking on my door. GRrrrrrrrr...
So here it is today, I'm holding off of attempting indirect or direct techniques until Thursday, but will practice them individually for drilling purposes. I will still take advantage of lucid dreams for my phase plan of action if I can ever get stabilized. I have a question entered in about lucid dreaming counting toward the 3 day per week recommended limit. As far as I know, this just applies to indirect and probably direct techniques. I am really hoping to experience a conscious separation- I can get all kinds of sensations going, especially auditory-- but it seems no matter how weird or floaty I feel, If I try to separate, the flesh frame comes with. I know I HAVE GOT TO BE SO CLOSE!!!
Another discussion topic I have asked for feedback on is regarding how I feel in the day following attempts to enter the phase. My head feels like there is a rushing sound in it, my ears ring, and I feel more prone to "tingle" in my body, especially in my head. That was yesterday, but today these sensations are far less intense.
So there it is- my background and beginnings and how things are starting off for me using MR's techniques. I will post more experiences as they take place and with all of this out of the way, it should be much shorter. Happy flying everyone!
CLUELESS!
