Journeys out of the Body!!

[Cosmic Ejaculator 1814]

In my late teens I discovered the books of Robert A. Monroe,the legendary out of body explorer.He developed the acclaimed Hemi-Sync technology,which produses exotic mental-states in it's users.
All military Remote Viewers had to take a course at The Monroe Institute before entering into the RV program.

After using the Hemi-Sync cassettes for just a few months,I was able to reach "Yogic" states of consciousness,including the out of body state.

Any fellow astral travellers out there?

 

[Poi]

I tried to talk a girlfriend into going to the Monroe Institute to give it a try, but she was less than interested. And I don't want to try it without a friend or someone I know fairly well which is why I haven't ordered the cassettes. I know that doesn't sound logical, but I don't know enough about it to feel secure in trying it by myself.

Have your experiences all been rewarding in some way? Anything scare the bejebus out of you?

 

[Cosmic Ejaculator 1814]

They have all been rewarding...
Some of the states you pass through before reaching the out of body experience can be pretty nerv-wrecking,though.There is,for example,a level right on the edge of projection where you can begin to vibrate mentally (difficult to explain...),and it can be scary.In fact fear is the single biggest hurdle to climb in order to achive it!

 

[Brian Now]

I think Monroe came up with some useful theory, using binaural beats for leaving the body being one of them.
I bought the first Gateway CDs. There are many, many cheaper ways of getting binaural beats and guided meditations nowadays, plus I found Monroe's voice distracting.

As for the books, they seemed to get grander and grander as they went on. By the end of the last book I had suspended disbelief long enough and really felt like I was reading fiction.
I think Monroe's interesting work was done early on.

 

[Raevenskye]

I've never studied astral projection, but I've done it. My Dad and I used to meet and go "visiting". Only one time was it scary...I came up out of my body so fast I was spinning end over end, and being pushed against my ceiling. I decided I didn't want to go, and I returned to my body and woke up. That was the worst experience I've had with it.
My Dad used to travel often, and when he first started doing it, it really scared him. He felt like he wouldn't make it back in time.

 

[Cosmic Ejaculator 1814]

The biggest benefit I got out of using Hemi-Sync was that after a short period I was able too produce all the different Focus levels (10-27) without actually listening too the tapes...This has been a huge help in my regular Trancendental Meditation pratice,as well...
I do agree that he made his most significant contrabution's early on,and that especially his last book (Ultimate Journey) is a bit too much...

 

[Brian Now]

The biggest benefit I got out of using Hemi-Sync was that after a short period I was able too produce all the different Focus levels (10-27) without actually listening too the tapes

So do you astral project? I'm still interested in the whole thing, so I'd be curious to know what all of this has done for you.

 

[Cosmic Ejaculator 1814]

I used to be obsessed with OBE's and have over the year's had somewhere between 100-200 experiences inn that state...
It's a bizarre sensation the first couple of time's you travel thru a wall or the celing...
Walking/flying through a wall of Jello is the best analogy I can come up with.

As far as long term effects on my phsyche;
I'm more and more convinced that the basic building block of the Universe is,in fact,Mind...This realisation tends too shake up one's understanding of the Ego,and question it's relationship with the larger Cosmos...

 

[BrandonD]

As far as long term effects on my phsyche;
I'm more and more convinced that the basic building block of the Universe is,in fact,Mind...This realisation tends too shake up one's understanding of the Ego,and question it's relationship with the larger Cosmos...

That is one of my major experiences from psychedelics, the realization that consciousness or mind is the foundation of existence, more fundamental than matter. This realization has such huge implications that I wouldn't even know where to start.

A second experience is the realization of the complete subjectivity of time. I don't know what time is, but it doesn't exist as something objective and outside of us like we assume. Under the influence of psychedelics I've been able to leave the time context while (for example) a song is playing, and then return to the time context, and the song continues right where it left off. It is a bizarre thing to try and depict, and is one of those things that can probably only be experienced and not adequately described.

Have you had any strange time-related experiences while in this OOB state?

 

[Cosmic Ejaculator 1814]

Brandon;
As far as weird time related experiences;nothing spectacular,but like you said,the perception of time is totally distorted...

I've allways been into altered-states but never experimented with drugs...
What has been some of the effects (good/bad) of your "experimentation"?

 

[BrandonD]

Brandon;
As far as weird time related experiences;nothing spectacular,but like you said,the perception of time is totally distorted...

I've allways been into altered-states but never experimented with drugs...
What has been some of the effects (good/bad) of your "experimentation"?

My most interesting experiences have been w/ ayahuasca. I've described some of these in a few older threads. Here's one of them:

http://theparacast.com/forums/alternate-realities-t-910.html

 

[Chuckleberryfinn]

I have practiced so-called astral projection. It's fun but, I think, ultimately explainable as a form of wake-induced lucid dreaming.

About a year and a half ago, a friend who lives across the country wrote a few numbers on a piece of paper and put it the top of his bookshelf. My plan was to travel to his apartment and attempt to decipher the numbers. Of course, it failed. He left the numbers up there for months.

Astral projection actually can be tested. I have heard stories about Edgar Cayce successfully performing the above experiment. But, so far as I can tell, they're just stories. Does anyone here know of any sound documentation of OBE testing? Perhaps I simply haven't found it. Moreover, I admit that we do not really know where dreams take place (perhaps on some metaphysical landscape), as kookie as that sounds.

I am convinced that the NDE phenomenon, apparently related to astral projection, has merit. My only problem with the data, however, arises out of the many different versions of the afterlife contained in experiencer testimony. Some claim to see heaven or hell, Jesus, demons, Satan, or angels. Others experience non-specific light beings, identifiable not as any traditional icon of world religion. Then too others meet friends, family, or strangers in bizarre landscapes. All of them cannot represent the truth of the afterlife, since most of them contain mutually exclusive ideas about what happens after death. These groups generally ignore similar experiences from other groups or else blame Satan as using the NDE to deceive non-believers. Clearly, someone is wrong here.

Most Holy Family Monastery, a group run by a number of wildly fanatical Catholics, provides an example of a religious group claiming that the NDE serves as evidence for the reality of Catholicism (read the story here: http://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/condemned_to_hell.html). What would happen if one asked the writer about atheists or Jews having experiences that exclude condemnation to hell? The fanatical maniac would undoubtedly claim that Satan was using the NDE to create confusion about the truth of Catholicism. To anyone who isn't a lunatic, however, the NDE cannot serve as any kind of evidence for the reality of this belief system or that, since the experiences are all so divergent.

Any thoughts?

How does one account for all of this if the NDE and OBE phenomenon does indeed represent some kind of metaphysical landscape?

 

[Cosmic Ejaculator 1814]

"Astral projection actually can be tested. I have heard stories about Edgar Cayce successfully performing the above experiment. But, so far as I can tell, they're just stories. Does anyone here know of any sound documentation of OBE testing? Perhaps I simply haven't found it." Chuck Finn

Chuckleberry;I think Joe McMoneagle performed some successful experiments together with Robert Monroe at The Monroe Institute.
I could be wrong,but I seem too remember something about it in Joe's book "Mind Trek".

Robert Monroe did his own experiments which is documented in his first book "Journeys out of the Body".

The difference between the two is that Joe McMoneagle did his experiments in a labratory setting.

 

[Cosmic Ejaculator 1814]

Chukleberry;
There is something called "analytical overlay".It's is a term used in Remote Viewing theory too describe a phenomenon where the imagination/Ego clouds the data.

The big difference in RV and OBE perception is that inn the OBE state you are much more involved in the activities and it feels like your actually at that locale'.In RV you never (seldom) loose your knowledge of the duality between your RV perception and the "real" world.

I think it's possible that the Ego/analytical overlay is stronger inn the OBE state than RV state,and therefore ends up creating "wishfull thinking landscapes" too suit the percievers own Cosmology...

My 2 cents...

 

[Poi]

I think that argument may have some merit, CosmicE. At least an argument has been suggested to me that I think about. Has to do with the ego's actually manufacturing, or at the least falling back on, archetypal personalities from our historical/religious training and perspective.

It's again the idea that in order to retain control, the ego introduces "lower" archetypes that induce fear to stop some process of viewing reality from a higher perspective. Lot of guess work there, but if indeed the argument has some merit, maybe RVers are able to bypass that process by protocols that cancel the effects of the ego. Or maybe RVers have simply moved beyond some fear factor and are more objective because of it.

Maybe Chuck's right, that astral projection is lucid dreaming, but maybe there's a point at which one can push past the barrier between that and some super reality, a distinct awareness.

 

[Cosmic Ejaculator 1814]

I took a course in Remote Viewing about 8 years ago...
One of the tecniques taught inn that class was to learn too "cheat" the Ego.The teacher,David Morehouse(Military Viewer),said that when imagination kicks inn you should always go back to "the structure" and try to,again,percieve "the signal line"...

After some pretty mind bending experiences of Samadhi/Unity Concsiuosness under meditation,I have the distinct feeling that the "Super Reality" that you speak of is,in fact,MIND,in it's truest form...

Mind is the most fundamental building-bloc of Creation!(Or maybe I'm just deluding myself...)

 

[Aaron LeClair]

A good way to test obes is to get someone to put something in a place you can't see. IF you have a obe go to that place, come back and tell the person what you saw. Is there a match? I suppose one could say you remote viewed the object, but at least either is verified over lucid dreaming.

 

[cindysue]

In my late teens I discovered the books of Robert A. Monroe,the legendary out of body explorer.He developed the acclaimed Hemi-Sync technology,which produses exotic mental-states in it's users.

Do you know if Hemi-Sync is in any way related to the Holosync program that Bill Harris is marketing right now? It uses specific audio levels that are supposed to bring your brain waves to alpha levels and beyond by listening to the cds. http://www.centerpointe.com/

Has anyone had any experience with these and was the Hemi-sync technology the same type of thing (using sound to change the brain waves of the listener) or is it something totally different?

 

[Brian Now]

A good way to test obes is to get someone to put something in a place you can't see.

Yeah, someone could place an object somewhere for a target. During all those experiments I read about, it appears an object was easier to see and describe than letters/numbers (like on a piece of paper) for whatever reason.
Some techniques for astral projection actually encourage lucid dreams. The idea is to use that moment of lucidity as a springboard to the out of body experience. I have become lucid a few times in dreams, but usually the dream collapses at that point.

Do you know if Hemi-Sync is in any way related to the Holosync program that Bill Harris is marketing right now?

It's not the same company of course, but it is the same idea...binaural beats. I think both systems have other sounds in the tracks, I think even music too.
You can get a program called Brainwave Generator http://www.bwgen.com/ to make your own binaural beats, or use presets that have been uploaded by users. They have a trial and a pay version. I don't think it has been updated in a while.

 

[Cosmic Ejaculator 1814]

Robert Monroe patented the Hemi-Sync technology in the early 70's,so if Holosync is using the same tech they may have a court case on their hands!

The result of using Hemi-Sync is that it syncronises both halfs of the brain and makes it function in an integrated way.I have not heard of another technology that pruduces the same effect.