This OBE taught me many things. It taught me that sleep is not “idle” or “wasted” time. It taught me the importance of helping people and the importance of work. It was a humbling experience that gave me a great reverence toward my higher self.
Some portion of our psyche leaves our bodies whether we like it or not, and devotes a great deal of time and energy to astral work. Perhaps sleep is necessary to our survival and sanity because we need this subconscious astral activity. It's up to us to choose whether to be conscious and learn from the experience or to remain unaware.
EXERCISE 15
moving the pinpoint
of consciousness
I've used this exercise to escape my body a few times. It can also induce other weird but harmless effects.
Close your eyes and spend a few minutes relaxing as completely as you can and clearing your mind of all worries and idle thoughts. Then spend a few minutes trying to decide where your consciousness is seated. Is your consciousness in the center of your head, or perhaps somewhere between the eyes? Wherever it is, visualize a tiny pinpoint of light at that point. You don't have to be exact about the location.
If you're not comfortable with where you have visualized the pinpoint of light, move it until you are comfortable with it. Spend a few minutes visualizing that pinpoint of light as clearly as you can. Try to shrink your awareness until you are only aware of your head. Then shrink your awareness even further, so that you can't feel anything except that pinpoint of light.
Next, visualize the point of light slowly moving down toward the base of the brain, where the cerebellum is. Move it about four inches down, then slowly move it back to its original position.
Repeat this visualization several times. This visualization can induce the vibrations and get you out of your body.
CHAPTER 16
to believe
The “brain fixing” incident taught me an important lesson. When I was trying to prove my experiences were “real,” I had problems achieving my goals and I was usually disappointed. When I just let myself flow with the experience, I had fun and felt good about the experience. Suddenly I realized that I didn't need to prove anything to anyone. There truly is a higher purpose to our experiences, whether in the body or out. All that matters is that we believe in the magic within us and trust that we will be guided to what is best for us.
I never did make it to LD's house in a fully-conscious OBE, but I had some close calls. For instance, on October 4, 1981, after a fully-conscious OBE (#51) had ended, I entered a semi-conscious dream state in which I was at LD's apartment. I took note of several details, including a pile of clothes I saw sitting on a bed. After I described the experience to her, she said it sounded “actually quite like our apartment. Especially the part about the clothes. I had done wash and put them on the extra bed.” Eventually LD changed jobs and I lost contact with her.
Since I made the decision to “go with the flow,” I haven't been disappointed. My goal—to make my presence known during an OBE—also came with time and patience. In 1985,1 had the following OBE during which my roommate, JH, was aware of my presence.
09/07/85 Sat - OBE # 116
JH (my roommate) and I were discussing OBE last night until 2:00 A.M. after watching a horror movie on television. We both decided to try having OBEs, and we agreed that if either had an OBE, he would try to contact the other in the OBE state.
I first woke up around 7:20 A.M., and I thought about trying to have an OBE. I was very tired, and fell asleep before I had a chance to try.
I woke up next around 9:30 A.M. and I thought, “I've almost wasted the whole morning and haven't even tried to have an OBE.” So I decided to try to have an OBE. I got into a straight position with my arms at my sides. I let myself approach sleep, but then I thought strongly, “I want to have an OBE.” So I started by visualizing a line of light (about three feet long) going straight up from between my eyes. I reached out with my consciousness to the end of the line, and pulled myself toward the end of the line. Then I created a rocking or swaying sensation by pulling and then pushing my consciousness along this line toward its end. Almost at once I felt the vibrations sweep over me, but they were very mild—almost unnoticeable. The vibrations faded away after a few seconds, and I was separate from my body.
My eyes were open, and the first thing I tried to do was look down. I tried to turn my head down, but although I had the sensation of my head turning, my vision stayed where it was, staring at the upper corner of the bedroom. My mouth was very dry and stiff. My vision wouldn't move. I had a slight feeling of dizziness as I turned my head down, but my vision stayed the same, so I stopped.
Then I noticed some sort of spirit form gliding from the direction of JH's room, into my room, and I thought it was JH. I thought, “JH beat me here! Good! Now I don't have to go into his room to get him. I wonder if he'll remember doing this.” The spirit figure I saw glided up next to me and came to rest to my left, near the bed. I turned my eyes to the left to look (I could not turn my head) but I couldn't make out the spirit figure too well.
As I studied the ghostly figure, another spirit form glided in and joined the first. As I studied the two figures, their forms started fading in and out, so that parts of them were completely transparent, parts of them were visible but translucent, and parts of them were completely visible. I could see now that neither of them was JH. One of the spirits was a man and the other was a woman, and they grasped each other while they reclined on the bed, less than a foot away to my left. They didn't seem to notice me at all.
I wondered if the images I saw were really spirits, or if they were thought-forms, or just afterimages from a time when two such people occupied the same room years before. I was strangely calm and not alarmed at seeing the spirits. Since the spirits didn't seem to care about me, I turned my attention away and concentrated again on trying to get away from my body.
I reached behind me, and tried to pry myself away from the physical body, but again I had the feeling of movement, although my sight remained the same. I tried to say some words, like “I am projecting now, so I should be able to get away,” but the words seemed to come out physically. And since my throat was very dry and stiff, the words came out slurred together, as if my whole mouth was deadened by novocaine. I made a mental note to remember all of this and let myself back down into my body.
I looked around once more, and as I looked, many other spirits started fading in and out of my vision. I concentrated on seeing them, and as I looked, they became clearer in my vision, and soon it seemed as if the whole room was crowded with spirits of different kinds.
Most of the spirits were between the ages of thirty and fifty, and they were talking to each other in this crowded room. It reminded me of a dance or a wedding reception because there were many people crowded together, talking to each other. I moved my eyes back and forth, to scan the different spirits in the room. As I moved my eyes, the spirits seemed to move too, and it caused a strange effect. I was curious as to why, but it didn't bother me.
I studied some of the spirits in the room, and I remember what some of them looked like. One was a man about thirty-five years old, wearing ‘50s-style formal clothes, with some scratches and bruises on his face. He was talking to a woman, dressed also in a ‘50s-style formal dress. None of these spirits seemed to notice me either, so I decided to ignore them and try to get away from the body again to contact JH.
I lay back into my body and then I tried lifting my feet over my head to do a backward somersault, thinking that it should work, since it has always been successful in past OBEs. Again I felt my consciousness move completely in a circle. I quickly came full circle and found myself back in the same position lying down. My consciousness faded into the same dream I had before I woke up.
After awhile I realized I was dreaming again. I forced myself awake and woke up still out of the body. I thought, “I am out of my body, and I am controlling this reality entirely. I should be able to get away from t
his body.” I decided that the only way I was going to get anywhere was to close my eyes and walk, relying entirely on my other senses. So I closed my eyes and bent my knees down until my legs were through the bed and my feet were touching the floor. I used my arms and a kind of swaying motion to stand up. I took a few steps toward JH's room. Then I stopped and wondered whether it would be better to walk into the living room, and through JH's bedroom door, or through the physical closet.
I decided to walk through the closet and straight into JH's room. So I kept going toward JH's room and approached JH's bed. Just as I started to look around, I was picked up and forcefully pulled back to my body.
The next thing I knew, I was back in my body, and my eyes were closed. I felt as if I were still out of my body, only I felt very stiff and rigid. I forced my eyes open, and as I did that, I became more physical, until my physical eyes opened and I was again completely in my physical body.
I turned to look at the clock, and it felt great to be able to turn my head. The time was slightly after 10:00 A.M. I recalled the whole incident in my mind. Then I got up to type it into the computer. JH heard me get up and came out and asked me if I had had an OBE.
JH said that he was experimenting with the hypnogogic state when he saw me in his bedroom. Other people have felt my presence too.
I am a believer and a skeptic. I must believe in the paranormal, since I've experienced it firsthand. At the same time, I am still skeptical in many ways. Skepticism is healthy because it can keep us from losing touch with reality and going off the deep end. We shouldn't believe everything we hear or read, or every line of trash fed to us by cults. We must always believe in ourselves, but question what doesn't makes sense.
The difference between a skeptic and a believer is simply this: perspective. When I was a skeptic, I approached everything with a negative attitude. I was a pessimist. Everything was hogwash until it was proven to be real. I thought of psychics and mystics as frauds, liars, and charlatans who lived lives of delusion.
My psychic experiences—particularly my OBEs—changed my attitude from negative to positive. I see people as inherently good. Obstacles are merely lessons to be learned. My outlook on life is positive and optimistic. And it pays to be optimistic. I believe in magic because I have experienced it firsthand.
EXERCISE 16
quiescing tipe minò
In my opinion, the single most important factor in leaving the body is that you focus your consciousness down to a single, focused, barely noticeable thread.
The best way to explain this is with an analogy. Imagine two parents who have lots of small kids who make lots of noise. At night, the parents send their kids to bed and wait for them to fall asleep before doing adult things. They try to be covert, so they listen for the noise in the kids' bedroom to quiet down, and when it does, they proceed. The lack of noise implies, but doesn't guarantee, that the kids are asleep.
Similarly, I think we all have a higher self or oversoul that waits until our consciousness is completely quiet or quiesced. At that point, it goes on to do otherworldly things.
I have found that if I narrow my consciousness down into a single thread (where my mind doesn't wander), and if I can hold my consciousness that way for about three minutes, the vibrations will rush in and start the separation process.
After a certain point where the vibrations have run their course, I broaden my consciousness back to normal, and I allow my normal thinking process to continue. But only after I'm in a fully conscious out-of- body state. It feels like sneaking through a security door with someone, unnoticed.
It's not enough to be single-minded. You have to narrow down your consciousness until it's almost unnoticeable even to yourself. It's also not enough to concentrate your mind. Concentration is different from quiescing your mind.
Here's an exercise for focusing your consciousness down to a quiesced state. Have you ever seen a flash of lightning, and stopped to listen for the thunder? At such a time, you tend to stop thinking and listen. Your mind is quiesced for a second or two. Pretend that some sound will occur in the future, and just listen for it. For a short time, your consciousness will stop all processing and go into a quiesced state. As you practice, increase the length of time you listen.
Instead of being a thinker, try to be a listener or an observer. Don't think; be. Don't concentrate. Well, pretend you're staring at a blank screen in front of your eyes. Become passive, patiently watching and waiting.
At first, you won't be able to suspend your thoughts for long. With practice you can learn to prolong this passive state.
When the vibrations hit, it can be quite shocking, and may break you out of the quiescent state of mind. If you start to think, “Oh my God, what's happening to me?” or “What should I do next?” then you've lost the quiescent state temporarily and the vibrations will start to fade away. Luckily the vibrations take several seconds to fade away—just enough time to recover the quiescent state. Just concentrating on the vibrations getting stronger is not enough—they will only get stronger when you get back to the quiescent state of mind.
Learn to hold your quiescent state of mind regardless of what is happening to your body. After the vibrations come, you need only hold the quiescent state for approximately 10 to 15 seconds and then you can just get up and walk away from your body.
PART TWO
What the Books Didn't Tell Me
CHAPTER 17
what the books didn't tell
me
As I began having more out-of-body experiences, I naturally set about doing my own type of scientific experiments. In my travels I encountered some peculiar things that weren't mentioned in the many OBE books I had read. Other peculiarities were only touched on by these books, but not explained to my satisfaction. Here are some of my findings:
Getting Stuck to the Physical Body
The first undocumented thing I ran across was the problem of getting “stuck” to my physical body. In several OBEs I found myself seemingly “glued” to my physical body, unable to move away from it. A typical instance was my third OBE:
12/09/79 Sun - OBE #3
…I was partly out of my body. My left arm was free. I waved it back and forth and looked at it to make sure it was really happening, and I wasn't dreaming. I tried to move more of my limbs, but they wouldn't budge. I tried to use my free left arm to push the rest of me out, but the rest of me was secure. (I couldn't move my physical or astral legs. They were cataleptic [paralyzed].) I felt that if I put my left astral arm back in its physical counterpart, I would leave the astral state. But being almost paralyzed, I had no other choices. I waved my left arm again, and looked at it, to once again make sure I wasn't dreaming. Then I returned it to its physical counterpart. That brought me back to the physical world, and I came to.
After some experimentation I found a few ways to “unstick” myself and pry away from the physical body. A good example is given below.
01/22/83 Sat-OBE #88
…My first problem was…to get away from the physical body that usually claims some sort of hold on my astral counterpart. This time I had no problem: I turned over so that I was face down (my body was face up). Then I pushed myself up until I was on my hands and knees. My hands, knees, and legs were still in coincidence with the physical body. Then I just withdrew my limbs one by one, and climbed off the bed. I was free from the body.
Most OBE books agree that out-of-body “reality” is mostly governed by thoughts, fears, and expectations. In one OBE, I used my fear of falling off the bed to counteract my expectation of being stuck, thus freeing myself.
Despite my limited success, I still haven't found a satisfactory solution to the problem of getting stuck to my body, but I do have a word of consolation: this happened to me more often when I was first learning how to consciously get out of my body. As time went on I had fewer experiences of being stuck.
Getting in the Body Backwards
This has only happened a few times, but it's an in
teresting experience when it happens. The first time this happened I was at my parents' lake cabin in northern Minnesota. I was feeling a bit under the weather and I was tired. I went into my bedroom to lie down for a bit. I was lying flat on my back with my head to the west and my feet to the east. I induced the vibrations and floated about three feet above the body. My astral body seemed completely paralyzed and I had no control at all:
09/21/80 Sun - OBE #23
…I tried to go up, but I couldn't. I wanted to go forward, but couldn't. Finally I wanted to turn around, and I rotated so that my astral head was above my physical feet and vice versa. I started going down into my body the wrong way! Try as I might, I couldn't stop it. Finally I went into my body and blacked out for a second. When I came to again, I was disoriented; I thought I should be facing east like my astral body was, but woke up facing west in my physical body. In one instant I was in my astral body, looking at the west wall of the room. The next instant I opened my eyes and saw the east wall. I felt intensely disoriented, which was like a dizziness, but it seemed more physical than mental. In other words, it seemed as if I were still physically feeling the spinning or reorientation of my astral body. About one minute later, the dizziness went away and I felt normal.
Since no harm ever came from these incidents, “getting in” the wrong way was never a problem.
The Blackout on Exit and Reentry
Many books on the out-of-body experience claim that when a person leaves his or her body, there is usually a split-second blackout. The same blackout happens when the person reenters the body. What is this blackout, why does it happen, and what can we learn from it?
The split-second blackout that usually precedes and follows OBEs is a great concern because it may make the experiences seem more subjective and less objective, less “real.”
Out-of-Body Experiences Page 10