Tag Archives: astral

Beginning Lucid Dreaming

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What is lucid dreaming? Since I’m not written on the topic before, I should begin with some explanation. Have you ever been in a dream in which you suddenly realized that you were dreaming? Often this results in waking up. But sometimes, with luck or training, we can manage to stay “lucid” (clear-headed and conscious) in our dreams, and begin to control what occurs in them. With practice, this can become great fun. We can give ourselves super powers, or summon up great historical figures to talk to. We can visit other planets and destroy or befriend the monsters of our nightmares.

Not only is this tremendous fun, but many esoteric teachers believe it’s an important exercise. The Tibetans apparently believe that if you can develop the power to stay completely lucid in your sleep to its ultimate potential, the same consciousness and control we develop in our dreams stays with us after death. At the point of death, we find ourselves with the consciousness to understand what it happening to us and control it. We are then able to pass by the dangers of the afterlife that various “books of the dead” warn us about and ascend to higher realms.

Would you like to add years to your life? How much time to you spend asleep and completely unconscious? If you can extend your consciousness to your dreams, it’s like living a whole new life in addition to the one you live while awake. And this life can be extremely fulfilling and useful.

Lucid dreaming is also extremely helpful for those who wish to learn astral projection. The most successful out-of-body experiences I have had began as lucid dreams. How do we develop lucid dreaming ability? There are a number of techniques, ranging from simple affirmations to complex machinery designed to “almost” wake you up at just the right moment. But the first order of business, if you don’t do it already, is to begin to remember and journal your dreams.

It’s a matter of scientific fact that everyone dreams. Many of us, however, don’t remember them. Several things contribute to our inability to remember dreams. First of all, we simply aren’t in the habit of remembering them. We have conditioned our minds to believe it isn’t important. Secondly, we may be used to waking up too abruptly. If we have an annoying alarm clock, or tend to jump out of bed abruptly, the fragile mental state with which we wake up (and which contains our dream memories) is dissolved. Within a few seconds of jumping out of bed, all our dream memories will be gone.

To begin to remember your dreams, then, put a notebook, a pencil (so you don’t have to sit up to write) and a light next to your bed. Make sure your alarm, if you use one, is gentle. Affirm to yourself several times as you go to sleep that you will remember your dreams. As you wake up, DON’T MOVE. Gently think back on what you remember from your dreams. When you have as much detail as you think you are going to get, grab your notebook and write it down. The first few times, you may forget and start to jump out of bed. Let the notebook on your bedside remind you, and write down whatever you remember. If all you remember are vague feelings, write that down. If you really don’t remember anything, take a GUESS at what you might have dreamed and write down the guess. Your mind will start to realize that you are serious about remembering your dreams, and you will remember more and more each day.

If you get up during the night, try to remember your dreams and write them down before you get out of bed. Some people have luck with setting their alarm for the middle of the night and recording their dreams at that time. In any case, if you are patient, within a short while you will remember more and more dreams.

Don’t slack. Write down everything you can. This serves several purposes. First of all, you can begin to use your dream journal for interesting analysis. Secondly, your consciousness will begin to develop itself. Soon you will start finding yourself being aware of your dreams while you are still IN them. This is one of the best roads to lucid dreaming.

There are a number of other techniques to increase your ability to have lucid dreams which I may write about soon, but dream journaling is, in my opinion, the most important.

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More Responses to NDE Objections

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This is a slight elaboration on some of my earlier comments on Near Death Experiences (NDE's) and proposes materialistic explanations for them. It is argued that such chemicals as ketamine and dmt, or direct stimulation of certain areas of the brain – can produce episodes that are similar in some ways to NDE’s. This is true, but there are several important points.

  1. They are similar to NDE but there are also differences. NDE’s have their own range of elements, and neither ketamine or dmt reproduces it exactly.
  2. The experiences of ketamine, dmt, lucid dreaming, etc all produce abundant and identifiable brain wave activity. Many NDE’s, including some of the most spectacular – occur when there is a complete cessation of all measurable brain wave activity. Cardiac arrest, in particular, produces extremely rapid cessation of all brain activity, as reported in the study by Lommel I referenced in my article: (http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/whoswho/vanLommel.htm) The whole point of introducing NDE’s into this discussion is that they present a mental phenomena which doesn’t seem at all connected to the physical function of the brain. If some kind of hallucination is occurring because of abnormal brain function, then it should be detectible as brain activity. It isn’t.
  3. I personally believe that altered states of consciousness, arrived at chemically, may indeed be “real” in the sense of being alternate realities that can be explored and about which there can be some degree of group agreement. This is similar to what one finds in the astral worlds of the OBE for example. While some of it is plastic, and it’s size and variety are near infinite – it is possible for different observers to visit the same “locations” within it and report commonalities. The fact that a state of consciousness can be triggered by drugs doesn’t invalidate the truth of that state. For some people, it requires chemical assistance to experience the state of consciousness we would call “normal” ;-) If there is a “spirit” or “spiritual body” – we might well expect physical chemicals in the body to alter the interaction between body and spirit. This particularly true of DMT, which is a natural body chemical who’s very purpose may BE to alter that interaction.
  4. Still, the amount of DMT produced by the brain is a tiny fraction of the amounts required to produce significant altered states in the lab.

It is argued that the anoxia itself mentioned above produces patters of neural firing that could be perceived as a “tunnel” of some kind, as reported in NDE literature.) Some points:

  1. If there is a direct correlation between brain anoxia and NDE, why do only a small percentage of victims of brain anoxia report NDE’s?
  2. The “tunnel” aspect of the NDE, which occurs typically at the beginning of the experience, might be compatible with the evidence of some cases, but the most vivid parts of the NDE typically occur AFTER the tunnel episode – when brain activity has virtually ceased. There is simply no neural activity present to support the very rich sensory experience that is reported.
  3. Not all NDE’s occur because of cardiac arrest, and not all of them happen in a state of anoxia – yet the non-anoxia NDE’s fit the same pattern.

Some mention is made of the fact that experiments in placing “targets” in areas like emergency rooms for NDE experiencers to report haven’t been statistically successful.

  1. While this is a commendable attempt to introduce some “control” into such study, the dying subjects are obviously not given instructions on what to look for – and it’s doubtful if they would follow them. The attention of the NDE experiencer tends to be drawn by things that are unpredictable, and even trivial – a doctor’s plaid shoelaces, a sneaker on a window ledge, etc. But they very very often include items of conversation, medical devices and instruments, and other details – some of which would not have been visible to them. At the very least, all these remembered conversations and perceptions occur during a time when the brain shows no correlate physical signs of registering any sensory activity.

For the record, let me re-introduce the case of Pam Reynolds, which I pointed to in my other article. Briefly, Pam underwent an experimental surgery for a brain aneurysm. The procedure involved hypothermic cardiac arrest. The body temperature is lowered to 60 degrees – heartbeat and breathing stopped, and brain waves flattened. Blood is drained from the head. This allows the otherwise inoperable aneurysm to be repaired. Once repaired, Pam was revived. She reported a particularly vivid, classical NDE, including conversations, medical devices and procedures which all corresponded with events which had occurred WHILE her head was totally drained of blood and the brain flatlined. The NDE then went with the classical light, tunnel and visitation events.

(an account can be found here: http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence01.html

I don’t really see any of the alternate explanations coming close to addressing a case like this.

My First OBE

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Astral projection

Let me describe one of my first and most vivid OBE’s (Out of Body Experiences). It is probably so vivid to me because it was such a shock at the time. I was working at a night watchman in college and so I slept during the day. I was staying with my Aunt. My bedroom was in the basement of her home.

 

I was in the middle of a dream of some kind. I don’t remember exactly what the dream was about, but suddenly I “woke up” only to find myself floating in the kitchen on the first floor! The whole scene was real, but it was even more “real” than reality. Everything vibrated with an intense aliveness. All the colors glowed with crisp intensity. I realized that I must be having an OBE (I’d read a bit about them). With that realization, a kind of excited panic set in, and I found myself being pulled forcefully backwards, like a fish being rapidly reeled in. The pulling seemed to come from the middle of my body somewhere, as if I had a cable hooked to my back. Even though I started flying backwards rapidly, I had time to notice all sorts of interesting details. I noticed several new magazines lying on a table in the living room as I rushed past them. As I was pulled through a wall, I could literally feel the materials of the wall passing through me. I could sense the sheetrock, the grains in the wooden beams. I even remember seeing lettering on the electrical cable conduits in the walls. I was pulled downward into the basement and felt the fibers of the carpeting as I was pulled through the floor. I was then very rapidly pulled backwards onto my bed, and felt myself land on the bed, back into my body, with a sudden jolt, and was instantly wide awake.

I sprang out of bed and went upstairs to check out the details of the experience. Everything in my experience had been in the correct position, down to the new magazines on the coffee table. I did NOT rip open the sheetrock to check the lettering on the electrical conduit ;-)

Obviously, this one anecdotal experience is not enough to be scientifically persuasive to an outsider. However, as the one who experienced it, it was real beyond a shadow of a doubt. It was, if anything, MORE real than ordinary consciousness. It was quite literally impossible to entertain any serious doubts about the experience.

Experienced OBEers will tell you that one of the difficulties with in validating the astral world to an objective observer is that the astral is a gateway to all sorts of other worlds that appear to be related to physical reality, but diverge from it to a greater or lesser degree. It appears to require intense concentration and practice to remain in that part of the astral world closest to the physical. If you pass through any windows, mirrors, doorways or walls, the difficulty increases. Each such passage allows you to transit off to some other reality. I have experienced this myself in other OBE’s. In one of the more interesting ones I saw my children downstairs watching a particular movie late at night. When I came back from the OBE, I checked and found all my children sleeping in bed. However, several nights later, they WERE downstairs watching that movie at about the same time (I hadn’t told them about the experience).

Robert Bruce (an experienced OBEer) has suggested that to validate the OBE experience objectively, a test should be designed so that the OBE practitioner can view a target without having to pass through any doors, walls or windows. Even then, only an experienced practitioner would be able to remain close enough to the physical world to read actual targets. So OBE’s are not terribly promising as a way to gather information about the physical world. Or perhaps more specifically, it’s difficult to know, based on an OBE, exactly WHAT world you are gathering information about.

Elementals and Other Beings

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The conversation on the reality or unreality of “gods” interested me, and I wanted to add a few words by way of suggesting a particular metaphysical “model” for consideration.

MythMythAfter having been “around the block” a few times, I have come to the conclusion that many of the people who report seeing such diverse things as angels, demons, “gods”, monsters, aliens, faeries and other such things are actually having experiences that are, in some way “real”. Skeptics who are happy to write all such experiences off as pathological delusions will have no use for this model, and can stop reading right about now.

Many of us are willing to accept the reality of odd “sightings” that confirm our own worldview, but either reject everything else as delusional, or chalk it off to demonic impersonation, as Brandon did. One person may believe in angels but scoff at aliens. Another person may have the opposite viewpoint.

Let me suggest a more charitable model that can accommodate both. It comes from the general “New Age” framework of various esoteric teachings, but I don’t see anything in it that would prohibit a Christian, for example, from accepting it.

Let’s start with some observations from OBE (Out of Body Experience) or Astral Projection. People who experience this phenomena regularly noticed something long ago, and made note of it. The astral world can be shaped by human thought. If an astral projector find that he has need of a sword, for example, to fight off something bad, or wants a chair to sit in, it can be created with a simple act of will, and will exist in the astral world as long as this will is maintained.

Next, it was noticed that if something was created in the astral world REPEATEDLY, it began to take on a more permanent character. It would last longer with a smaller effort of will, or even remain in the astral dimension from one visit to the next. Mystics began to specifically create and reinforce things in the astral, such as temples. It was further noticed that this power of creation and maintenance was exponentially increased with the number of people concentrating on the task, and pouring their emotional and spiritual energy into it. A large number of people pouring a lot of energy into concentrating on some specific astral/spiritual thing, over the course of time, was found to have astonishing creative power.

Let’s suppose, for example, that thousands of people were to invest a great deal of psychic and spiritual energy into the notion of the god Zeus. Over the course of years, mystics would find themselves running into “Zeus” in their meditations, astral projections, etc. He would appear in more and more dreams. Given enough energy, he could even appear to people in altered (or in rare circumstances, even NORMAL) states of consciousness. He would even have considerable power during these appearances -power channeled into him by thousands of worshippers.

These powerful group thought-forms are called, in esoteric literature, “eggregors”. An eggregor, depending on its power (based on the number of people contributing their energy to it) can create strong influences and even physical manifestations. These manifestations can the various physical forms that make up the visual images of the eggregor. Let’s see how this might work:

Billions of people, over thousands of years, say trillions of prayers and devote enormous amounts of spiritual energy meditating on the Virgin Mary. This could build up an eggregor of astonishing power, causing, for example, the mass apparitions and solar phenomena observed at Fatima, Medujorge, etc.

Millions of people watching and reading science fiction spend countless hours thinking on the idea of extraterrestrials. This could build up an eggregor strong enough to cause sightings, altered states of consciousness perceived as “abductions”, etc.

People in nearly every religion have devoted great attention to the idea of angels. This might build up a strong enough eggregor to cause seemingly miraculous intervention by “supernatural” beings.

Voodoo and similar cults spend years of devotion and ritual directed toward a powerful pantheon of gods and similar forces. This creates a strong psychic eggregor which could be directed against particular individuals.

Let me back up and make a few disclaimer – I personally believe that there ARE angels, demons and probably a host of other types of supernatural beings that have a reality independent of human thought. Apparitions of Mary, angels, Jesus (or demons or aliens) MAY be exactly what they appear to be. Furthermore, not all eggregors are evil. Mass consciousness can be used for great benefit to help, heal and produce good works.

But consider the possibility that SOME “supernatural” occurrences may simply arise – not from God, and not from demons, but simply from natural human abilities to manipulate the spiritual world.

This model, it would seem to me, would explain a great deal.