Despite the article under my Beginner's Guide called "Top Astral Projection Mistakes" I still get a plethora of e-mails from readers who still do not understand the key principle that their body has to be asleep when projecting (unless they have a very natural lose hold, use substances or are very advanced with meditation or light work) so I'm writing a separate article just for this.

The statements and or questions that come from readers are: "Should my eyes be open?", "Why do I itch when trying to relax?", "I can't seem to relax enough to get into that state." "My arm feels pain, is that normal?" or "My hemi-sync tapes aren't working cause I don't go very deep."

There is one common thread in these questions/comments and that is, the person is trying to do this while totally lucid, or thinks that they need to be in some special trance to project. Neither is the case. The body has to be ASLEEP. Every night you sleep and every night you project. There is no magic or mystery to the state that your body needs to be in to release the astral form. People say, "I can't get into that state." Yet, in fact, they do it every night of their lives! We all do.

You're itching because you're not asleep and are concentrating too hard on something that you do later in the evening effortlessly. Do you get incessantly itchy when you're going to sleep at night? Of course not! You just scratch your nose or whatever and go to sleep. Most beginners, when trying to project, are "thinking" about getting into a state which keeps them from actually getting into that state.

People refuse to read and comprehend the words under my Beginner's Guide that says over and over that you are mimicking sleep. You are not relaxing. You are asleep! It's as easy and uncomplicated as that.

Do the same rituals that you do every night before bed, except do it at another time (like in the morning or afternoon). It's a lot easier than people realize. They think they have to convolute the process but they don't. It's just sleep, plain and simple. I prefer doing this in the morning because the whole relaxation process is already done for me. It's easy to slip back into the sleep state.

So if you want to project, do all the preparations you do for sleep. Scratch, toss & turn, process your day, and put projection in the back of your mind. Allow yourself to enjoy the process and go to sleep. In fact, even allow yourself to slip into a dream. The ONLY difference is that for projection, you mentally check back every so often so that you don't totally lose yourself in a dream to the point where you can't take control of your consciousness mind. If you do lose that control, oh well, you'll get a darned good nap. If you do get control during a dream (which is still a form of projection but the subconscious mind has control, which is not what we want), then keep the body sleeping while attempting to either go fully lucid using clarity affirmations or induce the vibrations by spinning, or focusing on the third eye and going totally deeper for a full body exit.

It doesn't matter how you access the astral. You can do it with a full body roll-out via vibrations, or you can do it by becoming lucid in a dream and taking conscious control. Either way will still require that the physical body be sleeping.