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A few words before I begin: I�ve read very little on this subject,
and as such, this paper will be written purely from experience. On
that note, you might find some subtle incongruence to what I�ve
experienced. This is OK. After all, if it works for you, use it.
Secondly, experiencing this might cause radical changes to your
belief system and how you feel about the afterlife. The change in
outlook is different for everyone I�m sure, so I won�t explain any
more on that. You�ll be able to draw your own conclusions soon
enough.
With that said, let�s begin the actual lesson.
Passive Observation:
This may be self-explanatory, and for that I apologize. However,
to those who don�t get it, it means just let whatever happens
happen. You have all the time in the world to analyze, dissect,
and reflect upon the situation you experienced. While you�re in
the experience isn�t the time for it.
No matter what happens in an experience, it must be viewed in a
detached way. If not, you will find yourself back in your body and
pissed as hell at your wasted effort. I cannot stress this enough.
Strange Vibrations:
Throughout the experience, you will probably notice some very
peculiar vibrations. Some might be so weird that you�ll instantly
shift back to your body. Don�t let this discourage you though.
Eventually they aren�t as scary, and don�t cause you to shift back
as often. Just try again next time you feel up for it.
One particular vibration that might take you aback at first is
what I like to call the see-saw effect. This occurs before
actually leaving your body and is a bit unnerving to say the
least. The bed begins to rock back and forth as if you were on a
boat with strong waves. If you try to make them stronger they
stop. You have to just relax and keep your mind off your physical
body.
Another vibe that I experience a lot is sort of a reverberation of
your last surface thought. I liken it to a scene in �The Matrix�.
You know the part where Neo has that silver goop all over his
body? Then it goes down his throat and makes a weird noise as he
wakes up in his pod. Well, the vibe is a lot like that, and once
you�re out it takes a little bit of time to orientate yourself,
and let the noise fade. Just enjoy the feeling until it stops and
you shouldn�t be kicked back into your body.
The last vibe I want to discuss takes place out of the body.
Believe it or not, passing through physical objects can at first
be scary, and send you back. The vibe I get from doing this is a
cool cloudy air feeling. It won�t feel normal at first. Take it
from me, anything that feels weird will make you want to go back
home so to speak.
Understanding each of these before hand might make your first
experience last a little bit longer. Hopefully outlining them as
I�ve done will give you the understanding needed.
Affirmations:
This seems a bit strange to include in my paper, huh? It�s not
like this is a self-help book or something. However, affirming
your intent verbally works wonders towards your success rate. I�ll
discuss more on this in a bit when we start to learn about the
actual method, but for now just keep it in the back of your mind.
Lucid Dreams:
I feel this is the appropriate spot to discuss this phenomenon.
Lucid dreaming is where you are actually cognizant of dreaming.
Surprisingly enough, when this happens you can affect the outcome,
circumstances, and setting of a dream.
This can actually be a very powerful tool in the way of self
development. It lends itself to a plethora of ways to leave your
body in this state, however, you are better off accepting when it
happens and acting on it than you are to consciously try to induce
them.
I leave the choice up to you, and from this point on, I won�t
speak about lucid dreaming as a means to OBE any longer. I
apologize for the confusion that might arise, but I feel it�s
important to learn how to induce it by other means so as to not
rely on a lucid dream as a crutch. Besides, why waste such a pearl
on an OBE when you can do it by other techniques?
Preparation for OBE:
A few things that are important to consider before even attempting
an experience are position, comfort, attitude, and setting. I
personally can induce an experience laying on my sides, or my
back. I can�t do it sitting in a chair. I also don�t advise doing
it on your stomach. From my experience of that, it left me feeling
fairly cramped, and that�s never fun to come back to.
You also need to be comfortable. One thing about my technique is
that it will leave you sort of warm, and tingly. So, use covers
and heavy clothing at your discretion. I personally just do it in
sweat pants and a shirt. I also suggest you try your hardest to
use the bathroom before hand. You don�t want to be inches away and
realize you have to pee.
The attitude of attempting this must be that of unwavering desire
to succeed at inducing an experience while still passive enough to
just observe what is going on with your body and everything
thereafter. Just have fun with it and accept that maybe it won�t
happen for a few tries, but when it does you will be ready and
enjoy the experience. You really can�t be fearful of anything that
might happen. This includes the pesky vibrations.
A big thing is also setting. Understand that if you aren�t
comfortable in your surroundings you�re going to have a hard time
doing this. If it�s your thing to light candles, or say prayers,
or have someone watching you, or whatever, then do exactly that.
You will eventually find a sort of routine that you can�t help but
adhere to, to have success in this. It�s not to say that you can�t
abandon the routine. It�s just a lot easier to induce them if you
do your routine to the letter.
Here is the relaxation technique used by many. It is quite
effective, but a bit time consuming. Couple the 20 minutes it
takes to relax your whole body, and the time it takes to OBE,
you�re probably running up close to an hour. However, it will get
the job done so experiment and see if it works for you.
Relaxation Technique:
Starting from the feet, flex each muscle group for five seconds
three times.
When done with a particular muscle group, relax it and affirm that
you want it to go to sleep. Saying out loud �Go to sleep now (Body
Part).� works pretty well.
Pay extra attention to the muscles in your abdomen.
Flex your face with hard blinks, frowns, smiles, and such.
By the end of this routine you should feel relaxed, and a bit
floaty. This routine doesn�t remain necessary forever. Eventually,
you end up in a habit of full body relaxation just by affirming
that you want to have an OBE.
Inducing an Experience:
Now that you have sufficient background on this subject it�s time
to actually try to induce one of these experiences. A big thing I
stress is that whatever you were thinking about prior to
attempting this will surface as you shift your consciousness. So,
I suggest you forego any music, TV, or conversation before hand.
In fact, if you like to meditate this would be a good time to do
so. It helps clear your mind and give you focus on a task.
Discussing meditation techniques is a bit outside the scope of my
guide so you�re on your own on that aspect.
After you feel you�re ready to attempt this, get into a position
that you find non-constrictive, comfortable, and most importantly
doesn�t cut off circulation to other limbs.
As soon as you feel you are in a comfortable spot, follow the
relaxation technique outlined above, or use your own method that
you figure might work for you. I suggest trying both if you can
because every little bit helps.
Once you do this, it�s time to affirm to yourself exactly what you
want to achieve. In a clear state of mind, say aloud �I will go
out of body tonight.� Be sure that as you�re saying it you believe
every word of it, and let the words resonate in your head. You
want to sort of hear a mental echo of what you said as you prepare
to relax further.
This is where it sort of gets complicated to describe. You need to
focus on one part of your body and move the awareness of that spot
to other locations on you. Get creative with it. Swirl it around
your stomach, down your legs, up your spine, around your arms, or
whatever you feel like doing. It might stimulate nerves and cause
you to heat up a bit, and get a little tingly. The reason I say to
do this is because it will take your focus off your physical body
and bring it closer to your energy body within. It also shifts
your consciousness and allows further relaxation.
A funny thing you might notice when you do this is that you�re
hearing voices, or your mind is racing from thought to thought. It
will just be hard to concentrate on the task. My theory on why it
does this is because as you shift from a beta state to alpha and
subsequent theta, your subconscious is dumping things out that you
experienced throughout the day. Another theory I have is that as
you move your awareness around your body, you�re picking up the
energy imprints left on you throughout the day and acknowledging
them one by one. Whatever the case may be, just let the thoughts
pass, and stay diligent in your attempt.
Once you�ve done this awareness shifting technique, move all your
awareness to your entire body at once. If it helps to give
yourself a mental picture of your position on the bed then do so,
but the main drive is to move all the attention to your body as a
whole. This is where the weird see-saw effect happens. Just go
with the flow, and let things happen as they will. You might also
get some very annoying itches, pokes, and voices. Again, let
everything pass over you as if you don�t care. If you move at this
point, it will set you back pretty far.
Now, you just work on clearing your mind, and getting closer to
sleep. When sleep hits, you will be thrown out of your body, and
have successfully induced an experience. Congratulations on that.
Now what?
Getting Familiar with New Surroundings:
Depending where you landed (assuming it did throw you out, and you
didn�t just float up or roll out etc) think yourself to be
standing up and having your eyes open. Let that reverberation pass
over you if that happened for the current experience, and see your
new world.
I don�t know about all that astral travel stuff so I can�t go into
details on it. What you should be seeing is physical surroundings
that you probably look at every day. Take a few minutes to absorb
all of it in and then begin to walk around. I say walk, but it�s
more of a thought of �I want to be over there now�, and then you
float over there.
Getting accustomed to all of this movement will at first be a
little difficult. In fact, I can almost guarantee that you will be
thrown right back into your body after just a few moments.
However, eventually it gets a bit easier, and moving around
doesn�t spook you as much.
Once you�ve familiarized yourself with moving from one location to
the next, try walking through something. I suggest a door because
your mind can easily wrap around the idea of walking through a
door. You might not even realize it was closed until you come
back. If you do pay particular attention to what you�re passing
through though, it will feel a little wispy and cool. This too
might send you back.
I suggest one thing that you shouldn�t do just yet. Don�t look at
yourself lying on the bed. It will definitely freak you out. You
can do that later, but now isn�t the time. Just try to enjoy the
experience because if you do something that sets you off from the
idea of OBE, it will be hard to recover enough to want to induce
more. While I�m on the topic of looking at your physical self, I
have no concept whatsoever of the fabled silver cord that everyone
speaks of. I either can�t see it, or it isn�t there. It might be
self induced to provide a stable belief that you can go back to
your body whenever you want. If that�s the case, I don�t need it.
When this all becomes familiar, a fun thing to do is think
yourself to a different spot entirely. Personally, I seem to have
mental hang ups with going too far (and this could be because of a
cord that I just can�t see) so the best I�ve done is moving to my
back yard. You can do two different things to move like this. One
would be to whoosh from one spot to the next which might freak you
out as well, or you can close your eyes and think yourself at that
spot and open them. Either one works fine, and it is largely a
mental preference. In fact, you might only be able to do one or
the other. The mental walls are hard to break down on this
subject.
After the Experience:
Well, you had your OBE and are back now. It�s time to reflect. Run
the experience over in your mind and see if it was just a dream.
Recall how cognizant you were out of body. Pay attention to how
real everything was and felt. No weird dream things happened as
you were out, and you probably will feel quite tired when you get
back in your body.
A good idea would be to keep a running log of your attempts and
journal your successes. Only through prolonged experimenting will
you finally come to terms with the fact that you left the body. I
personally don�t log my experiences because I know very clearly
that I leave my body. So, it�s all your choice, but it�d be fun to
look back at it months from now, and be amazed at what you�ve
done, or just relive the experience.
Further Study:
When merely going out of body becomes an easy experience to
achieve, try to work in your psychic skills while out. See if you
can feel impressions of a room you enter, or receive thoughts of
someone you�re viewing. Make a psiball if you want.
It�s now time for you to experiment with the newly available
surroundings. We are writing the book as it happens, and as such,
it�s almost a duty to push the bar, share the findings, and move
our understanding forward. This article is hopefully a catalyst
for inducing these experiences, and furthering our overall
understanding of this phenomenon.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope it benefits you
greatly, and you can share your experiences as well. In fact, if
you have a successful attempt I�d like to hear about it. Email me
at [email protected] with a brief description of your
experience. I�d really appreciate it.
- Brandon
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