Flake's teachings about AP Contents: Introduction and stuff.......................................................................................... p. 3 1. Basics of AP (section 1)............................................................................... p. 6 1.1. Definitions of the LD, AP, EP and OBE..................................................... p. 7 1.2. How to AP..................................................................................................... p. 10 1.3. The buzzing sound........................................................................................ p. 11 1.4. How to get a spontaneous AP...................................................................... p. 11 1.5. How to get an LD......................................................................................... p. 12 1.6. How to willingly induce an AP...................................................................... p. 14 1.7. Meditation.................................................................................................... p. 15 1.8. Wake induced lucid dream (WILD)............................................................ p. 18 1.9. The hypnogogic state................................................................................... p. 20 1.10. Dreampools............................................................................................. p. 22 1.11. The transfer............................................................................................. p. 22 1.12. What to expect from the astral.............................................................. p. 24 1.13. What to do on the astral......................................................................... p. 25 1.14. Getting back to the physical body.......................................................... p. 27 1.15. Patience................................................................................................... p. 27 1.16. American good will................................................................................. p. 28 2. Advanced and theory (section 2)................................................................ p. 29 2.1. Flake's theory.............................................................................................. p. 30 2.2. The golden rule............................................................................................ p. 36 2.3. Correction of the common LD definition.................................................... p. 36 2.4. Lucidity enhancers...................................................................................... p. 39 2.5. Lucidity keepers.......................................................................................... p. 40 2.6. The use of energy........................................................................................ p. 40 2.7. Occult dimensions........................................................................................ p. 42 2.8. Theory about hallucinations........................................................................ p. 42 2.9. So... what is the astral really?..................................................................... p. 44 2.10. Meeting people on the astral................................................................. p. 45 2.11. Astral sex and other fun stuff................................................................. p. 49 2.12. OBE memory.......................................................................................... p. 50 2.13. The confusionbetween the LD/AP/OBE............................................... p. 51 2.14. Different forms of projection.................................................................. p. 51 2.15. What counts as an astral projection....................................................... p. 53 3. Philosophy/spirituality (section3)............................................................... p. 54 3.1. Experience is teacher.................................................................................. p. 55 3.2. What is lucidity?........................................................................................... p. 56 3.3. Lucidity in the physical................................................................................ p. 57 3.4. Life is one big dream................................................................................... p. 57 3.5. God and satan.............................................................................................. p. 58 3.6. The double life.............................................................................................. p. 59 3.7. Double personality....................................................................................... p. 61 3.8. A "poem" about life..................................................................................... p. 62 Note: In order for the contents page to make any sense, you have to switch to the "online layout" Distribution The knowledge that is in this book is just as free as the air you breathe right now, if you want to distribute it anywhere, I'm fine with it. Modification of this text is not permitted and please do inform me if you distribute this book. Mye-mail under the author info headline Preface The book/compilement you now are reading now is a book about astral projection/out of body experiences. The book is divided into three main sections: basics of AP (astral projection), advanced & theories and philosophy/spirituality. The two latter sections are the main reasons why this book has been written. In the first section though, I simplify everything that AP is about so that it can be read by anyone, I also simplify things because I think that many authors make things look more complicated than they are. If you want a clearer definition of the sections please skip to their introductions. In this book I try to speak a common and more practical "language", so that everybody can understand. I do this because I have read many texts as a newbie where I have found it hard to understand just what the author is trying to conclude. This book is mainly for those who have just found out about AP and are interested in it, however, veterans will also find the theories and philosophies that I have written interesting. The reason why the book got written in the first place was beacause of me and my friends many discoveries about AP that we have never read about anywhere else, or are not commonly talked about. The first section is basically just an introduction to AP. Most of this book is written on the basis of my personal experience. (The text in this book highlighted with light-blue are important notes) Special thanks I just want to give my thanks to all of the things and people that made me write this little book. First of all, thanks to Ankou (it's a pseudonym) for getting me into AP in the first place, for supporting me in my progress and also for correcting the spelling in this book. Thanks to Peter for giving me advice about AP. Minttu for being open minded and listening to what AP is. She was also one of the first things that made me think about writing this compilement in the first place. And last but not least, all the people at www.astralsociety.com for helping me in my progress. Author info Name: Kristian Kaikkonen Age: 17 Where I live: Finland Other interests: Drawing, playing guitar, some sports, being with friends... Favorite music: Guns 'n' roses, System of a down, Hanoi rocks, Kiss... Well... how did I get into AP? To make a long story short, the dawn of my "AP career" took place only about two or three years ago, back then I sort of got into Ouija boards and ghost happenings. One thing led to another and now I'm mainly an AP dude. I would have lived a completely common life if I never would have had such peculiar friends as I had back then. But hey, if I could live my life over again, I would have made the exact same choices as I have done now. You may perhaps think to yourself "what kind of dude is this? Only two years of experience and already writing a book?". It may perhaps be seen as a weakness, but it can also be seen as a strength. You see, I can still remember how I thought when I first got into AP, when I was a newbie. I still remember how 50% of the info I read here and there on the net was practically said useless. Much text was hard to understand as a newbie and much text dealt with such things that I would not have needed to know just yet back then. You know what they say; if you want to reach the top of a tree, there's only one place you can start at, and that's of course at the bottom. The benefit of still being a bit unexperienced at AP is that I can still speak the same "language" as newbies, or so I think. When I for the first time heard about AP I laughed my ass off. Yet there was also something in me that made me keep asking "what if?"... A couple of years went by and then I wrote this book/compilement. It's funny when you look back a couple of years from now, alot of things have happened... If you want to comment, ask questions or just argue on things about the book, send an e- mail to the following adress: flateachings@hotmail.com Basics of AP (section 1) In this section I will go through all the basics of AP, to have an AP for yourself all you really need to do is to read this first section. I also recommend experienced astral travelers to flip through this section since there might be something you have missed out in your previous readings. People often make AP look hard and complicated, there are innumerable techniques to get out of body that are scattered all over the net, most of them just make the process harder for me... but, may all find their own way. The first thing you got to learn about this is that text can show doors, but it is you who has to walk through them. Second thing is to not take everything you read so damn seriously, I have learned that no matter how much you read, the only thing that can truly teach you is YOUR personal experience, not anybody else's. And besides, how do you know that this book is not full of crap? That's right, you don't. So let experience be your main teacher. But then again, you must yet remain open-minded to others, because there is nothing more sad than a single-minded "know-it-all" guy. Alright, let's get to the superbasics now. Definition of the out of body experience (OBE) This definition comes from parapsychology. It's kind of a stupid definition in the sense you never know if it means to be an AP or EP, all you know is that it seems that you have gotten out of your body. Definition of a lucid dream (LD) This definition comes from psychology. You will read more about the lucid state in the second section, but all you need to know now is that a lucid dream is basically when all of a sudden you realize that you are dreaming in a dream. In other words, you become aware in a dream. Definition of astral projection (AP) The definition comes from the occult idea of it, you project the mind into the astral dimension as it is said. I prefer to use this definition since it is only two letters, and yet it says so much. When people commonly speak about AP the definition of it is that they leave their body and enter the astral (where everything is a little weird, more on that below) So, how does a typical AP occur? Well, after deep relaxation your consciousness shifts and all of a sudden you can get out of your body. When you leave your room or whatever you may notice that everything is not as it's supposed to be, e.g. doors may be where they are not in the physical dimension, your house may look a bit different, animals sometimes talk, you can fly, move items with the power of your mind and much much more... This wonderland experience is indeed an experience that truly blows your mind at first. I have no idea how a total newbie takes this idea as it is only text yet, it's gotta be pretty wild huh? It can be debated a lot about just what an astral projection is, it seems of course to be a hallucination at first, but when people start meeting each other on the astral plane the whole concept gets more complicated. I will talk more of this in the second section. If you have never AP'd I suggest you don't think about the astral too much until you have had an AP for yourself, because you see, text is in itself nothing, it is experience that you want as stated before (but of course, text works as a key to experience). When I first started to AP my view of the astral changed totally, that was because text had given me the wrong view in the first place, but I guess no text can truly describe the feeling of the astral. It's of course debated what the difference is between an AP and an LD. In an LD you are already on the astral or on the otherside or whatever you like to call it, and so you become aware there, you go from unaware to aware. But in an AP you are going there fully aware at all times. But, being there is basicly the same. My little theory is that AP is sort of a wake induced lucid dream. A wake induced lucid dream (WILD) is just what it sounds like, you can make up your own scenarios and so forth. But in an AP you don't think of any scenarios, you just relax, and when the time comes you are in another state of awareness, and the only scenario that your mind can chew on is your room, and that scenario becomes the LD. Practically speaking though, it can be said that becoming lucid while dreaming is sort of still a bit of a blur, when you go to the astral directly from an awake state everything is generally much clearer, i.e. an AP is like a really lucid LD (the definition of the lucid state can be found in the second section in Flake's theory). If I really get into the subject I can say that generally LDs feel like everything is just a hallucination that is made up by your mind while APs feel more real. One can ponder and argue about those kinds of things alot, what is real? Is it real? But let's not get into any theories here in the first section, OK? Definition of etheric projection (EP) This is when you leave the body and still remain in almost the same physical vibrational state as in the physical plane as it is said. To make it simpler, think of it as you being a ghost wandering around in the physical, nobody normal (non psychic individual) sees you though. EP occurs mostly accidentallly, however Robert Bruce (famous OBE author) has an idea of how EP can be done manually, I will talk about that in the second section. Well, one might ask how do you know whether you are in the astral or in the etheric plane while having an OBE? Well, the etheric plane (which you are on when you do an EP) seems much like the physical while the astral has another feeling to it, a feeling that resembles more the feeling while you dream. There is a certain feeling in the physical and another different feeling in the astral, I know this from experience. You can tell from the feeling where you are. When you have succeeded with both AP and EP you will know the difference. Also, it's usually hard to move in the etheric, the astral is sort of like swimming in water while the etheric plane is like swimming in mud. It is also said that it's possible to see ghosts in the etheric since you are in a bit higher vibrational state To make everything easier, try to think of a coin, on one side you have the astral, and on the other side you have the physical. On the edge is the etheric, because that's just how it is... well, actually the etheric is sort of an "add-on" to the physical. It is the physical, just in a bit higher vibration, that's why you can see both ordinary (real) people and ghosts. However, the dimensions are still like a rainbow in the sense that the colors (dimensions) melt into each other, so there is no really clear line between the etheric and astral. I'm not going to say any much more about how an LD/AP/EP feels like (at least not here at the first section) because that is the most common failure many AP authors do. You see, if I try to explain it to you, you will probably get the wrong idea, just as I did once. Therefore I conclude that your personal experience is the only thing that can truly teach you what it feels like... How many times have I said this now? How to AP There are spontaneous APs and APs induced by will. A spontaneous AP can happen to pretty much anyone, you don't have to be into the subject or anything, the reason why nobody talks about it is of course because you are labeled as "mad" bypeople who don't know much about it. And most of the people know of course nothing about AP. However, the possibility to have an LD without knowing anything about it is even more common by people, and again, it is not talked about often. Anyway, by spontaneous AP I mean that it happens "accidentally", or "it just comes by itself". 90% of the time it happens is in the morning. Spontaneous projections are usually more common than projections induced by will. Here's a typical spontaneous AP: -"I wake up as I am sleeping, my body is asleep while my mind is awake...", It feels as if though I am awake and yet not. Everything is black behind my eyelids, a weird buzzing/rushing sound is in my ears, I then leave my body. It is as simple as that. But what was that weird buzzing sound? The buzzing sound This sound comes usually before you separate from your physical body, the sound itself is hard to describe, the best way to say it would be as a buzzing/rushing sound, a bit like a waterfall... You will know the sound when you hear it. The sound is very handy in the sense that it tells you when you can leave. When you hear it, simply get out. But whatever you do, don't get afraid or excited when you hear it. Just let go (that can be a hard thing to do for a newbie, don't get angry if you fail the first times. If you do get angry/frustrated (which is a part of APing) it will just make it harder to AP another time). However, sometimes you may not hear the sound at all before you leave. Another sensation one can feel just before leaving the body is the energy feelings, you sort feel like as if your body is filled with coca cola. These sensations may or may not occur while projecting, but at least for me they are there most of the times. Often most when I project I get both the buzzing sound and energy sensations. People also talk about having sensations before APing, while meditating. These sensations are often (smaller) vibrations as they say. I'm not going to say much about them since I've never experienced any of those. It varies from people to people if you feel vibrations or not. How to get a spontaneous AP To get a spontaneous AP you must fill your mind up with AP stuff, you can do this by reading, thinking, discussing etc. about AP or LD info/stuff (you will find plenty of that on the internet). What you are doing then is that you are putting an "AP mark" in the subconscious mind that you have. You will then start thinking about AP as you sleep, and if all goes well you will trick the subconscious mind to induce an AP (or make you awake while your body is sleeping as I stated before). The AP will most likely take place in the morning. Morning is by the way the best time to AP no matter what technique you are using, it also doesn't matter if it's spontaneous or manual (induced by will). The previous method is useful because it is easy and you get to know what it feels like to AP, plus that you will get alot of motivation to continue with AP (and motivation is important). This is in fact the method I used to get my first APs. Ironically I had never heard of the method before, I read it on the net just after I had "invented" it. If one starts out the hard way and tries to willingly induce a projection, my bet is that he will only get frustrated because of all the failures. Do yourself a favor and go the easy way first, and after that you can start thinking about inducing the AP manually. However, if you meditate like you have to when you willingly induce an AP you will also increase the quantity of your spontaneous APs. Most of my projections today are still spontaneous. How to get an LD It is of course possible to get an LD without knowing anything about them, it's not really that uncommon, but as I said, people don't normally go around talking about it. Anyway, I got a couple of methods here that can help you get an LD. 1. This is similar to the spontaneous AP method, you simply read about the LD's and let it melt into the subconscious mind. You will find plenty of info on the net to read 2. Wake up really early, earlier than usual. Then you stay up for about 15 minutes and read, watch TV or whatever (many say that if you read about about LDs in those 15 minutes the chanses are greater to get one). After that you go back to bed and sleep, chances are then greater that you will get an LD... This method also works for spontaneous APs. 3. Do "reality checks". With that I mean that you ask yourself (while awake) every fifteen minutes or half an hour if you are dreaming. If you do this enough times while you are awake you will sometime hopefully ask yourself the same question while you are dreaming, and so you will become aware in the dream... One thing though, you might sometime ask yourself in a dream "am I dreaming?" and then think "I don't know... probably not..." and then just keep on dreaming normally. If this occurs then you are dreaming! You see, you always know when you are awake here in the physical, but you are not always sure if you are dreaming in a dream. So in other words, if you are doubting if you are in a dream then you are in one! Keep that in mind. But sometimes in very extreme situations in life (like being in a car accident or something) you just might ask the same question "am I dreaming" while being awake, So it would be kind of stupid just taking everything too granted and acting like it would be an LD at that situation... So, I would say as a bottom line that whenever you doubt if you are dreaming you should look back and think of the things that happened just before the present situation, by doing so you bring logic to the situation and realize if you are dreaming or not. There is also the possibility of getting out of body while having an LD, it's an easy way to AP and I recommend it for everybody. The procedure isn't hard, just will yourself to leave your body while having an LD and so you shall. How to willingly induce an AP Get this clear, to get out of your body is an easy task, just as easy as breathing, seriously. The thing that is hard though, is to get into the state or mood that is required to get out of body. But sometimes you can find yourself waking up in this mood. The mood is hard to describe but I'll try to explain. It feels as if you are the most passive and yet concentrated person in the world, you also feel as if you don't exist anymore, and yet you at the same time you feel as if though you exist a thousand times stronger at that moment than you have ever felt to exist in the physical dimension. It may sound weird but so it feels. Anyway, if I find myself awakened to this silenced mood in the morning it can take me about five seconds to get out of body. Now you see how powerful this little "mood" is. Some might call it trance, but I don't care, it is what it is. However it's not everyday this happens. Mostly you have to achieve this mood for yourself, Which is done through meditation. (This mood is not to be confused with the "awake sleep" thing that occurs in a spontaneous AP beacause it is not exactly the same) Now, you will probably find a lot of techniques on how to AP on the internet, my opinion is that 90% of them are too damn complicated. It is no use to make a simple thing such as AP complicated, but remember, just because it is not a complicated procedure it doesn't mean that it isn't hard to do. The hardest thing is to think simple, is it not? After regular meditation you will learn to achieve the passive mood, after being deep down in the mood, the buzzing sound will most likely come and you can leave! It is also actually possible to accidently slip out of body while in meditation, which can be shocking. Meditation This is also something people often tend to make it more complicated than it is. Anyway, here¥s how I prefer to do it. I lay on my back or sit or whatever. It is easier if I am in a silent place. I just am there thinking about nothing, yet I am aware all the time and so I loose grip of this world as I like to say. You see, when you attempt an AP you can't be thinking about your physical life such as school or friends or whatever. To AP you must truly master the art of "letting go". (AP is not about forcing something, it's about letting go) By "letting go" I seriously mean it. You got to forget what seeing is, forget what hearing is and forget all other senses. By doing that you forget what the physical is. Well, actually you just put it aside for a time. You don't forget the physical, you just let go of the idea of the physical (which is in your mind) for a while. And all that will exist when you meditate is the "nothing" of the moment, embrace that and you will succeed. I can be bothered by mainly two things while meditating. One is the outside world (like somebody talking in the house or some doors slamming...). However when one gets better at "letting go" one can ignore those outside stimulis. The second thing that is disturbing is the mind. By the mind I mean that sometimes (...often) I think of stupid things like what am I gonna do tomorrow and what about this and what about that... This kind of thinking is the poison in the food so to say, lose it and everything will be good. You will notice this thinking sometimes even if you are fairly good at meditating/AP. To lose the thinking you can try this following method. Whenever you notice yourself thinking a thought, stop it. Like this -what's the time? maybe it's "STOP".... -what about my "STOP".... -so how "STOP"... and sooner or later after practice it will become like this... -"STOP"... -....... -....... -....... and so in time you will reach the passive mood that I was talking about. But watch out though, if you are not concentrated/aware (and relaxed) all the time you might fall asleep, don't lose your awareness. I also recommend you to try to focus on your breathing, it seems to keep the mind away easier. By the way, there is a buddhist saying that goes like this: "the greatest enemy you have is your own mind". I just want to add a bit about the concentration and relaxation thing. When I first tried to AP I did it wrong. The thing is not to try hard to achieve an AP, to get an AP you must not force anything, AP is all about letting go. Don't concentrate in the meditation the same way as you concentrate on a math equation, don't use the same kind of "forceful thinking". The concentration you shall have when trying to AP is more like when you let go of something so bad that it happens automatically (like some sports, or art), just let go and embrace the flow. You just got to have this sort of "passive will" while APing as they say. It would also be extremly helpful if one would not think of AP as such a huge thing. Try to think of AP as something ordinary as taking out the trash or something, by thinking like that you take awayall the pressure. I guess that's a little hard in the beginning but... Well, after you have had about 20 APs it will automaticly feel like that. When you meditate, try not to think about AP. Thinking about it like that will only hold you back. Instead just try to let go, and get to the passive mood, The AP will then come by itself. There may be some of you out there who can AP at the very first time you try, for others it may take several years to achieve, we are all different. For me it took about half a year or more to get my first spontaneous AP, and after some time I induced one by will, but manually induced APs don't occur so often to me. Anyway, here's my finest manual AP, here's how it looks like: -I woke up at an ordinary morning, I looked at the clock, I still had half an hour to sleep before I had to get up and go to school. So I decided to try to AP by meditation. And so, I had the clearest meditation ever, never did one thought come to bother me, after a short time the buzzing sound came and I left my body. In the beginning I was in my astral body in my room and I was just walking around in happiness and asking myself "it was that easy???" When the AP ended I looked at the time and only five minutes had passed. It is said that one hour on the astral equals 10 minutes in the physical, just so you know. Also, remember that when you attempt to AP it will often be either super easy and you will succeed, or everything will go badly. There is often no "in between", or so I have experienced There are many AP techniques on the net of course as I said before. One of them that says that you have to be fasting in a couple of weeks or so, and be living alone, and only after that you can AP. But that is a very extreme method though. Most of the techniques have steps like relax arm, then relax leg and concentrate on this and that and so on. 90% of the techniques make it harder in my opinion. I knew a wicca once who used the previous meditation method, she said she could AP in five minutes whenever she wanted to. Meditation will also help you to get lucid dreams, not to mention any of meditation's other benefits... Wake induced lucid dream (WILD) While you are in the passive mood it is also possible to create your own dream landscape to go to, I have found this being a bit harder than AP, but nonetheless possible. At first you visualize your place in your mind, at that point it is just a thought. Then you imagine yourself walking around or doing something in this place. In time it will seem as you maybe are actually being there (the thought will get more and more vivid.), and after that you are there. What I exactly mean by "you are there" is that it is no longer anything in the mind (or so it seems), you actually get stimulis from the place (you see it behind your closed eyelids, if you touch something in the place you feel it, you hear stuff and so on, just as if it was real!). Here's an example of a wake induced lucid dream: -I woke up, was about to sleep again. For some reason I started thinking about walking in a tunnel. I walked a bit and a gang came along and started to throw bricks at me, I ran away to the opposite side. Another gang came along, they had bricks too, but they threw the bricks at the other gang. So now there was a gang bang in the tunnel. I found a door on the side of the tunnel and opened it, I came out to the city. (At this point everything is still a thought, and still a conscious one I might add.) I then see some huge rocks that I jump up to, as I jump I get this feeling of it maybe being real, the thought got more vivid. Then, all of a sudden I actually see the place behind my closed eyelids, but only for like two seconds, then it all ended. Perhaps if I wouldn't have gotten so excited it would have lasted longer... This might not have exactly been a purely wake induced LD. It can be debated whether my subconscious mind created the thought about the tunnel yes.... However, a WILD is when you think of someplace just in the mind, and then after a while of concentration you are there. Here's a much better example that I came to experience at the time when I was writing this book: -I woke up in a passive mood. I started to imagine how it would be like to have a sister, I started to imagine her being on the street, waiting for a bus. I could see her in my mind how she was standing there, the image was more vivid than a thought but at the same time less vivid for it to be real. I thought to myself "hold on to this now, it might turn into an LD...". And so I walk in my mind in front of her and say hello, and at that point everything became rea in one secondl, I could see just as if everything was for real. Then the LD continued for a couple of minutes until it ended... The hypnogogic state If you have ever just before you start sleeping "half-dreamt" about something and then woken up in a shock for really no reason then you know what the hypnogogic state feels like. It is also common that something unexpected happens in the "half-dream" which makes you shocked (e.g. falling off a bike). This state between sleep and awake when random images/movies/semi- dreams are bombarding the mind is called the hypnogogic state. You may not see these images as they would be real at first, they may be images in the mind, just like in the same way when you think of your house then you see the house in your mind. However when the trance or passive mood gets heavier and heavier the images start to get more and more vivid. And when the time comes for the transfer when you can see them totally like they would be real you are most often asleep, dreaming of the images/movies. Meditation helps you to be more conscious in sleep, therefore after practice you can start observing these images while being (sort of) aware. As you start doing that you will see that you have completely other memories in the trance than what you have in the physical life. For example, you can see somebody and recognise him as somebody you have known for a long time. Then when you get back to the ordinary consciousness you wonder just who that guy was. I will talk more about this "double-life" phenomenon in the third section. When attempting to AP via meditation you may or may not see these random images, sometimes you see some stuff and sometimes you don't. Hypnogogic images occur in the mind all the time when you are awake too. If you think of your house/apartment for example, you will see it in your mind. That's already a feeble hypnagogic image in your mind. But when you start relaxing and meditating, the images get stronger... It is actually also possible to enter an image and make it to a form of lucid dream. This is a little similar to a WILD. Only this time you use an image that is alreadycreated, instead of creating one with your conscious will, it's easier to enter a random image instead of entering one that you got to do yourself. To enter a hypnogogic image you must wait until it gets vivid and strong enough, after that you must focus on it, and by doing that for a while you can then actually see the place. Well, the question then is that how does one know when the image is strong enough to actually enter? I would say that when it gets really vivid and you start wondering if you can see it or not, that's the time to "jump into it". (If you find the things I say complicated and hard then so be it. It will all be much easier when you have experience. My point is that getting good at APing is a long road, patience is needed. If you are a newbie the I think patience is a more important thing to have than quick results, because results will come, you just got to have faith...) Here's a story of how I once entered an image: -It was in the morning. I had woken up and then fallen asleep again. But the sleep wasn't like ordinary sleep, it felt more like meditation. I started seeing images in my mind. They all had the same feeling attached to them, the feeling of calmness and mystery. The images were all dark blue shifting. I don't remember all the images but there was one image of the woods, another of the sea and an image of a full moon. All of the images were at night. The images kept replaying in my mind, each time I saw them they became more vivid and strong. The full moon image was somehow more vivid than the others. I embraced that image and concentrated on it, after that I could see it behind my closed eyelids. I found myself looking at the moon then, I lowered my head and I saw that I was standing on a road about a half kilometer from my house. Everything looked halfly as it looks on the physical, just as usual. I approached the building that was in front of me... Dreampools The images/places are what some people call dream pools. I have at some occasions seen all kinds of dreampools in my mind and then been able to enter the one I wanted to enter. It¥s kind of funny to see all sorts of places that you can go to. What's even more funny is that these images seem to come all by themselves, the only thing I'm doing is just relaxing the body and mind. Psychologists would probably say these images or dreampools are created by the sub- conscious mind, but I sometimes really wonder if that is so, especially when some people meet each other on the astral. I would say that the astral is a dimension just like the physical one, and the only reason why we don¥t remember much from it is because our consciousness is so low. We always think that our dreams are just dreams, we never think they are anything more... The transfer Whether you become aware in a dream or do astral projection or whatever you like to call it, you must learn to always keep it cool and have no fear/excitement while you do it. If you are a newbie, keep your eyes open while you read this OK? Fear If you haven't had an LD or AP before then you are probably going to get a little bit shocked/afraid when the time comes to you. An LD isn't so bad, but if you experience an AP for the first time then it's maybe going to be a little scary. You have probably heard the saying "the greatest fear is the fear of the unknown", well, keep in mind that AP is still very unknown in today's society. I might also add that one does not know much about AP until you have done it yourself at least once. I have already talked about the buzzing sound, that could already be a thing that makes you shocked. There also usually are sensations in the body when you are leaving. It feels as if though your body is filled with coca cola, it sparkles everywhere. Whatever you do, do not get bothered/get scared of these sensations while attempting to AP. Focus your mind on just leaving the body. And don't get angry if you fail the first time, instead be happy if you felt that you have got progress! Anyway, when I for the first time was able to release myself from my body I got a little bit shocked and got pulled back in. I always felt myself separate but it was such a weird feeling back in those days so I got a bit scared and thus got pulled back. This happened like the five first times or something, so I lost five AP experiences just in fear. But after that, one morning I had a the buzzing sound again, and then I thought "screw this, It's not going to work anyway, I can't manage it... but, I can still try it just for fun". And that thought took away all the pressure in my mind and I was able to keep myself calm and so I succeded in coming like 20 feet out of my body, but then I got shocked again. BUT... after that I managed to keep it cool longer and longer. But of course, you might not have the same situation as I did. Maybe you will not get scared at all when it happens. AP is a bit like love, you see, at first one might be a little afraid of it when you experience it for the first time, but then after a while you can't think of anything else than it. And if you skip the fear part you will save some time. I therefore conclude that when AP/love knocks on your door, you shall not be afraid to open. Non-verbal thinking This is important. When you for the first time "get out" you are probably going to think "oh my god, what is this?" no matter how much text you have read. But that fear will pass in time though. But when you are in the transfer stage or release stage of an AP it's important to think non-verbally, because verbal thinking in that stage will bring you back for sure, but as I have said, it is hard the first times when you do it. With Non-verbal thinking I mean basicly that you really should not think logically about what's happening, just go with the feeling, give into it. It's kind of like as they say in star wars "don't think, use your instincts" However, when you have come out of the body and can see clearly and so on, then you can think logically because then it then no longer pulls you back. I must still add one thing about the transfer. It is that when you are in the tranfer moment, sometimes your vision is gone or weakened. If it's totally black then focus on your other senses, like your feet touching the ground/floor. Your vision will come in time. But whatever you do, don't try to open your eyes, because nine times out of ten you will end up opening your physical eyes, which then ends the AP. What to expect of the astral Well, once you are out and your vision is clear and so on, here's what you can expect in an objective point of view. The astral is not of the same logic as the physical, everything is fluid and changeable in the astral. For example, if you are good you can create things or objects with the mind, all you really have to do is to believe... which can be hard sometimes. Things also change by themselves or by the sub-conscious mind if you prefer. For instance, you can look at a tree, then if you look away and then back, the tree can be gone. All kinds of weird things happen there. If you have an AP you will most likely see your surroundings just like in the physical but a little modified, you can for example see your street outside your house, it looks pretty much as in the physical except for those two trees that really aren't there, maybe an unknown road has appeared, or maybe there aren't any other houses around etc... These are the typical things that you can expect from the astral. You can also encounter horrible things such as demons and ghosts. But remember, nothing can hurt you on the astral. The only thing that can hurt you is your own fear, that's why you must never give into the fear. You may also say that getting impaled, drowning or getting shot hurts really bad in the astral... well, if you think it's going to hurt, then it will! But if you do not fear pain, then there will basicly be no pain, just very strong stimulis, that's how I think of it. What to do on the astral? Well, this is completely up to you... When you get out for the first time you will feel true freedom and anarchy stronger than you ever have dared to imagine. It is in that moment you are truly free to do whatever you want, because there are practically no consequenses then... But in time you will learn to not be so wild in order for the projection to last longer, I will talk more about that in the second section. (The first section of this book is mostly trying to teach you how to get an AP. The other sections are more concentrated on other stuff like how to stay there longer and what you can learn from all of this.) It's also a good idea to plan ahead on what to do, by doing that you don't have to waste time on the astral thinking about your plan of actions. Anyway, if you can't think of anything for your plan, here's a couple of fun ideas. · Fly · Go around and ask silly questions from people, see how they react. · Pass thru walls and doors, see how it feels like. · Use telekinesis. (move objects with the mind.) · Try talking to animals. (sometimes they can speak.) · Do things that scare you, and things that you don't dare doing normally. (This is in fact useful because it makes you overcome your fears and makes you dare do things that you want to do in your physical life.) · Go and satisfy your sexual desires with someone (this is really easy, you see people on the astral aren't like they are here on the physical. Everything is "easier" there.) Basicly you can do anything that is "not acceptable" by the norms of society. Have fun, But don't get carried away though. Don't spend all of your APs on having sex, in the second section I will give reasons why not to. Getting back to the physical body This is a typical newbie question. There's not much to say about this since it's very simple. When you are out you will be at any time able to go back, just relax, think of your physical body and focus on "waking up" and so you will. However, sometimes in fear and hesitation it may take a while to come back, it might not have the same instant effect as without the fear. You might end up waking up in a so called sleep paralysis, which means that you can't move any part of your body except your eyes. However, it will go away in a couple of seconds if you just relax a bit. On the other hand, I rarely hear of someone who have actually wanted to go back when they APd. Usually the case is that you want to be in the astral as long as possible. But after some time you will lose the higher consciousness or lucidity (which is needed) and be drawn back to your normal consciousness (your ordinary life). Patience Now I have made this all sound very easy until now, have I not? Let me tell you this, the hardest thing about AP is to keep up the motivation and to have patience (at least in the beginning). You see, the chances are that you will try and try to get an AP and you will never get it until you don't want it so bad no more (after that you get it). It is indeed very frustrating. But you will probably AP when you least expect it. You might have even at a point manually induced an AP by meditation and say that you have found the right way to project, it all seems so easy at that point. But then when you try to AP again it just doesn't seem to work. It's all one big pain in the ass, but only if you allow yourself to think so... Most of your friends perhaps do not know what AP is, then you are going to have to stand up on your own, you can't expect much from anybody but yourself when you are into AP. You know, in basketball, everytime you score your team is saying "good job man!" or "smooth!". When you get an AP you start wondering who you are going to talk to. That's why I recommend having friends who are into astral projection just like you to share your experiences with, that helps you on the trial, it gives you motivation. On the net you can of course find AP dudes somewhat easily. Now, you might say it's sad when we can't stand on our own and have to have others help us. But hey, you just got to accept it. You know what they say, all we need is love. American good will Many say that the american good will is pathetic, americans are all growing up believing they are all going to be millionaires and super-stars. Personally I think that's just fine. Belief/self confidence is good, but belief is useless without the "know how" element, and then again "know how" is useless if you haven't got the faith or belief to turn it into something. As an example, let's take this book. I wrote it because I had "know how"(at least to some degree) and I had faith. I had faith in that somebody will actually read this and learn from it and do an AP for themselves. Now, I could have had "know how" to unlimited content, but what would have that been useful for without a little faith and daring. I bet it wouldn't had been a book if I was afraid that somebody might laugh at me for it. (To tell you the truth I must admit that I owe much to my friends, I would have probably never written this book without them, without them I would have had less competence and even more less faith in writing a book.) The same thing goes of course for AP. It takes both belief and competence to do it. You might fail at APing time after time in the lack of "know how", but you can still have belief. And if you truly believe that you will succeed and you are positive evenafter a failure, then it's only a matter of time until you successfully AP. Good luck with that! It's a rap Alright, that's it for the basics. This section had everything you need to know on how to AP. Many authors usually in their books/work talk about alot of difficult things to comprehend for a newbie. Well, I divided this book so that all you REALLY need to know is in one handy first section (the other sections are "extras")... Anyway I thought at first to put a summary at the end here but instead I'm going to say just one thing that I think is somewhat underestimated. -Meditate regularly! You have already read how to do it. I'd say try to do it everyday about 15-30 minutes. By doing that you become more aware while you sleep and by being that the chances are higher to get a spontaneous LD or AP. And in time you may also do AP manually. Advanced and theory (section 2) Let me just cut in a short notice here before anything else. I just want to say that everything from here on further you can learn by yourself if you only AP regularly. And I guess that way would probably be better for you, but it can be tricky to figure everydetail out by yourself so that's why I'm here to draw these conclusions so that you can find "a way" easier. But remember, I can really only tell you HOW things are, I'll give my opinionon WHY they are so too but don't trust me so much, just just go and find your own way if you wish. In the AP "business" there are alot of people who have alot of different views on things and may you find your own one too. Personally I don't like putting views on too much because all one can ultimately conclude is everything which he sees and feels and so on, not the fact that there's some god in the heavens just because something amazing happened sometime in one's life... You get my point? Before reading this second section it is recommended that you have had at least one AP, LD, OBE or been lucid in the astral or whatever you prefer... In this section I will go through many things that are not commonly spoken about and yet they are very important to know (at least to my opinion). I can say that the first section focused mostly on the "how to" question as you probably noticed. However, in this second section there will be more attention on other stuff... Flake's theory This theory was once a post in a forum at www.astralsociety.net . I of course wrote the whole thing down, and my nickname at astralsociety was, and is still Flake. I will go through the theory here now and in more detail. Flake's theory is a theory about consciousness and how it shifts. It's about different states of the mind, how they operate and about how to attain the higher consciousness that is within. The theory is very helpful to an AP interested individual, it sets everything at perspective so to say. But it hasn't got much to do with AP in itself though, the help you get from it is indirect. You might read through this and get one of those "aha" experiences. In the theory there are three known states of the mind; the dream state, the ego state and the lucid state. Here are the definitions: The lucid state This is the state that you are in when you get lucid in a dream or do an AP. You realize that your ego is really just an old tired dream and you are free to do whatever you want. This state lasts for a time, then it fades to the dream state. Or you can just accidentally start thinking about the physical and then you go to the ego state directly. But what usually happens in an AP is that one starts to fade away to the dream state slowly and then you think "no, I got to get lucid...", then you try to bring clarity to the dreamy state and so, somehow the clarity brings you directly to the physical. When you are lucid you perceive things as you would have never perceived them before. Buddhists may say that you see the world for what it truly is. For example, you might see a car driving by, but you don't see it as a "car", you see it as "colors". That's the best way I can describe it, it's like looking at the world with different eyes. I would say that being lucid is like tearing a layer of shit away from your true self! But then again, the shit (ego) always keeps coming back. It is only in the very beginning of an AP that you are somewhat truly lucid, after that it fades away. But remember, you cannot explain the lucid state in words, you have to experience it for yourself. By the way, when one is meditating and trying to AP one should meditate lucidly, in other words one should keep himself/herself lucid while meditating. Meditation to me is to be or at least try to be lucid while relaxing. The ego state This is the common state of the physical plane, this is most likely the state you are in right now. The name "ego" comes from that the true you is being a slave of the mask called the ego. from the age 0-5 we all built up our own masks, our own special egos/personalities. In this state you perceive things as either labeling them as good or bad, boring or exciting or whatever other feelings there are. When you see a completely unknown thing you get afraid because you have nothing to label it as, you are the prisoner of fear. And as for the lucid state, you never label anything as something. One may say that we are awake when we are not sleeping in our beds, but actually we are just sort of dreaming when we live our lives because we think that the world is something specific, in other words, we don't see the world for what it is, we believe that some things are like that, and other things are like that... What we really see then is just a world in our minds! When a person is born he does not know anything about this world. He is born lucid. However, he is then raised to label things as his parents teach him, and so he develops the ego, the mask on his true self. On another notice, AP is said to be much easier for kids, they do it more than grown ups. It's just that nobody will believe them when they talk about their experiences, kids may also talk about seeing ghosts but they are raised in believing that no such things exist. And so somehow, they stop seeing them because they build up an ego with certain beliefs. I remember when I was a kid, I often could hear the buzzing sound (if you remember) when I was falling asleep. I never knew what it was though, nobody told me anything about AP. Please, when you (the reader) grow up, tell your kids about AP. If a child learns how to AP when he is little, he'll have much less difficulties doing it when he's grown up. Anyway, in the ego state you want to have everything clear, but the more clearer you try to make it, the more lies are built up on the mask. Let's take an example, the people of the stone age always got afraid when lightning struck. So the people assumed it was because the god of lightning had come to punish them for their bad deeds. They did not know why lightning occurred so they had to make up a belief, it never mattered if it was fake or real, as long as it was something to believe in, something to "know". That is a product by the ego state. As said before, in the ego state one is a prisoner of fear and other emotions, and emotions lead to expectations, expectations lead to paranoid thoughts which are very often unnecessary. The dream state This is the state when you dream an ordinary dream. Here you are even more controlled by the ego, and if you study your dreams alot you can get to know your ego really good. Everybody is familiar with this state, you may experience amazing things that would not happen in the physical plane and yet you still aren't questioning yourself "am I dreaming?", it's sad but true, for all of us. The dream state is like an amplified ego state. That's the easiest way to put it. I already said that emotions lead to paranoid thoughts, well, when you are dreaming those paranoid and emotional thoughts will take form and lead to hallucinations because the astral is changeable easy to shape. That's why most of our ordinary dreams aren't truly the astral most of the time. If none of us would have egos we could stay lucid as long as we wanted. The bottom line AP teaches to you is the very same thing that some religions tell you, and that is "to lose your ego" and become lucid. Here's a simple schematical representationof the states: -------------------------------------------------------------------- Lucid self / / / / Ego self (emotions, desires etc. are created here) / / / / Dream self (emotions, desires etc. are being handled here) -------------------------------------------------------------------- The schematical representation shows from lowest consciousness to the highest with the lucid state being the highest of course. In the ego state is where the emotions and desires are created. In the dream state we then try to work out that stuff. And as for the lucid state we wonder just what they all are about. Now, in an AP you are lucid and free of course, but the desires always come around chasing you. They are like a bad itch, it will only go away if you stop scratching, but you can't. In the lucid state you are above your desires, you feel invincible, you have lost everything and therefore you are free to do anything. However, the temptation to give into desire, to give in to the dream state is a big problem. If you do that in an AP it will shortly end, or continue as a dream. The ego state is everyday life itself, you are at the same place where your feelings and desires are made. To get alot of APs and LDs you must not be so attached to the egos state. And remember, if you have LDs alot it will affect your physical life as well, in the sense that you will not be so trapped all the time, you will be braver to take actions and rock the boat instead of just walking around like a zombie in life... I'll try not to be so philosophical in this section, but it is a solid fact that AP isn't just about leaving the body and writing down your experiences. AP changed my life, and it's probably impossible that it won't/hasn't change/changed yours. The golden rule The bottom line of Flake's theory is that the more you are lucid in the physical, the bigger the chances are to get an LD or AP. And of course, the more APs and LDs you get the more lucid you will get in the physical. For example, just look at the reality check, it is really a moment of lucidity in the physical. And that leads to lucid moments in the astral. So to put everything in one fancy sentence, "lucidity in the physical will bring lucidity to the astral and vice versa, unlucidityin the physical will only bring unlucity to the astral and vice versa.". Don't forget those words now, they will be of great help to you. Correction of the common LD definition Most people say that the definition for an LD is this: "A lucid dream is that when one comes to realize or comes to know that he is dreaming". Now, practically speaking that can be said, but since you are now reading the "advanced" section I will go into greater detail. The previous definition is false, the simple fact that you know that you are dreaming does not necessarily make you lucid. In fact, knowing that you are dreaming does not have anything to do with lucidity in itself. Lucidity is a higher awareness, it's not simply knowing that you are dreaming. But of course, realizing that you are dreaming often mostly leads to lucidity. In the same way, lucidity does not always make you know that you are dreaming, but having that to happen is rarer. To become lucid in a dream, your dream has to be strong and vivid enough. If you try to enter a weak dreampool, you will end up waking up in the physical. Many times I find myself being in a dream fully knowing that all is just a dream, but lack the energy to make everything lucid. Here's an example: -I am near a local store, I'm walking on the street where the cars drive. A car is about to hit me, then I think to myself "big deal, it's just a dream". The car missed me though. (Supposedly it's possible to gather energy to the dream body in order for the dream to be strong enough to become lucid in, I suggest to try and do so if you ever find yourself in the same kind of situation.) To prove my theory even more correct I have another experience where I got lucid but never knew that I was dreaming. The chance of this happening is small. I have experienced it twice. Here the experiences are: -I'm walking on a bridge, on the other side there is the forest. I walk and walk, when I¥m at the end of the bridge I get the same feeling as lucidity, I feel very alive, but I still think I am in the physical. -I am in a house in my hometown, I became lucid from a powder that scorched my hand (complicated story). I run out of the house straight into the town center, there's alot of people on the street. I just keep running and I keep screaming in all of my lucidity, I didn't know/care if I was in the physical or astral, I just thought to myself that it doesn't matter since I'm lucid, and that's the thing that really matters... I think this "phenomenon" (of being lucid while at the same time not knowing that you are dreaming) occurs most likely if one does reality checks often. One simply gets used to "always being in the physical" while doing reality checks. So of course when you do the reality check in a dream you even then believe that you are in the physical. Anyway, take a quick look back at the schematical representation of Flake's theory. Now, imagine that the ego state and the lucid state as targets in the sky, with the ego state being much closer to the ground than the lucid state. The ground represents the dream state. Now lets say you are standing on the ground (the dream state) and you can see the two targets in front of you, one being higher than the other one. You carry one of those really old rifles that you have to load with gunpowder. To shoot the higher target you need a lot of gunpowder (energy), and to shoot the lower you don't need as much. Now, with no experience you aren't always so sure of how much gunpowder is needed to hit the higher target, so sometimes with too little gunpowder you accidentally hit the lower target... What I'm trying to explain is the theory of trying to become lucid in a dream. You see, sometimes you know that you are dreaming but don't have enough energy (vividness) to make it lucid. The dream might be more like a thought than a dream. But when you have enough energy you can make it lucid. However, the problem is that sometimes you think that you can go from the dream state to the lucid state and then you end up in the ego state i.e. you wake up, because you didn't have enough energy to make it lucid. Now do you see the analogy? But with experience though you can pretty much just tell when you have enough energy to go lucid. Lucidity enhancers If you have had an AP you probably know that lucidity comes and fades away, and if it fades away too much you'll wake up from the AP. Now, there are different techniques on how to increase the lucidity but in the end it all depends on you, on how strong your desires are and how closely related you are to the ego state. Lucidity is a very vital part of an AP, your time out in the astral all depends on your lucidity. Some people can be out for an hour or two while other people can only 30 seconds, or less. Fortunately, practice can make the time last longer. There are times in an AP when you feel that you are losing your lucidity and that you are on the edge on waking up, these following tricks or "lucidity enhancers" will help you in keeping it lucid. · Look at your hands. This somehow sharpens the mind, I can't say for sure just why it does it but it just does. The trick may sound stupid at first but it works fine. · Tell yourself, or shout for yourself "increase lucidity now!". This works sort of like as if someone slaps you in the face and tells you to stay awake. Shouting it out loud works better, probably because it has alot more impact than just a thought. And of course you don't have to worry about feeling shame if you shout to yourself "increase lucidity" in the middle of a crowded street because there is practically no consequences on the astral. · Rub your hands together. It helps because you are feeling an astral stimuli. When someone slaps you, you focus on what is happening (in the physical). The same thing goes for the astral, a strong stimuli from there helps you focus on the place. · Absorb energy (see the headline below lucidity keepers) Lucidity keepers These tricks help you in the sense that they prevent lucidity being lost in the first place. The lucidity enhancers work sort of like throwing water away from a leaking boat, you can throw it away alright, but the water is still leaking in. However, the lucidity keepers works as stuff fixing the leaks. But of course, every leak-fix is bound to break at some point. · Stay away from your desires. Like sometimes you really feel like you want to fly, fight, have sex, rob stores or whatever else that is not commonly permitted. Don't do those things, giving in to feelings is the end of an AP, remember Flake's theory? But hey, if you really want to do something, then do it! But realize at the same time that the thing is really nothing special to do, and by you realizing that you lose desire which then in term leads to better lucidity. · Always keep it cool, don't get excited. But at the same time, don't get too tired, you might fall asleep and it all becomes just an ordinary dream. I would say that in the moment when you leave the body the lucidity is usually somewhat perfect. Try to keep that lucidity all the time in the AP. (that is an almost impossible task if you ask me, but that is the goal every AP dude should have) The use of energy Energy can be of many uses in the field of AP. Chakra work will make APs of higher quality, but I'm not going to go through chakras here because I've never myself really been into that thing... Anyway, energy can be very beneficial for APing. Here are a couple of things I've learned by the years. · Sometimes while APing, when you are in the moment that you are supposed to get out of the body (in the buzzing sound state), you can be stuck or you might find it hard to move out. To get everything to be smooth, just start sucking energy through your arms and in to your body. Don't think about it too much, just feel it. If all goes well you should feel a fiery tingling sensation in the arms which then fades into the body. It feels sort of like coca cola being in your body. When this feeling is felt you should be able to release from your body with ease. · While out of body, energy can be used as a lucidity enhancer. In fact, I find this to be the best lucidity enhancer of them all. The technique is simple, just spread out your arms like a bird and suck energy, feel the energy enter your body. You should feel the same coca cola effect if all goes well. · It should be possible to do a projection to the real time etheric plane if you absorb enough energy in the buzzing sound state. However, it takes very good concentration skills to be enough time in the buzzing sound state to do the required energy absorbing. Supposedly, it can be hard for a newbie since his/hers etheric body has not developed to that strength to be out of body in real time. I have never done the previous however, so don't mail me and ask about it. Occult dimensions If you want to study the occult dimensions then be my guest, you can find info on the net. I will only go through the theory briefly. In the occult theory there are seven dimensions with the physical being the lowest and the adi dimension being the highest. The higher you project, the more nonlogical and amazing the experience gets. Adi is completely beyond logic and it is generally said that nobody can comprehend it in this physical consciousness, you can compare it to the hindu idea of the brahma, "where we are all one". Anyway, the dimension that you really need to know about is the astral, because it is very rare that somebody projects higher than that. Theory about hallucinations I said in Flake's theory that your thoughts can take form on the astral. Well, the question rises then what really is real on the astral then? I can't really say for sure but my theory is that the more closer to the dream state you are the more "unreal and made up" the experience gets. That also explains why our ordinary dreams are mostly fictional. When you dream an ordinary dream you are in the dream state and therefore the stuff is mainly (if not totally) created by the mind. Of course twin dreaming is possible but it is rarer. Don't get me wrong though, you are in the astralwhile you are dreaming but only in a specially modified astral... Anyway, when you are in the lucid state you view the astral for what it truly is, but lucidity can go away without you noticing it so much (until of course you wake up in your bed). The same thing goes for the physical, if you are in the ego state you view the world in your mind. The world might not change physically because your thoughts, the physical plane is not so sensitive to thoughts as the astral, but the image in the mind changes in the physical. Then also, people can see hallucinations here too. To view the world for what it truly is you just got to be lucid... If someone goes through an accident in life or something it might shake his/her picture of the world so hard he/she will drop it for a while and be lucid, but that's another story... I came to the previous theory with these lucid dreams: - I was walking in the super market with my parents, I was in the dream state. My parents were really bothering me and asked me stupid questions, I think that my mind was replaying this typical situation just to strengthen my picture of the world... I was walking around and found some screwdriver or something to look at. Suddenly I became lucid, I looked back and my parents weren't with me anymore. Some other people also disappeared behind my back and the place felt all of a sudden to be half empty. Maybe my mind was just filling out hallucinations of guys walking around so that everything would look normal? The LD continued and nothing special happened from there on... -I was walking out of one of my friends' house, I saw a good looking woman, completely naked, talking in her cellular phone(I was in the dream state at that point). I of course walk up to her, but as I do that I start suspecting that it's just a dream. She starts to fade away and my lucidity starts fading in, both at the same time (the hallucination here symbolized sexual desire, it all disappeared then as I became lucid of course). The LD continues as usual and nothing special happened. What I'm trying to say is that when lucidity appears, hallucinations or forms of the ego mind will disappear. "What the mind then creates" looks alot like the question "why do we dream?". Well, we all have desires, and desires can be of many sort. You maybe want to be something and then dream about it, you can replay something typical in your mind to strengthen the image of the world. We also have more primitive desires like sexual ones. Anyhow, if you want to have LDs and APs (which are products of lucidity), you have to lose these desires. Buddhism teaches much that I learned by myself after my APs. So study that religion, it helps. Then again when you gradually lose lucidity there may appear thought forms again, and you can't really tell the difference from them because of the unlucid state. It all becomes very fuzzy, the subconscious mind can alter pretty much anything. But what stands left then when lucidity is achieved and thought forms are away? The astral world maybe, but more importantly how/why is it there? You can say the same thing about the physical, and honestly that's up to you to sort out. So... what is the astral really? Some people say that every AP is just a hallucination while others say that it's never a hallucination. Some say that there are LDs which are just things made up by the mind and then there is the AP where you are truly in another dimension... You can make up your own theory about that but the following theory is that which I have concluded through my personal experience and thinking. Try to think of the astral like the internet. Homepages (dreampools) are created by all of us, the homepages are deleted and added all the time. Every homepage is pretty much unique, all have different information (emotions) loaded into them. The homepages get visitors of course, and most likely the people visiting will have the same interests (emotions) as you. Your closest friends probably have the same interests and emotions as you and they may show up and be there at the same time (twin dreaming). When people are on a really bad/good mood (unlucid) they tend to think that the homepages are something else (hallucinations), but it's just all in their minds, only when they have lost all the emotions/desires that poisons their lucidity they can see the homepages for what they truly are. Another analogy would be the sea and the wind. The surface of the water being the astral and the wind being unlucidity. When the wind blows, waves (hallucinations) are created on the water, and so, if the wind stands still you start seeing the water more clearly and how it truly looks like. However this is just my theory, I might be wrong. Practically I would say that the astral is just one big mess that can't really be understood, all of the conclusions of astral logic made by people are just theories, nothing more. Or, maybe I can say what I read from a book about religion, which is the following: "The other world is beyond space and time, it is then impossible to understand the other world with our common logic that is based on space and time." But perhaps if our consciousness changes, we could understand more... Meeting people on the astral You have maybe dreamt that you were with a friend in a dream and then he says in real life that he doesn't remember it at all, that was either because he was a hallucination created by the unlucid mind, or he was there but he just didn't remember it. And you may also have projected at daytime and seen him too although he was really awake in the physical... With that in mind I would conclude that perhaps we are always on the astral, our lucid awareness is not just always there. I say that because often people I see on the astral are not lucid at all (even if they are sleeping in the physical), they pretty much just walk around like zombies caught up in their own little world, just like the most of us do in "real" life. That would mean that we all live a double lives, double consciousnesses. One in the physical, and one in the dreamland. There will be more written of the double life thing in the third section... Anyway, hooking up with someone in the astral is hard, but people have done it of course. If you try to get in the same dreampool as a friend that is not into AP and is not so in tune to the astral it can be hard for him/her to remember the experience. Instead of him/her remembering the experience at a conscious level in the physical, he/she might remember it as a more subconscious level. He/she may perhaps only remember the abstract feelings of the experience but not remember just exactly what happened in an objective point of view. So, to go to your friend's dreampool it is said that all you have to do is to think of the guy. I find that hard to do, but one can also use reflective surfaces (such as windows or mirrors) as teleportation devices. All you have to do is to walk into them and have the place/person in your mind. But for little old me, entering a reflective surface is usually the end of an AP, good concentration skills are needed. I hope you have better luck with that than me... But, there is of course also the possibility that you have a shared ordinary dream, But that's another story... Personally, I have never met someone while out of body and talked about the experience with them remembering it. However, I have had a couple of lucid dreams with me being in the same dreampool as a friend of mine. If you are interested, take a look: -I was in my school, I somehow became lucid in that dream, but in a feeble kind of way. My vision was bad and I kept rubbing my hands to keep everything stable. The school was crowded, it was as if a big party was going on. Outside it was dark as night. I walked outside, there I saw a guy that I knew, I said hi to him and he replied "hi" in a zombie kind of way like people often do in an LD or AP. I started to fly and so my lucidity started to fade away, I somehow flew into a window and then I woke up. Later that morning I called Ankou (a friend of mine who is also into AP, his real name is not Ankou but he will be called that here) and I told him about the dream, he said he also had a dream where he was in the same school walking around, but he was not lucid though. All the details of our scenarios matched (like the school being crowded), that had to mean it was the same place. Otherwise it would be one hell of a coincident! This is another example: -I had two LDs about this place. This was really a beautiful place, it was a hotel in the middle of the sea. Everything in the building was white and clean, the sun shone bright as ever and the sky was as unbelievably blue. Everything was bright and clear. On the roof floor was a swimming pool with children in it. People were walking by the swimming pool. The room/hall had walls but no roof. At one end of the floor there was a glass door that led to a terrace which of course was incredibly beautiful, and huge I might add. In the first LD I found myself lying on a bed that was on the terrace. I became lucid and got up. I saw some other people there just enjoying the sun or something. I decided to do something crazy just for fun. So I run and jump over the fence and just fall a very long distance straight into the sea. As I am falling I hear a song in my head with the lyrics "California, baby living the dream...", I had never heard the song before. Anyway, as I hit the water the LD ends. The second LD takes place by the swimming pool. I'm walking beside it and become lucid. I see a guy a know from school in the pool and I ask him: "Do you know you are dreaming man?" , then he goes something like "yea whatever". Then I tell him to look at me for awhile while I levitate in the air. When he saw that he totally freaked out. I walk some more and before I know it a couple of guys are trying to attack me. I work myself out of the situation and walk away, and as I do that the LD ends. So then after I wake up I call Ankou. We start talking about dreams and this time he is the first one to mention the hotel dreampool. It was really amazing to hear someone talk about the same dreampool/dreamplace I just had been in, But Ankou was not lucid this time either. But all of the details matched. However I have never succeeded in meeting people on the astral by will (and I never saw Ankou in the previous examples). The previous examples are of course coincidence, I just happened to be in the same dreampool as Ankou. My experience is little when it comes to meeting people on the astral and then finding out that they also had the same experience. Also, it's at least for me a hard thing to bring up an LD in a conversation with somebody I don't know so well if I saw him/her on the astral. I mean, how do I ask someone if they had dreamt they same thing as me? Astral sex and other fun stuff This is perhaps one of the greatest obstacles to climb over when you are out of body. Astral sex is of course a great pleasure, but the great disadvantage about the thing is that it eats up your lucidity. You may think that you can resist the temptation of "getting down to business" with someone, and surely you can in the physical. But it's a totally different thing in the astral consciousness, when the lucidity fades away just a little, all you are thinking of then is just what would be fun, you basically do anything that you want to do, things that are taboo and things that are impossible to do in the physical (like flying). Just imagine a virtual reality that looks just like this one, what would you do? So it's kind of like being possessed by freedom paradoxically said. Now, I'm not going to say that AP newbies shouldn't enjoy all the pleasures of the astral. On the contrary I recommend newbies to enjoy the anarchy of the astral, for it is something we do not have here. But I also say that do not stick to these pleasures for long if you are serious about APing, that's because the pleasures take away the lucidity and shortens the whole experience. Well, the pleasures do not take away lucidity by themselves, it's not that simple. The only thing that can take away lucidity is you. Simply put, you can do whatever you want on the astral but never give in to any feeling whatsoever (and things like sex are indirectly feelings), because those feelings make you return to the dream state (and then mostly to the egos state and back to your body). That is a very easy thing to say for me, but it's a thousand times harder to do. To not give into a feeling that takes you back to the ego state is a thing that takes much training, training in the art of remaining lucid... So that's why I'm saying that you shouldn't go and do things that have a pleasure feeling loaded to them, or any other feeling loaded to them, because nine times out of ten your lucidity will break and you will be back in the physical body. OBE memory Since an OBE occurs in an altered state of consciousness it can be hard to remember the some of the experiences. Shorter APs are easier to remember than longer ones, fortunately memory becomes stronger with practice. Some people say that you should write down every OBE/LD in a diary to remember them. Personally I don't have a diary but I still would recommend it because you might see the same problems often occurring during an OBE and maybe you can fix them to make your OBE to be of better quality. We all have our own problems that makes the OBE bad, that for example causes lucidity to weaken. The things you remember easiest from an OBE are things that have feelings loaded to them, while objective things on the other hand can be very hard to remember. For example, text in an AP is a classical hard thing to remember, you might have seen it just ten seconds ago in an AP and when you are back in your body you forget what it (a sign, paper or whatever) said. Then you might have been flying over mountains in an OBE and although it took ten minutes to wake up in bed you still remember the feeling of flying crystal clear when you think about it. Memory works this way also in the physical in the sense that it deletes unnecessary information that you know that you don't need (objective stuff). However, you can remember objective stuff if you just force yourself to. That's why it's always easier to learn things by doing rather that reading/listening. While out of body you can much more easily discover how the mind operates due to this memory weakness. The confusion between the LD/AP/OBE Practically speaking, I don't see much difference between an out of body experience and a lucid dream. The only difference is just that you leave your body in an OBE, plus that most times lucidity is stronger in an OBE than in an LD. But otherwise I don't see much difference. Theoretically, the terms LD and OBE both are a type of AP with the exception of the OBE being experienced in real time, then it's called an etheric projection (EP). Unfortunately, that's not still the whole story, one must keep in mind that there is no fine line between AP and EP (see the following headline below), it all sort of melts together, so that's how complicated it is. I hope I don't make things look too complicated though. Different forms of projection As i mentioned in the first section there is the astral and the etheric, and with that in mind there are also different forms of projections. The dimensions melt into each other like the colors of the rainbow. There is no concrete line between the astral and the etheric, that's why it sometimes can be hard to say just what exactly is astral and what is etheric. However, here are some things typical for the different vibrational states: Astral: · Clear vision. · It is easy and smooth to move. · The feeling/consciousness reminds much of a dream. · It's much easier to break the laws of the physical. (e.g. to fly, move objects with will, pass through walls etc.) · Of all the senses, vision is the most in use. · The feeling of energy flowing through the body and the buzzing sound in the ears while leaving the body are feeble or not apparent at all. (in other words, the weaker the sound and feeling is, the more "astral" it is.) · The OBE does not to have take place in the same physical surroundings (you might still see your room (or whatever) anyway, but it is perhaps modified. Theoretically, entering a hypnogogic image also counts as an AP. It must also be said that when an OBE occurs with little lucidity, you tend to end up in an lower subplane (more on that below) Etheric: · Blindness often occurs when leaving body. It is also possible to see through your physical eyes at the same time while being out of body. · It's hard to move, it may also feel like the physical body is trying to pull you back. · The feeling/consciousness reminds more of the physical. · It is not easy to do the things you can do on the astral. · Of all the senses, the perception of touch and motion are in the most use. · The energy feeling and the buzzing sound are usually strong while leaving the body · The OBE takes place in the same place as in the physical (your room or whatever place you are in) · A true etheric projection is experienced in same time zone as the physical. That enables you to see people who are in the physical plane. It is also possible to see thought forms of some sorts and spirits since you are in between the astral and physical. · The projection occurs often from a sleep paralysis Then one can of course say that there are unlimited subdimensions between the etheric and astral. These subdimensions share both etheric and astral qualities, that's why people mistake subdimensions for either being totally etheric/astral. But it is not often (at least in my experience) that everything matches the above qualities to be "purely" astral or "purely" etheric. The lower subplanes (between the astral and etheric) feel creepy and are often dark and you may encounter demons etc. The higher subplanes are the opposite, there it is often sunlight and everything is good. If you are a normally a more lucid person, you will find yourself often on a higher subplane, and if you are a more ego minded person you will find yourself more often on the lower subplanes while projecting. What counts as an astral projection? Generally when people talk about AP they say that it's when you leave your body and go to the astral, being lucid most/all of the time. In this book I have said "AP" probably a hundred times bynow and meant that it was an out of body experience, but theoretically it can be said to be alot more things than just that. The words "astral projection" incline to the idea that it's when you project the mind into the astral, and the astral can be alot. The world we dream in is the astral, so it can also theoretically be said that all people project every night as they sleep, it doesn't matter if you are lucid or not. And how does a normal dream start then? From hypnogogic images of course, and when a mind is unlucid the images are made up from things that have happened during the day, desires, wishes, feelings and so on... So if fantasy/imagination leads to hypnogogic images and hypnogogic images lead to a dream it can be theoretically said that ordinaryday to day imagination is a feeble form of astral projection. So we are all astral projectors... more or less. Philosophy/spirituality (section 3) The third section will be a little shorter, I've already given a great deal of philosophy in the second section. The third section was added because philosophy is a thing that comes with AP automatically. Many authors however just focus on projecting info and techniques. If you project let's say a hundred times, you have to be very ignorant to not learn anything else than just projecting. For me it would be hard to draw a line between philosophy and AP because I believe that philosophy/spirituality can help you to AP easier. Now, the best thing for a newbie would of course be that he learns how to AP and thereby learns the philosophy that comes with it by himself, but it can be a dark way to walk, so I have compiled the most important stuff that I have learned from AP and I hope it will brighten the way. Just like in the second section, it is recommended that you have had at least one AP,OBE, LD. Or should I say "been lucid in the astral" to be correct. Experience is teacher The feeling of the silenced state before an AP or pretty much anything else about AP can never be explained to an individual who has no experience in AP. The things that can be experienced in AP are totally out of this world, a normal person cannot comprehend what it would be like because there is nothing like it here! A mistake I did when I was a newbie was that I read too much of peoples experiences and had alot of expectations of what it would be like. Then when I once finally managed to get loose from the physical body everything in my head went upside down. Firstly I got shocked and got pulled back because I got afraid, AP was not what I had expected it to be. And so secondly I had to change my whole idea about AP. You have probably had the experience sometime in your life that before a big event you think alot about the event and expect alot of things to happen not happen. Then when the event is over you realize that nothing was as you thought it would have been. The same thing goes for AP, except that you multiply it the unpredictability by ten. The only way to know how an AP feels like is to experience it for yourself. What is lucidity? Normal lucidity is when one becomes the bird that flies high in the sky and watches down on the ego self, and laughs at it. Then one thinks to himself how immature he was before when he lived in the ego state, consumed by guilt, shame, fear and other emotions. Lucidity is when a one is unmasked from the ego and realizes that he has been trapped in a world that was poisoned by his own thoughts. And so, he starts viewing the world for what it truly is. But normal lucidity does not last forever and it is always the ego consciousness that draws oneself back. But lucidity is never 100% pure when the ego is alive. When you are lucid there is always a fight between the ego/dream state and the lucid state. Consciousness shifts back and forth when the lucidity weakens. However, if none of us would have an ego, and we would all be 100% lucid, we would all be the same. Our egos may all be different, but our lucidity in it's purest form is all the same. To have an AP is one step closer to peeling of the ego, as I have said before, when I am lucid it is as if a layer of shit is torn away from my true self. There are perhaps many "keys to lucidity" but AP and meditation is to me the strongest. The definition of pure lucidity to me is when all of the illusions caused by the ego state are extinguished, in other words, total extinguishment. Ironically, the word "nirvana" from buddhism has the same meaning. Lucidity in the physical I don't find the astral itself so amazing. Yes, you may perhaps be able to fly and do all kinds of fun stuff but that's not what's so amazing about it. The amazing thing about AP is the lucidity that comes with it! And the ultimate thing AP teaches you is to take lucidity over to the physical side. Most people are automatised people following the ego mind here in the physical. Some people may have bigger views of the world and some may have smaller, but a lucid man has an endless view. Few knows what lucidity is like, and even those few aren't often most lucid in the physical because they are so used to being in the ego state. Poisoned lucidity in the physical (and astral) would lead to chaos and after that one would go back to the ego state just like one does at the end of an AP. However, lucidity without any desires or feelings attached to it (pure lucidity) would lead to an utopia with no crimes and no war. But the probability of everyone turning pure lucid on earth would be extremely low, a miracle would be needed. The movie "Fight club" shows very good just how lucidity works in the physical. When one tries to be lucid one discovers that there is a constant fight between the ego and the lucidity. And everything that comes out of your mouth is either made by lucidity or the ego, there is a constant switch between the two consciousnesses. Life is one big dream Just like when we go to sleep and go to a dream we also wake up in the morning to a "dream", the physical dream. That dream is just like any ordinary dream, the only difference is the logic of the world. The bottom line is the same, you choose if you want to be in the ego/dream state or in the lucid state. You are the only one who can chose if you want want to seal your feelings inside and torture yourself or free yourself from them by realizing that they are just a piece of the illusion called life. I'm not saying that you should ignore life, I'm just saying that people (you) shouldn't be so controlled by everything. You must become the bird that flies above you and watches your actions and tells you what to do. To put it in english, you must think of yourself as in third person (be lucid). Don't think to yourself "so what am I going to do now", think to yourself "what is this human who has this certain social position in society and has problems with certain things and is good at certain other things etc." going to do. What would he do to please the bird? But then again, the bird is never truly lucid as long as he has desires. God and Satan The way I see it, the story of Adam and Eve has very much to do with the different states of mind that Flakes theory talks about. I see the story of Adam and Eve as an analogy to humanity, but may you see whatever else you want. In my view, god symbolises absolute lucidity and satan absolute unlucidity. The tale of Adam and Eve talks about them being happy in the garden of eden. When they follow the words of god (or the lucidity) everything goes well. God then says to Adam and Eve to eat everything they want to as long as they don't eat anything from the tree of knowledge. But as we all know, they ate from it. And what made them eat from it? Satan (unlucidity) of course. And the problem with consuming raw knowledge is that it takes away your lucidity (just look at how for example school makes you an automatised fool, they make you know alot of things but they often don't teach you to think for yourself). And so they were kicked out of the garden (kicked out of the land of lucidity). I don't think that the garden of eden was a real land of lucidity, I think it's more symbolic in the way that when you look at the world with lucid eyes, it's a completely different world if you compare it to the world you receive when you look with ego state eyes... As I am speaking of christianity I might also point out the common theory people interested in AP have about heaven and hell. Which is that if a person is told about heaven and hell over and over again until he believes in the fact that he will end up there in death, he will automatically (unconsciously) create a dreampool that looks like heaven/hell as he dies. In other words, if he believes that he has been a good boy in life he will automatically go to a pseudo heaven and if he thinks he has been a bad boy and not followed the words of god he will create a dreampool of hell. The double life The double life "syndrome" happens to us all more or less, and when you start developing the dream memory with AP, the "syndrome" gets stronger. With the double life thing i mean of course the life in the dreamworld and life in the physical. I believe that most dreampools/hypnogogic images are more or less made up by the mind, but as I believe that I also believe that some come up straight out of nowhere, I believe that some dreampools are dreampools "standing on their own". I have come to this conclusion at the times when I wake up from a pre-dream at night just before sleep as so many of us do. That/those pre-dream(s) are the perfect things to study when you study the double life. You will not only learn how the mind operates at sleep (and then have that knowledge to help your AP "career") but you will also see that some dreampools are familiar and you think to yourself "I've been here twice before" or "I've been here like a hundred times before", and some are totally unfamiliar to you. Please notice that you can only tell how many times you have been in the dreampool while you are in your dream state, when you wake up from it to your normal consciousness you just wonder what that all was about, but hopefully you will remember something from what you thought to yourself while in the dreamstate. You can also note that you are often a totally different person while you are dreaming, and that "person" (consciousness) knows only little of the ego of you and you know only little of the "dream person". The deja vu thing is to me when one sees something that he/she has been dreaming of just the night before (or any night). I say this because I often see something that reminds me of something that I have dreamt of, then I think back and I remember the whole dream (most of the times the dream is not exactly what happens in reality, but there are exceptions). This is a simple example just to show you what I mean: - I wake up and go to the living room, I see the TV being there as usual. I get this deja vu feeling and think back a while and remember that I had a dream just before where I saw the TV in my front yard... Often people don't remember their dreams and therefore they have no idea where the deja vu feeling comes from. Some even get superstitious about it. Anyway, it is not at all so uncommon that people dream about something and then it happens later in real life, maybe some of your friends have experienced it? But more often the dream is only half true, or not true at all. (with true I mean that it happens later in the physical) Double personality This topic has got nothing to do with the previous double life thing. Because AP isn't (yet) a common thing you talk about with everyone you will probably have to keep the fact that you are interested in it inside you for most of the time. I mean, when somebody asks you what your interests are, you can answer anything else but "astral projection". You can't just say that you have a fascination of leaving your body. And so you live in this lie and get friends that think your just another ordinary dude. Everybody thinks they know everything about you and make all sorts of comments on who/what you are, that you're such a good and ordinary boy, and it annoys you very much. Everyday you wake up, you wake up to a life where you cannot say the truth, to a life full of pretending... You are walking in the mall and you see alot of people, ordinary people, you realize that probably none of them has seen what you have seen, done what you have done, none of them has been lucid. That's how it will feel like when you have no one to talk to. Then there may perhaps be another side of your life, the side where you can express yourself freely. This may be you on the internet or if you are lucky, you may have found some people in real life that are interested in the same thing. It feels good to talk to these people because you don't have to lie about anything, and if you've got something to say (other than AP, like some emotional problem or anything) you will say it more easily to him/her than to a "normal" dude. You will be more open with these AP interested people. So it becomes a double personality thing. One side of you is just an ordinary dude and on the other side is an AP dude. Of course you can try blending these two together and behold the consequences, which would be quite interesting... Maybe it would shed more truth to your surroundings, but the question is if that truth is pretty in the eyes of society, know what I mean? Of course there are people that AP around us but they are all probably just as quiet as you, that's why it's hard to find people that are interested in the same topic as you... Well, if we really go into the subject I would say that everybody are interested in the occult/supernatural but it is not talked about because our society won't "allow" it. But perhaps some beautiful day AP will be a common thing to talk about, but until that we shall thank goodness for the internet, where people seem to be more open to talk about that stuff A "poem" about life I thought I should end this book with this... It came to me a time while I was walking my dogs. It wasn't my best day and the dogs were really eager to bother me even more by pulling me around in all kinds of directions... Anyway, this is the thing that came to my mind: "Life is like walking your dogs, the dogs keep pulling you around to all places that they find interesting and you either choose to follow them or to pull them out of there... But all you really want to do is to just let them go, release the leashes and look at them run their own way and just forget about them (and be free), But you can't! The dogs are the itches in you that will only go away if you stop scratching, but you can't. Why? Because you think that they are a part of you although they are not, that is the thing to realize. Whenever you meet a person walking dogs just as you, the only ones who are communicating are the dogs. So you come back to your home with your dogs, only to realize that you have to go again sometime. Yes, you will have to keep going out with them as long as you keep believing in the illusion that they are a part of you." So let's look at the symbolism here... The whole poem symbolizes unlucid life in the physical. The dogs symbolize your ego state/thinking, while the person who is walking them symbolizes lucidity. The home that one comes to after walking the dogs symbolizes death. And as long as one holds on to the ego state one will supposedly be reborn into this unlucid world, just like in hindu teachings... Take a minute to think about it. Thank you for reading! It's been alot of work writing this book, but yet at the same time it was fun. For me it's always a pleasure to teach about AP to someone. I hope you have found many answers/solutions and new ideas in this book, yet at the same time I also hope you have learned to come up with more and more of your own ideas. Remember, you must not be a robot who follows orders from everybody, yet at the same time you must not be a single minded fool who won't listen to anything/anyone... I hope I haven't been too bossy through this book though. Anyway thank you for reading and... ..."May lucidity be with you" Flake's teachings about AP 2003