#0 · Sep 25, 2004, 18:26 · Gandalf

Over the past 6 months or so i have expressed a desire to contact my disk/astral family (often known as the 'higher self') when I am phasing or otherwise out of body.
So far I have had inconclusive results but last night I think I hit on somthing.

I found myself lucid early yesterday morning (while dreaming) so right away I expressed a desire to go 'higher' (not to make contact with anyone in particular, funnily enough). I found myself outside on a green hillside, the sun was a pure brilliant yellow and the sky was the purest blue, I willed myself to travel through this scenery, the more i looked on the purer it became, it was quite beautiful.

As I was travelling over the hillside, admiring the sun and the sky and the wonderful contrast with the deep green of the hills, I saw a group of people standing over on one hill in the distance.
Right away I beckoned to them and they responded by waving.
I moved towards them until I was right up to them.
There were maybe 10 of them i can't remember quite how many.
I sensed a deep feeling of joy upon meeting them and they seemed to radiate this back. There was a great feeling of JOY and fun... humour! all the nice things in life!

What was weird was that I seemed to recognise them even though I dont know (now) who they were. Likewise they recognised me. I actually embraced the guy who approached me initialy and it was like meeting some dear friend or family member that I hadnt seen for many years.
Then I recognised one of the others and said, 'hey dad.... wait a minute, Why did i call you dad?'. Everyone found this hilarious and i couldnt help feel that I was missing somthing here. Was this guy my dad in a past life? Who knows!

The feeling of homecoming, joy and laughter was remarkable, but then irritatingly I was pulled back to 'realtime', before I could explore this feeling of 'coming home'.

Upon reflection I found this to be a deeply significant experience since the feeling of recognition of these people and theirs of me was unmistakable even although I have no idea who they are now.
I feel this time that these people were from my astral family, what monroe would call my 'disk', although in more conventional terminology you would call 'spirit guides' or 'higher selves'.

It was a feeling that i found absent from previous encounters with individuals who called themselves 'guides'.

Again, I wish i had been 100% so that i could have made more of this encounter, instead of being the usual 90% which comes from waking up within a 'lucid dream'. Still I'll try again tonight.

On a contrasting note, I would definatly argue against negative thinking when projecting. Earlier that morning I had awoken (lucid state) but in a rather negative mood for some reason. I emerged in the RTZ and floated over my roof, then i must have entered the astral at somepoint and came across some nasty creatures lying around in the crud.. these were half rotten, degenerated creatures lying there. I kind of stumbled over them and tried to get their attention for some reason, one of them told me to go away or he would to something nasty to me... he or it, wanted to be left to rot in peace....
It was the same deal with one of the other ones further on...

I do feel that these creatures were real, ie degenerated humans who I was coming across on my way up the lower astral, although I am slightly concerned that my line of thinking at that point should lead me there! Note: must ensure to quit excess negative thinking, after all, like + like... still the fact that I later had a wonderful experience shows that I can't be all bad!

Regards,
Douglas

#1 · Sep 25, 2004, 19:34 · Rastus

There are helpers, guides (which can be 'permanent', based on your age, skill level, or temporary), and your 'higher-self'.  There's a whole bunch of other things you come across in the Astral.  Guides are usually friends, but not family.

It sounds to me that you meet your 'higher' self and some of your family.  Congrats!!!  That is a significant step, like a child first learning to ride a bike without training wheels.  I don't meen that as a belittlement, I meen that from your higher-self's point of view.

Let me ask something.  Of all the things you've doen that have touched you deeply, how profound was this?  And ahving felt the feeling, it should be easier to 'feel' it again.

AMEN!!! about bad thoughts.  When I can't focus or shed negative thoughts I just roll over and go to sleep.  Having not followed my own advice, I do NOT wish to repeat it again [ ;) ]

#2 · Sep 25, 2004, 20:42 · coral1

Hi Douglas

That must have been a great experience.I`ve been trying to achieve similar things myself,and one part of your description matched some of my own adventures.Sometimes when shifting locations in the astral environment I`ll "break out" of the hazy almost fluid like atmosphere of most of my projections and emerge in a place like you desribe.A green pastoral kind of place that is almost painful in its brilliance.The clarity of vision and intensity of the colors defies description.This has happened about five or six times but I haven`t had much luck exploring this place.Frankly, the whole scene and the feelings that arise are overwhelming and I find the experience ends.I`m sure I`ll be able to come "home" when I`m ready.

I`m glad you`ve found your astral family.

Happy Trails

#3 · Sep 26, 2004, 05:58 · Gandalf

Let me ask something. Of all the things you've doen that have touched you deeply, how profound was this? And ahving felt the feeling, it should be easier to 'feel' it again.


Hey Rastus, I would say that this was the most significant experience I have had so far, the most profound.. however it annoys me that since I got there from a lucid state I wasnt 100%, more like 90%... this really makes a difference: you feel fully awake but there is just that niggling part of you which is not there, and means that you dont tnink of those obvious things that you would do or say normally. Thats the problem with raising awareness from dream or lucid levels. Thats why I've now returned to the plan of phasing from 'awake' or c1 level, so that I'm 100% from the start.

You are right though that now that I have experienced that feeling or connection, I just need to focus on that again next time to help me get back there, that's what I'm aiming to do, providing of course that I remember this when I'm out.

Coral:
I agree with your description, I have come across this enviroment a few times, what I remember about it is the clarity and stability of it, its not a fluid mess like many lower level experiences... the colours are awesome! Keep plugging away at it, thats what I'm doing!

Douglas

#4 · Sep 29, 2004, 03:43 · Frank

Douglas: The degenerate humans you came across would have been precisely that. Many people are so attached to their previous physical body their mind actually makes a link to their rotting corpse which is what you perceived.

As you know, like instantly attracts like, so people who are stuck in this unfortunate predicament can often form groups. They tend to come across as angry, nasty kind of characters but they are perfectly harmless. A good way to get through to them that almost always works is to offer an alcoholic drink.

I enjoyed reading about the "disk" experience. Especially where you say about you recognising people and they knowing you, yet all the while you have no idea where you know these people from. When I began on this kind of tack it happened to me so often. The feelings you get from these people can come across as being very paternal in nature. So finding yourself blurting out "hello dad" and such like is very normal.

So too are all the other feelings you talk about, i.e. feelings of homecoming, joy and laughter. These feelings can so very easily get to the stage where they become overwhelming, which ruins the experience. So it's best to take small doses at first.

The further in you go, the more stable everything becomes. Once you get more proficient at navigating to these places you'll find they become even more "real" to you than the physical.

One of the best experiences is to be able to project to a place you have been to before, not just once but several times over. That's when you properly begin to believe in the reality of it all. You step out of the idea of it all being some kind of "game" and realise the seriousness; the depth; the gravity of the whole thing. Which you will have touched on already, of course.

Yours,
Frank

#5 · Sep 29, 2004, 06:01 · Gandalf

Frank, your descripton of these degenerate humans matches what I have found several times in the past... I have often come across what I call the 'zombies' due to their half-rotten appearence, quite disgusting!

I will try the alchoholic drink idea, sounds interesting... I should probably ignore these guys but a part of me is curious to know what drives them to this state and how they perceive themselves and the world around them.

As for the more significant 'contact' experience, I am trying to return to the same region... having been there once I just need to focus on that feeling to get back.. however I am still hampered by the 'lucid dreaming' problem, which I have taken as far as I can; i need to take a step back in order to go forward, ie learn to phase while 100% awake, which is going to be difficult.

The lucid dreaming won't stop of course, that is outwith my control, I wake up at high levels of lucidity qute often, which I then utilise for phasing work.. that cant really be stopped now (nor would I want it to); I have found that Monroe was correct when he said that once you project for the first time, a door is then opened which can never fully be closed again.
what happens after that is up to the individiual, some go into denial of it and/or live in abject fear of it, and others see it as an opportunity.

Regards,
Douglas

#6 · Sep 29, 2004, 09:25 · Novice

I too have had several encounters in which an entity will mention my grandmother or father and I immediately understand who they mean and recognize the individual. But they aren't my relatives in this life. Its a very strange feeling. I have also been taken to places which I recognize as family dwellings. I see them so clearly. I even remember hiding places in which I would put things as a child. Most of my successful astral trips have also happened through lucid dreams. And upon waking, and remembering the experience I know that its real. Until I try to plan to visit the old house again. Then I realize I don't know where it is. Then I realize it doesn't belong to my current grandmother. Quite confusing. [:I] But the joy and love is overwhelming. I'm not able to duplicate the experience/visits at will. [ :( ]  But perhaps someday I can.

Glad to see I'm not the only one that recognizes and knows people that they don't know during waking life.

#7 · Sep 30, 2004, 04:02 · Frank

Douglas: Yes, these Zombies (I do like that term) can be a bit obnoxious but you soon get used to them. Generally, I find it best to think of others you come across not (as most people tend to do) in terms of "entities" or "beings" but simply think of them as other people. Only within the non-physical there is a wider variety of naturally occurring bodily conditions a person can find themselves in.

Because at first we are unfamiliar with this extended range of possible conditions, they can take us by surprise. But as soon as your mind gets the idea these conditions are all very normal, and they are just people after all, you tend to look upon them with humour, rather than fear and/or surprise.

From my experience a significant percentage of them appear to be ex-physical realm alcoholics. This is why offering a drink usually works wonders in getting them to quieten down. If you can get to engage one of these people in some kind of serious conversation, in other words break the emotional loop they got themselves caught in, you will see a number of exciting changes take place.

It's a good idea to follow your curiosity. Doing that will multiply your interest and increase your overall Intent. I was like you in that I too would project regularly from the dream state. Now, years later, I still can't just simply dream. Once I do, more often than not I become lucid. Which sounds great but it gets to be a right pain in the *rse when all I simply want to do is sleep!

One of the ways I have been practicing recently is to phase while being 100% awake within the physical. Sort of more like opening up a channel in the way a Medium would do. My work had been taking me in that direction for a while, and I first tried it in a group setting with a couple of other Astral Pulse members. The intensity of the experience really startled me. What I found was being in a small group increased my Intent many fold, over what it ordinarily would have been when trying the same technique alone. It also doubly reinforced to me the importance of Intent when it came to achieving concrete results.

It seems to me like projecting from a lucid dream the need for a strong Intent isn't all that great (by comparison). After all, much of the groundwork has been laid out already. From which point all it takes is to generate a reasonable degree of conscious awareness and there you go. Okay, the experience will never quite have that totally lucid quality of a conscious phased transition. But it's more than good enough for starters.

I know you are having a little difficulty with your fully-conscious phased transitions and I wondered if you might inadvertently be failing to generate the requisite degree of Intent. The more a person progresses towards the fully conscious transition stage, the more this topic becomes their life. (This basically follows on again from where Monroe says about a door opening which can never fully be closed.) And I do very much feel that, after a point, a person's true practice begins when their formal practice ends. In other words, the whole thing just becomes you, rather than something you do between nine and ten thirty (or whenever).

At the border between awake and sleep, there is a tiny channel which you need to travel down. Frustratingly, at first, people keep missing it and they switch from being awake to sleep; sleep to awake; at which point they realise they missed it yet again. The solution to this is to develop a strong Intent to find this channel and travel down it while fully conscious.

Intent can also be thought of as determination. But it is a quiet, passive kind of determination. Not the aggressive, "We're gonna win at any cost" type of emotion. If you don't do this already, you need to develop a pictorial representation of each state, i.e. the awake state you are in before sleep; the sleep state you normally end up in; and between them you need to picture the channel I talk about that you need to travel down. The detail of how you picture all this is up to you. Simply let your imagination wander until it has built up a strong and detailed picture of all three.

As maybe the channel is unfamiliar to you, picture yourself travelling through a tunnel about 10 feet in diameter where the walls of the tunnel are formed from swirls of coloured kinds of clouds (this is how I normally perceive it). The colours tend to start off more blues and reds and progressively turn yellow to white towards the end.

Then, at different times throughout the day, you need to imagine yourself being in the preliminary awake state before sleep, going through the motions of having your physical body go to sleep (picture it in as much detail as you can) and instead of your conscious awareness blotting out as normal, you enter the channel and travel down it; to emerge at the other side within the non-physical at whatever point you have previously imagined. The place where you saw your astral family might be a good place to think about going.

Going through this kind of scenario throughout the day will go a long way towards developing the necessary kind of Intent that will finally propel you, fully conscious, down that channel.

HTH

Yours,
Frank

#8 · Sep 30, 2004, 06:20 · Gandalf

Thanks for the advice Frank, I will try the mental exercise you describe. The idea of going through such an exercise over the course of the day makes sense in trying to break the habit cycle at night.

Regards,
Douglas

#9 · Sep 30, 2004, 11:26 · Frank

Yep, you've got it. Breaking the habit-cycle is what it sort of all boils down to. That's why youngsters can often find this easier. A 15 year habit is a darned sight easier to break than a 50-year one. That kind of thing.

I wish you all the best.

Yours,
Frank

#10 · Oct 01, 2004, 17:05 · James Davis

Frank -- I'm very interested in the comments you made about projecting to the same place over and over, and how that really solidifies the reality of the inner realms for the projecter/phaser.  My question:  How do you actually return to a place?  By focusing on the "energy signature," or a sound, or a smell, or a feeling, or all of the above?  I feel like that ability (to return to specific locales) is very essential to all sorts of tasks, but I'm not sure how to take that step.  Thanks.

James

#11 · Oct 03, 2004, 11:35 · Frank

James: Being able to repeatedly project to the same place is a kind of confirmation that tells a person they have a high degree of control over their experience. Being able to do this also helps greatly in communicating with people who reside within non-physical realms.

Being zapped back to physical due to some physical-body demand will always tend to come about no matter how experienced the person is. If this happens when you are in the middle of a conversation with someone, it becomes a simple matter to go back to physical, sort out whatever is the problem, maybe visit the bathroom or whatever, and project again to the same place and continue your conversation.

To navigate to a place all you need do is think about wherever you want to be and you will automatically manifest in that place. Doing this is one of those things which feels a bit tricky to do at first, but you soon get the hang of it.

Regards,
Frank