but i ran across the astral projection thing on the site and i just felt i had to add and correct something.
you noticed i bolded some things. about monroe not suggesting technique's for it. he must not have suggested it in the book has, but he does in his audio tape's.The Monroe Technique - by Robert Monroe.
Visit www.monroeinstitute.com for books, videos, and info. Note from - I have read Monroe's books and they are great. I really recommend them if you are interested in astral travel.
Step One:
Relax the body. According to Monroe, "The ability to relax is the first prerequisite, perhaps even the first step itself" to having an OBE. (Out of Body Experience). This includes both physical and mental relaxation. Monroe does not suggest a method of attaining this relaxation, although progressive muscle relaxation, coupled with deep breathing exercises (inhale 1, exhale 2, inhale 3... until about 50 or 100) are known to work well.
Step Two:
Enter the state bordering sleep. This is known as the hypnogogic state. Once again, Monroe doesn't recommend any method of doing this. One way is to hold your forearm up, while keeping your upper arm on the bed, or ground. As you start to fall asleep, your arm will fall, and you will awaken again. With practice you can learn to control the hypnogogic state without using your arm.
Another method is to concentrate on an object. When other images start to enter your thoughts, you have entered the hypnogogic state. Passively watch these images. This will also help you maintain this state of near-sleep. Monroe calls this Condition A.
Step Three:
Deepen this state. Begin to clear your mind. Observe your field of vision through your closed eyelids at the blackness in front of your. After a while you may start to notice light patterns. These are simply neural discharges. They have no specific effect. Ignore them. When they cease, one has entered what Monroe calls Condition B. From here, one must enter an even deeper state of relaxation which Monroe calls Condition C-- a state of such relaxation that you lose all awareness of the body and sensory stimulation. You are almost in a void in which your only source of stimulation will be your own thoughts.
The ideal state for leaving your body is Condition D. This is Condition C when it is voluntarily induced from a rested and refreshed condition and is not the effect of normal fatigue. To achieve Condition D, Monroe suggests that you practice entering it in the morning just as you are getting up, or after a short nap.
Step Four:
Enter a state of Vibration. This is the most important part of the technique, and also the most vague.
Many projectors have noted these vibrations at the onset of projection. They can be experienced as a mild tingling, or as if electricity is being shot through the body. Their cause is a mystery. It may actually be the astral body trying to leave the physical body.
For entering into the vibrational state, he offers the following directions:
1. Remove all jewellery or other items that might be touching your skin.
2. Darken the room so that no light can be seen through your eyelids, but do not shut out all light.
3. Lie down with your body along a north-south axis, with your head pointed toward magnetic north.
4. Loosen all clothing, but keep covered so that you are slightly warmer than what might normally be comfortable.
5. Be sure you are in a location where, and at a time when, there will be absolutely no noise to disturb you.
6. Enter a state of relaxation.
7. Give yourself the mental suggestion that your will remember all that occurs during the upcoming session that will be beneficial to your well being. Repeat this five times.
8. As your breathe, concentrate on the void in front of you.
9. Select a point a foot away from your forehead, then change your point of mental reference to six feet.
10. Turn the point 90 degrees upward by drawing an imaginary line parallel to your body axis up above you head. Focus there and reach out for the vibrations at that point and bring them back into your body.
Even if you don't know what these vibrations are, you will know when you have achieved contact with them.
Step Five:
Learn to control the vibrational state. Practice controlling them by mentally pushing them into your head, down to your toes, making them surge throughout your entire body, and producing vibrational waves from head to foot. To produce this wave effect, concentrate on the vibrations and mentally push a wave out of your head and guide it down your body. Practice this until you can induce these waves on command. Once you have control of the vibrational state, you are ready to leave the body.
Step Six:
Begin with a partial separation. The key here is thought control. Keep your mind firmly focused on the idea of leaving the body. Do not let it wander. Stray thoughts might cause you to lose control of the state.
Now having entered the vibrational state, begin exploring the OBE by releasing a hand or a foot of the "second body". Monroe suggests that you extend a limb until it comes in contact with a familiar object, such as a wall near your bed. Then push it through the object. Return the limb by placing it back in coincidence with the physical one, decrease the vibrational rate, and then terminate the experiment. Lie quietly until you have fully returned to normal. This exercise will prepare you for full separation.
Step Seven:
Dissociate yourself from the body. Monroe suggests two methods for this. One method is to lift out of the body. To do this, think about getting lighter and lighter after entering the vibrational state. Think about how nice it would be to float upward. Keep this thought in mind at all costs and let no extraneous thoughts interrupt it. An OBE will occur naturally at this point.
Another method is the "Rotation Method" or "roll-out" technique. When you have achieved the vibrational state, try to roll over as if you were turning over in bed. Do not attempt to roll over physically. Try to twist your body from the top and virtually roll over into your second body right out of your physical self. At this point, you will be out of the body, but next to it. Think of floating upward, and you should find yourself floating above the body.
the first one was baout relaxing without specifying a technique. in the audio tape's he suggest to turn of your body limp by limp, muscle by muscle.
the second one was about entering the border sleep state (known to me thorugh the audio tape's as focus 10) this is actually accomplished by first doing the relaxation technique (which i will describe below) and then just deepening it.
the relaxation technique i was talking about is like this.
now to enter the border sleep state you just let all those body parts sink deeper and deeper into relaxation and sleep.the preperation is as follows, make yourself comfortobale either on a chair or laying down in bed. turn off the lights and close your eyes.
then focus on your eye brows tell them to relax go to sleep then focus on your jaw, also tell it to relax, sleep. you do the same with your eyelids the muscle's in your forhead and your cheecks and <insert> when those muscles are relaxed let that feeling go into your head, guide it into your head and let yourself become familliar with that feeling.
then send that feeling to your feet, tell your feet to relax, sleep.
you do the same with your lower legs (monroe uses both lowerlegs at the same time but i find it easier to first focus on the left and than the right one).
the same with the upper legs
the hip and groin area
then you do the same with your abdominal (belly and such) then your upper body and shoulders and neck
then your upper arms, lower arms and hands.
it sounds like a choir (might be the wrong word
while you were putting them to sleep you could feel them tingling, i suggest you try to increase that tingling (since that is the goal for now) up to the point where there is no tingling anymore (this is the state you want to reach) but it wll increase to almost uncomfortable before that.
now you are in what i know through the audio tape's as focus 15. that is the state where you lose all sense of time and space. you will know if you are in this state when you reach it (or come out afterwards and look at the clock).
when i am in this state the vibration's come of their own accord, but usually i help it along with stating my intent over and over again in my head (i get bored by this so i change the phrasing every now and then)
when you have reached the vibrational state you are on your own (as far as i am concered) there are lots of technique's around that describe how you can "escape" your body, and not all of them work for everyone.
so that was my small "essay" any questions?