Kaimei's AP Journal

[Kaimei]

Date - 11/24/09

Time - Approx. 1:30 a.m.

Body alignment - head to the south, feet towards the north. For some reason, I have realized that most of my successful attempts are with a north/south alignment.

Clothing, etc - simple cotton nightgown, 1 pr stainless steel cobra 6 gauge earrings, 1 pr ebony cobra 4 gauge earrings, 4 sterling silver rings, 4 strand bone bracelet. This is actually the first time I've had any success while wearing any metal jewelry; I used to think it might interfere. I wasn't ever really concerned about the organics, but apparently the metal doesn't impede me at all.

Food eaten prior to experiment - sunflower seeds, and some dessert crackers with Nutella, about 6 hours prior. Healthy, right? Also, I took a Soma 350 at around 9 pm.

Goals - I actually did not expect to be able to project. I was extremely irritated; it was 1:00 in the the morning, and two pets and one Boy suddenly made a huge, aggravating hassle. After cleaning up the assorted messes, and too angry to sleep, I decided to go to my art room, smoke a cigarette, and try to be less annoyed. Annoyance only makes insomnia worse. After a while, I went back to bed, lay down, and used some meditation techniques to try to wind down and unravel the knots in my back. It occured to me to attempt to AP, since, well, it would take my mind off being annoyed at the three slumbering critters in my bed, rather than shaking them all awake to suffer insomnia with me.

Technique used - Self-hypnosis count down - from 10 to 1, with a 60 - 80 second pause between each number to address and relax various parts of my body, starting from my feet and working my way up. This usually puts me in a nice, floaty trance, pleasantly relaxed and mildly disassociated. Also, somewhere around number 5, I can insert the suggestion that I will not slip completely into sleep, but rather allow my body to continue its relaxation while my mind hovers on the edge. I repeat this suggestion with every number, down to one. I also always use earplugs, since I am particularly susceptible to sound interference, and the Boy snores. Earplugs give me the advantage of having 'white noise' already going.

Duration to relax - best guess, about 15 minutes, since my mind kept wandering about for the first few attempts.

Results - Achieved that happy, warm and fuzzy relaxation state, where all my awareness seems to be somehow focused in my head, yet spread out. I might have drifted off into sleep, except that I suddenly felt this ENORMOUS surge of activity in the third eye chakra. It seemed to expand until it covered my entire forehead and was actually distracting in its intensity. I had the feeling that if I moved my arm, I'd be able to feel the activity with my fingertips. It wasn't an entirely pleasant sensation, since it was so big and so active. It felt as though my third eye had opened and was trying to swallow all the sensation it could get, becoming a vortex that went into my forebrain. I recalled that some techniques called for projection out and through the third eye, but it was impossible for me to reverse the flow of energy and send it outward.

The only thing it seemed I could do was stay still and let my chakra do whatever it was going to do. As the energy died down, I could feel/hear the 'static' noise I always associate with the potential of an OBE. It sounds like TV static, and it feels like 'I' am white noise, shifting around restlessly within the stillness of my relaxed body. I let the sound build, and once its reached its 'peak' I try to hurtle upwards, out of my body.

This has as much effect as trying to run away from the thing your bungee cord harness is tied to - I get a brief, ecstatic moment of 'yippee!' when I find my 'nose' about two inches from the ceiling, then I get yoinked straight back down and in. I seethe around in my body for a few more minutes, getting part way out, but now my feet are stuck and I'm getting annoyed again. The static sensations are dying away, receding, which means I'm losing my relaxation. I settle down and stop trying to exit, and the static returns. This time, instead of trying to leap out, I rise, slowly. It feels like I am getting somewhere, getting up, and out, but everything still looks bla - oh. I open my eyes, and again I'm a few inches away from the ceiling, and floating horizontally.

This is always the delicate part - there's a few seconds, it seems, where the static sensation is still predominant, even when I've made an exit. I have to let it die away for me to consider this a complete success. If it goes away, and I'm still out, I'm generally free to do whatever. But if I disrupt it, I'll drop back in. This is where I most often lose control of things, so I hold still, willing the static to do its thing. But instead, I feel myself falling back towards the bed. I remember the rope climbing technique, but I don't have enough time to imagine a rope, so I fling my 'arm' out as if there was one, and concentrate on how sticky the textured ceiling is. Surprisingly...this works. The ceiling becomes wonderfully sticky, oozing like taffy, and I can actually 'grip' it. The static argues with me, trying to pull me down, while I dangle like a spider with just one foot left on the web. This strikes me as immensely funny, and the resulting mental giggle is enough to loosen my grip on the taffy-ceiling.

I spend a considerable amount of time after that trying to roll out, bounce out, drop out, spin out, but nothing works. I settle instead for a lucid dream. However, I am still pleased, with the attempt.

[Meta c.]

That's an awesome account dear friend, you literally put me through the whole experience.

And yes once you slip back after trying so hard, it becomes difficult to try again. The energy is drained and it becomes hard for making tactile improvisations on your subtle body.

Oh, It's been a while for me and I miss the roof.

[Kaimei]

Thank you for the compliment! I'm glad you enjoyed reading it. I love writing, and my AP experiments give me a lot of rich experience to write about.

The thing I miss the most, I think, are the stars. My first successful controlled OBE, I wanted to try flying, since I adore dreams when I can fly. I went up through my roof - and the sheer brilliance of the night sky just exploded my mind with awe. No light pollution, no clouds, and I think I could see every star, even those not visible to the naked eye. It was just magnificent. Even the memory still gives me a little shiver. I'm hoping to repeat the experience again, soon.

[Kaimei]

Date - 01/31/10

Time - Approx. 1:00 p.m., woke up around 2:45 p.m.

Body alignment - Head to the NW, feet to the SE. I just sprawled across the bed, rather than climbing into it like a normal person.

Clothing, etc - No jewelry this time, cotton t-shirt, cotton yoga shorts.

Nothing to eat within the last...14 hours or so. Two cups of coffee around 10 a.m.

Goals - Again, I had no goal aside from catching a brief nap. It was a busy weekend, and though it was a lot of fun, fun was had at the expense of sleep. I was sort of existing in a state of sleep deprivation; the prior week was another round of insomnia. It used to be that insomnia weeks used to be terrible, but the potential for OBEs and/or lucid dreams are the silver lining in those particular storm clouds. My insomnia is mostly due to the fact that every so often, my body does not produce adequate amounts of the chemical cocktail it needs to sleep. I end up with a great deal of physical fatigue, but my brain keeps running like a hamster on an exercise wheel. Ergo, I get that Mind Awake, Body Asleep state by default, but not always the right balance between attention and detachment I need for projection.

However, this time I managed to fall almost immediately into a lucid dream. At the point of lucidity, I was in a helicopter, and realized that I did not need the machine to fly. My intention was to go out through the windshield and up further into the air. However, what ended up happening was that I projected myself right out of the dream. It was a bit startling to 'wake up' mentally in a body that is deeply, limply asleep. I am more accustomed to bringing my body 'down' into that state, so there's a gradual process rather than a pronounced change. This was very abrupt, and I spent several seconds marveling at the slackness of my physical body. However, I rather quickly realized that I had also bypassed that delicate, static stage and was able to roll in and out of myself without any hindrance. I did this a few times, enough that I got somewhat disoriented. It's such a normal thing to deal with things like gravity that when it suddenly no longer affects you, you don't quite realize it. It took me a few seconds to realize that the weird, brown crosshatch pattern that I was looking at was, in fact, my carpet. From very, very close up.

Normally, my thoughts are very clear, my this time I felt rather...vague. I sort of...floated up away from the carpet, opening and closing my eyes a few times to see where in the room that I was. For some reason, I really wanted to avoid looking in the mirrored panels of my closet door. Now, I can't quite say why, but at the moment, it made sense. Instead, the ease with which I moved reminded me of...fish. Fish, and whales, and other things that swam. I could 'swim' in my astral environment just like they could swim through their waters. Being, as I said, vague and still somewhat mildly surprised by this unexpected OBE, I decided that swimming was a grand idea, and I could see what it felt like...to be...well, a fish. Not a dolphin, or a whale, but a fish. And my house could be...my pond.

So..I swam through my bathroom, and out into the laundry room. Since the laundry room has an outside wall, that was the 'edge' of the pond. I went back into the bedroom, then through the door into the hallway. My little dog was laying in the hallway by my bedroom door; after several other experiences, I've come to believe that animals can, indeed, sense us if we're astral. My cat doesn't seem to care very much, but she's a cat. Nothing humans do impresses her. My little dog, on the other hand, seems to get very upset. This time, he started whining almost as soon as I got close to him. He didn't bark, but he flattened himself against the floor and put his ears back as though he were frightened. This upset me, so rather than continue exploring the house, I went back through the door and into the bedroom and 'swam' around the room with my eyes closed - still trying to avoid the mirrors.

Oddly, it never occurred to me to go up through the roof, which is almost always what I try to do, right off the bat. Still stuck in that 'fish' idea, I guess. I kept stopping at the ceiling as though it were the surface of the water. I'm not sure how long I did this, but since it seemed I couldn't leave the room without upsetting the dog, and trying to avoid the mirrors was tedious, I decided to return to my body. Usually there's a 'tugging' sensation when I project - I've never seen a silver cord, but part of my mind always points to my body like a compass always pointing north. I didn't have that sensation this time, or at least, it wasn't as noticeable. I was also sort of surprised to realize that my body had moved, which was extremely odd and rather upsetting to me. I know I move when I'm sleeping, but "I" am still in it when it does so...right? Seeing that it had moved while I wasn't 'home' so to speak was a little bit eerie.

Writing this down makes me feel kind of silly...I mean really. Fish? I'd always thought that conscious astral projection was A Very Significant Thing. But I had fun with it, and it's not exactly a law of nature that you can't have fun with Very Significant Things. So I was a fish, and my house was a pond. It made great sense at the time, and when I woke up, I was bouncy, happy, and definitely giggly over the fish thing. I was also entirely too energetic for someone who'd really only had an hour and a half of sleep, but I've noticed that this seems to be normal when I have an OBE. It does not seem to matter how much sleep I do or do not get; any amount of time spent out of my body seems incredibly refreshing.

My theory on the restfulness of OBEs is that, without my mind in there making so much racket, my body gets a deeper rest. Since I am aware of my environment, sounds and other external stimuli that normally wake me up do not affect me. I don't have to wake up to identify anything; I already know what it was and whether or not it needs my attention.

So...yeah. Fish. I'm wondering if the vagueness that I experienced this time was a result of my projecting out of a lucid dream.