-New to SF & wanted to share/ask-

Hey everyone. I'm happy I found this forum while being counterproductive at my day job. However, not entirely counterproductive because I did, in fact, find you all! I wanted to say hello and share my very first successful AP experience, my technique and wanted to leave the floor open to anyone else who wanted to share or had any useful tips for even better experiences. Enjoy!

There are different steps and recommendations while trying to achieve an OBE. In this particular experience I remember sleeping at Alex (my girlfriend)'s apartment. I'll try to break this down so you can get an easy visual of how the complex buildings were set up. You would park however close you could get to the boardwalks staircase, where you would take a flight or two of stairs up to the main walk. From there you would be exposed to the first apartment door on that building (in this case, Alex's door O-8) or you could continue to walk down the boardwalk to O-9, 10, etc. That night, I fell asleep convincing myself that I can, will and would astral project that night. I read from many sources that the best time to try is in the early early morning. With that in mind, my "body" alarm woke me up at, I want to say, 4:00AM. I specifically remember dreaming of a post apocalyptic world. I was flying and everything around me was flooded. All I saw were tree tops, where the base and middle of the trees where overwhelmed by a mass body of water. While soaring through the air I suddenly somehow gained consciousness that I was dreaming. Thus, the dream became lucid. I started enjoying myself more and more until suddenly I realized what I had intended to do. With that intention in mind, I closed my eyes while hovering over hundreds of tree tops and envisioned my physical body laying next to Alex. I pictured a blue, spirit-like, transparent body laying inside of my physical body, which I then categorized as my astral body or spirit, if you will. Following my vision, I recalled two techniques on how to remove the astral body out of it's astral world and into the physical world. The first technique is called: The Float Out. Basically, when you catch glimpse of your physical body as you sleep and your astral body inside, you maintain focus and gain control of that astral body and simply float out of your physical body. Some also see a rope that stretches from your astral body straight through the ceiling and into the sky. You can also gain control of your astral body and grab hold of the rope and allow yourself to pull out of your physical body and into the physical world. However, I prefer the roll out. With the aforementioned concept in mind, instead, you simply roll out of your physical body and into the physical world. When I began the roll out technique I entered what's known to many as the vibration stage. The best way I can describe is that feeling you get when your leg is asleep, after cutting off blood circulation to the leg and that vibrating, tingling sensation. It doesn't hurt, but it's by no means the most comfortable feeling in the world. That feeling in your leg? Imagine that throughout your entire body. It was incredibly foreign and I immediately awoken from my first attempt. I became overwhelmed with excitement and reminded myself to not let fear or even excitement overwhelm me while going in for my second attempt. I lay down again and entered the same dream. For some reason I had to gain consciousness again. It isn't something you can go back into and end up in the state you left. You have to start from scratch. It took me a while until the dream became lucid again and from there I started to envision my astral body residing inside my physical form. I started the roll out and felt the vibrations. It's recommended you gain control of the vibrations. I moved that feeling and sensation from my whole body and forced it all down into my feet, up into my head, into my left arm, right arm, pelvis, etc. and continued to roll. Suddenly I was staring at the carpet. I noticed I wasn't actually on the carpet, but hovering over it. I looked to the right of me and there I was. Passed out like a newborn baby taking his/her afternoon nap. On my back, eyes closed with my mouth slightly open and my girlfriend asleep next to me. I was in shock and it took me a moment to remind myself that I was on a mission. I had to find proof this wasn't some trippy dream I was having and it was all very real. I remember reading to observe random objects in other rooms. Objects you aren't really aware of on a day-to-day basis. Observe its shape, color, size, etc. I started to float around. At this point I feel like a child in a candy shop. The excitement was almost overwhelming. I finally floated through the bedroom wall to the boardwalk outside of the apartment. I looked down the boardwalk towards O-9 and on the ground was an empty Diet-Coke 2 Liter bottle someone must've carelessly left out while drinking with friends rolling down the boardwalk. The wind was slowly pushing it down the way towards the additional apartment doors. I told myself: "This is perfect." I stared at it for a couple of seconds and told myself it was time to return. I went back through the wall, into the bedroom and floated back into my body. I woke up. Got out of bed, opened the door to the outside of the apartment complex, looked to my right towards O-9, and sure as Hell... there's a Diet-Coke 2 Liter a little further down the boardwalk. This wasn't something I noticed before I came over to her house. Completely amazed. Questions started pouring in, possibilities were now in mind, and I've always had this practice in the back of my mind. It wasn't until about a 2 or 3 weeks ago it struck me again. I've been craving to do it again. I have to admit though, it's difficult. It's easy to get side-tracked and it proves to be a challenge when it comes to keeping your mind in that very specific state before you drift off. The questions that came to mind will follow in future posts and I hope you all enjoyed my first AP experience.

I'll wrap up with a question: If you practice in the morning or whenever, is there anything specific you do to make sure you don't lose focus and fall completely asleep?

[Britto]

Wow pretty cool experience, I've done it 6-7 times now and still haven't gotten outside haha. If I plan on APing I just make sure I'm laying in a comfortable position before I fall asleep, you will struggle to AP if you have squashed limbs. I tend not to over complicate it, when I gain awareness in a dream I simple state 'I want to astral project now!', then I get the sense of falling and spinning down a dark tunnel until I realise I'm in my bedroom. I eneter the vibrational state subconciously, I don't really think about the vibrations, I roll out within probably 3 seconds of returning to my body from a dream. Unfortunately for me I'm still having trouble with clairty and awareness, I still feel really heavy as well. I have to heave myself off the bed and normally clunk onto the floor. I think it was Robert Monroe who talked about 'rolling out' causing bad clarity, although it's the easiest option to do it can cause distortion, which it does for me. I'm working on commands though, I'll get there eventually. But congratulations! :)