Is the astral real?

[Aguia]

In the astral it is not important what you see. The astral is a world of illusion, where thoughts and emotions easily manifest through psychic mechanisms (subconscious) or simply by will. You can create whole buildings in the astral and your body can take every shape. In the beginning I was just like you, thinking, when the room does not look like my physical room, it is just a dream and not real. But it is so wrong. I know this "different in odd ways". And the farther away you get from your physical body, the more your surroundings will change. Your room looks like your room because your subconscious knows this and projects the picture onto the "astral matter" or whatever you call it. You cannot always re-trace the creation end the reasons of creation of a picture or object totally, but it is clear that everything in the astral what you see is formed by thoughts and emotions and you can sometimes easily see this influence of your thoughts and emotions by experimenting a bit with some objects. The appearance of the astral is a kind of communication ground.
That you see furniture you don't recognize at all, or river or somewhat, can have several reasons. It can be formed by your subconscious (sometimes you can recognize your actual inner state in objects or pictures which are subconsciously formed), and it does not matter how detailed it is, because everything in the astral will become more detailed as you look at it carefully. Just try it out. Or the strange furniture can be thought forms of some people who lived in that house before and maybe they had a furniture like this. Everything in the physical seems to have an astral existence as well, but the appearance of this astral existence changes subjectively, and it can stay there much longer than the physical object itself. And sometimes you just have this kind of dream-like pictures when you are not fully conscious.
I think it is principally possible to see the future or past form of the physical reality, but I think it is not wise just to suppose something.
In the astral you should never trust the mere appearence. Only the vibrancy of a person, object or place can tell you what it truly is like. You can sense the vibrancy of them easily. You just try to feel what it is and not to see. It is a kind of astral sense that we have not in the physical body.

Is it really just an overlap of another realm or is it a dimension, which is a different time frame?
I do not know about this, but whatever it is, the principles are as I explained: the appearance is not the most important and it is fluctuating. There are some explanation models that state, that the astral consists of a matter which is "finer" than the physical matter, and that all forms of matter are only a "denser" form of its primal source - which is just the thought power. The finer the matter is, the more easily it reacts to thoughts. It is known and many experience this, that in the astral places of higher vibrancy the surroundings are more easily shaped by thoughts, in lower, "denser" planes this is not so easy.
There is another theory which just says, the astral is a virtual communication room, not consisting of a "matter". The reaction of the virtual surroundings to the thought power and emotions is the same. Both theories are practicable to me.

I have heard of people documenting actual experiences where they were truly physical, and then they witnessed their physical reality changing.
For example, I read an account of a guy who claimed to walk down a street that he knew very well, and then one day houses appeared, houses that were never there before and he saw them for maybe a few minutes before they just dissapeared in front of his eyes. There's a lot of stories like this, and I swear that has happened to me before but my memory is very vauge.
Anyways, maybe these physical experiences are people glimpsing the same place that we see in the astral realm.
I do not know much about this. I guess it could be what you say, they see the place in the astral. A friend of mine can sometimes see astral beings in the physical. I have read in some books about actual manifestations of objects or beings in the physical for a short time.

[Aguia]

@ kashii:
Being in houses and places you don't recognize: can be a dream, or you are in the astral. It depends. You say it is very vivid and detailed, this is typical for being in the astral. The explanation for these "own places" is, that people in the astral form their own places, as I explained above, by conscious or subconscious shaping. Example: deceased people have to arrange themselves in the astral, and because they are still used to the world how it looked like in the physical, the appearance of their "cities" will look very similar. The places are mainly "stages" where intelligent beings with similar attitude and vibrancy communicate. They don't need to eat or drink in the astral or to build houses as shelter from weather conditions. But they do so because it is just "fixed" like this in our minds, we cannot just die and then live in a great shapeless place, this would be awful. They are creating their surroundings "just out of habit". At least that is the explanation I find most practicable.

However, the most important in the astral is sensing and not seeing. By sensing you will always find out if persons are benevolent or if they want to cheat you or whatever.
And you can of course always ask people. Just ask them, what the place is called, since when they live there etc ... it can be very intersting wandering through strange places and just exploring a bit. But never forget the sensing.

[Azmond]

Originally Posted by Aguia

Now it is getting really interesting. You said you saw her - do you mean you are kind of seeing her "inside" while being in the physical? I know this kind of inner seeing, if it is that what you mean, although it is really rare for me.
Your wish for a friend must have been very strong that you created her so easily and saw her before you. Strong wishes can easily form psychogons or denser thought forms.
What you say about her standing behind you and advising you gently not to argue with your brother. You really seem to have programmed her on that one day so she would help you remembering to stay calm. You just "put" a part of your reason into her, so that the next time when you were that angry, this more reasonable part of you could get access to you more easily because she acted like a gate for this good energies. At least this is what I assume. Do you still have her?

I normally do not have a very good visualization. When I visualize, images are normally a bit gray and unclear for me. Colors are never strong. The only exception, which I find funny is when I can suddenly see the sun very clearly. If I focus on it, it can become even more clear in my mind, almost to the point, like everything is vibrant when you are in astral. Also that day, I could saw her walk towards me, with my eyes open, but still in my mind. It seems to me more like a projection of an image in my mind to the world outside. I sometimes find also I can visualize things easier with my eyes open..
Yes, I believe you described programming wonderfully, as this is also how I see it. I call on her from time to time, but I think her energy is mostly gone now, so I never get that strong presence like I used to. I could try recreating her again, but I doubt it would be as successful as before, because the emotions that I unknowingly poured into her back then would mostly be nonexistent now. Like you said, strong wishes can easily from denser thought forms. I think that nails it.

[Azmond]

Originally Posted by keokutah

When I am astral or in dreams, the physical plane that I see here looks very similar, yet different in odd ways. For example in the astral realm, my house now has an open room where the hallway is supposed to be and I apparently own furniture there that I do not recognize at all, but it's all so much detail that I know I do not imagine it.
Also, the street is much bigger and attatches to a "astral highway" that drifters and astral travellers use to travel to wherever.

The house where I grew up in does not have a river anywhere near it for example, but for some reason in all my dreams and OBE's there is a river.
There are so many solid similarities, yet so many differences that it makes me really wonder where or what the reality actually is. People just call it the astral realm or dream realm, but my logical mind wants answers, like, is that what it will look like in the future or is that what this place looked like in the past?
Is it really just an overlap of another realm or is it a dimension, which is a different time frame?

I saw a couch in my room while in astral or perhaps more on etheric plane and there is no couch in my room or has been for more then 10 years. When I later analyzed my experience I remembered that there was a couch in that exact spot when I was a child. I simply saw what I believed to be its energy imprint still stored in astral. But not everything can probably be explained like that. I find great deal of wisdom and experience in Aguia's words. which I believe to be quite spot on.

[wmsm]

The astral was explained to me as spiritual awareness, the same as everyone else...it has been experienced as a model of contact.

Years ago I was advised by spirit that a part of our own mind had been destroyed and the Protector gone...fallen into a hole. I never knew what this actually meant.

Years later in my mind I began to see in the darkness masks as visions swirling and rotating. This situation scared me and I wondered what it meant.

Spirit in communication advised me, as they anciently advised spirit communicators that the astral region is dangerous for the spirit presence in the astral belongs to evil communications, left after a huge atmospheric body mass...angelic sound was destroyed and it fell upon the face of Earth.

Fall out of the atmosphere does not just belong to radiation, it also belongs to the ancient condition of water mass falling...why we were flooded and how ancient Earth was saved from combustion of its crystal when the total atmosphere fell upon the face of Earth.

This spiritual witness is why we know that Atlantis or sAtanlit went under water....as the ancient attack upon Earth.

I became aware that as Satellite communications existed in out of space, this communication was placing our own spiritual awareness in contact with spiritual messages and movement that does not belong to our own holy life.

Scientists using satellite and studying the conditions of signals in out of space began to cause our own natural communications to be inter-related to this region and humans began to receive out of space movement of other beings inter-relating their spiritual advice and presence to our psyche.

The ancient wisdom advised us that the astral region was unsafe, due to their own wisdom that knew that a huge spiritual light angelic sound had been dropped out of our natural atmosphere...being why we inherited mental health...brain disturbances and cellular mutations as an attack.

Saying that a devil loves you, I have had the same experience myself being fooled into believing they are love. After I was spiritually attacked which I have discussed our Holy LIght Father explained to me that if a Scientist took away the natural light communion between the 2 conditions, they would review this spirit in the actual considerations of how it exists.

As we exist in an atmospheric communication of a huge massed body of light and sound....this allows devils to contact us masquerading as angelic beings, when by factual evidence they are not. I know from self experience, therefore as you have not had the experience that I have, I will protest your comments about them being loving.

[Aguia]

@wmsm: it is really kind of you to share your opinion with us and being worried about us, but I think you landed between some people here who have had many experiences in the astral so far and already learnt a good amount of the laws how this world is working and how to behave there. There is absolutely no point believing the astral consists of devils and demons only. It is a world with beings as varied and even more diverse than in our world, you can find all attitudes and types of people and beings there, but it is not really possible for someone to "masquerade" because the vibrancy cannot be hidden, you can only be deceived by the appearance of a being but it cannot hide its quality. Therefore, the vibrancy can always be sensed and there often is an inner "knowing" how someone is disposed towards you. The point is just learning the sensing.
If you believe in your own opinion this is totally okay, but I think there is no point in trying to convince or frighten someone here.

[Aguia]

@ Azmond: wow, now I was really happy that you can differentiate between the etheric and astral state, because most people don't know about this and there is confusion because the states are not differentiated between. Both states have clear differences. Are there some theosophic books you read about it?
What you tell about the seeing sounds like the "inner seeing" that I know too, you are with open eyes but still see it in your mind. And when visualizing, I can see only unclear and relatively gray images, but when seeing inside (which is passive and spontaneous and not active visualization) it is more clear and vivid.

[Azmond]

Originally Posted by Aguia

@ Azmond: wow, now I was really happy that you can differentiate between the etheric and astral state, because most people don't know about this and there is confusion because the states are not differentiated between. Both states have clear differences. Are there some theosophic books you read about it?
What you tell about the seeing sounds like the "inner seeing" that I know too, you are with open eyes but still see it in your mind. And when visualizing, I can see only unclear and relatively gray images, but when seeing inside (which is passive and spontaneous and not active visualization) it is more clear and vivid.

I read about different layers a long time ago, when I first started learning about astral projection or dimensions. I don't think it was even in any special book, but on internet. I mentioned etheric plane because it mostly resembles the physical world, and seeing objects like they are really in real world is most probably done in etheric plane. When I was out, things were somewhere in between, so probably I was also somewhere in between if such a thing is possible. I guess for practical reasons and trying to prove leaving the body is a real thing, etheric projection would be most suitable.
I never even regarded this as an inner seeing, I was mostly always jutst frustrated by my lack of visualization, heh. Anyways I want to try and do AP again, as I only did it twice, and quite a few years ago.

[Howla Dark]

The astral realm looks like a mirage but it's a physical place(s) somewhere in the universe.

[Azmond]

Originally Posted by Howla Dark

The astral realm looks like a mirage but it's a physical place(s) somewhere in the universe.

If by physical you mean that it has its own laws and structure, than yes. To the occupants of astral or higher dimensions, the reality of it is as real as 3d is to us. They can touch and feel the world around them with the senses they posses. I read somewhere, someone suggesting that the place the soul travels to after death has an actual location somewhere in universe.. some cloud or nebula, but I forgot which one.