Some of my experiments on astral travel

[Aldous]

Psychologists and psychiatrists hear stories like this all the time and don't consider it necessarily to be caused by psychosis.

My Out of the Body Experiences

I decided to write down and discuss a series of out of the body experiences (aka astral travel) that I have had starting in early 1970’s and continued through the 1980’s and into the 1990’s when I decided to stop experimenting with them. I did have a few OOBEs later, but generally avoided having them after the 1990's. In the 1960’s, my parents made me go to Sunday school at a local Methodist church which I eventually joined and went to for a couple years. It was boring and I had a hard time sitting still in church which I was often punished for by being made to stay inside the house on Sunday until 2 in the afternoon after church.

In the 1970’s, my parents learned about the National Spiritual Sciences Center in Washington D.C. from a neighbor. We started going to their services on Sundays which were run by a Jewish woman and her husband, a Catholic man. The Jewish woman was an ordained reverend and there were other reverends working there. I thought it was more interesting compared to the Methodist church so I didn’t mind going. The services were similar to a church service, but instead of a sermon, one of the reverends would give a kind of a general psychic reading. At the end of the service, various people would go around and give individual psychic readings, which seemed to be very insightful to me and apply to what we were doing at the time. They also had a library there and sold books on various spiritualist subjects. I bought Robert Monroe’s book “Journies Out of the Body” which described Monroe’s out of the body experiences. Before I bought the book, I started having sleep paralysis experiences and after reading Monroe’s book I figured that his description of his vibrational states must be this sleep paralysis experience I was having. During these sleep paralysis experiences in the 1970’s, I decided to try for myself some of the experiences that Monroe wrote about. I discovered that I could open my eyes during sleep paralysis and control my breathing to some extent. I also found I could speak some words with some effort during sleep paralysis, too. I remember one experience, in particular, when I had sleep paralysis in the morning after the sun came up and the room was lit well enough so I could see. I opened the eyes of my physical (human) body during the sleep paralysis and was able to bring both hands and forearms of my astral body out of my physical body by trying to move them, while at the same time, thinking of levitating them out of my body at the same time. When my astral body hands came out of my physical body, I was able to see them. Actually, I could see right through them as if they were mostly invisible except at the edges where I could clearly see the way they bent the light similar to the way hot air bends light and distorts images. My astral body hands felt just like my physical body hands and were also shaped like them. I moved them around and could see them move around. I put the finger tips together and could feel them touch just like when I touch the finger tips of my physical body together. I could feel where my astral body and physical body contacted at the elbows, but wasn’t sure which body felt it. The sensation seemed to extend ¼ to ½ inch into the arms. I touched my chin with one of my astral body hands and could feel it with both the hand and my chin. During these experiences, I tried pushing my astral body hand through the wall a number of times and found that they would go through the wall after experiencing some resistance. Monroe wrote about experiences like these in his book and I was able to do this myself. Below I have arranged descriptions of other experiments I’ve done involving astral travel and discuss insights I’ve obtained from them.


My first contact with a humanoid spirit being

Sometime in the early 1970’s, I don’t remember the exact time, I took a nap on the living room couch and had a couple sleep paralysis experiences and also came partway out of my physical body a couple times. During one of these experiences, some invisible hands grabbed my astral body hands when I had them out of my physical body. At first I was scared, but was too sleepy to get myself out of this experience right away. After getting over the initial surprise of touching another set of hands, I started touching and examining these other hands and felt the forearms they were connected to. I couldn’t see anyone there (the spirit was apparently invisible to me) and tried to reach up to the face, but it was too far away. Shortly after that, the experience was over.


Trying to turn on the lights

This type of experience has happened to me a number of times. I don’t remember exactly when it first happened, maybe in the 1970’s or 1980’s. The first time it happened, I woke up in the middle of the night and felt a scary eery feeling and tried to turn on the light above my bed, but found I couldn’t turn it on. I thought maybe the light bulb had burnt out, so I went over to the light switch on the wall and tried to turn that on, but that didn’t work, either. I went downstairs and couldn’t turn any lights on there, either. When I was standing in front of the window in the living room with the light from the street light coming in through the window I looked down at my body and it was invisible. I realized I was out of my physical body. The experience ended shortly after that. I had similar experiences to this a number of times, but learned after a while that if I can’t turn on the lights, I must be out of my physical body. I recall one night where I woke up a number of times in bed, each time going over to the light switch on the wall and not being able to turn it on and then waking up in bed again and repeating this a couple times until I woke up completely in my physical body and it stopped. I found that when astral traveling I could quickly return to my physical body usually by trying to wake up in my physical body. Robert Monroe describes similar experiences where he thinks about the sensation of being in his physical body which helps him return. Also, at times I could feel a strong force trying to pull me back to my physical body and end the experience. This made it difficult sometimes to stay out of my physical body and travel around. This seemed to be related to conditions in my physical body, like changes in sleep patterns. There seems to be a connection between the physical body and astral body which always exists even when the astral body is out of the physical body.

Some general characteristics I’ve experienced with astral travel

Sleep paralysis appears to be a form of sleep where the body is in a state of sleep, but the mind is conscious or awake. This is a common experience reported by at least 15% of the population according to some sources. Often during sleep paralysis, the individual can hear rushing or vibrational sounds which appears to be caused by blood circulation or other sources which are normally suppressed when awake, but apparently aren’t suppressed when the body is in a state of sleep. A feeling of a creepy or malevolent presence is often experienced during sleep paralysis, but sometimes its not there. Contact with various spirit beings is also possible in this state. When out of my body, I found that the astral body apparently is shaped, at least initially, like my physical body. I can see with my astral body usually after getting a certain distance, about 10 to 15 feet, from my physical body. The vision apparently is associated with a set of eyes in the astral body head, just like in the physical body. I have looked at myself in the mirror a number of times in this state and the face I’ve seen is essentially the same as the face of my physical body, except there isn’t any color. It looks similar to some high resolution black and white photographs I’ve seen which were made using infrared photography. I’ve been able to speak during astral travel and could hear my own voice. Robert Monroe has also reported experiences where he spoke and heard other spirit beings speak during his astral travel experiences. Most of the time during my experiences I didn’t hear any other sounds. I could stand on the floor during astral travel and feel the floor with my astral body feet. Its interesting to note that I never had the sensation of temperature during astral travel. Is this related to the physiology or substance with which the astral body is made out of? When going through doors or windows, I usually would go through the motion of opening them, which didn’t really happen in actuality, in order to go through them. Apparently, the belief in a barrier could prevent me from going through it. Trying to open it seemed to provide the psychological need of belief in being able to go through the barrier. I could feel the gravity, but with some effort I could fly through the air, but would often fall back to earth under the influence of gravity. I could go through my bedroom window and usually slowly fall two stories to the ground without hitting the ground too hard. Its interesting to note the influence of gravity on the astral body. Gravity acts between two or more masses, in this case, the earth and my astral body. Is the astral body made of subatomic particles of some kind similar to atoms of the physical world? During astral travel I could fly over houses which often looked distorted in their dimensions when traveling over them, possibly because of my astral body changing shapes which tends to make the world look distorted to me. Similar experiences have been reported by Robert Monroe. I have tried contacting family members and went to neighbors’ houses during these experiences, but no one reported seeing me during these experiences. Often during sleep paralysis and out of the body experiences, I would experience an eery creepy feeling, but not always. This was usually present at night and appeared to be associated with the darkness. During the daytime, these experiences were much easier to handle and usually were not accompanied by any fear. I tend to think when a person dies, they should wait until the daytime when leaving the physical body so it isn’t as frightening.

Did my cat see me?

One time in the 1990’s, I woke up in the middle of the night and felt like I could just jump right out of my physical body, which is what I did. There was no fear or feeling of a presence and the experience was very vivid. I walked downstairs and into the living room and became curious if my cat could see me in this state. I went toward the chair she usually sleeps in, but couldn’t see her clearly in the dark. Later, when I walked around in my usually state in my physical body, I found when my cat saw me she would sometimes react with fear. Her eyes and pupils would widen and she’d have a weird expression on her face like she thought she was seeing a ghost. This usually happened when I wore shorts with no shirt and didn’t turn the lights on. For example, one time I came up to her early in the morning in the basement when she was looking out of the window. She apparently didn’t hear me until I got up to her and when she turned around, she looked at me with a terrified look on her face. When I tried to pet her, she jumped a couple feet into the air while meowing. After I spoke to her she seemed to realize everything was alright. I was able to pick her and put her on the floor after that. Another time when I came up to her in the middle of the night and petted her while she was laying on the dining room table, she looked at me with that wide eyed look as if she was trying to see if I was in the physical form or not. This might show that cats are better able to see astral travelers compared to humans, at least based on my experiences. Its known that cats can see better in the dark compared to humans.


The wall wart transformer

In the 1980’s, I used to keep a multi-receptacle extension cord mounted on my wall near my bed with a wall wart type transformer plugged into it. One time when I had a sleep paralysis experience in the morning I found the room was lit enough with sunlight to see it and decided to try pulling on the cord coming out of the transformer with my astral body hand to see what would happen. When I did this I could see what appeared to be a translucent ghost-like image of the transformer fall out of the receptacle, tumble down a couple inches and then flip back up into the receptacle. I did this a couple times and saw the ghost transformer tumble down and back up again each time. When I came out of this state and was fully awake I noticed that the transformer had almost come out of the socket, but was still hanging there. Its possible I was able to move the transformer in this state, but I didn’t check it before hand, so I’m not sure whether or not it was my astral body that had pulled it out. What’s also interesting here is that this experience may have revealed a ghost form of an object that might possibly exist in other forms of matter.

The glowing red-orange man

In the early 1990’s, I woke up one time in the middle of the night and saw a glowing red-orange bald head of a what appeared to be a man right above my face. I felt it with what appeared to be my astral body hands and could feel various features in its face. I even put my fingers in its mouth and could feel its teeth. It didn’t move and let me do this. After this experience when I was fully awake, it was gone and I was scared and turned on the lights and was afraid to go back to sleep. This was the most disturbing out of the body experience I ever had. The red-orange color was similar to red hot charcoal giving it a look of a devil. He had no horns, though. That was the only time I saw it and it was one of the experiences that made me decide to give up these experiments later.

The man in the sky

In the early 1990’s during an out of the body experience at night, I went down into the living room and looked out the front window and at first saw what looked like a tunnel which had the appearance of a still or frozen tornado coming down from the sky and looked like it went toward my bedroom. I seemed to recognize it as something that takes spirits or souls up somewhere and was afraid to go near it. After that I noticed what looked like a giant man walking along the horizon. He looked at me and I looked at him. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and wondered if the experience was a mixture of astral travel and dreaming. A couple weeks later, during a sleep paralysis experience in my bedroom, I saw the same man standing in my bedroom who appeared to be mideastern, somewhat light skinned with black hair and was clean shaven, and figured he must be real. I later found old muslim paintings on the internet of the archangels Gabriel and Michael which appear similar to this man. He also looked similar to the depiction of the archangel Michael in Botticini’s painting Drei Erzengel mit Tobias. Although, there are many other depictions of archangels that don’t look like the man I saw. I’m not trying to say I definitely saw an archangel, but it may be that the spirit being I saw or similar being had been seen by other people who may have interpreted them as angels whether they were or not. On the other hand, I got the impression that the man I saw was someone of authority.


The follower

One night in the 1990’s I woke up in the middle of the night in my living room and at first wondered how I got there. I looked down at myself and realized I was having an out of the body experience. My physical body, apparently was still in bed. I then started to go back upstairs to bed when I suddenly had the feeling that I was being followed. I turned around and just caught the sight of what looked like another astral body slip around the corner and into my kitchen. I went after it, wondering what it was doing in my house, and saw a spirit being in the kitchen with a pair of holes in its head which appeared to be its eyes which were looking at me with a terrified look on its face. Its body didn’t appear to be well formed. It was shaped more like someone who had a sheet over their head and body, but also had the usual colorless vapor-like appearance of an astral body. The experience ended shortly after that and I woke up in bed.


Bilocation and consciousness

One night, sometime in the 1990’s, I had the usually sleep paralysis a couple hours after going to bed and had what I expected to be a typical out of the body experience. When I came out of my physical body and went into the second story hallway outside my bedroom, I was surprised to find that I couldn’t see anything and tried to open my eyes. When I finally got my eyes opened, I was able to see, but discovered that I had also opened the eyes of my physical body at the same time, which was still in bed. With the eyes open in both bodies, I was able to see a double image effect similar to a double image produced when taking a picture twice with the same film. I could see from both bodies at the same time even though they were separated by about 15 feet and I could also feel my conscious mind in both bodies at the same time. My conscious mind was in two places at the same time, a surprising result when considering that most people think we can only be in one place at the same time. This also demonstrates the connection between the physical body and astral body which continues to exist even when they are separated. Does part of my astral body remain with my physical body even when they’re separated or is the human brain capable of consciousness without an astral body or spirit? There are some publications by scientists which describe theories about subatomic particles being in two places at the same time based on quantum mechanics. Modern science recognizes that light and matter have both particle and wave properties which seems contradictory based on classical physics. This led to the development of quantum mechanics which often has to be taken into account at the atomic and subatomic level.


Going to a friend’s house

In the summer on 1978, I tried Robert Monroe’s method of astral traveling to distant locations where the astral body is placed in a position with the arms stretched out above the head while keeping the rest of the body straight similar to a diving position when diving into water. While in this position, the astral traveler points toward a distant location he wants to go to while thinking of the location and/or person at that location and willing himself to go there. While doing this, I was able to quickly go to a friend’s house, a number of times, about 20-25 miles away in a fraction of a second. While there, I saw the house which has a rectangular shape, a front porch and woods in the back of the house. I had never been there in physical form before, but saw the house while astral traveling. Later, when I drove my car there (in my physical body, of course), the house, front porch and woods were there just as I had seen it while astral traveling. I knew what that location looked like before I was there in physical form, which seems to provide more evidence that this experience is real. The other type of experience that makes me believe its real is the ability to bring parts of the astral body, ie. hands and arms out of the physical body during sleep paralysis and being able to see the astral body parts with the physical body eyes which can be opened and used during sleep paralysis.

[ThatMan]

Nice experiences, why did you stop? You could go deeper and deeper and reach higher grounds, maybe find things that can shape our world in good.

I haver around 400 out of body experiences, I did not read books and things like that, my first OBE happened when I was 16 and I had no idea at that time about this subject, took me many many years to learn about this. Just some weeks ago I saw the Earth from space and a satelite passing by, it seemed to move away from the Earth with a considerable speed.

There seem to be dark things, I met a few myself, though experiences like these are very rare.

Your experiences are very interesting, I did similar things, I think we all do things like these, you know, those who are aware of this.

Yes, there's seem to be a connection between the body and the astral body, in the sense, that as long you are alive, you are connected with it, I even sensed the silver cord, from my opinion, it's real and it's the thing that keeps the body and the astral body connected.

[Aldous]

Fear was one reason I decided to stop. Sometimes I come across spirit beings, but usually nothing bad happens with that. The glowing orange red man was scary. Also, I thought I experienced enough and my curiousity was satisfied for the time being.

Some things I think are important is that the astral body can be seen by the person having a partial out of the body experience, ie. refraction effect at the edges of the astral body shows that it bends light, and that the astral body is affected by gravity.

There's an old theory that everything is made from the aether, which also acts as the transmitting medium for electromagnetic waves and presumably also gravitational waves, as well as electric, magnetic, gravitational, and the weak and strong nuclear fields/forces. It might be possible that the astral body, spirits and spiritual things are also made from the aether. Most physicists don't believe the aether exists, but some do. If everything, both physical and the spirit world is made from the aether, I think this would be similar to the athiest's belief that concousness is just a product of the brain and when you die its gone forever. What I mean is that maybe the spirit world isn't really a magical thing like its assumed to be. There might be a physics associated with it.

http://sciliterature.50webs.com/AetherBooks.htm

[ThatMan]

Originally Posted by Aldous

Fear was one reason I decided to stop. Sometimes I come across spirit beings, but usually nothing bad happens with that. The glowing orange red man was scary. Also, I thought I experienced enough and my curiousity was satisfied for the time being.
http://sciliterature.50webs.com/AetherBooks.htm

What if it only tried to scare you so that you would stop from reaching deeper into the unknown.

The astral body, from my experience, it's just a projection of your human body, your "real body" is like a sphere of golden light made from golden light and you have 360 degree vision, at least this is what I've learned from direct experience.


I don't know about gravity, I flew in space several times, visited other worlds, I saw the Milky Way, the Earth, the Moon, Mars and even the Sun, it was like a ball of Light. I was bigger than the Sun..

What if everything is made of consciousness? Sadly, you stopped, you could've learn much more about the fabric of reality by simply asking while you are there.

An interesting NDE videos for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peMI...=DustinWarncke

Study the NDEs if you want to learn more about where we go when we die, look within yourself if you want to know more about who you are.

[Aldous]

I've never gone into outer space when astral traveling. I've heard of other people doing it, though. Also, I haven't had sleep paralysis for a long time, too.

Originally Posted by Aldous

Fear was one reason I decided to stop.

Hello Aldous,

Like said ThatMan, for me my first OBE happened when I was young, 14, and like him had no idea what it was or that others had already experienced that.

A few years latter in my OBE's I kept meeting demon like creatures that where running after me, I was afraid of them. Until one day I stopped running from them and let them catch me, eat me, digest me, to find out I was still there in consciousness even after that. I was not dead. Since that time I have had no fears in the astral and I stopped meeting demon like creatures.

Regards,

On meeting demons - letting go of our fears

It seem like it is a necessary step to overcome our fears to merge with the Divine or reach Buddha-hood

If we only think of the temptation of the Christ in the desert.

Or Buddha meeting the demon Mara while meditating under a Tree.

Or like Yéshé Tsogyal in Tibet. Don't know if any here know about Her here.

It is why I post this text about Her here, she had such an important influence in Tibet, but it was silenced only because she was a woman and not a man.

Yeshe Tsogyal (757/777-817/837) Yeshe Tsogyal (meaning "Victorious Lake of Wisdom" or "Lady of the Waters") is a Tibetan Buddhist master. Born in Tibet in 757 or 777, she married King Trisong Detsen and received with him the first teachings of Padmasambhava (also known as Guru Rinpoche), a great Buddhist master. The king gave her to Padmasambhava and she became his goddaughter. With a good memory, she transcribed the teachings of her master in several books including the Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thödol) and The Sphere of the Heart, which gives the basic principles of the Dzogchen ("Great Abduction") school.

After Padmasambhava's death, she chose Atsara Sahle as her godfather, with whom she lived as a hermit in the mountains. Victorious in her fight with the demon Mâra who sent her harmful visions at the end of her life, she attained the state of Buddha.

Having experienced emptiness and clarity, which constitute the ultimate knowledge, she disappeared without leaving a body, the four constituent elements of matter having dissolved into light, in 817 or 837.

Machik Labdrön (1031/1055-1129/1145) is considered one of the reincarnations of Yeshe Tsogyal. Rejoice, O Yogi, listen! You have obtained the fulfillment of the mantras, Your intention to assist others is magnificent.

I, woman, Yeshe Tsogyal, blessed You will cross to the other side. Run, roll on the meadows of appearances, Fly in the vastness of the firmament! In the immensity of the space of great Wisdom, The essence of high bliss collects, dense, like a lake. Deities and small luminous circles: They fuse and sparkle. Syllable-germs and garlands of light: They pulsate and shimmer. The experiences of the Real are intensifying; Go, seize the stronghold where the awakened consciousness culminates! See, all phenomena are extinguished, dissolved. Here is the primordial space! Thus, you will never leave me again. N. Nyingpo and G. Changchub, The Life of Yeshe Tsogyal, Sovereign of Tibet

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

[Apakhana Akshobhya]

Fantastic documentation thanks for sharing I love reading people's experiments as well as performing my own.

Robert Monroe is a personal hero for me lol. I too owe my exposition into the realm of OBEs to him and there are two other people named Sylvan Muldoon and Heward Carrington, I came across them first in the 90s before the days of the internet.

Being in a tradition now it's been fascinating to learn more firsthand as well since I didn't have the luxury earlier in life.

There's seemingly two bodes all persons have.
Sukshma sharira - subtle body
Sthula sharira - physical body

In the subtle body what we seem to do is pull the intelligence of this physical world with us into that in-between etheric realm. My focus has personally shifted into building a third body, that sambhogakiya (or "resurrection body" of the fundamentalists) which uses the intelligence of the next realm not this one. It's something I definitely urge people to look into if they are serious about leaving this plane for good and escaping the reincarnation cycle.

[Aldous]

In spite of all my spiritual experiences other than psychic readings or psychic impressions, I never felt I received any kind of important spiritual message from the spirit world. They never spoke to me. During sleep paralysis one time I thought I heard one of my dead cats meowing. Robert Monroe described instances in book where spirit beings spoke to him at times. One time during an OOBE he had contact with two spirits (human souls?) which didn't seem too friendly. I don't remember everything, but you should be able to find it in his book, Journies Out of the Body. I remember one of them saying, "listen to him pray to his God". Sometimes Robert Monroe would pray for help during his OOBEs.

I don't consider myself to be very religious even though I have spiritual beliefs. Maybe you have to keep a certain degree of good karma, but I never considered rituals and religious behavior to be that important.

[ThatMan]

Originally Posted by Legrand

On meeting demons - letting go of our fears
It seem like it is a necessary step to overcome our fears to merge with the Divine or reach Buddha-hood
If we only think of the temptation of the Christ in the desert.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

This happened to me recently, I met hundreds upon hundreds of devils, witches, monsters, they were all treying to catch me. This remainds me of Gautama Siddhartha and his meeting with Mara. I was flying and sending balls of energy to make them go away, you see, it was all in my mind, I said that if I do this they will go away and they did go away, when I became aware that it all an illusion and that I have the power to make them go away simply by thinking it, I woke up instantly. This whole experience appearead because I asked for going face to face with Mara.

Fighting them only makes them more powerful, running from them only makes them more powerful, facing them with inner stillness seems to be the key, to be completely still when the terrors of the night are surronding you. Just once I was able to do it, a monster was running after me, 3 times the same scene repeated when suddenly, I stopped, I took a stick in my hand and looked directly, face to face at that monster, the look on its face, priceless, it could not believe that I was able to overcame the fear, the monster was afraid, instantly I woke up.

Thank you for sharing that, it's quite interesting.