By Robert Zucker
Did you ever had a dream that you were dreaming?
Have you ever woke up only to find yourself still in a dream?
Do you sometimes become able to control your dreams- change the scene or "will" things to happen.
This is astral projection. When the mind meets the soul while the body sleeps.
We all experience an astral projection episode. Only a few are aware enough to remember it.
Mastering astral body projection
Gaining awareness inside of a dream - or projecting oneself from waking to sleep to dreaming while maintaining awareness - is a trainable skill. Almost anyone can do it.
There are several key astral projection techniques. They are not difficult to learn.
Astral projection begins when you wake up while you are asleep- lucid dreaming.
There are two main ways this can be accomplished. It will take many attempts to achieve results.
- The first method is to keep your awareness while you are falling asleep and starting to dream- through hypnogogic imagery or during a meditation state.
- The second method is to gain awareness while having a dream- astral projection.
There are other ways to awaken the astral state, such as ingesting psychotropic drugs like LSD and psyllicibin.
Most people have experienced either or both methods without realizing it several times in their lives. The grogginess of sleep often obscures the realization of dream consciousness. But, with practice, the mind can be trained to be aware when the body is asleep.
If you ever noticed just before you fall asleep that images, patters or colors may briefly appear before your drift into sleep- then you caught a glimpse of the astral world.
If you ever awoke suddenly and found yourself still in your dream with the added awareness f your surroundings (as opposed to the unconscious actions we have in a dream)- then you also caught a glimpse of the astal plane.
If you can be able to take conscious control over your subsconscious while asleep, then you gain gain mastery over astral projection.
The Astral Plane
The space between awake and sleep opens a slice into a part of ourselves that we rarely pay any attention. This is the astral plane - or the astral world - the space between space and time.
When you fall asleep another part of your brain becomes active and assembles all of the images, emotions and experiences familiar to you and replays them in a television serial-like format. Have you ever noticed how much television shows and movies are like dreams?
The astral plane is the world where these images and emotions exist. Psychologists call it the dream state- the subsconscious. Astral projectionists call it the astral state. It's basically the same place. (Remember the joke about the blind men feeling an elephant from different angles and describing it as a different animal? This is the same with astral space.
Astral was a popular word in the early 20th Century. In the mid-1950's and on, it was known as "out of body experiences" (OBE). As long as humans had dreams, they experienced some form of astral projection.
Most of us are too asleep to realize it. We do it every night.
The Astral Body
The astral body is just like your physical body, but in a different "vessel."
If you see yourself in a dream, you can see that astral body form. Most people just see the world around them.
In the astral body, you can have the same physical sensations, feelings, emotions and thoughts as if you were awake. It's that combination that creates the astral world's dream-state environment.
The astral body, though, can change like the dream world around you. Some people can dream of being someone else. They can take on a different astral body than their own.
When the astral body travels through the astral plane, the dreamer is actually travelling through their own personal undertanding of the world around them. Each image in the dream is an astral body of its own.
Practicing Astral Projecting
Lucid dreaming is another name for astral projection.
Most people experience a lucid dream a few times in their lives, but often forget about it after they awake. The experience, though, can be unforgettable if it is remembered.
A lucid dream happens unexpectedly and can disappear in an instant.
How many times have you ever said to yourself in a dream: "this is a dream!" You had a lucid dream and got a glimpe of the astral.
When you become awake in a dream, and can sustain that awareness of your surrounding for more than a brief moment, you can gain control over the dream - or astral - state and change what you see and experience.
That's where the practice comes in.
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