I was meditating today. I started to get some small vibrations (similar to those I have experience with nighttime out-of-body experiences). I tried every method I knew of to "exit" my body, but nothing was working. I got the impression that I was not ready to exit this way yet. A little frustrated but also trying to be a little funny, I expressed something like, "I promise to stay calm and keep any fears at bay. So just yank me out already."
A few minutes later, I was on the verge of "clicking out" and starting to get those random dream like thoughts and images. Suddenly my left arm shot straight up in the air and dropped like dead weight right back to where it was to begin with. Now I can't say for sure if it was my actual arm, but all of the sensations (including the noise) were real. It felt exactly like somebody jerked my arm up and then dropped it. It startled me pretty good.
"Point taken" was my reply.
We are no doubt our own biggest obstacles.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Precognative Dream?
I had a wild night of lucid dreams and out-of-body experiences last night. Two parts of a particular dream struck me (while in the dream state) as being moments of precognition; a sort of gut feeling that I was seeing into the probable future.
The first part of the dream involved a large plume of smoke from a wildland fire near my house. I was on the phone with my brother-in-law who lives nearby and who could also see the smoke. There was a helicopter flying over the fire and having some trouble. Eventually it ended up landing safely. A great deal of uncertainty surrounds this of course, but this morning in "waking life" I passed a small grass fire with a decent plume of smoke (a mile or so from my house). Granted, it was a small fire, but the odds deserve attention.
In the second part of the dream I was seeing the earth from a radar like perspective. I heard news reporters talking about several large tornadoes sweeping across the globe. I saw them (in radar like view) moving across the US and all the way across the globe to what appeared to be Africa. I am pretty sure that the details are not all that important. The general idea was that it was a "big" tornado event. The reporters were clearly excited and continued to state that it was unprecedented.
Today, I am watching the news about the mass of tornadoes that have pounding the southern U.S. today. There has been much tornado activity in the past few weeks, but this event is clearly "big" in terms of death toll and total number of tornadoes. Bellow from an April 28th, 2011 ABC news report:
The first part of the dream involved a large plume of smoke from a wildland fire near my house. I was on the phone with my brother-in-law who lives nearby and who could also see the smoke. There was a helicopter flying over the fire and having some trouble. Eventually it ended up landing safely. A great deal of uncertainty surrounds this of course, but this morning in "waking life" I passed a small grass fire with a decent plume of smoke (a mile or so from my house). Granted, it was a small fire, but the odds deserve attention.
In the second part of the dream I was seeing the earth from a radar like perspective. I heard news reporters talking about several large tornadoes sweeping across the globe. I saw them (in radar like view) moving across the US and all the way across the globe to what appeared to be Africa. I am pretty sure that the details are not all that important. The general idea was that it was a "big" tornado event. The reporters were clearly excited and continued to state that it was unprecedented.
Today, I am watching the news about the mass of tornadoes that have pounding the southern U.S. today. There has been much tornado activity in the past few weeks, but this event is clearly "big" in terms of death toll and total number of tornadoes. Bellow from an April 28th, 2011 ABC news report:
"The death toll approached 300 tonight from the tornadoes and thunderstorms that tore through the South Wednesday night and early today."
Like many things, there is a great deal of uncertainty related to this. I hesitate to label the experience as anything other than interesting and noteworthy. It stands as yet another clue that there is more to "all of this" than meets the eye.
"NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, estimated there were 173 tornadoes Wednesday, a new record for a single storm system in modern times."
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Above The Clouds
Consciousness Exploration Journal
April 4th, 2011
I woke up at 1am because one of our dogs was barking. The first OBE happened shortly after this. After a series of false awakenings, I woke up to some vibrations. I used the “brain strain” technique to encourage the vibration. I sat up after a few attempts and tried to fly up through the ceiling. I tried several times but could not get through. I stood on the bed and leaned against the wall to try and gather myself. While I was standing there, I began to hear a noise in the hallway. The noise got closer and closer to the bedroom. I focused on the noise and realized that it was our cat coming down the hall. Suddenly, I felt something on my chest. This jolted me back to my body and caused me to wake up. Our cat had jumped up into our bed and onto my chest.
Later in the night, I was in what seemed to be a dream. However, I do vaguely remember exiting my body sometime before the dream. I was on a very pretty street or on a wide path in some type of park. The scenery was full of green grass and lush trees. It was very vivid and beautiful. I quickly realized that I was dreaming. I jumped up into the air and began flying through the beautiful trees. I put my arms at my side and made my body straight like an arrow. I began flying through the air very fast. I focused my intent on shooting through the air to a bundle of branches in the distance. It was exhilarating to fly that fast and seemed to be a productive way to relieve some tension. I was pleased that my focus worked and that I was able to fly straight to the bundle of branches. At some point I decided to fly up and into the clouds. Sometime around this point I asked to go to the "black void" that I have experienced in the past. I kept making my way up, far above the clouds. I was looking down at the clouds in total amazement as they drifted underneath me. The sky above me was getting darker as if I was at the edge of the earth’s atmosphere. I wanted to see the earth from a distance, so I continued on my way. Eventually, the earth was nothing more than a distant ball. I felt like I had gone far enough for this trip and decided to go back. Instantly, I was back in my bed.
April 4th, 2011
I woke up at 1am because one of our dogs was barking. The first OBE happened shortly after this. After a series of false awakenings, I woke up to some vibrations. I used the “brain strain” technique to encourage the vibration. I sat up after a few attempts and tried to fly up through the ceiling. I tried several times but could not get through. I stood on the bed and leaned against the wall to try and gather myself. While I was standing there, I began to hear a noise in the hallway. The noise got closer and closer to the bedroom. I focused on the noise and realized that it was our cat coming down the hall. Suddenly, I felt something on my chest. This jolted me back to my body and caused me to wake up. Our cat had jumped up into our bed and onto my chest.
Later in the night, I was in what seemed to be a dream. However, I do vaguely remember exiting my body sometime before the dream. I was on a very pretty street or on a wide path in some type of park. The scenery was full of green grass and lush trees. It was very vivid and beautiful. I quickly realized that I was dreaming. I jumped up into the air and began flying through the beautiful trees. I put my arms at my side and made my body straight like an arrow. I began flying through the air very fast. I focused my intent on shooting through the air to a bundle of branches in the distance. It was exhilarating to fly that fast and seemed to be a productive way to relieve some tension. I was pleased that my focus worked and that I was able to fly straight to the bundle of branches. At some point I decided to fly up and into the clouds. Sometime around this point I asked to go to the "black void" that I have experienced in the past. I kept making my way up, far above the clouds. I was looking down at the clouds in total amazement as they drifted underneath me. The sky above me was getting darker as if I was at the edge of the earth’s atmosphere. I wanted to see the earth from a distance, so I continued on my way. Eventually, the earth was nothing more than a distant ball. I felt like I had gone far enough for this trip and decided to go back. Instantly, I was back in my bed.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Consciousness Art - "Lucid"
This is a recent piece for a series that I am working on related to my experiences in the exploration of consciousness.
Lucid
Oil on Canvas
37" X 22"
Lucid
Oil on Canvas
37" X 22"
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Phantom Limb and Brain Strain
Yesterday I came across a post about a website called obe4u.com. Though it had a very infomercial quality to it, a small moment of synchronicity convinced me to watch a few of the videos. Long story short, I felt like I came away with some valid techniques to induce out-of-body experiences. All of my OBE's up to this point were, for the most part, unplanned. They were either spontaneous, via a lucid dream, or a result of trying to work through sleep paralysis. Something about these techniques left me with a feeling that they would absolutely work for me. And they did.
I had gotten out of bed around 4 am to let the cat out. I returned to bed and quickly fell back asleep. I found myself in a seemingly endless loop of false awakenings. Frankly it is all a little messy and foggy. However, at some point I woke up and rolled onto my side. I instantly remembered to try the OBE techniques. The first one that I tried was the "brain strain" technique. I could not begin to explain to you how to do this, other than saying to strain your brain. When I heard the phrase "brain strain" on the obe4u.com website, I just somehow knew exactly what it was. Anyway, it worked immediately. I felt vibrations race through my body. I was a bit disappointed because I realized that I had just entered sleep paralysis. I was hoping to skip it. Instead of trying to move a part of my physical body to wake up, I began trying to move my dream body (the phantom limb technique). I have to stop here and point out that I do not think that there is such a thing as an actual dream "body" per say. It is just a metaphor. More on that later. At any rate, we can still put these metaphors to use as tools, and that is just what I did. I made an effort to move my dream arm. It took a while, but I eventually got it to move. As soon as I got it to move, I jumped up out of my body. It was a very groggy and sluggish OBE, but I was no doubt floating around my room. I tried to gain control over the experience, but it remained very foggy. My memory fades as to what happened next.
A few dreams and a few hours later, I woke up again. I immediately remembered to try the techniques. Again "brain strain" worked like a champ. The vibrations came quick. I focused on encouraging the vibrations to increase. I began to hear noises that are typical of my experiences of sleep paralysis. Instead of letting the noises frighten me, I focused on them. This seemed to deepen the state. This exit seemed much more clean or tangible somehow. I was floating around my bedroom (the non-physical version of it anyway). Like the first experience, everything was very groggy and sluggish. I tried to fly up through the ceiling, but kept getting hung up in it. At one point, I looked down at my bed to see if I could see my physical body. The bed was empty except for my cat who was looking up at me with a curious expression. I later realized of course that the cat was outside.
I am coming to realize the my expectations, fears, and beliefs play a major role in these experiences. Such things run deeper than the intellect and are not easy to recognize. It turns out that these things must be worked out through direct experience.
I had gotten out of bed around 4 am to let the cat out. I returned to bed and quickly fell back asleep. I found myself in a seemingly endless loop of false awakenings. Frankly it is all a little messy and foggy. However, at some point I woke up and rolled onto my side. I instantly remembered to try the OBE techniques. The first one that I tried was the "brain strain" technique. I could not begin to explain to you how to do this, other than saying to strain your brain. When I heard the phrase "brain strain" on the obe4u.com website, I just somehow knew exactly what it was. Anyway, it worked immediately. I felt vibrations race through my body. I was a bit disappointed because I realized that I had just entered sleep paralysis. I was hoping to skip it. Instead of trying to move a part of my physical body to wake up, I began trying to move my dream body (the phantom limb technique). I have to stop here and point out that I do not think that there is such a thing as an actual dream "body" per say. It is just a metaphor. More on that later. At any rate, we can still put these metaphors to use as tools, and that is just what I did. I made an effort to move my dream arm. It took a while, but I eventually got it to move. As soon as I got it to move, I jumped up out of my body. It was a very groggy and sluggish OBE, but I was no doubt floating around my room. I tried to gain control over the experience, but it remained very foggy. My memory fades as to what happened next.
A few dreams and a few hours later, I woke up again. I immediately remembered to try the techniques. Again "brain strain" worked like a champ. The vibrations came quick. I focused on encouraging the vibrations to increase. I began to hear noises that are typical of my experiences of sleep paralysis. Instead of letting the noises frighten me, I focused on them. This seemed to deepen the state. This exit seemed much more clean or tangible somehow. I was floating around my bedroom (the non-physical version of it anyway). Like the first experience, everything was very groggy and sluggish. I tried to fly up through the ceiling, but kept getting hung up in it. At one point, I looked down at my bed to see if I could see my physical body. The bed was empty except for my cat who was looking up at me with a curious expression. I later realized of course that the cat was outside.
I am coming to realize the my expectations, fears, and beliefs play a major role in these experiences. Such things run deeper than the intellect and are not easy to recognize. It turns out that these things must be worked out through direct experience.
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