Consciousness Art - "Roy's"

This is a painting from about a year ago. I will likely rework it in the future as inspiration allows. For now, it is what it is. This concept was not based on any specific experience, but was more of a visual experiment related to multiple out-of-body experiences.

Roy's
Oil on Canvas
36" X 48"

Rocky Mountain Flying

Consciousness Exploration Journal

2/20/12

I woke up in sleep paralysis. The sensations were mild, but I did hear some distant voices and felt slight vibrations. I didn’t pay much attention to any of it and just waited. I had the clear sensation of detaching from my body and floating upward. Having experienced this many times before, I just relaxed and waited. I began to get the usual disorienting sensations of spinning and rolling in the air. Though it was completely dark, I began to get the sense that I was floating toward the ceiling of some very large room. I had the thought that I could project something on the wall if I wanted. I realized that seeing the stars of the night’s sky would be a nice general technique to maintain the floating sensation. I intuitively knew at this point that I had control and could go about my way exploring. This is interesting because there is a clear and distinct difference in the way that the experience feels when this feeling of control occurs. Things begin to feel very natural and very vivid. Any fear or anxious anticipation fades. The best way to describe it is that I feel as though I am a more functional, aware, open, and able version of me (as if some of the limitations are not present). Another way to describe it is that I feel fresh and new like a bubbly and curious child. 

Having good control, I began to fly across the room. I could now see a set of giant doors that led outside. As I flew toward them with the intent to go beyond them, one of them opened for me. It is difficult to say if I willed it to open or if I simply knew it would open. Outside, the scenery was extremely crisp, vivid, and full of life. The surroundings reminded me of the various old mining towns in Colorado. There was a road in front of me. Cars leisurely traveled by in both directions. I had the notion that I could go right or left, but that either choice would lead to a different experience. I chose left and flew down the road passing over the various cars underneath. I set my intent to talk to the lady from the kitchen conversation. I began scanning the various drivers and pedestrians to see if anybody looked familiar. No luck. I waited for some sign or hint of where to go. A green car pulled off the road below me. I intuitively decided to pass it by. Perhaps a missed opportunity, but it seemed suspicious somehow. I continued flying down the road. It began to zig zag through the mountains and into a small town. I analyzed the various trees and buildings and became quite giddy at just how amazingly real it all felt. I had the sense that my giddiness could spiral out of control, so I gathered myself and continued on into the town. I came to what looked like a diner of sorts. It was very busy and was apparently the hang out for the locals. I flew lower to land on the street. One man noticed me and seemed to be very surprised to see somebody flying through the air. Nobody else at the diner seemed to notice or care. At this point, I had a light sensation that some small being or person was tagging along with me. Almost like a small child or dog. I caught myself saying things to this little presence out loud so that it knew what the plan was. I did not see anybody familiar at the diner so I decided to go into the neighboring building to look around. I eventually found a room that, for whatever reason, seemed like the place that I was suppose to wait. The room was laid out like a children’s waiting room - with a few small chairs and some toys and books. I began to sit down and wait, but realized that the chairs were far too small for me. Eventually I shrunk down... or in some other way fit into a chair. The moment that I set back and relaxed, the experience began to fade. Eventually I opened my eyes and grabbed my journal. 

Considering past experiences, it seems that when I stop fully engaging the experience, it fades. This would explain the various techniques that I have read about to maintain lucid dreams and out-of-body experiences such as rubbing your hands together or spinning. It may simply be a matter of maintaining one’s focus on events and elements within the experience. So, similar to drifting off into a daydream in waking life and essentially becoming unaware of the world around us, loosing focus (such as relaxing in a chair) in these other experiences might cause the reality of the experience to fade. 

Morning OBE

Consciousness Exploration Journal

2/5/12

I woke up at 6am to let the dog out. I laid in bed until 7am trying to go back to sleep. I set my intent to have a lucid dream/ OBE. I slowly drifted off and became aware in sleep paralysis. The typical sensations were present. At first, I heard a male’s voice saying something in my ear. I also heard the growling voice again. I didn’t fall for it this time though. I sat up out of my body, but could not seem to fully detach. I gave up and settled back into sleep paralysis. The sensations were slightly more intense this time. I resolved to stay with it no matter what. I set my intent to see or converse with the lady from the kitchen experience. I began to hear what sounded like a faint female voice. I had the impression that somebody was holding me and singing or humming to me (like a mother would hold a baby). For some reason, I began to get an intense dull pain in my lower back. I tried to ignore it and continued to focus on trying to converse with the woman again. As usual, it was completely dark as if my eyes were shut. This has never made any sense to me - why it is always completely dark. I normally have both auditory and tactile sensations, but never any visual. I realized that I was intentionally closing my eyes to avoid causing myself to wake up. It struck me that I should try to visualize something to kick in my “astral” vision. I started trying to picture a blender (random, I know). It worked. For a few seconds I found myself standing in a room. At the same time, I had started to open up my physical eyes and could see a blurry vision of the bedroom ceiling. I closed them and tried the visualization trick again. I gently tried to visualize the mystery room again. It worked. Suddenly, I was standing in my bathroom (astral bathroom). Everything was crystal clear. I was quite excited and ran around the house in celebration. When I came into the living room, I saw a mirror (one that is not normally there). I stopped running and stood in front of it. In it was a clear reflection of myself. I celebrated briefly at being in such a clear experience. I gathered myself, and thought about what task or test I wanted to perform. The first thing that came to my mind was that I should send some love and happiness to my wife and kids. Then, I realized that I should go to each of the rooms and do it in person. I went to my daughter’s room first. She was lying at the bottom of the bed and partly hanging off. I slid her up so that she was fully on the bed again. She slightly opened her eyes and acknowledged me with a smile. I started wondering if she might be dreaming about me at that moment, or maybe just thinking of me. I thought about this for sometime. The experience began to fade and I woke up and wrote it down. 

It would appear that I passed the growling fear test this time. I regret not spending some time at the mirror. The fact that it was aimed so that I would run into it makes me wonder if there was some relevance or importance to it. 

Do Your Best

Consciousness Exploration Journal

I was experiencing a very long and stable lucid dream/out-of-body experience. Curious, I went along with the subject matter of the setting for some time, but then decided to break from it. I began asking every person that I came across if they had a message for me. I had thought about carrying out this specific task for some time in the weeks prior. It was in part a test to see what types of responses I would get. However, at that core it was a serious question for which I truly wanted an answer. I asked 7 or 8 people and received only blank stares or confused responses.

Later in the dream, I found myself at a kitchen bar with a few other people. I turned to an older woman sitting near me and asked, “Is there a message for me?” She balked at first, but then seemed to realized my seriousness in asking this. She looked at me very intently and without saying anything, somehow sent me a message. It was as though I had to filter the information and translate the information into my own words. The message was something very close to this: "Do your best to be good (to make good choices) and the system will be good to you (will help you along)". Though she did not say it herself, the message came though very well and it was clearly from her. I repeated it back several times to ensure that I had it correctly.

Then she expressed something else that I couldn't quite understand. It came through as "defend your indulgences" and then as "protect your indulgences". I tried and tried to understand, but just couldn't get it. I can't make any clear sense of it now either. I did try to work through it with the woman by using the flat grill as an example. I’m not sure why or how it came to me at the time, but in an attempt to understand this second part of the message, I picked up a fork and laid it on the grill. The fork was wet and so it sizzled and hissed across the grill. I said something along the lines of: "Is it similar to if I drop this fork on the grill and decide not to do anything about it; then you pick it up and get burned... or even if you don't get burned. The idea is that I should still do something about it because there is the potential that you could get burned?" At that moment, off to the side, a man exclaimed, "YES!" while clapping his hands excitedly. However, the woman gave me a very patient look that said, that is very good, but not what I am telling you. Concerned that I would forget the first part of the message, I repeated it back several more times and explained to her that I should wake up and write it down so I would not forget. I got up from the chair and jokingly said, "If I only knew how to wake up". The thought came to me to lay down on the floor. At that, I slowly began floating down to the floor. As I did, I looked back up at the woman. I could now see the man who had exclaimed “yes” during the conversation. The woman now had a bit of a glow around her. She gave me a gentle smile as I reached the floor and vanished form the scene.

Flying with the Birds

Consciousness Exploration Journal

I was driving along a road. I noticed some birds flying in the opposite direction. I decided to change my direction and fly with them. I became lucid after doing this. I had perfect control of my flying (unlike other instances). I soared with the birds for a bit, but then decided to speed up. I flew up and over a mesa. Far off in the distance, I could see a mountain range. I focused on one of the peaks and set my intent to fly there. I began shooting across the sky toward the peak at a very fast rate. At the same time, it appeared as though the mountains themselves were moving toward me. I felt like I had conquered that task and so stopped. I could not remember what test I had planned to carry out, so I decided to look at my hands in the meantime. They had the same appearance as my “physical” waking hands. Focusing on them seemed to cause me to begin fading out of the dream. Slowly, I felt myself sinking into a darkness until I eventually found myself back in my sleeping body.

A Busy Night

Consciousness Exploration Journal

It started out as a typical dream: I was in a stereotypical downtown area of a large city. There was a kid (around 7 or 8 years old) that lived there. I was somehow connected to this kid. At first, the kid came across as a girl and then eventually as a boy. It was like I was getting the story without fulling seeing or experiencing it.


At one point, when I realized that he and I had some sort of connection, I saw our energy join... like two streams of light coming together. These streams shot up and broke though the ground and into the air. These columns of light stood erect along the various sidewalks and were spaced apart from each other like street lights.


I started seeing the dream from a third person point of view. The “me” in the dream was trying to get away from the kid for some reason (whom I still had not actually seen). It was not a scary situation, but I was clearly trying to hide from him. We were running through what seemed to be train cars. I was in one train and he was in another train (the trains were side by side and moving in the same direction). Sometimes the cars seemed to be underground like a subway, other times not (it was all very unstable and dreamlike). The chase continued. As I watched this unfold, I remember thinking that the “me” in the dream should just stop and see what the kid wanted. At this thought the kid came through the door of the train car that the dream “me” was in. The dream “me” was on the ground now for some reason... hiding... tired... I’m not sure. The train car was dark now. The kid had a sense of power (courage maybe) and he carried it well. He came closer to me and into the light. He was (or looked like) Arnold from the old TV show Different Strokes. He came up to me and gently kicked me a few times with his foot. He raised an eye brown and said something like, “Uh, why are you acting like that... just laying there? You don’t need to do that.” From the third person perspective that I had, I could now see that the dream “me” on the floor looked exactly like Arnold also. The kid and I were somehow the same.

After this part, the kid and I were more like balls of light. We exchanged info for a bit. He was explaining to me what things were like for him to live in this city. He had to live under the streets for some reason. There was some sort of being or person in charge that did not want him to create too much commotion on the streets by zooming around and making lights in the sky. The being that controlled this did not seem to be like a dictator necessarily, but more along the lines of a grumpy parent. If the kid just stayed out of sight, then there were not problems. The kid seemed to be very accepting of this and just made the best of it. After some conversing, the kid and I were like regular pals.


I suddenly remembered the large columns of light that had risen out of the street at the beginning of the dream. I’m frankly not sure exactly when that part happened, but the point was that the kid did not know about it yet. I was worried that it might get him in trouble so I explained it to him. He, in a rush, drug me out to the street (through the ground) and said, “Come on, we have to push all of them back down. Quickly, before he sees them.” We zipped through the sky as small balls of bluish white light pushing the columns of light back into the ground one at a time. There was a strong sense of teamwork and it really felt more like a game. We completed the task in a single breath and landed back on the street. “Shouldn’t we check the other streets?” I asked. He explained that he was only responsible for the streets within a specific bus route and that the other streets would not have been effected. There was a moment of shared enjoyment between us; like kids that had just gotten away with some mess and were now out of breath and laughing at the excitement of it all.


I started thinking about how much fun it was to zip around the sky like that. So I decided to jump up and take off again. Suddenly I had my normal “dream body”. Flying was very slow now. As I floated up past the windows on the buildings, I suddenly realized that I was dreaming. The dream scape began to fade. I stopped and stood at the top ledge of a building. As the dream faded to darkness I could feel strong vibrations. I knew this meant that I was shifting states or was moving back to my body in sleep paralysis. “dang it... what was my intent? I know I had an intent...” I though to myself. I kept holding on trying to remember what my plan was if I became lucid. “Oh yea! I want to see one of my past lives!” I have to laugh at myself here. I suddenly realized that I should be careful what I ask for so directly. So I sort of modified that with, “You know... if it’s okay and is necessary for my growth and all that.”

I tried to hold on, but soon found myself in my sleeping body stuck in sleep paralysis. I am no stranger to this state and have spent a good 17 years trying to work through my fears with it. Each time gets a little better and more interesting, but I still find it less than fun. It is what it is. So, back in sleep paralysis I began to have the usual sensations: buzzing, vibrating, music, voices, sense of somebody standing next to my bed, and on and on. As my physical body was experiencing fear, I was (in my mind) coaching myself through it, “Have courage. Just let go of those noises. Hang in there”. The other part of “me” was saying, “Okay, but I sure am tired of this. Is it really necessary? I’ll do it, but I sure don’t like it.” I continued to force myself to lay there and just experience it. After a while, I slipped back into a dream. It was more like I was still laying in bed and perceiving the dream. I was riding in an old pickup truck. My dad was driving. I was maybe 7 or 8 years old. I got the impression that we were going to a Toby Keith concert. I don’t think that it was actually Toby Keith though, I think this was just a way of expressing that it was a popular country singer. It got sort of confusing, but either my sister was the singer that we were going to see or maybe she was just going to meet us there. I didn’t get that part very clearly. It crossed my mind after waking up that if this was a peek into my past life, maybe my sister was a male singer... or perhaps maybe she was the dad driving the truck (though he looked like my present dad). The era of this dream seemed to be around the 60’s. This could have been a childhood memory from living on a farm as a small child. Hard to say.


After this very quick glimpse, I found myself back in sleep paralysis. I went over the dream/event that had just occurred so that I would remember it. The sleep paralysis continued. I kept gritting my teeth (figuratively) and riding it out. At some point I decided that I had waited long enough and that it was time to get the heck out of that state. I wasn’t about to give up and wake my body up, so I decided to go with the classic Bob Monroe out-of-body “roll-out”. I tried several times and was very happy when it finally worked. Once “out” I began floating up. I have had this sensation before when breaking free of sleep paralysis... like somebody was just gently spinning me around above my body in zero gravity. There have been a few times that I immediately found myself zipping though a tunnel, but I’m starting to think that those instances were just freebies to give me a taste. Anyway, I just kept trying to be very passive and let the experience continue naturally.


As all of this was happening, I had a funny thought or received a strange message. It was something along the lines of “beans will lubricate this process”. So, I’m not 100% sure that I got the beans part right, but the message was clearly about something that would make the process of sleep paralysis and “getting out” easier. Anyway, I think I’ll just keep that one in the back of my head for now ;)


After a while the event ended naturally and my body woke up. It was a very interesting night indeed.

I hardly watch T.V., but happened to turn it on the night after this, and Toby Keith was on a Comedy Channel. Synchronicity or chance? Uncertainty prevails.

I always find it interesting that things (such as my intent upon becoming lucid) from waking life are often difficult to recall in a lucid dream... in the same way that trying to remember the details of a dream is difficult in waking life. Real is relative to the experiencer, but not the experience.