When I tell people about astral travel (otherwise known as out-of-body experiences or OBEs) I get mixed reactions. Some people react with open-minded skepticism, where as others flat-out disbelieve it, putting it down to some trick of the mind. But then you speak to those who have experienced it – as I have – and they will tell you the phenomenon is just as real as the reality you find yourself in right now.
If you’ve not had an OBE yourself, the concept may sound like something from a bizarre science fiction movie. But in actual fact it is something that is very natural, very normal, and something you do every single night when you go to sleep, only you just don’t remember doing it!
Astral projection is when your consciousness leaves your physical body and goes into the astral plane. When we do this consciously it is called astral travel, or an out-of-body experience.
We are multi-dimensional beings. Our physical body resides in the physical plane, which is the 3rd dimension (length, width and height). We are subject to time, which is of the 4th dimension. But our psyche resides in higher dimensions, with the 5th dimension being the realm of our thoughts and emotions. It is in this 5th dimension that we find the astral plane.
The 5th dimension is not some far away place – all these dimensions exist simultaneously right now, as though they over-lap each other. And the various parts of us reside in these various dimensions, all at once.
There are 3 ways you can have an out-of-body experience. I have only ever experienced the first way, and that is when you go to sleep. Every time we go to sleep our conscious leaves our physical body and goes into the astral plane, but I will explain about this in much more detail in a moment.
The second way is to have a near-death experience, and by this I mean when a person is either close to death or is clinically dead, but is later revived. There are numerous accounts from all over the world of people who have found themselves outside of their body after experiencing some severe trauma. Often these include descriptions of a white light or tunnel. I have never experienced this for myself so I won’t comment about it any further, but you can read more about them here and here.
The third way to have an OBE is at death itself, as the astral plane is where we initially go after we die. I will talk more about the astral and death in another post as it relates to an astral experience I had with my deceased mother, but for now I want to talk about the astral and sleep.
From the moment you wake up, there is a constant stream of thoughts going on in your head. You go from your bed to the shower thinking all sorts of things, like what you have planned for the day, what you are going to wear, what you are going to have for breakfast, revisiting conversations you had the day before etc. This constant stream of thoughts continues the entire day, and the vast majority of our waking moments are spent in a perpetual day-dream.
This process continues when we go to sleep at night, and our day-dreams become our night dreams. At the moment of sleep our consciousness leaves our physical body and enters the astral plane, but usually we are not aware of this because our thoughts project as images onto the astral plane and instead of seeing what is really there, we find ourselves in a dream – lost in these subconscious projections of the mind.
But the astral is a very real place, just as real as the physical. And you can learn to experience the process of astral travel consciously, just as I have.
Astral travel is perfectly safe, it is as safe as sleeping – after all as it is part of the naturally occurring process of sleep. Every morning you wake up safe and sound in your bed, so being conscious of the process doesn’t change this.
And it is an amazing place too. The laws that govern the astral are different than the laws that govern the physical, for example there we can fly and go through walls etc. We can also get teachings from spiritual beings and investigate amazing things.
I had my first conscious OBE in 2006, after taking a free course in ‘Dreams and Out-of-Body Experiences’ run by Gnosticweb. Since then I have had many OBEs, and they have changed my life in the most profound way.
To actually experience yourself outside of your body, to know you exist independently of your body, completely changes the way you perceive life. It is one thing to believe something, but it is a whole other thing to actually experience it.
Maybe you don’t believe me, maybe you think it is all in my head. Or maybe you are open-minded to the possibility. Either way you will never know for sure unless you experience it for yourself. And I really encourage you to do so, no doubt it will change your life too!
When I Go To Sleep
The Peace of the Spirit Within
Secret Knowledge, Hidden Wisdom.
The Flight of the Feathered Serpent
by Armando Cosani
Very interesting post,
Most people that claim to have OBE’s that I have read wittings of are very vague. It’s nice to read someone who appears to have their head on their shoulders. I myself was very interested in having an OBE for some time, read several books and followed some practices all that resulted in little to no success. I am still very intrigued, and although not really skeptical (I had enough experience in my attempts to believe that it can be done), I found a lot of writings and accounts to be so vague, misleading and ego boosting that it seemed nearly impossible to wade through all the junk. You mention Gnostic web (I will certainly check them out), are there any other websites, books or other medium that you would suggest for a beginner? Do you have direct advice yourself?
Hi Jake,
I used to astral project naturally as a young child up until the age of about 5 or so, then it just stopped happening. I had no idea how I did it, but because of my childhood experiences I always had an interest in it since. I read lots of different books about it, and tried a lot of different methods without any success, until I found the Dreams and OBE course at Gnosticweb. I agree, there is a lot of irrelevant stuff our there, so it was great to finally something that was very clear, logical and effective.
As I explained in my post, astral projection is a normal part of the process of sleep, only we are not usually aware of this process because of the incessant stream of thoughts that form our dreams. In order to be conscious of projecting, all you need to do is be able to break this stream of thinking and focus your attention on one single thing as you fall to sleep. This sounds incredibly simple, but it is actually quite difficult to do.
The reason the course is so effective is because it gives you a solid foundation for which to build your abilities of concentration, and it also teaches a variety of techniques to experience astral travel. These include activating awareness during the day (and stopping the continual thoughts), various concentration and visualisation practices, mantras for projecting, and how to ‘wake-up’ from a dream in the astral.
According to surveys that Gnosticweb have done, something like 65% of people who take the course have an OBE experience at some point during the 8 weeks. I certainly had success anyway, and I had been trying for years.
This round of courses started a couple weeks ago, so if you register you will need to also email course@gnosticweb to be included in this round (if it’s not too late, you may have to wait until next round). The course is free of charge.
There is also a book that I highly recommend that comes with the course and contains all the exercises, and you can purchase it here: http://www.absolutepublishinggroup.com/. It covers all the information the course covers.
My only advice is to follow the exercises and techniques diligently throughout the 8 weeks, if you do there is no reason why you wouldn’t be successful!
Good luck, and please drop by again and give us an update of how you went!
All the Strength,
Amy (GnosticGirl)
[...] body and go there, only normally we are unaware of this process. I explain more about this here. Today I’m going to talk about what to expect when you consciously astral [...]
[...] March 25, 2009 by gnosticgirl I learned how to wake up in dreams in the ‘Dreams and Out-of-Body Experiences’ course run by Gnosticweb. And I don’t mean to become lucid in a dream where you become aware that you are dreaming and gain some control over the dream, I mean to take it one step further and actually ‘wake up’, becoming fully conscious so that you are not dreaming at all anymore, and to have a conscious astral travel experience. [...]
[...] I was given the tools to be able to get the answers I had been yearning for. I learned about astral travel and started to have out-of-body experiences, directly verifying that I am more than just this [...]