I remember the time when I discovered the elusive key to OBE success like it was only yesterday. At this time, I was heavily into exploring astral projection and making almost nightly astral projection attempts. But I had very little to show for all the time and effort I was putting into this. It was frustrating to say the least. Sure, I’d had successes, but these accounted for less than one in ten OBE exit attempts. I was missing something important and I knew it. So I kept trying and also kept my mind open and awaiting inspiration.
Note: This is actually a great place to be – staying in the question – rather than me just making up excuses for my lack of progress, like: It’s too difficult, I’m a heavy sleeper, I’m too lazy, work gets in the way, I keep getting distracted, I’m too tired, etcetera. Staying In The Question optimizes creative download processes.
I was pondering my lack of progress one evening and went to bed early to renew my efforts at OBE, to try and work it out. In these days, it was always exciting and interesting, especially when it involved overcoming problems. I was always discovering something new and even the smallest discovery was pure gold to me. So little was known about astral projection at this time. The sense of being on a voyage of discovery was keen. I’d read everything I could get my hands on about astral projection, but it was still seemed a bit like trying to hatch an egg with a flashlight.
I made myself comfortable on my back and went through my deep physical relaxation routine, tensing and relaxing muscle groups. I cleared my mind and let myself settle, focusing on my breathing, feeling myself breathe, feeling myself falling, sliding deeper and deeper into a trance. About half-an-hour passed until I felt heavy and as ready as I could get. Then I started imagining and feeling that I was floating three feet above my physical body. I tried to shift my perspective to that place and imagined my physical body to be below me. This last bit is tricky, to say the least.
Before long, the roaring noise started, my heart started racing, whole body vibrations coursed through me, and with a continual falling sensation, I buzzed out of my body. No bells or whistles or anything magical, just a smooth and powerful exit out of my body. I felt very much in control and this exit was induced and not spontaneous. I stood there in my astral body and quickly moved to the far side of my room. It felt good to be out of body again. A little distance helps ease the constant magnetic tug of war between the physical and astral bodies that happens just after the OBE exit.
I was still ‘in the question’ about why I was having so few successes. “Why was OBE so difficult? It did not make sense. The OBE exit I just did was relatively easy. Everything was working, so why was I failing so frequently?
I looked around myself, and down at my physical body on the bed, and everything was very peaceful. It was so peaceful that it lacked any kind of stimulation beyond that of just being out of my body. Then an idea just dropped into my head. This was ‘some’ idea! “What if this OBE ended right now, while I was just pondering…not really thinking, just kind of sitting there daydreaming and waiting for ideas to surface? Would having no strong thoughts or strong memories or emotions affect my ability to remember this OBE? Would this memory just vanish into nothingness? My mind started clicking like a busy computer, as logical and inspirational processes consumed me.
After some heavy cogitating….” if I am right, can I create a powerful and exciting memory by using strong emotion? Will this improve my success rate?” I looked at my physical body lying there so peacefully, so dead looking… and then seized the moment. I psyched myself up, looked at my hands and watched them melt, like white ice under a blowtorch. Then I screamed savagely and passionately and threw myself at my body headfirst, shouting “My Hands Melted!!!!!”. A moment later my physical eyes opened and the memory of the OBE was fully present. Not trusting the memory, I verbalized it, repeating out loud “my hands melted, my hands melted” I swung my legs out of bed and grabbed my pen and pad and wrote down the keywords “my hands melted” and then I turned on the bedside lamp and wrote down the whole experience in detail.
This was truly exciting. If I was right, I had discovered another piece of the elusive puzzle that is astral projection. I went and freshened up and then made another OBE exit attempt, and again succeeded. Over the next few days, I had dozens of astral projections. I did not catch the memory of every OBE, but I was probably getting over fifty-percent success, which was a huge improvement. And as time passed I got steadily better and better at recalling OBE.
While astral projection is very natural, and all living things astral project when they sleep, remembering astral projection is not. A little knowledge and technique can help enormously…mostly just knowing how OBE works. Astral Projection is very ‘doable’ if you approach it in the right way. First get some knowledge on OBE and learn about ‘how’ it all works, and start training some basic skills, like deep physical relaxation, clearing your mind, etcetera. Then its just a matter of practice, practice, practice till your skills catch up with your goals and you succeed. If approached in this way you can build on success and learn from failure and work it all out, just like I did. RB.