Astral travel, OBE, astral projection: questions

[Greenlove92]

Hi! I hope this is the good section for these questions.
Okay so i've been wondering about astral projection, google it, picked some books at the library... But can't find the answers.
1) is the astral plane real or is it a visualization? Do you imagine it as you wish, or is it a real non-fisical place that looks the same for everyone?
2) how do you get there? How deep do you need to meditate? How long does it take to succeed?
3) how does it look like?
4) how do you know you've done it?
5) now this one is somehow personal. I'd like to hear about your experiences. By that i mean did you shift your consciousness to live it in the first place, or did you observe yourself as if you were watching a movie? What kind of things did you do?

Now i really thank everyone for taking the time to answer at least one of my questions, for i really want to try this and know how to do it.

Thanks friends

May She/He/They bless you!!!

[monsnoleedra]

Hi! I hope this is the good section for these questions.
Okay so i've been wondering about astral projection, google it, picked some books at the library... But can't find the answers.

Let me preface this with a disclaimer, what shall follow is my understanding and way of viewing things so it may have some things similar to others and some competely different.

1) is the astral plane real or is it a visualization? Do you imagine it as you wish, or is it a real non-fisical place that looks the same for everyone?

For me the Astral plain is both real and a visulization.  It is real in the sesne that it is real to me and exists as a place that you might say is where my spirit body goes to.  Yet that place exists upon an internal plain that is located within the depths of my own mind and realility, but also as a unlocatable place within realility.

As to its construction and visable construction I think it is unique to me but also semi-uniform in that it is constructed from mankind's psychie.  So it will vary depending upon ones sex or gender, social and ethinic influences and perhaps even ones spiritual / religious influences.

Where I differ is that I was taught the Astral is more non-traditional while the etheral is pretty much bound to the physical.  Thus when someone experiences an Out Of Body (O.B.E.) sensation and stays within the physical world they are in a barrier level between the astral and physical.  Think of Near Death Experiences (N.D.E.) where your spirit body see's your physical body laying upon the operating table type scenario or you do a remote viewing or projection and can see what transpiring at another location upon the planet.

2) how do you get there? How deep do you need to meditate? How long does it take to succeed?

This one really varies by person and tradition.  For instance I tend to access the Astral by entering the tree of worlds or well of worlds.  What that is is basically an opening into a large tree through which I rise into the celesterial sphere by going into the upper reaches or descend into the chthonic sphere by descending down through the roots and trunk.  Or I may enter a place similiar to the physical by passing through the tree where I deal with my guides, totems, spirits, etc.  

For other's something similiar is used but they go through a cavern in the earth, step into a cliff face or climb a series of stairs that both rise up and descend into a mist type situation.  Others I have spoken to simply use a series of color regressions and use some other visual thing to identify with.

Timing and depth really depend upon the person and what they desire to do.  I may meditate upon it and achieve it in a short period for shallow journey work.  Yet I may also go into deep meditation for trance and journey work through things such as sensory deprivation, fasting and ceremony, beat or rythmic things such as dance, drumming, breathing (rapid & slow alternating cycles).

As to how long it takes to achieve each state really depends upon my mood, my health, method used.  It may be just a few seconds if it is a hypnotic beat to half hour or more for thigns where I have to relax my body through concentration and tensing and relaxation methods.

I should warn that hypnotic patterns can work but can also cause eplaleptic type responses if the rate and / or patterns are wrong.  This is really true when one uses color flashes as thier hypnotic method.

3) how does it look like?
4) how do you know you've done it?

The answer to these really depends upon the person and how they construct they sacred space or locations.  It also depends upon thier tradition and paradyn as to what they shall experience.  For instance coming from a shamanic type paradyn some of the places I have been taken to tax your mental facilites to the extreme and you really think you've lost your mind in what you see and experience.  Other things are manifestations of special places to me that I have created or placed upon my sacred place so that is what I see and experience.

Somethings you just know you've done them.  For instance an O.B.E. can be recognized by discussing it with others and having them confirm what you saw or heard and validating it.  Projection outward can also seem like an O.B.E. state and verified through others.

Astral is a bit harder for it many times depends upon the person, what you sought out and what you received as to whether you did it or not.  Many times its simply a test of faith that you were upon the Astral.  Once in a while you may actually encounter a person who has been present and may have interacted with you and both of you remain aware of the encounter and have the same basic expereince and recall of that experience.

5) now this one is somehow personal. I'd like to hear about your experiences. By that i mean did you shift your consciousness to live it in the first place, or did you observe yourself as if you were watching a movie? What kind of things did you do?

I have had situations where it seem's I am sitting in a large theatre and watching a film upon the screen before me.  Yet I am also aware that it is all being played out upon my third eye region.  Some times I become awre or realize that I am both in the seats watching and on the screen or more correctly in the movie being played and acting out some role.

Other times I see it in the first person and through my eyes.  Yet that does not mean I always recognize myself only that I am seeing it through what I preceive to be my eyes.  I see it, live it, experience it, even have memoire sand recall of it but have to assume it is me for I never actually see myself in reflection and may not even see a recognizable part of my body which tells me for sure it is me.

Other times it is more third person in that I appear to have a vantage point just above what I am seeing and hearing.  Most times in these type situations I am never an active participant but only an observor of them.  Most times those I am viewing or observing seem to have no awareness of my presence.

Many times I also shape shift as I experience certain lessons through my guides or allies.  It's like I have walked through a town as a man and interacted with the other people.  Then aware that I changed to some animal form and moved in that form to expereince its body and medicine.  That has been taken the form of a bird and flown, shape of a mouse and crawled beneath walls or inbetween the walls of a house.  Sometimes aware through out the whole experience, other times aware I changed then have vague images or impulses that I can not quite grasp in my human mind but I know I experienced them.

[Jenett]

First, if you're interested in learning these skills, it really helps to get some basics down first - work with breathing patterns, centering, grounding, and so on will really help. (My favorite book, which includes various kind of trance work, including astral work is Diana Paxson's _Trance-Portation_, in part because she does a very solid job of talking about some safety and well-being issues that are very useful for ongoing work.

1) is the astral plane real or is it a visualization? Do you imagine it as you wish, or is it a real non-fisical place that looks the same for everyone?

This is one of those "What's the nature of reality" questions for me, which means it is lacking simple answers.

I believe there are astral spaces that I have lots of direct control over. I believe that there are some that are collaborative spaces, that multiple people determine. And I believe that there are lots of spaces that existed before I came along, and will exist long after I stop existing, that I can still use for the time being (but how much I can change them varies.)

Sort of pretty much like the physical world, except that the redecoration in the spaces I control involves less lugging of book boxes around and dealing with paint fumes.

2) how do you get there? How deep do you need to meditate? How long does it take to succeed?

Breathing work, then stepping into the space - precisely how I do so depends on which space I'm visiting. (More on that below.)

Generally, if it's going to work for me, it happesn quite quickly (a minute or two once I settle down.) I have days where it just doesn't - and in fact, astral work has been pretty much off the table for a couple of years due to health considerations - mostly, I could get there, but any kind of meaningful work just didn't happen. Which, really, is probably a good thing when you hit "hi, have burned every conceivable physical reserve I had trying to push through something and then cope with the aftermath.")

(I'm getting back to the point of thinking working my way back into it again is viable, and trying to figure out how best to go about that - I probably won't try again until winter break, when work is a little more conducive to flexing if I get how much stamina I have wrong.)

3) how does it look like?

Depends where I'm going. There are four spots I visit with some regularity:

-  the astral temple anchoring my group work (which is currently on hiatus, but the temple still exists and requires occasional upkeep)

- the astral temple for the group I trained in (where I still have a key to get in, and stop by and say hi occasionally)

- the astral space that's anchored and maintained by the deities I work and serve with in my personal work.

- what I normally refer to as The Great Library, which is, as far as I can tell, a heavily communal, massively multi-generational, consensus-built space. With lots of librarians. And lots of people who like finding information in libraries. And a bunch of other stuff.

This is a space which is not tradition or small group centered - I've talked to people from very different paths, who when I start describing some specific pieces of it (not so much visuals, but how the structure works), they go "Oh, yeah. I've been there." Some people don't seem to be able to get there. I have a friend who can get in sometimes, and not others. (Me, I have the equivalent of a grad-student-cubicle-office near one of the scriptorium spaces, so I can get in reliably.)

I'm pretty sure there are bunches of other spaces, but really, those four mostly keep me busy.  

4) how do you know you've done it?

There's a difference for me between guided meditation (useful stuff, but all in my own head, or all built within the container of a circle, and that more or less stops existing as soon as the meditation is over) and astral work, where there is an ongoing persistence of place even when we're not paying attention to it. (Change there might be very slow, or very miniscule, but stuff changes from visit to visit without conscious decision.)

5) I'd like to hear about your experiences. By that i mean did you shift your consciousness to live it in the first place, or did you observe yourself as if you were watching a movie? What kind of things did you do?

 
I experience it as if I'm walking in the space, though doing so is usually easier for me than walking an equivalent distance in the physical world and/or there's a sort of 'fast forward' option when covering distance is not the most useful thing.

My primary astral home is in the space related to my deities: I see it as a large medieval manor house, with a long road running up to it. Often, when I come into the space, I'm walking up the main road, about to turn up the driveway (dirt, not paved), running my hand idly along a band of yew bushes as I walk. Sometimes I start out in my set of rooms in the manor house, which are the space I decorated myself. (Everywhere else just sort of appeared fully formed in my head, as I entered it: pre-existing spaces.)

In the library, I first got in there by having specific questions, and wandering through the library letting myself be tugged by intuition to the place that had sources that would help me. (Friends who have done the same induction with me get helpful Librarians at their shoulder to help them find stuff. I apparently radiate "I am a librarian" aura at a 100 paces, so I get ignored unless I go ask someone for specific expertise.)

What it looks like varies a lot: there are sections (and this is usually where I start) where it's the sort of classic turn of the 20th century dark wood and leather covered chairs and lamps with green shades over the top of them, and shelves of bound books going up to the ceilings. But there are sections that are rolls and rolls of scrolls, and there are sections that are super high tech, and there's a monastic scriptorium with really amazing light, and ... yeah. It's a sort of big place, with an absurd number of towers and little odd hallways, and big rooms and little rooms. I have seen only a fraction of it so far.

[Greenlove92]

Hey thanks for your answers. I took some time to answer because i was processing your answers :p

I've got one more question. Sometimes in my dreams i visited unconciously places who were the same. There was a beautiful white castle in an automnal scenery ( i actualy became an owl and flyed over the mountains). Could it be astral traveling?