Here's a very interesting consciousness experiment for you to try out...

Originally posted by TheRealDonPedros
Although our interpretation of "said" experiment may be different, I'm pretty confident were talking about the same thing.

I may be new to ATS but I highly doubt the MOD's would pull the plug on this discussion for talking about '___'. There has been enough credible research done in the fields of psychedelics and there relationship to religion/spirituality that not going down that road in "a very interesting consciousness experiment" would be akin to staring ignorance dead in the face and saying "Give me a kiss".

Peace

Just because I've seen this train of thought lead to ugly misunderstandings, I'm going to butt in here.

ATS does not tolerate discussion of illegal substances or practices because such discussion would put us on a list of sites that can't be accessed by many. A lot of offices, for example, use filtering systems that refuse sites with drug references.

So the problem is not that ATS management approves or disapproves of using psychedelics for spiritual experiences, but that if they allowed that discussion here, many people would lose access to ATS altogether.

Some things that can't be addressed on the public forums can be discussed in RATS, the super-secret forum that doesn't get indexed by Google and such services.

I'm going to look for the post where this is all explained, and I'll try and provide a link. But I thought it might be helpful to explain where the problem lies before anyone unaware of the restrictions got a warning, or this thread ended up bumped to RATS


edit: Here's a post from the ATS Issues Megathread where Heike explains it much better than I just did.


[edit on 10/20/08 by americandingbat]

This is extremely interesting...
You see, I'm from Mexico and when you get to go to small towns where technology hasn't reached the every day life, the so-called "astral projection" is a very natural ritual for people.
The small communities in Mexico still use drugs (such as Peyote) to undertake an astral projection.
I have never personally taken any drugs but i've had problems sleeping since a was small; I'm ALWAYS dreaming and i remember absolutly everything. I've had tons of dreams where i am fully concious that i'm having a dream. And several times I've had that "sleep paralysis" but here in Mexico we talk about spirits trying to go inside your body ( i don't personally believe this).

Do you think "astral projection" can be a natural state of mind for some people? Because I've heard you talk about concentrating on things but when I've experienced this i was completely relaxed. I used to be conscious about how i NEEDED to relax every part of my body and felt like i had control over it. Maybe in the end it was the same way?

Let me know

I love this subject:

I've posted many comments on numerous threads about dreams, OOBe's, lucidity, astral states and sleep paralysis and i believe there is a connection... These are several sides to the same 'thing'...

Luci dreaming is amazing, but sadly the last few times it's happened, the magic seems to have gone, as i think some part of my consciousness or unconsciousness has realised that the limitations of my dream exist within my imagination and as soon as i try to imagine something.... my consciousness slips into gear and the dream elements seem to fade until my lucid dream becomes more of an 'ego dream, as opposed to the inifinity that once existed.

As for Out of body experiences, I believe this is the experience when your nerves become numb to physical contact but heightened to some form of unconscious sensitivity... I'm not saying that experience ISN'T real, but your 'essence' perceives a change in the way of 'feeling' and I also believe that you are most sensitive to 'psychic attacks' aswell as 'waves of bliss'.... That's the only way I can explain it.

Also with Sleep Paralysis, that is when things get freaky. Dreams seem to become very tangible, emotions activate and your ears and possibly your imagination gets super sensitive... I've experienced large black wolves and strange black entities invading my reality. I believe this is a condition that could be similar to how a schizophrenic may experience his/her hallucinations, but unable to comprehend the change over, whereas myself in control of my sensibilities i become aware of the change over, but at least I have reference point to the real world and have been able to 'snap' or more precisely 'twitch' my way out of the paralysis.

Not all experiences of sleep paralysis can be scary either, i've had many a strange night where my mind has floated between lucid dreaming, shocking sleep paralysis and then almost OOBE....

From my experience, despite the obvious physical elements of nerve reactions, hormones and chemicals, I do believe there is a universe of rich discovery that lies somewhere between unconsciousness and tangible reality...

A very thin veil, once uncovered allows the mind to consider all possibilites and actions of life, if only we could touch the essence that is the magic of dreaming.

reply to post by americandingbat


Although the discussion of '___' is a grey area, as it is naturally occuring chemical in a multitude of life forms all across the globe.

I believe the transitional state is what is being aimed for when in meditation.
Someone correct me if I am wrong.
Interesting to say the least. I have attempted to tap this in the past.
Music helps a lot. It keeps an anchor so to speak on the here and now. I swear I have seen through my closed eyelids in this state. Among other things.
It is interesting to say the least and worthy of exploration.
* ~

Originally posted by reticledc
I swear I have seen through my closed eyelids in this state. Among other things.
* ~

You're not alone...

www.abovetopsecret.com...'

Attention

Review this link

Terms and Conditions

Specifically:

2e.) Illegal Activity: Discussion of illegal activities; specifically mind-altering drugs, computer hacking, criminal hate, sexual relations with minors, and stock scams are strictly forbidden. You will also not link to sites that contains discussion of such material.

This is an interesting topic, however further discussion of ANY mind altering substances will result in Post removal, Warnings and possible Posting Privileged Restrictions.

Let's all be professional and make this a GREAT thread!!!!



Semper

reply to post by mr-lizard


Thank you for that link. I was unaware of it.
I would also like to point out one of the "among other things."
I have notice in the pre waking state, my senses, especially smell are hyper acute.
My fiance' will be using hairspray clear across the house and I smell it as if she sprayed it directly into my nostrils.
I smell smokers from in the ever loving street as well.

This may hearken back to when we were in need of such senses because we were exposed and in the open, vulnerable.
I do think other wise though.



[edit on 23/10/2008 by reticledc]

Thanks a lot for the input everyone, some great replies here...

I thought I might elaborate a bit more because my initial description wasn't as accurate as it should have been.

When I say "waking up from being asleep", what I really mean is a deep sleep - the kind of sleep where you aren't dreaming at all, and hours will pass by in what seems to be an instant... This type of sleep isn't as common (for me anyway) and generally occurs only about once or twice a week.

On average, 4 out of the 5 times I attempt it, I'm not able to "focus" properly and I wake up. The times that I have been successful, with practice, I have slowly been able increase the duration and intensity a little bit each time.

After some reflection, I think that this state of mind can probably only be obtained in the process of awakening from a deep sleep, and not the other way around... Falling asleep seems to be more of a "letting go" of the conscious mind, and in my experience produces very different results.

Another description I could give you is that it's like being at the threshold of nothingness and waking reality, and pondering in amazement over the fact that you "actually exist." You have this incredible sense of the importance of it, but you can't comprehend it... It's very Zen...

I remember when I was a child I used to get a similar feeling by staring at my own reflection in the mirror, and being amazed that what I was looking at was actually "me"...

The first time I experienced awake-sleep it was scary as hell, i could move my eyes , but nothing else and started to see numbers on my wall 6, and 9s. and some other bad stuff, finally after what seemed an hour, it felt as if pressure was lifted off my chest and i tried yelling for my bro , but still nothing happened, i finaly managed to move my arm and jump out and left my room, i at the time was tryin to figure out what happened, i said to myself, "wtf, im not on any thing right now.." later decided an attack from demons, but upon research learned the body release a chemical to induce paralysis's.

was not fun at all , and can't understand why some one would want to experience this. as for the sleep-awake , ill try that next time i go asleep.

What works for me:

1. Have two alarm clocks. Set alarm clock for 1-2 hours before I want to get up. Hit the alarm, then go back to sleep, "watching" my breathing. Lucid dream/vision ride until second alarm goes off.

2. Set an "internal" alarm clock. Before going to sleep say something like: "subconscious, please wake me at 4 am. Then I'll go on a lucid dream/vision journey and get up happily when the alarm goes, thank-you."

3. "Subconscious mind, at 4am, we begin a sequence of lucid dreams where each dream is more powerful, significant and vivid than the preceding one."

This is atually a hypnotic state that you speak of. It is a doorway. You will learn much from this that you could not learn from any book that was ever written. Continue working on it, and it will lead you to where you are going anyways. You have much less control than you 'think' you have, and more at the same time. This cannot be explained, but you are in the right place to see it for yourself.

Sometimes when I go to bed I feel this cold energy gently dancing on my face, like someone is there. It's quite fascinating.

I am going to give this experiment a try, although usually I just immediatley wake-up from sleep. Like a tiny jolt of energy

This might be a bit off topic, but I read somewhere that if you think of dreams on your way to sleep you'll be more readily able to influence them and/or remember them in the morning.

Yes? No? Maybe?

I'm definitely going to try this though, I'll let you know what happens!

Originally posted by NeuronDivide
For the last few months I have been experimenting on trying to focus my attention in the state of mind that occurs in the transitional period of being asleep and awake...

After practicing it many times, it has now become such a profound experience for me that words can't adequately describe it, but for some reason, I feel that developing this "headspace" is somehow very important for our future evolution...

The simplist way I can describe it is for you to try and focus on the fact that you are "concious" and that "you exist", in the moments before you wake up from being in a deep sleep, and for you to try and hold this state of mind for as long as you can before you actually wake up...

I'm sure many of you have experienced this before, and if so, I'd love to hear your experiences... If you haven't tried this before, please give it a go and let me know what you think!


[edit on 20-10-2008 by NeuronDivide]

 

MOD EDIT: Fixed title.

[edit on 1-11-2008 by TheBorg]

There is an intersting book I read called "The Head Trip" by Jeff Warren. He basically mentions how our consciousness in a typical day is arranged in a cycle: from the moment you are in a slow wave sleep to REM, and lucid dreaming to alterered trance and meditative states, he explained and categorized basic awareness in the different areas that we may experience it. It was a pretty good book, the author was also bit humorous.

The state that you describe would be the Hypnagogic (coming out of sleep) the other would Hypnopompic (as you fall asleep)

I tell you, I try to explain to people the things that go through my head in these states, and I find out that I just can't. Most situations are too bizarre and make absolutley no sense. It's as if my mind was absolutley on complete random mode. inserting old images and mixing and matching to give me a short trip before I actually realize that I am waking up or falling asleep. - If I could save what I've seen, I'd be an artist

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...

Just thought I would bump this old thread to see if anyone had some input..

This type of practice is nothing new. It's part of various mystical texts that date back hundreds, even thousands of years old. Unfortunately, most people won't put this into practice or find it significant, because of the lack of discipline and general business in life.

Your accessing the Subconscious as well as the Source, by doing this. Eventually you start to wake up in Unkowingness, prior to the mind/ego taking it's place in the head, and will literally observe the ego take its place