It has been a while since I have posted on ATS, but I have found that this site is the best for getting answers for life's more eccentric questions.

Like many people who have described astral experiences my journey into the metaphysical - if you will - started when I was a young boy growing up in East Tennessee, USA. I have written before that my mind was first conditioned to the possibility of dream control thru the viewing of an iconic '80's movie "Nightmare On Elm Street: Dream Master" I believe is the title. In the movie it was described that one could control the outcome of their dream, simply by concentrating hard enough and being aware.

I took this literal and at the age of 7 tried to control a recurring dream I had of a bigfoot like creature chasing me around my home. I had no idea what was happening at the time, but looking back I now realize the importance of this dream in particular - for it may have been more than a childhood nightmare.

In the dream I would be chased around the house that I lied in at the time, with my parents. Around and around we would go, with the creature never quite catching me, but never stopping either. I have found the important facts of this dream to be that I was completely emerged in a world identical to the physical reality. Everything was identical, except, of course, for the creature chasing me.

I found this to be important for the reason that all of my experience as an adult with astral travel start in the identical representation of my everyday physical world. Like many I become astral in the room which I fall asleep in. Everything being identical, but more perfect than in reality. If you have experienced astral travel you will understand.

I experienced astral travel many times throughout my childhood, though I had no idea what was happening. I thought it was common for everyone to have these experiences. It wasn't until I had to see a psychiatrist for a job interview that I found my experiences were not the normal happenings for all individuals.

At this point I was completely beside myself with wonder about what I had been experiencing. Many times I would be asleep in bed and awake to use the restroom only to find my body still laying on the bed. Other times I would never quite go to sleep and when I would try and roll over I would feel as if I were pulling to magnets apart and when they were separated I would be standing in my bedroom, out of my body. Again, if you have experienced this you will know what I am talking about.

I began to research this and found that it was documented in the bible. I also found that this was the basis for many of the ancient cultures throughout the world. Many toiling away in the physical world only as preparation for there nocturnal travels. Some cultures prepared nearly all of their waking hours for these experiences and the individual with the most active astral life were in most cases the most important people in the society.

It isn't until modern scientific times that this aspect of life has taken a back seat to the physical, material world. So understandably finding answers to my experiences were hard to uncover through traditional methods of research.

Many people believe that when you travel astrally your soul leaves your body, while others believe it is merely a chemical reaction.

It wasn't until I realized how our bodies and, more importantly, our senses truly work that I learned it is entirely possible and - more than that - probable that we do in fact have a soul that leave our bodies upon death.

This may be a fact that is not exclusive to humans, this may be predominant throughout the life bearing kingdom we call home.

Everything our senses show us takes place in our minds and our minds operate on purely electrical responses to the stimuli provided. For example; when you see your computer screen, you are not seeing your screen - you are reading light waves in you brain that have reflected off the screen and everything in the viewable area. there is no light inside your head, in fact it is 100% black. The images you see are merely signals being processed by your brain. This can be said for every sense you have.

The sense of touch doesn't occur at the point of contact, but in your brain through the same type of electrical signals. You can feel the keyboard because of the vibrations the keys give off, this creates their consistency. Sound is the same, your brain reading signals.

Why is this important? Because our sense of self also occurs in our head. Why do we say we have a body instead of we are a body? Because we know, through innate comprehension, that we are independent of our body. Even though most of us have been taught that this isn't true since birth, we can not deny our own knowledge.

And how does this tie into astral travel? Well,I am glad you ask =-). At the heart of our brain is what many call our 3rd eye - the Pineal Gland. This gland produces one of the world's most potent hallucinogenics called Dimethyltryptamine - or DMT.

DMT occurs in nearly every living thing in the world, including plants, yet it is one of the most illegal substances on the planet. Every night when you sleep DMT is released into your body from the Pineal Gland. DMT causes our consciousness to leave our physical body and enter the dream world and upon awaking you forget most of the nights occurrences. Whether you know it or not, every night you astral travel.

In the astral world many people can be found and those people may not even know they are there, believing they are merely dreaming. Though an experienced astral traveler can, in fact, interact with these people. The conscious astral traveller will remember these experiences, but the unconscious dreamer will merely store the experience as a dream.

When you enter into a state where you can leave your body astrally you have the distinct and 100% real feeling that your soul, or your true self, is leaving your flesh body. This is confirmed by the experiencer through being able to see your own body!

So, DMT is released into our body every night, but why? I believe it is so we can get to our natural environment outside of our body and I truly wish I could prove or disprove this. It is merely my gut feeling.

What is the most interesting fact about these experiences, to me, is incredible if we do indeed leave our physical bodies and exist in a higher astral realm. Upon death two things happen. When a scientist weighed individuals at the exact moment of their death it was found that they lost a small amount of weight that couldn't be accounted for. And the other is the fact that a massive amount of DMT is poured into our body upon death. Why? To make us more comfortable with passing or to release our soul into it's natural state?

Imagine how hard it would be to explain sight to someone if only one person in the world had the gift of sight! Everything we encounter is frequency. Light frequency, sound frequency, vibration frequency. This is a fact. Another fact is that we can't see everything. We are blind to many spectrums as well as deaf to them.

Could our souls operate in their natural habitat as a frequency, manifesting in the physical form for an experience? Through my experience I have no doubt that this is the case.

I am fortunate now to be able to astral travel and remember it a few times a month. I could practice and hone this skill, as we all can, but I like to experience it naturally. To me it is more exciting this way, but I am fortunate that it happens naturally.

I suggest you attempt astral travel, if only once. You know you are in but a segment of your true life span.

If you have anything to add to this please do.
Please give me your comments and let me know what you think.

One more trick. Look at your clock. Add the numbers together (11:15=8) and then count them down. The minute will change when you reach 0.

astral travel into the dungeons of the vatican and it's ancient world libraries. i would give my left eye like odin did for the chance to actually physically do that. i'm sure that's the least they would take if i tried to leave though.

i always wondered though that if you could astral travel there(since that's probably the only way to see anything in there, unless they do accept left eyes), if there were psychics who worked within that would be able to percieve and catch or harm you.

My main problem with things such as astral travel, and near death experiences, are that, you have to take peoples word for it, there is no proof.

Even as the poster above has written, someone 'astral travels' to a place they haven't been before, then goes back in the living world, and finds the same things they wrote down in the astral travel journey..

But again, we have to take their word for it. There isn't a way of documenting/recording it at all, sadly.

It's a very interesting idea, but to me, it's more of a way of controlling the brain during sleep.

Astral Travel is the ability to move great distances through the spirit.

These and other Psycho(mind) Path (will) abilities are uncovered after a Samadhi Master has full control of his mind/will.

Is it not tragic that society calls the greatest tools of mankind, Mind and Will, when placed together, to mean Psycho-Path?

The Psycho (mind's) Path is the greatest way, the only way to salvation.

Yet, society corrupts this to mean psychopath, i.e. serial killer.

How far society is from the truth is as easy as understanding how corrupt their language has become.

[edit on 16-10-2009 by ancient_wisdom]

Astral Projection is going into deep inner spaces when in meditation.

Quantum physics has demonstrated something called "entanglement," which features a form of energy/information that can travel faster than the speed of light and actually can instantaneously affect two particles no matter what the physical distance between them. It has also been demonstrated that quantum states affect neurons and can change the electrical biases that determine where a signal is going to exit from a given neuron. So basically the "quantum realm" allows access to untold amounts of information of the entire universe and it can be accessed from within your brain.

What is Astral Travel

It's a term developed by new ager's to make money off gullible people who lack a proper education in critical thinking, logic and reasoning. The supposed feat of traveling through an astral plane of existence is nothing more than a fantasy. Usually, those without any sound mental capacity to discern fact from fiction are the one's who fall for these money traps. You end up getting sucked into believing it, looking it up, buying books on it etc. It's just stupid without any evidence to back it up.

Originally posted by bsbray11
Astral Projection is going into deep inner spaces when in meditation.

Quantum physics has demonstrated something called "entanglement," which features a form of energy/information that can travel faster than the speed of light and actually can instantaneously affect two particles no matter what the physical distance between them. It has also been demonstrated that quantum states affect neurons and can change the electrical biases that determine where a signal is going to exit from a given neuron. So basically the "quantum realm" allows access to untold amounts of information of the entire universe and it can be accessed from within your brain.

False, unfounded and potentially a deliberate lie. Quantum theory has not been successfully applied to the human brain at all nor does entanglement state anything about different forms of energy traveling faster than light. The fact that you said 'energy' implying a substance separate from matter only goes to show you haven't a flipping clue what your on about. Get off the pedestal before you hurt yourself.

Originally posted by sirnex
It's a term developed by new ager's to make money off gullible people who lack a proper education in critical thinking, logic and reasoning.

Certainly. Because everyone needs a proper education in good, critical, logical, reasonable thinking, before they can ever even entertain such scary, totally baffling and unexplainable phenomena, huh?

The supposed feat of traveling through an astral plane of existence is nothing more than a fantasy.

It is to you, because not only do you not understand it, you're not even motivated to try to seek an explanation or even admit one may exist that science has yet to quantify or measure, let alone have you experienced anything like it yourself.

Usually, those without any sound mental capacity to discern fact from fiction are the one's who fall for these money traps.

Have any surveys you'd like to link us to that back that up, or are you just being an ignorant bigot? This will be interesting to see.

You end up getting sucked into believing it, looking it up, buying books on it etc. It's just stupid without any evidence to back it up.

I see. So does a lack of evidence to you necessarily indicate positive evidence to the negative? For example, before black holes were known to exist, does that mean they never existed prior to that point in time? Etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. We are always learning new things. Studying the mind is a very recent science. The main science of which is not even considered a "real" science by real hard-heads, not understanding the implication of the work of colossal geniuses like Carl Jung and refusing to allow any room for the effect of the human consciousness itself upon physics, into physics. It is a slow process, information slowly spreading and still encountering resistance from birth pains such as yourself, but it does make good sense and there is definitely plenty of evidence believe it or not. You just haven't figured out what you are looking for yet. Because you have pre-conceptions about what this is exactly.