What is Astral Travel

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 '___'.

'___' 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 '___' is released into your body from the Pineal Gland. '___' 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, '___' 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 '___' 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.

reply to post by esteay812


This is only my opinion about it...

(ii) Conscious Dreamstate

I suspect that everyone has at least once had a dream that have been quite vivid; where the images are clear, one can hear sounds and feel emotions and so on. So it is quite unarguable that our mind is capable of producing images without eyes seeing anything but perhaps the inside of our eyelashes. These unseen images then are products of our brains (the exact physical organ), somewhere there exists a center where from the dreams emerge. However, this dreamcenter - as I like to call it - can be activated in state of consciousness. This is bit tricky, but as we know there are many people capable of entering this state, usually they do it by meditation -- another good method is hypnosis, yet it can be dangerous because in hypnosis you give the control to someone else.

The methods of entering Astral always requires this meditative state, aquired by meditation or by other means (perhaps drugs or hypnosis). What I suspect (I have no hard evidence on this because I am not a brain surgeon/researcher) is that on this meditative state, one activates the dreamcenter, yet holding onto consciousness by not falling asleep. Once this state has been achieved, one can hear sounds, feel and see things that one normally cannot. Advanced practioner of these techniques (let's call them adepts) can even form specified images and have wanted results from their dreamcenter. These images are then cast into the mind and they enter the consciousness route different than the eyes.

What some inexperienced mystics fail to see, is that Astral plane is no way reality. They tend to think that Astral plane is kind of objective reality to the certain, advanced people like themselves, but in here the fall in the pit of selfhisness, and their advance in knowledge is more likely blocked. However, Astral Projection can become reality. According to Alice A. Bailey (the author of the Treatise on white magick), all the forms are first created in Astral Plane. I back up this claim by saying that every of our intentions and inventions takes place in our thoughts first -- in a sense, the plane of our thoughts can be called the Astar Plane. This is important knowledge to those who really wants to know. So nothing in Astral is real before it is transfered into energy and matter. In a sense it can be said that the Astral form is the seed that is cast into the material world. Then it either developes or dies, depending on the quality of the seed.

OP.

However, as stated above, this is merely opinion and I have no idea whether it is true. I haven't had any personal experiences about astral travelling nor remote viewing (which I tend to think being form of "astral" travelling).

I wonder if we can acquire objective information about astral travelling in a form of somekind of experiment. For example, can two distinct persons have perfectly similar experiences of astral, like that they would be able to communicate in "astral", yet both confirming exactly same observations?

Originally posted by esteay812
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 found this somewhat of importance. Last night I was skimming tome of neuropsychology and I encountered a chapter where there was this observation that spectrum of consciousness to unconsciousness was indeed limited to frequencies. It stated that more conscious (in terms of neuropsychology) you are, more high frequent beta- and gammawaves were present. And distinctively, unconscious state (e.g when in deep sleep) showed signals of low frequency deltawaves.

I'm curious about how other people feel about this issue. Good post esteay812

-v

[edit on 16-10-2009 by v01i0]

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.

reply to post by esteay812

You are so very, very lucky...more than you realize...I wish I could naturally achieve astral projection...or even achieve it at all...I've tried several times but all failed...I have come close...but I have terrible concentration and always lose my train of thought when I start getting close...I get to excited...do you possibly have any advice that could help some one like me achieve astral projection...I want to experience reality without being held back by a physical flesh bag more than anything else in the world...that's probably my problem...I used to be able to control my dreams, and I was getting better at it...but I stopped...and now I can't even seem to remember a single dream I have, let alone realize when I'm dreaming and take control...

reply to post by v01i0

I'm certain a soul exists, and does leave the body upon death, therefor I assume astral projection isn't just a dream. I have heard of accounts where people will achieve astral projection, then they will travel to a place they have never been before, and take notes of certain things. They will then return to that place, but in their physical form, and check whether their observations match up, and they do. I'll try to find some accounts of this on the internet and get back to you...

[edit on 16/10/09 by CHA0S]

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.

reply to post by Lister87


Yeah...it is a very hard thing to prove...but what about that man who apparently did remote viewing for the C.I.A. or what have you...I watched a video where they asked him to remote view a place across the other side of the world, and his descriptions and drawings were staggering...way beyond coincidence...I think that right there clearly proves some part of us can travel vast distances, separate from our physical body...

Originally posted by CHA0S
reply to post by Lister87

 

Yeah...it is a very hard thing to prove...but what about that man who apparently did remote viewing for the C.I.A. or what have you...I watched a video where they asked him to remote view a place across the other side of the world, and his descriptions and drawings were staggering...way beyond coincidence...I think that right there clearly proves some part of us can travel vast distances, separate from our physical body...

But as a viewer of the video, probably some years later, you have no idea if he's actually been to the place he's apparently drawing before, or if before the video they showed him pictures etc.

That's all i'm saying, proof is very hard to come by, ACTUAL proof.

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]

reply to post by v01i0


I wish I could quote the exact source for my next comment, but the source fails me.

There is a reference to a man who, many years before, astrally traveled to a lawyers office where he encountered a woman sitting at the desk. He tried to intereact with her, ut she was merely dreaming.

Years later the man travelled to Mexico and was in need of a lawyer. He went to a lawyers office and, to his astonishment, he was in side the same office he had visited astrally. He did not know the man at the lawyers desk, but they became friendly fast and the lawyer ask him to attend dinner with him.

At dinner the man was introduced to the lawyers wife. He was amazed to find that this was the exact woman he had seen years before. The woman was also inclined to let the man know that she was positive that she had met him or somehow knew him.

VVery strange, but accounts like this are out there.

reply to post by shagreen heart


Believe it or not, when you are able to astral travel the importance of the material world and it's mysteries seem to vanish. You are almost compelled to explore things that relate to yourself, but if these things are important to your soul I would imagine you would seek them out.

reply to post by CHA0S


There are three things you can do to increase your chance for astral travel.

1. Fast for a day, no food only liquids - or even a day and a half

2. Make sure you are not hmmhmm 'constipated' a cleansed body seems to increase the experiences exponentially.

3. (Do this at you own risk) Sleep deprivation. Stay awake for 24 hours and then sleep four 3 and then stay awake for 12 hours. Your brain will release more '___', possibly allowing you to enter astral worlds before falling completely asleep.

These are a few things to try, only attempt them if you are comfortable with the inherent consequences.

reply to post by Lister87


Thank yo for the post.

Although this is absolutely untrue!! All the evidence in the world is available to you and to everyone. We are all capable of this! In Fact it is inevitable that we will all take this journey upon death, guaranteed by the '___' released by our brains upon death.

If you want porrf you can get it first hand. Just do it.

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.

reply to post by bsbray11


Two words, prove it.

Not only has astral realms and travel never been proven, the varied descriptions given my a multitude of new agers aren't even in agreement with each other over what these realms are. Nor does anything in science even come close to postulating a possibility for such a thing, in a sense, every attempt to show science does, such as your usage of quantum entanglement, is born of unfounded misunderstandings of the theories being used.

Originally posted by sirnex
False, unfounded and potentially a deliberate lie.

Oh, that hurts so bad. What do you know about neuropsychology? Have you read a single book about the subject? I'm not talking "new-age" books, either. I have read neuro-psychology books on this subject. They are actually very recent but very scientific works, such as "The Quantum Brain" which was written by an actual physicist, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.

The only thing missing is the data to demonstrate the microcosm with the macrocosm, on a fractal scale. Because that is essentially what you are theoretically tapping into. So far, every time we get down to that small of a level, our even observing/taking measurements of the system has known, significant effects, so that how the systems "really" behave can hardly be determined, and in fact is not even deterministic in the mathematical models but probabilistic.

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.

Are you basing this out of a 1950's textbook or something? Are you an information bigot or something? Seriously...

Certain phenomena in quantum mechanics, such as quantum entanglement, appear to transmit information faster than light. ...

We can also quote the spectacular case of the thought experiment of Einstein, Podolski and Rosen (EPR paradox) which could be realized in experiments for the first time by Alain Aspect in 1981 and 1982 in the Aspect experiment. In this case, the measurement of the state on one of the quantum systems of an entangled pair forces the other system to be measured in the complementary state. Thus functions quantum teleportation.

An experiment performed in 1997 by Nicolas Gisin at the University of Geneva has demonstrated nonlocal quantum correlations between particles separated by over 10 kilometers.[33] But as noted earlier, the nonlocal correlations seen in entanglement cannot actually be used to transmit classical information faster than light, so that relativistic causality is preserved; see no-communication theorem for further information. A 2008 quantum physics experiment also performed by Nicolas Gisin and his colleagues in Geneva, Switzerland has determined that the "speed" of the quantum non-local connection (what Einstein called spooky action at a distance) has a minimum lower bound of 10,000 times the speed of light. [34]

en.wikipedia.org...

For the layman, the "nonlocal correlation" is the connection that makes the 2 separated particles (many miles/kilometers apart from each other in separate laboratories) change state at exactly the same time, once one of them is reversed. Some previously-held theorems in physics (such as Einstein's relativity, which states nothing can travel faster than light) are preserved on technical grounds, but Einstein even called it a "spooky action at a distance" because of its non-local (ie 10,000 times the speed of light, as of the 2008 experiment mentioned above) properties.

These little things, like this "non-local correlation," are why quantum physics has popular theories involving around 10 dimensions or more. Because other modes of relating energy to each other, besides just the spatial and time domains, must be at play to offer a full explanation to these late and ongoing experimental data.

If you don't like wikipedia, look up other sources yourself. Like I said, I have read multiple books on the subject, so I already have a "good feeling" of what you are going to find upon further research.

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.

Geez, you foam at the mouth very readily, don't you? Are you sure you're meant to be here talking to another person on an online discussion forum right now, as opposed to something to vent a little more of that vitriol out of you?

Matter is energy. A very dense form of energy. Light is also a form of energy, though a photon must have hardly any mass to it whatsoever. Only in the past 2 centuries or so have we even be able to measure most forms of energy, because most forms of energy, we can't even see or hear or easily detect with our bodies in any other way. If you look up Dr. William Tiller, a tenured materials professor at MIT, you'll see scientists are already looking for additional forms of energy to explain certain phenomena that are being demonstrated, and this stuff is mainstream. Don't be so SHOCKED by it. You are not your beliefs.

reply to post by sirnex


LOLOLOL

I truly wish shortightedness through modern materialistic constructs could be by-passed to see what you are truly capable of.

Personally I have never purchased anything to assit me in my experiences. I also feel sorry for the individuals who are closed off enough to not explore the possibility that there is more than what they - individually - have experienced.

Hopefully someday you will have an experience of the astral type and you then will know that you have posted ignorant hog-wash. LOL

Originally posted by sirnex
reply to post by bsbray11

 

Two words, prove it.

If I can't demonstrate it to you on an online forum, are you going to tell me that you're going to automatically conclude no such thing could exist? That's what I was saying in my last post, since you want to just ignore that part of what I said and pretend I never said it: just because we don't yet have positive scientific, demonstrable evidence of something, does not mean we will not have that evidence in the future when it is better understood in general. And also it is demonstrable, but not in the way you are demanding it to be.

All you would have to do if you REALLY wanted to know if this stuff was for real, would be to dedicate yourself to the practices required to achieve it, that thousands of people could personally attest to.

Not only has astral realms and travel never been proven, the varied descriptions given my a multitude of new agers aren't even in agreement with each other over what these realms are. Nor does anything in science even come close to postulating a possibility for such a thing, in a sense, every attempt to show science does, such as your usage of quantum entanglement, is born of unfounded misunderstandings of the theories being used.

Everything you just said is coming from a total confusion on your part. But this confusion is common today because you have lots of preconceptions about this and you really as misinterpreting something that is actually very obvious and increasingly scientific.

I mentioned Carl Jung. Have you ever read any of his work, or are you familiar with his philosophies? Because that would be a good starting ground.