h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hey Spangled Man this is J

Firstly, thanks. I only started writing for this thing recently so I was a little suprised that you responded as quickly as you did.

Umm, I'm not sure exactly how much help I can be. If I can refer you to my article called "Astral travel" I admit to the fact that I am able to travel while asleep. However, I can tell you that the transition period from just lucid dreaming to a more advanced stage of actual travel took sometime and for awhile would involve the fact that I would stop breathing in my sleep which seemed to make the connection to the spirit world easier (albeit a very disconcerting way to wake up).

Having said all of that I may be able to help you, or rather I know some practicing Shamans who may be able to help you.

At this early stage I guess the easiest thing to get things moving would be some further detail from you, e.g your experiences (when it started [when you first noticed it]), how abruptly it stops (do you wake up short of breath/confused etc) and how you've tried to initiate the experience.

With this sort of info I can make various inquiries on your behalf to the Shaman's that I know and we'll see if we can help you out in some way.

Again, thankyou for your kind words on my response and I wish you lots of luck in your quest to travel.

-J

Aha! A week later and I notice your response! And you thought I responded quickly!
Right, probably around 10 - 11 years ago I had my first lucid dream. This happened purely by chance. I was just dreaming when all of a sudden I knew I was. The dream itself lasted only for a short while. Long enough for me to enjoy the experience, but not long enough to experiment. Shortly after that I had another experience. The same thing happened again in that it happened purely by chance. This particular experience was the shortest one I had, and I found myself drifting back into a normal dream in which I had no control. The third time however I was able to experiment a little. Once I became aware in my dream I had a go at moving around (or more like just arriving where I thought of walking to!) and decided to see if I could walk through walls. I walked into a wall, knocked myself and woke up! After that experience I went to my local library to see if I could find books on the subject. Sure enough they had one book that went very much into detail about the subject. I read the book with so much interest and continued to practice the methods given inside but since then I just haven't been able to do it! It's like once I read it I prodfuced some kind of mental block which I can't break through. The method I try to use is asking myself if I'm dreaming throughout the day in an attempt to ask myself the same question when I'm dreaming. So far it hasn't worked. I have researched the subject a lot over the last ten years and it has led me into looking into astral projection.
With astral projection I can get myself into a very deep altered state where time has no relevance (i.e thinking I've been at it for 15 mins to find I've been there 2 hours!) but I just can't let go of my inner self. I get to the swaying sensation and lights stage but I just can't make the final transistion. I think I shock myself back to a normal state whenever I get close, and when I do get close I can't stop thinking about it which obviously brings my awareness back down to base level. 10 years of practicing and I still can't do it! It's very frustrating. Thankfully the age of the internet means that I have been able to contact people like your self. I generally use the methods I wrote about in my article. Any advice?

Hi Spangled man,
For starters I think that maybe you're trying too hard. I can understand that all of this is frustrating and so no doubt you really want to do it which may be causing you some sort of performance anxiety. I know that this was a long time ago but try to think about what you did on the days before you started to lucid dream, perhaps you had such a cool day and hence ended up so relaxed that you were able to "travel". I'm not sure that I would go with the "asking yourself if you're dreaming" I think that could only help to centre yourself around "reality" and hence spoil you chances. My only real advice at this stage is to maybe try not to think about it so much, like the old line about meditating "how do you know when you are sucessful, when you're not thinking about whether or not you're there yet", maybe this will yield some more luck for you. Basically try to relax about the whole process more. I will get on to my sharman friends and see if they have any advice , maybe we could get in touch with you in the astral plane?!
On a slightly different note, rather than have everyone able to add their "two cents" to this why don't you email me, you can find me at [email protected]
I think if we work on an email level it might be easier (if for no other reason other than the fact that I couldn't log on to h2g2 for about 3 days).
I'll wait to hear from you

-J

Cheers J,
I'd check your email then!

Spangledman.