A Year of New OBE Tips - Part 3

by Bob Peterson

In my previous two articles, I wrote about the new OBE induction tips and "tricks" I learned since I published my fifth book, Hacking the Out of Body Experience: Leveraging Science to Induce OBEs about a year ago. If you missed part 1, you can read it by clicking this link. To read part 2, follow this link.

What I covered in part 1:

• Taking naps
• Trying different relaxation techniques
• Harnessing unfamiliarity
• Fasting
• The 4-hour WBTB trick
• Reading about OBEs before bed

What I covered in part 2:

• Harness your expectations
• Let go: you're probably trying too hard
• Give yourself a break
• Exercise your default mode network (DMN)
• Ask for outside help

Here's my third and final installment of this series:

Roll your closed eyes up slightly

In Hacking I wrote about how you can slowly panning your closed eyes back and forth during OBE practice to pretend your body is in REM sleep:

"I also read a Facebook post from a guy who offered another trick related to the Gatekeeper. His trick is to slowly roll your eyes back and forth, as if pretending your body is in REM sleep. He claimed that the act of slowly rolling your eyes is enough to convince your subconscious that the body is in REM sleep, and that lets you sneak more awareness or lucidity across the threshold." (pg. 259)

Even though REM stands for Rapid Eye Movements, the actual eye movements in REM sleep are often not rapid at all, but somewhat slow.

Since then, I learned this additional trick from Terrill Willson's book How I Learned Soul Travel. Willson writes:

My primary attention was on keeping my eyes rotated upward as high as possible in my head yet staying relaxed; then I'd concentrate on listening to The Faint High whistle in the top of my head. If I could drift into sleep still contemplating like this, my chances of moving out of my body automatically were very good." (pg. 123)

So when you make your OBE attempts, let your eyes roll up gently. It's important not to strain them or force them up artificially. Just let them float up naturally.

Loosen your TPJ - Boating and video games

In Hacking I wrote about how the brain's temporoparietal junction (TPJ) determines your sense of spacial location and orientation by polling several sources of sensory data to formulate your "story of experience" (how you experience everything). The right-side TPJ determines your experience (what is happening to you) and the left-side TPJ determines your narrative about the experience (your running inner dialog about what you experience). I wrote about how you can directly change your experience by changing your inner dialog because both TPJs talk to each other within the Default Mode Network. That's why things like affirmations work.

I also talked about how video games make OBEs more likely because they train your brain to accept an altered story of experience.

Another thing I've found is that boating for long periods of time, with that constant rocking, messes (in a good way) with your TPJ's sense of stability. So it may help to spend quality time on a boat, train, or anything else with a rocking motion.

 

Later, when you're on land and make your OBE attempts, you can remember the rocking sensation and leverage that for your OBEs.

Ride the Transitions

In Hacking I wrote about how to effectively use vitamins and supplements to induce OBEs. One of the things I wrote was:

"Don’t take B-6 every day. Take it a few days, then stop cold turkey for another few, then go back on it again. For some reason, I seem to have better dream recall when I’m either starting or stopping vitamin B-6. If I’m on it too long or off it too long, the effect is nullified."

That's a perfect example of "riding a transition." OBEs are much more likely when you make the transition: when you start taking vitamin B-6, or stop taking it, but not so much when you're actually "on" or "off" the vitamin for long periods.

What I've learned in the last year is that it extends beyond vitamins and supplements. OBEs seem to be facilitated by when you undergo many behavioral changes: the transition of starting or stopping some behavior.

Another good example is sleeping at a friend's house, which I talked about in my article about Harnessing Unfamiliarity for OBEs: you're making a transition from your familiar residence to a new one, or rearranging your bedroom: transitioning from one bed position to another. These transitions and "non-patterning" can also lead to more frequent OBEs, but once you become too familiar, your OBEs can stop again.

The same is true with exercise: You may not have many OBEs if you exercise regularly or laze around constantly, but when you start a new exercise program or stop one, you're more likely to have OBEs.

The same goes for meditation: Regular meditation may facilitate OBEs, but I've often found that OBEs are more likely when I either start a new meditation practice or stop one. If I'm too regimented with my meditation--or don't meditate at all--OBEs are less frequent.

Non-patterning is not the same thing as sporadic

Don't get me wrong. That's not to say that "sporadic" or random use of supplements, exercise and meditation are the answer either. Your body gets used to that randomness too.

 

What I am suggesting is that you ride those transitions: exercise regularly for a week or two, then be lazy for a week or two. Meditate regularly for two weeks, then skip it for a week. Take a B-complex vitamin for a week, then skip it a week. Listen to binaural beats for a week, then skip it for a week. And don't use the same "on/off" schedule for all these things.

 

I suggest you vary the length of time you spend "on" and "off" a program. Some people may need two weeks or even three. It depends on your metabolism.

 

Learning to induce out-of-body experiences is like Tai Chi: you can do it your whole life, but there's always something new to learn.

 

Hopefully some of these helpful hints can get you unstuck or give you that initial push to get you across that delicate threshold and into a whole new level of reality. Try some of these new tips then share the results on one of the Astral Projection groups on Facebook.

If you have your own OBE induction tips I haven't covered elsewhere, share them too. Maybe I'll collect them and create a new blog article with readers' tips.

 

Bob Peterson

25 August 2020

A Year of New OBE Tips - Part 2

A Year of New OBE Tips - Part 2

by Bob Peterson

In my previous article, I wrote about the new OBE induction tips and "tricks" I learned since I published my fifth book, Hacking the Out of Body Experience: Leveraging Science to Induce OBEs one year ago. In case you missed it, you can read part 1 by clicking this link.

What I covered last time:

• Taking naps
• Trying different relaxation techniques
• Harnessing unfamiliarity
• Fasting
• The 4-hour WBTB trick
• Reading about OBEs before bed

Now I have some more suggestions: 

Harness your expectations

In his book Adventures Beyond the Body, William Buhlman famously suggests you improve your level of consciousness in an OBE by demanding "Clarity Now!" Great advice. In a way, it's like setting up expectations inside the OBE. But I've also learned that setting your expectations is also an important step before an OBE. Don't just demand to have an OBE, expect that you will.

An expectation is like a subconscious directive, and reality always tries to bend to meet your expectations, thanks in part to your subconscious mind. That's true both inside the body and out. If you expect a store clerk to be hostile, they are more often hostile. If you expect to be cheated in a deal, you're more likely to be cheated. If you expect to remember your dreams, you're more likely to remember your dreams.

You can harness that for OBEs: If you expect to have an OBE, you're more likely to have an OBE. Of course it's not guaranteed, but it makes it all the more likely.

If you don't feel the connection, or take the expectation for granted, you may ask: isn't that unrealistic? "Most nights I don't have OBEs, so how can I expect to have them now?" It's a valid question.

Consider this: most people who suffer from ASP (Awareness during Sleep Paralysis) are terrified by them, and the their fear sets up a subconscious expectation: They expect (or fear) so strongly it's going to happen again, that it actually does. Their worry is a form of expectation and it sets their subconscious in motion to make it happen. And it happens over and over.

You can do the same thing with OBEs. If you "worry" or even just "expect" that you'll have another OBE, it is more likely to happen.

 

Some people expect to have more OBEs during a full moon, and it does. Some people expect to have more OBEs if their bed points North, and it does. There's no scientific basis for these beliefs, but if you alter your expectations, they often become your reality.

 

So whatever you do, don't expect disappointment. Expect OBE success.

 

Let go: you're probably trying too hard

A big part of inducing OBEs is "letting go" or allowing it to happen, and just passively watching rather than trying to "do" anything. I don't remember writing this in Hacking, but the biggest mistake people make is trying too hard. They try so hard that they don't let themselves get close enough to sleep. You've got to let yourself drift down very close to sleep. Don't be afraid to fall over that edge. The worst that happens is you fall asleep and try again when you wake. But if you don't "let go" enough, you'll never get out of body.

If you have too many problems falling asleep during OBE attempts, try practicing in the morning when you're well rested, or take a long nap in the afternoon so you're not as sleepy at night. 

Give yourself a break - Insert gaps

If you've read my first book, Out of Body Experiences: How to have them and what to expect, you may recall that when I started, I practiced OBEs every night for a solid month without success. My first full OBE took place only after I came home one night and decided I was too tired to practice. It was only when I took a break from OBE practice that I allowed my subconscious enough space to manifest my intent.

The lesson here is that, while it's important to inundate your subconscious with OBE messages, it's also important to give yourself a break in the action. Your subconscious works best when it's left alone to work on a problem.

Jane Roberts, author of the channeled "Seth" material wrote about "Framework 2." It's basically a workplace for your subconscious. If your subconscious is constantly kept busy processing conscious thoughts and mental noise, it doesn't get enough time and space to work the problem. To manifest anything (think "Law of Attraction" here) including OBEs, you need to send intense messages to your subconscious, then drop the subject and let it work the problem. Give it time and space to do its thing. In other words, take periodic breaks from your OBE practice. Practice intently, then take a day or three off, then repeat the cycle.

Exercise your default mode network (DMN)

In Hacking, I wrote about two neural networks in the human brain that route messages to their "hubs" to accomplish tasks: The Task Positive Network (TPN) and the default mode network (DMN.)

The TPN works on outer tasks; tasks that require focus on the physical world. When made to do an external task, like solving a math problem, the TPN takes control and does the brain work for the job.

When the brain goes idle, the DMN takes control and often consumes more energy than the TPN. The DMN works on inner space tasks like introspection, imagination, daydreaming, etc.

One of the hubs of the DMN is the Temporo-parietal Junction (TPJ--both left and right side) which, according to neuroscientists, play a big role in out-of-body experiences.

I wrote about all this in Hacking, but I didn't stress how important it is to exercise your Default Mode Network, the DMN.

Some authors (Carlos Castaneda comes to mind) teach techniques of sun gazing (use caution with this one), which exercises the DMN. Others, like Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman, teach techniques of staring at a white piece of paper or blank computer screen and letting your mind go blank, which has the same effect.

I prefer to exercise my DMN by "staring off into space" with my eyes open. All of these can help you induce OBEs by strengthening the areas of the brain needed for OBEs.

 

Ask for outside help

In Hacking, I wrote about asking for help from several sources: your subconscious, your "higher self," spirit guides, guardian angels, God, etc., all suited to your belief system. But I worked out a new angle on it.

During my OBEs, there are usually "invisible guides" who are willing to help me out. They're usually stand-offish. They talk, but reluctantly. Sometimes they'll even admit "I'm here to help, but not to answer questions."

Well, it occurred to me that these same guides are hanging around regardless of whether we're in the body or out of it. Since they're already there and willing to help, it's fair game to ask them to help you leave your body. Well, duh! They're here to help, so put them to work. Appeal to them directly. It helps.

Try some of these new tips and let me know how it goes.

Once again, this article got to be a bit long, so I'm working on a third installment and hope to publish it next Blog Tuesday, 25 August.

 

Bob Peterson

11 August 2020