Inner Ear Muscle Technique
by Bob Peterson
I know it's been a long time since I posted an article to my blog. What can I say? I've been busy doing things like an unbelievable list of home repairs, planning retirement, setting up health insurance, and actually retiring! Then packing up and driving back to Florida and other things. I'm still trying to get my feet underneath me. I've always said that once I retire I'll have more time for things like my blog, but so far it's been complete chaos. But enough excuses. Without further ado:
In the past I've talked about how the right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ) of the brain formulates a "Story of Experience" based on the data it gets from the physical senses. To induce an out-of-body experience (OBE) you need to "derail" the rTPJ, force it to jump its tracks, and introduce an alternate "story of experience".
The brain's rTPJ is located close to the auditory area of the brain, and one component of its "story of experience" is based on our sense of balance, which comes from the inner ear. If your inner ear becomes infected, plugged, damaged, or altered by drugs (such as caffeine) it can affect your sense of balance, and that affects your story of experience. These are known as vestibular problems.
But people with vestibular problems tend to have more out-of-body experiences than people who don't, and you can take advantage of that.
One technique to induce mystical states of consciousness that dates back at least to the twelfth century is the spinning dances of the "Whirling Dervishes" (Mevlevi or "Sufi" order of Islam, centered mainly in Turkey) which force a temporarily altered story of experience.
It turns out that some people have the ability to move the muscles in the inner ear, and that can be leveraged to alter their vestibular system to induce an OBE.
This technique comes from someone in the "Astral Projection" group by the name of Ælfweald
Ó Brolcháin who writes:
Since I was a child I could make a humming like noise in my ears. I never thought much of it but I would do it sometimes for fun, maybe to the beat of a song. I forget exactly how I figured this out but I did. I have seen many others online who can do the same thing with the ear humming...
There is a muscle in the inner ear called the tensor tympani. Some people can contract it voluntarily and make a humming or roaring like noise. Very similar to what many people hear right before or doing AP.
One night I was sleeping and awoke enough to become aware I could possibly [astral] project. For some reason and I’m not even sure why I had the idea, I tried it. I made the humming noise and held it which I can do for some time. I was surprised with what happened next. I successfully left [my body] but it was much more intense and I was way more aware than any time I’d done it before. I could even come back at will and shoot back out by just tightening the muscle.
I'd be interested to hear other people's experiences with this technique.
Bob Peterson,
28 November 2023
