Problem 5: I Can't Get The Vibrations

by Bob Peterson

This is part 5 in a series of articles I wrote to help you solve problems inducing the out-of-body state. Here are links to the previous four articles in the series:

1. Problem 1: Nothing Happens
2. Problem 2: I Just Fall Asleep
3. Problem 3: The Vibrations Just Fade
4. Problem 4: I Get Scared and Chicken Out
   

In this article I'd like to focus on another common problem: You can't seem to get the vibrations no matter how hard you try.

First of all, let me just say the vibrations are different for everyone, and they can even vary from instance to instance. To some people they feel like touching a live electric wire: disrupting, electrical and almost painful. Other people feel them as a loud, roaring, rushing or hissing noise. Some even find them stimulating, soothing, arousing or even orgasmic. The important thing is: some people don't feel them at all; they are completely undetectable. That means you may experience the vibrations and not even know it.

The flip side of that coin is: the vibrations may not even be needed to leave your body. Many people leave their body without getting the vibrations at all, or at least they haven't noticed them.

When I first started having OBEs in the early 1980s, the vibrations felt rough and electrical, but as time went on they got smoother, almost nonexistent. Still, after all these years I get the full-intensity vibrations every once in a while (like every couple years) and it surprises me.

So if you can't get the vibrations, don't sweat it. It means very little.

I suspect maybe the vibrations are a physical-body phenomenon, similar to a mild seizure, or maybe the brain's interpretation of when it's flooded with sleep paralysis hormones. And maybe we only notice it if we have full-body awareness when we exit the body rather than becoming conscious after we exit.

At any rate, here are some ideas to help you get the vibrations:

Energy Exercises

Some astral projection teachers use energy exercises to induce or "call" the vibrations. The idea is: instead of performing out-of-body exit techniques, you relax and simply perform energy exercises. Robert Bruce and other authors recommend the microcosmic orbit used in Tai Chi and Qi Gong, where you visualize non-physical energy flowing like a river through your body in a circle, starting at the Dan Tien (belly button chakra) downward to the root chakra, back up the spine to the crown chakra, then back down to your Dan Tien again.

Other teachers recommend "Velo" (Voluntary Energetic Longitudinal Oscillation) and similar techniques where you try to develop a harmonic resonance with a disc of non-physical energy sweeping your entire body from your feet up to your head, and back down. Nanci Trivellato's book Vibrational State and Energy Resonance is 494 pages devoted to this technique and how to do it properly. If done properly, it can bring you the vibrations.

Another popular energy exercise is Kundalini, in which you visualize a stream of energy flowing from the Earth up to your root chakra, up your spine, exiting out through the crown chakra. I've never practiced kundalini yoga, but I've read stern warnings not to do it without proper guidance of a competent guru. You've been warned.

Technique Cycling

One of the most important contributions from Michael Raduga is the concept of OBE "technique cycling." Technique cycling is where you lie down, fully relaxed, and try for a few seconds (like maybe ten seconds) to use one OBE exit technique. For example, let's just say imagined rocking. If you've made no progress after ten seconds, switch to a different exit technique (say, phantom wiggling) and try that for another ten seconds. If there's still no progress, switch to a third exit technique (say, imagined floating.) If none of these three exit techniques induce the vibrations, start over with your original technique (imagined rocking). It's best to cycle through a small number of pre-selected techniques. If you try to think of different exit techniques to try, or select too many techniques your brain will engage too much. You should try to keep your mind as silent as possible, and keep it as simple and possible. Raduga suggests three.

Special Music

On rare occasions I have gotten the vibrations while meditating to music with my headphones on. It has always been when the music elicits a state of connection; it brings me into the zone. It's almost like the concept of a Koan in Zen Buddhism, a concept designed to jar your consciousness out of its normal pattern and bring you to a state of grace (like the sound of one hand clapping). In my case I've gotten the vibrations while listening to these songs:

• Close to the Edge by Yes
• Awaken by Yes 
• Ritual by Yes
  
• And You and I by Yes (Is there a theme here?)
  
• Cygnus X-1 by Rush
• Echoes by Pink Floyd
• Ashes Are Burning by Renaissance
  

Harness Unfamiliarity

In 2019 I wrote a blog article titled Harnessing Unfamiliarity. It is about how you should break your routines and try new things for your OBE practice: new locations, new beds, new directions. It can help.

Use Wake-Back-To-Bed (WBTB)

It may be easier to induce the vibrations if you use the Wake-Back-To-Bed (WBTB) technique. Again, this is one of the key concepts of Michael Raduga. For more detailed instructions, read this article from my blog:

Wake-Back-To-Bed Explained 

The idea here is to interrupt your sleep after 6 hours (typically) with an alarm. Once your sleep is interrupted, stay awake for a brief period of time, then go back to bed and perform out-of-body exit techniques: the technique cycling I mentioned earlier. Many people find they can induce the vibrations easier when they practice after interrupted sleep.

Harness Your Fear

In 2017 I wrote an article for this blog about Turning the Tables On Fear. Part of the article was about how to use your fear to induce out-of-body experiences.

A couple years later I had a nightmare in which I was being attacked by a horrifying demonic monster, and I woke up with a start. In a way, this was a form of WBTB because the nightmare startled me awake.

Realizing it had just been a dream, I lay back down in bed and did an experiment. I visualized the monster's face, and as I did, a cold shiver ran through my body. As I focused on the monster, the shiver quickly developed into a mild form of the vibrations. I knew I could easily drop into an out-of-body state, but I hesitated: What if the monster was real and waiting for me on the other side? So I pulled myself back to full-body awareness and the vibrations faded away.

Just for fun, I visualized the monster's face again, and the vibrations came back. Now it became a challenge and a game! I spent about 10 minutes just pulling myself out of the vibrations and back in, just by visualizing the monster's face. I must have done it 10 times in a row. Eventually I got tired, gave up, and went back to a normal sleep with no more nightmares.

Conclusions

Hopefully this article gave you ideas to get you to the vibrational state, and from there fully to the out-of-body experience. If you have more techniques to call the vibrations, send me an email and I'll do a follow-up article.

Bob Peterson,
24 January 2022

Problem 4: I Get Scared and Chicken Out

by Bob Peterson

This is part 4 in a series of articles to help you solve problems inducing the out-of-body/astral projection state. Here are links to the previous three articles in the series:

1. Problem 1: Nothing Happens
2. Problem 2: I Just Fall Asleep
3. Problem 3: The Vibrations Just Fade
   

In this article I'd like to focus on another common problem: You can get to the vibrations and are all set to take off, but suddenly you get scared and abort your attempt.

In a previous article I wrote about how the Guardian of the Threshold can manifest your subconscious fears and reservations in many strange ways, preventing you from inducing an out-of-body experience. If you hear voices--strange or familiar-- that try to talk you out of the OBE, ignore them: they're not real. The same goes for other weirdness, like phone calls, knocks on your door, or even ugly creatures, old hags, or demonic-looking creatures.

Fear can be a big show-stopper when it comes to astral projection. In fact, I dedicated an entire chapter of my first book to the problem of fear and how I had to overcome it before I could successfully self-induce OBEs. I even wrote another separate article on this blog on Turning the Tables on Fear.

When you start your OBE attempt it's easy to put on a brave face and tell yourself you're going to be strong and unflappable. But when you're finally out-of-body or deep in the vibrations, the reality of it (some would say shock and awe) can throw all your hard work and training all out the window. You may tell yourself, "I'm not ready for this" or "I'm in over my head" and abort the experience. That's the wrong attitude.

Someone once said that bravery is not being unafraid; it's acknowledging the fear and not letting it stop you. The fear is okay. The fear is natural. The fear is instinctual. But do not let it stop you.

In my experience the best thing to do is grant yourself some time. Make a deal with yourself. Tell yourself, "This time I'm not going to let it stop me. This time I'm just going to go along with it another ten seconds and see what happens." Usually that's all you need. Once the vibrations start and your fear-reaction sets in, you only need to ride it out for a few seconds until, poof, suddenly like magic, you find yourself fully out-of-body, embraced by a comfortable and calm silence. No more monsters, no bogeymen, no more vibrations or noises. It will all just suddenly disappear and you'll find yourself floating peacefully above your body in tranquility. Then the adventure begins!

To calm their fears, some people say a prayer of protection before their OBE attempt. It doesn't matter whether you pray to God, Jesus, Angels, Spirit Guides, Odin or whomever. It just needs to embody a sense of protection. If you're Wiccan or pagan, you can also perform a ritual of protection or cast a spell of protection.

Others choose to visualize a white light of protection surrounding your body.

Unfortunately, you cannot eliminate fear altogether because it is instinctual: our bodies have developed certain fears, such as fear of the unknown and fear of death, as a means of self-protection. So the best you can do is mitigate the fear, try to reason with it, and wait until it lessens with time and experience.

Bob Peterson,
10 January 2023

Problem 3: The Vibrations Just Fade

by Bob Peterson

This is part 3 in a series of articles I wrote to help you solve problems inducing the out-of-body state. Here are links to the previous two articles in the series:

1. Problem 1: Nothing Happens
2. Problem 2: I Just Fall Asleep 
   

In this article I'd like to focus on another common problem: You're able to induce a common precursor to out-of-body experience, "the vibrations," but they just fade away and don't produce an OBE.

In my 43+ years of experience, here is what I've learned:

The vibrations can be induced by turning your focus inward, narrowing down your focus into a tiny stream of watchful awareness, while letting go of all sensory input. In many cases it involves temporarily abandoning your thoughts, emotions, and expectations and just allowing it to happen: surrendering to whatever happens.

Once you accomplish all that, the vibrations often sweep into your body like a crescendo of electric energy, like touching a live electrical cable where some unknown force turns up the power more and more.

Needless to say, that can be quite jarring. I've written elsewhere that it's like getting slapped in the face: hard to ignore, especially when you've gone to such great lengths to make your mind quiet and still. And therein lies the problem: That slap-in-the-face jars you out of the proper state and brings back all those thoughts and emotions you worked so hard to eliminate. "Oh my God, it's happening! What do I do? Am I in danger?" On and on chatters the monkey-mind, once again out of control.

Although some so-called experts say you should try to encourage the vibrations, but in my experience it's best to ignore them altogether, remain calm and re-center. Or as they say in England, "Keep Calm and Carry On."

Return your mind back to that quiet, unfazed state with no thoughts and no emotions. In fact, I've experimented quite a bit with this state and found that when the vibrations sweep in:

• If I try to encourage the vibrations, they fade away quickly.
• If I try to think about the vibrations, they fade away slowly.
• If I get scared or emotional about the vibrations, they fade away quickly.
• If I do absolutely nothing, the vibrations reach their peak intensity then fade away slowly.
• If I remain calm, bring my mind back to a quiet no-thought/no-emotion state, the vibrations come back, full force.

So my advice has always been:

• Remain as passive and calm and possible, and try to just "observe." Tell yourself you've just going to wait and see what happens next.
  
• When the vibrations reach their peak intensity, try to move physically: try to stand up, sit up, roll over, or similar.
• If you're in the correct "vibrational state" your body will be in sleep paralysis, which means your physical body won't move, but your non-physical (or "astral") body will.
• If you don't try to move, but instead imagine you're floating up in the air, or imagine you move away from the body, chances are nothing will happen. In my experience, just using your imagination is not enough to actually leave the body. For some people, it may work, but for me it doesn't.
  
• Most people don't realize they're out-of-body at that point, so they forget to move their astral body as they would the physical body.
  

An interesting corollary is that the inverse can also be true; cause and effect may be reversed: In techniques like my "Almost Move Technique" and Michael Raduga's "Phantom Wiggling" technique, moving the non-physical body, even just a little, can induce the vibrations, whereas normally the vibrations can enable movement of the non-physical body.

In other words, moving the non-physical body (if you have good enough focus) can allow the vibrations to come, just as well as the vibrations can allow you to move your non-physical body.

Another interesting observation is what happens next: After the vibrations reach their peak, and after you've moved your non-physical body, everything changes: Your conscious awareness will then be completely associated with the non-physical body and the vibrations will suddenly and mysteriously disappear, as if you've left them behind along with your physical body. Then you can go about exploring the out-of-body state.

Bob Peterson,
13 December 2022

Problem 2: I Just Fall Asleep

by Bob Peterson

This is the second in a series of articles to help solve problems inducing out-of-body experiences/astral projection. These are "Pre-OBE problems." Later I'll do a series of articles on Post-OBE problem solving.

Here's a link to the previous article: Problem 1: Nothing Happens.

This time I'll address a very common problem: you fall asleep when practicing. It happens to a lot of people, even the best of us. So here are some suggestions to solve it:

Practice in the morning

You're most likely to fall asleep if you practice right before bedtime. It's always best to make your OBE attempts in the morning, preferably right after you wake up from your last sleep cycle. That's when you should be more alert, conscious, and less tired. It's best to make your attempts right after you wake up, even before you even move your physical body.

Many people, myself included, need to get up early and go to work, which restricts the mornings on which you can practice. For that reason, I try to practice on the weekends and holidays.

When I was young and single, I used to spend Saturday and Sunday mornings trying to induce the OBE state: I'd wake up around 7:00 and start my OBE practice. After repeated attempts, I'd often give up and allow myself to drift back into sleep. Then I'd wake again around 8:30 and start practicing again. If that failed, I'd go into another sleep cycle and wake around 10:00, and try again. Some days I'd even go into a fourth cycle. Many days I didn't have that option because a neighbor would start mowing his/her lawn or countless other distractions.

Don't practice from your bed

We are all conditioned through years of habit to fall asleep when we are in our bedroom and in our bed. So you're much less likely to fall asleep when you practice from a couch, recliner, a chair, a hotel bed, or a bed at a friend's house. Some authors suggest setting asleep a special place, like a favorite couch, for your practice. That will condition your subconscious to think of it as your special OBE spot, and give you the right frame of mind.

Practice sitting up instead of lying down

I've had a vast majority of my OBEs lying down, but if falling asleep is a problem, you might be better able to focus if you're sitting up. Buddhist monks and other meditators often meditate sitting up. They often use a special meditation cushion and recommend keeping your back straight. It's worth a try.

Develop single-minded unwavering focus

We fall asleep by letting our minds drift. If you strive to maintain a single-minded unwavering focus, you're less likely to fall asleep. You need to silence the "Monkey Mind" and try to keep the inner thought-chatter to a minimum. The first few times you practice you may notice lots of mind-chatter (same goes for meditation), but the more you practice, the better you get at keeping your mind quiet, still and focused. It may take years or practice before you can keep your mind from its endless chatter.

Consider Caffeine

Author Michael Raduga suggests waking up very early in the morning or even the middle of the night, and slamming (quickly drinking) an energy drink, coffee, green tea or other drink with caffeine, then going back to sleep immediately before it takes effect. He claims to have good success doing this. Caffeine affects different people different ways. It's never kept me from sleeping, except in rare case. So you may want to experiment here.

Vary the amount of light in the room.

Our sleep cycles are greatly affected by the amount of light coming into the room where you practice. The more light, the harder it is to sleep. When people can't sleep at night it's often because they have too much light in their bedroom, and the solution is to make their bedroom as dark as possible by unplugging nightlights, putting black tape over LED charging indicators, turning off their cell phone's ambient display (or turning the phone over).

The opposite is also true when it comes to inducing OBEs: If you keep falling asleep, add more light to your practice area to inhibit sleep.

Don't be afraid to fall asleep

Lastly, don't be afraid to fall asleep. One common "rookie" mistake is to stay too alert and not let yourself get close enough to sleep. You need to carefully walk that knife-edge between awake and asleep. I've fallen off that edge and fallen asleep at least ten times for every successful out-of-body experience I've ever had. If you fall asleep, just chalk it up to experience and try again. Don't get discouraged, never lose hope, and don't stop praciticing.

Bob Peterson,
22 November 2022

Problem 1 "Nothing Happens"

by Bob Peterson

Wow, it's hard to believe I've been doing this blog for more than ten years now, having published my first article in November 2012! Time flies whether you're having fun or not.

I'm a problem solver by my nature. In this series of articles I want to help solve some common astral projection/OBE problems. OBE problems can be classified into two types: pre-OBE and post-OBE.

Pre-OBE problems are encountered trying to achieve an out-of-body experience, but before you get there such as when the vibrations fade or when your heart starts beating wildly when you're trying to exit.

Post-OBE problems are problems that occur after you've left your body, like getting sucked back in prematurely or finding yourself glued to your physical body and unable to move.

First I'll focus on pre-OBE problems.

Today's article is about a common problem: You try to leave your physical body but nothing happens. Eventually you get bored and give up in disgust. This is a common problem, but you can take several steps to solve it.

Use your active imagination

If nothing happens, try to engage your active imagination. When we fall asleep, we un-focus. We kind of let our minds wander until our control slips away.

When you try to achieve an out-of-body experience, you still need to approach sleep, but when nothing happens it may help to focus on inner events.

Robert Monroe's "Lines of Force" Technique is just one example in which you learn to focus inward; in this case by imagining a two lines of energy extending from both sides of your head. Focusing on these lines of force engages your active imagination and gives you a focus on inward events. The trick is that you need to keep that inward focus as you approach sleep.

Get closer to sleep: walk that edge

When nothing happens it often means you're too far from the edge of sleep. If you just lie there and expect something to happen, chances are it won't, at least not until you get very close to sleep. One good exercise is to try to watch yourself fall asleep. See how close you can retain awareness of what happens around you before you lose your grip on consciousness.

Wait for hypnagogia

If you get very close to sleep, you will start to naturally hallucinate: you may see visual images called hypnagogic images, like fragments of ordinary objects like a pen or a book. You may hear auditory sounds like people whispering or saying fragments of sentences. This is all normal and natural, and all it means is that you're getting very close to sleep. These hypnagogic hallucinations happen to everyone, but most people are too unconscious to notice they happen. (There are also hallucinations as you come out of sleep called hypnopompic hallucinations and you can use these to your advantage too).

After several years of practice I got to the point where I can see hypnagogic images almost immediately after lying down.

My favorite OBE technique involves taking control and manipulating the hypnagogic images. So if nothing happens, you just need to get closer to sleep.

Don't be afraid to fall asleep

One of the most common problems is that people are afraid of falling asleep during OBE practice. They keep themselves vigilant and alert so they can pay attention to the sensations like the vibrations, or to keep a watchful eye out for those hypnagogic images. The problem is: if you're too alert, it's never going to happen. If you're too wide awake, you'll never see them. So don't be afraid to fall asleep during practice.

I like to tell people I've fallen asleep at least 10 or more times for every successful out-of-body experience I've ever had. Chock it up to experience. And after you fall asleep, you may wake up after the sleep cycle and mentally scold yourself, "Well, damn, that's another attempt wasted." But it's all part of the learning process. It happens to the best of us. Like the Windows operating system: reset, reboot, and restart.

When I was young I used to spend hours trying over and over: walking that edge, falling asleep, waking up and trying again. It's easy to get discouraged, but don't despair: just accept it and try again later.

Again: If you're too alert you'll never get to the OBE state. Nothing will happen. You need to "let go." You need to get very very very close to sleep, and you need to straddle that thin line of sleep. It's a razor's edge, but once you get there, you only need to maintain that "thin line" for a few seconds, like seven or so seconds until the vibrations hit and you're home free (of your body).

Don't be afraid to move

Many people don't realize that you actually need to initiate movement like you do in the physical body. Some astral projection books say to leave your body, just imagine yourself floating and you will float. Maybe that works fine for some people but for me it usually doesn't. I need to initiate movement. Just like Michael Raduga's "Phantom Wiggling" technique, it's more than using your imagination. It's like actually moving your non-physical body.

My rule of thumb is: Wait for the vibrations to reach their peak, then try to either physically get up, physically stand up, physically roll over, or my personal favorite, swing your arms. This is identical to moving your physical body. There is no difference. If your physical body moves, you weren't in a deep enough trance and need to go deeper for your next attempt.

If you don't try to physically move, it's very likely that "nothing will happen." You need to initiate that non-physical movement.

What should happen is that sleep paralysis will keep your physical body frozen. Your physical body should stay put and your non-physical body (astral body, whatever) should move.

Many people just lie there and do nothing, not even realizing they have left their body until they eventually fall asleep. You need to be proactive about this.

In my next article, I'll cover another common pre-OBE problem: "My OBEs are too short."

Bob Peterson,
08 November 2022

The Most Important OBE Skill

by Bob Peterson

Out-of-body experiences can happen spontaneously without any prompting, but to deliberately self-induce OBEs takes a variety of skills, such as relaxation and careful use of the imagination. But if I had to name the most important skill of them all, I'd say it's inward focus.

Many years ago neuroscientists discovered there are "hubs" or sets of interconnected regions of the human brain that communicate with each other. When people focused on performing a task, like solving a puzzle, a certain set of hubs fired neurons to communicate with each other. They named it the Task Positive Network, or TPN. Between tests the scientists told the subjects to stop focusing on the task and let their minds drift. The scientists expected the brain activity to go quiet, but instead they saw something peculiar: when the subjects turned off their TPN, another network activated in its place. They called this the Default Mode Network or DMN, and when it activates, your focus turns from outward tasks to inward tasks. So the brain switches between the TPN and DMN as people change their focus from outward tasks to inward tasks.

As out-of-body travelers, the problem is that our society has become more and more TPN-based: we feel as if we constantly need to focus on something external. We focus on our phones, our televisions, on driving, on our jobs, and a million other things.

To make matters worse, our attention has become more and more fragmented, diverted and stolen: We visit a website and our reading is quickly interrupted by a pop-up that wants us to agree to accept cookies. We're interrupted again by pop-ups that want us to sign up for their newsletter.

Television shows are interrupted by annoying commercials or ads. We get text messages on our phones that interrupt us again. We focus on formulating and sending a reply. The cat jumps on our lap. Sirens interrupt our thoughts as the police pursue their latest crime outside. Even our meetings at work too often devolve into a flurry of rude interruptions with everyone scrambling to voice their opinions. Our TPNs are so badly-fragmented that we give more and more priority to our focus on the external world. We even drink coffee or energy drinks to help us focus more. Some people even resort to more drastic measures like cocaine.

To self-induce OBEs you need inward focus, not outward. You need the DMN, not the TPN. But we're taught from an early age that time spent in the DMN is a waste of time. We need to change our focus: we need to learn to focus on inward events to the exclusion of everything else. We need to shut out the external world and turn our focus inward.

We need to stop the glorification of "busy" because busy only makes us unhappy. There's a well-known quote:

"Happy people build their inner world; unhappy people blame their outer world.” —T. Harv Eker

Here are some tips to help you get more focused on inward events:

• Give yourself "alone time" where you can just be alone with your thoughts: Introspection is an important tool.
  
• Meditate at least 20 minutes daily. It strengthens your DMN muscles.
  
• Spend some time away from the interruptions, distractions, and temptations of your cell phone and tablet: Put them on airplane mode for a while. Go offline.
  
• Use your active imagination more. Do more pretending.
• Learn martial arts like Qi Gong and Tai Chi which is sometimes called Moving Meditation, or even yoga.
• Set aside time to simply listen to music and let your mind drift.
• I especially love to try to visualize music as I listen.
  
• Spend time at a beach just listening to the waves.
• Spend time in nature just listening to the sounds of birds and other animals.
• Be creative: draw, paint, color, doodle, or create something. Creating things like art are a natural way to focus inward as we conjure up items from our imagination and cast them into the physical world.
• Do more daydreaming.
  
• Try to become more "absorbed" in what you're doing to the exclusion of everything else. Psychologists call that "absorption." Psychologists have known for a long time that people who have a high degree of absorption are more easily hypnotized.
• Learn to shut out and/or ignore distractions.
  
• And of course, practice your OBEs.
  

Most out-of-body teachers agree it's better to practice OBEs in the early morning when you first wake up. That's because when we come out of sleep, our focus is naturally inward and it's easier to focus on inward events before we drag our focus back to the TPN.

I do believe that inducing OBEs takes more than activating the DMN. If it was that simple, all you'd need to do it daydream. But OBEs are so much more. I once wrote that OBEs may involve activating both the DMN and TPN at the same time, and that's what makes them so difficult for most people.

Still, if you learn to focus your attention completely inward, ignoring the external world, you've won most of the battle and OBEs will be a lot easier.

Bob Peterson
25 October 2022

Review: Beyond Dreaming

Beyond Dreaming

by Gene Hart

Today I'm reviewing Beyond Dreaming: A Guide to Awakening Consciousness through the Path of Astral Projection & Out of Body Experiences by Gene Hart.

I really didn't know anything about author Gene Hart until he suddenly appeared in the Facebook Astral Projection groups a couple years ago. He's contributed a lot to those groups, including his favorite astral projection technique. I didn't find out he had written a book about the subject--this book--until much later.

Early in the book Hart won my, well, "Heart," with quotes like this:

"The realization of one's own ignorance is the beginning of authentic self-knowledge." (pg. 11)

Very true.

If you've read my other book reviews you know that one of my pet peeves is authors who claim to know all about astral projection but don't include any credentials or experience. It's like writing a book about having a successful marriage without actually having been married. When it comes to marriage and astral projection, book knowledge, theories, and hearsay are light-years away from firsthand experience. So early on I applauded Hart when he gave a narrative of his first out-of-body experience from June, 2011 on page 19. He writes:

"...I felt blisteringly alive, but at the same time, heavy and more real than anything I had ever experienced before in my waking life, and definitely more palpable and 'physical' than any of the hundreds of lucid dreams I had beforehand." (pp. 19-20)

So yes, Gene Hart writes from experience, and you can tell it's genuine from his descriptions. And makes a clear distinction between OBEs and lucid dreams.

He describes a decent "validation" OBE:

"So, I went back to my physical body and woke up; I immediately got up and walked to the stairway, and to my great pleasure, I saw the exact same scene. She was standing there in the same location, on her phone, in her pyjamas, holding the blue packet of crisps and sitting next to the same friend I saw [in my OBE]. I smiled with an inner knowing and satisfaction." (pg. 35)

One chapter was called "The Dream of Life" and I was a bit confused by statements like this:

"As psychologists notoriously recognize, and what is spilled over into conventional wisdom, is that dreams are usually about the things we did while we were awake. They are simply a reflection of our waking lives. If this is true, one could possibly say it is safe to assume that if you do not dream while awake, then you won't dream while asleep too. In other words, if you are conscious while awake, then you'll be conscious while asleep; this is a cord teaching in this book." (pg. 37)

I could be wrong, but I think what Hart is trying to say is that our conscious experience is a combination of our perceptions, degree of lucidity, and our interpretations of those perceptions, and that dreams are interpretations of false perceptions, and that can happen whether we're awake or asleep. In other words, you can dream while awake, just as you can dream while asleep. And you can have perceptions of an objective reality while awake or asleep. Perhaps it's a new spin on my theory about the Four out-of-body states? I bet Gene and I could have several hours-long conversations about it.

If you want to have out-of-body experiences, Hart says we need to take it very seriously:

"This is why we have to address our lives, and not just astral projection as a sort of separate hobby or casual interest. It is a wholesome practice that it affects us positively and profoundly on every level of our Being. Observe any Kung Fu Master; he does not just partake in his martial arts every now and then for fun, no. He takes it seriously, and he lives his life through the philosophy his martial art teaches just as much as when he is fighting. He grows and builds his character as a result. The path of astral projection is absolutely the same, if not more." (pp 45-46)

I agree. The more seriously you take this, the better your chances of success.

Sprinkled throughout the book are quotes from various spiritual teachers like Carlos Castaneda, H.P. Blavatsky, and surprisingly, Samael Aun Weor, author of one of the worst books I've ever read and reviewed, Dream Yoga. Many of the other quotes were excellent, such as:

"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." (Don Juan Matus (via Carlos Castaneda) pg. 98)

Unlike most authors, Hart talks about spiritual classes that we can attend in out-of-body states, whether conscious or unconscious. Like Hart, I have experienced this firsthand:

"A significant thing I learned from this experience was that the way we are influenced at night is not by intellectual learning but by things that make a powerful impression on our consciousness. This is how influential OBEs can be on our subconscious at night and why it can be of great spiritual significance to become aware of what is happening in our sleep. I believe many of us unconsciously attend these sorts of classes during sleep more often than we realise." (pg. 56)

To be quite blunt, the book is not heavy on techniques. In fact, it leans more toward throwing out the techniques to focus instead on other influencing factors. He does, however, give some good solid practical advice, such as:

"Another sort of reality check is a more active one that we can develop in our everyday perception of the world, which I call 'reality-checking awareness'. This can be done by 'looking around corners' or 'opening doors', or looking anywhere really...To do this, whenever you walk around a corner of your house, take a moment in your mind to recall what should be around the corner, remember what it should look like, note details, objects, colours etc. Then when you walk around the corner and examine if everything is the same as you had expected. Is anything different? Are the walls the same color? Does the clock have the correct time on it? Is someone in the room that you didn't expect? If something is out of place, then confirm it with a reality check, hold your nose and try to breathe through it. If you do this enough times daily, you will unquestionably find yourself doing it subconsciously in your dreams out of habit." (pp. 69-70)

One of my favorite chapters was "Meditation as a Prerequisite to Astral Projection." He recommends:

"Just one way to enter a more present way of life is by making a habit of noticing the silence between sounds, and also observing the space between objects; thus, inner silence, and inner space, arise naturally." (pp. 81-82)

Hart doesn't offer many exit techniques, but he does give a few. He gives instructions for Wake Back to Bed (WBTB), and it's a pretty good explanation. He also gives some mantras for OBEs, such as FA RA ON" and "LA RA S" as per V.M. Beelzebub's much older book.

He focuses on key skills more than techniques; skills such as meditation, and to allow it to happen naturally. I loved this analogy:

"Meditation alone is like become [sic--becoming?] an incense stick, and prayer is actually lighting the incense stick--or meditation is like becoming a singing bowl, and prayer is actually singing the bowl." (pg. 83)

Another good example is a section in which he recommends you "Cultivate Unbending Intent." (pg. 110). How do you do that? Well, in part:

"Continue your love, curiosity, passion and interest for astral projection; devote yourself, pray, meditate and penetrate it to every core of your being and leave no room for doubt." (pg. 111)

Before his first OBE, Hart was apparently an avid lucid dreamer, so it's natural that he promotes one of the more popular OBE techniques: induce a Lucid Dream and turn it into an OBE. His technique to convert from LD to OBE is called "The Flying Method" and it's basically flying "intensely" upwards until you feel OBE exit sensations, such as the vibrations (pg. 92).

He does, however, offer good advice about meditation and quieting the mind. I loved this description:

"Eventually, as you meditate and go beyond all the forms and objects in your consciousness, there will come a point amongst the quietude of nothingness, like the cracking of a shell, where you will find yourself in another reality." (pg. 130)

Throughout the book, Hart tries to convince us that we should not focus on exit techniques, but instead work on ourselves.

"My personal; message is that if you genuinely want to experience the reality of the astral in its depths, you must commit to working on the awakening of consciousness every day, not just for yourself but for others...."

"If you work on yourself, you'll eventually have astral projection experiences which are naturally longer and more profound. This is the real art and practice of astral projection; the experience is given to you by grace when you put in the real human work--not by following simple step-by-step experiments as a half-hearted curious individual." (pg. 147)

At the end of the book, Hart has a short list of recommended reading, and he recommends my book, Hacking the Out of Body Experience. I did not expect that, but I'll take it. Thanks for the mention.

So where does Beyond Dreaming lie in the grand scheme of things? My first book, Out of Body Experiences, was geared toward "This is what happened and these are my observations." My second book, Lessons Out of the Body, was more spiritual and geared toward "This is what OBEs can teach us spiritually." Beyond Dreaming is kind of halfway between the two. It's a good balance, often leaning toward the spiritual and philosophical side of things.

He could have given more techniques, tips and suggestions. He could have given more firsthand OBE narratives. He could have doubled the size of the book. I wish he had.

The book is 160 pages and the margins and font is good, meaning there's enough content to satisfy. It's well written, concise, thoughtful and, well, spiritual. There are more technique-heavy books like Hacking. There are "deeper" books like Multidimensional Man. There are more entertaining books like Clary Valentine's An Adjacent Place. But I definitely enjoyed Beyond Dreaming a lot. I'm giving it 4 stars out of 5.

Bob Peterson
27 September 2022

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