Part Six

Strange Astral Phenomena

 

31. OBE and Reality Fluctuations

There are no simple explanations for the underlying causes of the reality fluctuations that plague real-time projectors shortly after their exit out of body. I wish there were; it would make my work that much easier. In most cases, especially with new projectors, reality starts to fluctuate only a couple of minutes after the exit. Reality fluctuations are more noticeable during real-time projections, especially inside projectors' own houses, as the details of this area are well known. Several possible factors have the potential to cause or contribute to reality fluctuations.

The surface mind, if not strictly controlled, provides a continual stream of random dialogue and guess-work-like thoughts. Some of this surfaces from the subconscious in response to associations triggered by thoughts, surroundings, and events. Part of the problem here is guesswork, or what is commonly called the overlay. The overlay plagues psychics, clairvoyants, and remote viewers alike: guesswork thoughts interfere with objective perception and analysis. In the case of real-time OBE, the overlay has a far more creative effect than in real life. It is much more visual, and hence will often trigger the creative powers of the subconscious mind.

For example, if an object, shape, or shadow is vaguely seen during a projection, the surface mind will often guess what it is, even if the projector is not thinking about it. This can stimulate the subconscious mind into altering the object, or into creating a form to fit whatever has been half-guessed. If a projector is subconsciously fearful of the out-of-body environment, these vague shadows can easily transform into fearful images.

During any type of projection, the subconscious mind holds the bulk of creative power. Once triggered, it can create complex objects and scenarios instantly, without the time and effort required to build a similar creation using the weaker creative powers of the conscious mind. The subconscious mind waits in the background, ready to leap out and create something at the drop of a hat. But there is usually no intelligent purpose in what is created.

The dream mind, when it becomes active, can access the strong telepathic, energetic, and empathic links between the physical/etheric body/mind and its projected double, via the silver cord. It is therefore capable of causing reality fluctuations - something like dream-generated real-time hallucinations - around the projected double. The effects of dream mind interference are most noticeable within a hundred yards (ninety meters) or so of the projected double, and lessen with distance.

The length of time it takes any projector to enter the dream state is extremely variable. The start of reality fluctuations during a real-time OBE can be used to indicate when the dream mind is becoming active. This is a very good time (recommended for beginners) to end a projection, and to attempt a conscious reentry while the physical/etheric body is still easily awakened, before it falls into a deeper level of sleep. However, as projectors gain experience and get to know their strengths, weaknesses, and limitations, reality fluctuations can be weathered and even overcome to a certain extent. Time out during an OBE can then be gradually extended, with successful reentry still being possible.

With any projection attempt, the desire and effort to induce projection will often carry over into the dream state. The dream mind of a projector will often believe it is still involved in a projection attempt when it becomes active, especially if it fell asleep right in the middle of one. When it feels projection-like symptoms coming from its physical/etheric body (vibrations, rapid heartbeat, etc.), it will believe it is having an OBE exit from inside its physical body. It will then experience a false but very realistic dream version of a conscious-exit projection.

The dream mind's imaginary OBE will seem extremely real to it. The real-time aspect of this dream OBE will be based on the projector's actual memories of the surrounding area. This has the potential to overlay the true real-time OBE (which is already in progress) with a false dream version of exactly the same thing. The false dream projector will always have a different viewpoint from the true real-time projector. The false projector may believe it is in another part of the house, or it may be simply facing another direction than the true projector really is. This can overlay the true real-time environment with a twisted, backward, or fluctuating scenario that will not make any sense at all to the true projector.

Other minds, awake or asleep, are also capable of contributing to reality fluctuations. This can be thought of as mental static or background noise. Distance affects the strength of this type of interference. The reason for this is directly related to how the projected double becomes noticeably less affected by its own physical/etheric body with increased distance from it.

Projectors operating in sparsely populated areas will notice much less background noise. Heavily populated areas have greatly increased background noise. For this very reason, serious metaphysical pursuits and magic rituals are never carried out in densely populated areas.

The brow center or third eye of a projector is also capable of receiving visions during an OBE. Primary energy centers are far more active during OBE than during the normal waking state, due to the increase of energetic activity within the physical/etheric body. An active brow center during a projection can thus act as something like an untuned vision receiver. (This varies according to the level of the clairvoyant ability of individuals and is hence less frequent.) It can cause strange visions and unexplainable imagery, seemingly unrelated to the projector during a real-time OBE.

Brow center activity can also cause complex visions to be experienced during OBEs. If a projector's brow center receives a strong vision during the course of an OBE, the projected double can find itself experiencing that vision firsthand, from inside the vision. In effect, a strong vision can cause a dimensional shift that transports the projected double into an astral realm. A vision experience like this will usually end the real-time aspects of an OBE for its duration.

Once reality fluctuations start during a real-time OBE, it can be difficult to make sense of what is happening. I do not recommend even trying. Attempts to do so will lead to further complications and generate even wilder reality fluctuations. It is usually best for projectors to accept whatever is happening, to keep their mind as clear as possible, and to continue on with their OBE as best they can. If reality fluctuations become pronounced, though, it often helps to move away from the affected area and hope things will be more stable elsewhere. If this fails, wise real-time projectors will attempt to reenter their physical body while they still can, or risk losing the memory of that experience entirely.

While energetic development can extend the objective real-time aspects of an OBE, a mixed bag of perceptions is to be expected by most real-time projectors shortly after the exit. The norm is a strange and fluid mixture of objective and subjective perceptions, with reality fluctuations steadily increasing as the projection continues. This leaves most projectors floundering for some kind of a logical cause or explanation, which is unlikely to be found. While annoying, reality fluctuations are not bad or negative elements of an OBE.

They are usually just a little on the wild and ridiculous side, that's all.
 

Avoiding Reality Fluctuations

• Focus on what you are doing at all times and don't let your mind wander. Keeping control during a projection strengthens it and makes shadow memories stronger.

• Keep moving at all times and do not stay in one area for too long.

• Move away from your physical body immediately after the exit and stay at least twenty feet (six meters) away from it at all times - the farther the better.

• Concentrate on forward vision and turn slowly and deliberately.

• Keep up a running commentary during the projection. Talk aloud to yourself at all times, describing what you are seeing and doing. If your voice does not work, say it in your mind.

• Do not concentrate on any one object or scene for too long. Observe each object and scene only briefly in passing, noting it aloud, then moving along.

• Glance briefly at your hands frequently, and whenever reality fluctuates, but not for long enough to cause them to melt. Each time you do this, a small shock wave is sent back down the silver cord to the physical/etheric body. This gives it a small shock that slows its entry into the dream state, thereby strengthening the projected double.

• End the OBE when reality fluctuations become pronounced, while you still can.

Confusing Astral Effects
You do not have a real body during an OBE. You are an infinitesimally small point of consciousness, a spark created by the pure energies of your consciousness.

You have no real size or shape. You are totally free of the limitations of your physical body and of all the laws of the physical universe.

In many ways, the physical body and its projected double can be likened to a car battery and the energy stored within it, or to an electrical capacitor and its stored charge. If you could somehow separate one of these physical devices from its stored energy, releasing yet containing its energy in a single cohesive unit, what size would the energy unit be? What would the energy unit weigh? What would the energy unit look like?

There are no real answers to these questions, as energy has zero size, zero mass, and zero weight. But the product of these questions would exist in some form and have an energy potential that could be calculated. It should, hypothetically, exist as pure energy once freed of the restraints of matter. I asked a friend of mine, a mathematical physicist, if these questions could be stated or proven mathematically, and a comparison drawn to the projected double. I received a chapter-length reply. The high-level math and physics involved are way above layman level, but the end result was that the projected double was likened to a potential well.

For all that, the projected double is indeed a body of sorts, albeit an energetic one. A projector can perceive this body, but only when parts of it are deliberately self-observed. The subtle body parts that appear seem to be created by the subconscious mind. The mind of a projector does not seem able to accept the total nonexistence of its body, so temporarily creates body parts when they are looked for.
 

Melting Body Parts
If you try to look closely at parts of your own projected double during an OBE, especially your hands, you will find they start melting away very quickly, within two or three seconds. You can glance at any body part and look away again and it will appear to be fairly stable and solid, but studying any body part closely will cause it to melt.

For example, if you look at your feet and then lift one of them for closer inspection, it will begin melting just as hands do.

Hands, being the most commonly looked-at projected body parts during an OBE, look pale and unearthly. They sometimes even appear macabrely elongated and spectral (see figure 1, chapter 2). Do not panic if you observe this effect, as this is quite normal. It usually is seen only during low-powered OBEs. In all cases, after only a few moments of observation, the fingers will begin melting rapidly away into pale stumps. The rest of the hand and forearm will soon follow suit if the observation is continued. If you look away and then look back at your hands, the melting process will begin again from the start.

Any other real physical object observed closely during an OBE will not melt. Things will change; they'll morph, disappear, reverse, and mutate into other things, but they will not melt away as body parts do. This points to the act of self-observation as the cause of the melting-body-parts phenomenon. I think the melting-body-parts phenomenon is caused by a conflict within the subconscious mind.

The subconscious mind provides temporary subtle body parts, seemingly as a reflex action triggered by the act of self-observation. It knows its real physical body exists in another place, and knows it should have a body with it during an OBE. So, when the projected double looks for its body, the subconscious mind is tricked into creating temporary body parts.

However, these body parts cannot be maintained in existence, because the subconscious mind cannot accept that its body is existing in two different places at the same time. Internal subconscious and energetic conflicts cause the body parts to rapidly melt away. If my reasoning is correct here, this conflict goes a long way toward explaining why the melting-hands phenomenon can have such an effect on projectors.

A brief glance at the hands during an OBE, for example, causes a small shock wave between the projected double and its physical counterpart that helps stabilize the projection. A longer observation often shifts a projector from real time straight into an astral realm. This last effect is especially powerful during an astral projection and can be used by projectors to shift themselves among the astral planes, albeit at random.

The melting-body-parts phenomenon is more noticeable in real time than in the astral planes or higher, although it still happens in much the same way.

And, as it is one of the rare few constant factors associated with OBE and the projected double, it is worthy of much further study.
 

Vision-Reversal Problem
Vision reversal is an occasional real-time problem. In my opinion, this problem arises because the physical body has a natural frontal vision perspective of approximately 220 degrees. It can see the front half of its visible environment, but cannot see behind itself at the same time. However, the projected double is a point of consciousness with the potential to have real-time vision in all directions. I call this spherical vision, for want of a better term.

The projected double does not contain functioning sense organs, nor even energetic copies of them. It is therefore not bound by the vision limitations imposed on its physical counterpart. It can see in all directions at once if it can get past its ingrained natural frontal vision perspective. This increased vision potential will occasionally cause problems when it happens accidentally.

A 360-degree viewpoint is not readily acceptable by the conscious or the subconscious mind. In a similar fashion, this real-time vision problem can also interfere with the projected double's ingrained sense of left and right, which can further compound the spherical vision problem.

Spherical vision can cause some very peculiar real-time effects and some pretty mind-twisting reality fluctuations. For example, frequent real-time projectors often find that their world suddenly becomes reversed during a projection, as if in some kind of mirror dimension or reversed astral realm. Everything looks the same, with the same objective qualities as normal, but everything is back to front and/or out of place.

During some OBEs, projectors' visual senses have become disoriented and they have momentarily experienced a change of perspective that has reversed their left and right perspective. This can happen if they suddenly change direction without noticing the change. Their viewpoint suddenly changes, without them actually moving or rotating, as they would have to in their physical body. This action has reversed their natural frontal, left and right, back and front, up and down viewpoint. This disorients and tricks the vast creative powers of the subconscious mind into instantly remaking the environment to suit how it feels it should be. A split second of unnoticed disorientation and the OBE environment goes haywire.

The diagram below illustrates the reversal of viewpoint without turning, and the strange effect this can cause. The natural sense of front and back, up and down, left and right are so deeply ingrained in us that it can have a strong effect on real-time perception, which is a direct mind sense.

Note that in the diagram below that the natural sense of direction does not change when the projector's point of view suddenly turns inside out without the person actually turning.

Fig. 35.

Vision-reversal problem
 

Please bear with me here, as explaining such an unnatural phenomenon as vision reversal is a real headache.

The real-time projector @ is in the center of the diagram facing toward (A) with the door clearly perceived to be on his natural right-hand side. He has normal frontal vision with a natural left and right perspective, as in real life. The projector knows, as does his subconscious mind, that if he turns around and faces (B), the door and TV will be on his left-hand side, and the chair on his right-hand side, as shown above.

Now, if you as the projector are facing (A) and you suddenly turn inside out without moving around, and without noticing this lack of movement, your viewpoint will suddenly reverse without you actually turning. Viewpoint (A) will suddenly become viewpoint (B) but withoutyour turning around as you would in real life. Your sense of left and right has suddenly reversed.

When your viewpoint suddenly changes from (A) to (B), without you actually turning and experiencing a rotation of viewpoint that your mind can accept and adjust for, the door stays in view and causes a big problem, as do the chair and TV when they suddenly spring into view. You were aware of the door on their right-hand side with viewpoint (A), but you do not lose sight of the door when you suddenly turn inside out and change your viewpoint to (B).

Your subconscious mind cannot accept this sudden reversal of viewpoint. Even the conscious mind would have problems accepting this. The door seen on the right-hand side while facing (A) at the start of the inside-out reversal would have to vanish and reappear again on the right-hand side after it turns and faces (A). But, this would place the door on the other side of the room, which is clearly impossible. The TV and chair would also have to reverse positions to keep your natural left and right perspective in order, which is also clearly an impossible proposition for the subconscious mind.

The new viewpoint with unchanged left and right perspective, gained by the sudden change in viewpoint without turning, becomes clearly impossible for the subconscious mind. It therefore takes the easy way out and changes the view to suit that with which it can deal more comfortably. Now, keep in mind here that what the subconscious mind can accept and what the conscious mind can accept are two completely different kettles of fish. This seemingly impossible change in viewpoint has caused the subconscious mind to creatively correct the view by reversing it, or by reversing and changing parts of it, to fit what it feels is more acceptable.

The subconscious mind makes instantaneous alterations as its viewpoint changes. It either makes the real door vanish and reappear on the other side of the room, then switches the TV and chair to fit this new perspective, or more likely simply creates another door, another TV, and another chair for both sides of the room. You may now find that you have a room with two doors, one on each side, with a TV and a chair on both sides to match.

Or, you could suddenly find that you no longer have any chair or TV - but you shouldn't complain, because you now have two doors to make up for it.

The basic cause for the real-time OBE vision-reversal problem can be simulated by lying on your back with your head hanging over the edge of the bed. Clear your mind about what you are doing and do not try to work it out beforehand. Open your eyes (in real life) while upside down and quickly try to pick left and right and up and down. You can do the same thing by looking behind yourself with a mirror.

This, you will find, causes a mild disorientation in your innate sense of left and right. You'll find you have to deliberately calculate which is left and right from your upside-down (or reversed) position. This slight disorientation is all that is needed to trigger the subconscious mind into creating something it feels more comfortable with.

During a real-time projection, the subconscious mind will usually create something to help with what it feels is its natural left and right perspective at the moment of reversal. This is done according to the visible evidence it has before and after the change of viewpoint occurs. This generates an anomalous view of real time; once this happens, it's way too late to correct it. The subconscious mind will not accept a conscious change of left and right, and anything it has created will stay in existence for the duration of the OBE.

If you understand spherical vision and happen to get reversed during a projection, you'll find it's not really a problem. You simply take what has happened into account and continue to function reasonably well in objective real time, rather than thinking you are wasting your time in some strange mirror dimension. This means that if you have plans to do something in real time, you still can. You just have to adjust for it in the best way you can.

My best advice is if this happens while inside a house, leave that house through the most normal part of it you can find. Then, stay away from that house for the duration of the projection, or reenter it from another direction or side. If you go through an anomaly - through a created door, say - you'll usually find yourself in an astral realm.
 

Real-Time Anomalies
Comparing the subconscious mind's creative power to that of the conscious mind is like comparing a bank of supercomputers to a child's calculator. During any conscious OBE, this difference in creative ability can cause a great deal of confusion. This vast difference in creative power, combined with vision-and perspective-reversal problems, is the underlying cause of many OBE anomalies.

Take these all together, and you have a recipe for total confusion:

• Strong creative powers of the subconscious mind

• Weak creative powers of the conscious mind

• Sensitivity of the projected double's perceptions

• Sensitivity of the out-of-body environment to creative energy

• Spherical vision, with left and right perspective reversals

For example: You exit your body and explore your house in real time.

Everything appears normal, but as you move through your house, you suddenly notice a door in the wrong place. Noting this anomaly, you move on toward the kitchen, but find this is either incomplete or on the wrong side of the house, or both. While moving through the house you have somehow accidentally reversed your natural viewpoint, and confused your natural sense of left and right. Your subconscious mind has therefore rearranged the layout of the house to fit what it feels is more natural.

This confuses you to no end. The furniture, pictures, windows, doors, etc., all appear to be normal, but nothing is where it should be, and some parts seem to be missing completely. Moving along, you find another door where there should be no door. This door appears real, although it is in the wrong place. Once created, it may change in appearance but will rarely be uncreated. Solid doors don't have the habit of vanishing, even during an OBE, so you're stuck with it for the time being.

When you turn to where the real door should be, you sometimes find the door there, sometimes not. You may end up with two or even more doors where there should only be one. If you go through the real door - the one still in its correct place - you usually find the rest of the house behind it just as it should be. But, if you go through a false door, you enter a created anomaly. This will always lead to an astral realm. The subconscious mind knows that a false door is an anomaly. It won't accept this as opening to a normal part of the house that can't possibly be there.

Anomalies like these are reality fluctuations caused simply by moving about in the real-time zone. Anomalous doors can be used as fairly reliable entrances into astral realms. Enter one then continue opening other doors as you find them. These other, anomalous, doors will open into more astral realms.

If you concentrate and hold in mind the type of astral realm you wish to enter as you open these doors, more often than not you will find what you are seeking.

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