Preamble on Astral Travelling
I am a light sleeper, suffer from insomnia, often wake up throughout the night and usually remember my dreams, some of which are incredibly vivid. These notes are written some years after their occurrence and are just examples of those OBE's that I remember.

What distinguishes these OBE events from dreams is:

• The ability to see with the etheric or astral eyes.
• The initial separation of the astral body from the physical body.
• Finding myself on the balcony of my flat ready to fly and doing a reality check to ensure that I am not in my physical body, which would get injured if I fell 10 feet to the ground;
• An awareness that I am having an OBE.
• When I return from an astral experience I feel a sense of achievement and exhilaration.

Even though I have many flying dreams where I am either flying at a low level close to the ground, or skiing on my bare feet over the ground, these flying dreams do not fit my criteria for an OBE.

I have noticed that the OBE's are more likely to occur if:

• The weather is hot, or
• If the body is overheated from too many blankets, and
• If my sexual energy is high, and
• If the air is ionised, either from an electrical storm, or from an Elanra negative ion generator.

My first out-of-body experience. (South Perth, WA. 1984)
My first out-of-body experience was in 1984. I had been doing Osho's Dynamic Meditation every morning from 6:00am - 7:00am for a few weeks. After breakfast I would have a nap for an hour or so. On this occasion I opened my eyes and everything looked 'cross-eyed'. One eye was looking away from me as normal while the other was looking back at me on the bed. Then I found myself leaning against the bedroom wall, looking towards my body on the bed. As I leaned against the wall I fell through it. This terrified me, and as a result I slammed back into my body with a jolt. I woke up and ran to a friend in the next room for consolation.

Thereafter I had an OBE about once a year. Most were experienced on the Gold Coast, Queensland Australia which is renowned for its electrical storms.

Sexual tension with a blonde triggers an altered state of consciousness.(Elanora, Gold Coast, Qld. 1991)
On this occasion I had invited a woman friend to a party, at the house that I shared with a few friends. It was a typical Gold Coast summer, hot and humid. She had two young children who also came to the party. I invited the woman to spend the night with me which she did. Her eight year old son slept on the other side of a partition while her five year old daughter slept on a mattress in the corner of our room. A floor to ceiling window allowed enough light to enter the room so that I could just see the furniture in the room. We initiated sexual activity but because of the proximity of her children we decided to leave it till later. This left me in a state of sexual tension.

It was about 2:00am and I thought I was still awake but must have gone to sleep. I could see everything in the room in shades of black and white, except that some of the objects in the room were different from the waking reality. Then I sensed an energy that was represented to me by a character I had seen in a fantasy film, a large devil with horns on his head and deep voice. This energy did not seem friendly at all, and was trying to get at the young girl in the room, so in my mind I extended an arm to block his move. I had a conversation with the energy and sent him to the 'light'.

When I woke, I related the experience to my friend who said that her daughter was in contact with a relative who had passed away some years before, and that he was like a guide to her. What is interesting about this experience is of the ability to see through closed eyelids, and that what you see is not exactly how it is in the waking state.

An OBE triggered by an electrical storm. (Currumbin, Gold Coast, Qld. 1993)
I was living in a house that perched on the side of a hill, just 100m from the beach. It was summer and this experience happened around 5:00am as an electrical storm was brewing.

I woke up with an erection, the sun had risen, the weather was hot and I listened to the rumbling of thunder before drifting back into sleep. However, I could still see the bedroom through my closed eyelids. It was dark and the colours were muted, not at all like the way it looked when I had woken some minutes before. Then I found myself drifting under a crack at the bottom the bedroom door and out into the lounge room which had windows that gave a 270 degree view of the ocean. There were thick black clouds broiling over a jade ocean and two warships which belched smoke from stacks on the deck. I moved back and forth between my bedroom and the lounge room for about a half an hour.

Some OBE's seem to have more dream content than others, but the content should not detract from our willingness to explore the out of body state. In addition dreams can be quite difficult to interpret because they may originate from just one, or all of the seven subtle bodies, and since each subtle body has its own symbology there may be a mixing of symbols in the dream content.

High negative ionisation triggers an OBE. (Palm Beach, Gold Coast, Qld. (1995)
It was summer, and I had just purchased an Elanra negative ion generator which I used for the first time that night. Sometime around 5:00am I awoke with an erection then went back to sleep, but had an awareness that my mind was awake while my body was asleep. It felt like a perfect opportunity to leave my body, so I tried to open my eyes. My eyelids opened and I was able to see the bedroom ceiling and the rest of the bedroom with my peripheral vision in the morning light. Everything looked as it does in the normal waking state.

I closed my eyelids then tried to open my 'other' eyes. This time I could see the room as in my other experiences. The room was dark and some of the objects in the room were new or slightly different. I closed the etheric eyes and tried to open 'other' eyes. This time my astral body wiggled inside the physical body. It released from the head down to the waist first, then with some additional effort it detached from the waist down to the feet. While this was happening I could see my body on the bed as with normal eyes, but as the astral body detached itself from the physical body, everything in my field of vision was seen in bright pastel colours.

I immediately found myself on the first floor bedroom, balcony, overlooking a small garden which is backed by a wooden fence that separates my block of flats from a tourist caravan park behind. I jumped onto the balcony railing and remember thinking, that if I jumped off I could hurt my physical body, but I was able to convince myself that I was out of my physical body which was on a bed behind me, and as such it was quite safe to jump, which I did.

I flew gently to the ground and landed next to the fence. It is just an ordinary wooden fence which has become marked with salt, moss, lichen and weathering, but with my astral eyes it looked like something you would see in a laboratory under a microscope with UV florescence. There were bright pastel colours from the entire spectrum, but there was a particular powder blue and a green that caught my attention. There were also a range of yellow and red ochres. I walked along the fence-line, fascinated with the colours of the fence, the grass and the plants, then I found myself over the fence in the caravan park, about 25 metres away from my block of flats.

I have never been in the caravan park before but it seemed to be different to what it would be in a waking reality. Then a German Shepherd dog padded over to me wagging its tail. I am scared of strange dogs but this one seemed to be quite friendly, and the awareness that I was out of my body gave me confidence, so I patted it on the back. In retrospect it didn't seem like a normal dog but more like it represented an energy that wished to communicate.

Then I felt myself being drawn back to my block of flats, which from the outside looked a little different to how it looks in the waking state. I flew over the fence and shimmied up the balcony railings like a monkey. As soon as I found myself on my balcony I was back in my body on the bed.

What I find interesting about this OBE is the three types of eyes or vision that are available. My feeling is that each subtle body has its own way of seeing. The first or physical body has eyes with colour or black and white vision that we are all familiar with. The second body also known as the etheric body or unconscious mind sees in black and white, and sepia tones with a little muted colour. There is some distortion of the content and some additional content when viewing with the eyes of the second body.

The eyes of the third or astral body sees things in brilliant pastel colours. As with the second body, there is some distortion of the content and some additional content when viewing with the eyes of the third body.

Intense sexual energy and an electrical storm trigger an astral travelling experience. (Palm Beach, Gold Coast, Qld. 1995)

Sometime around 5:00am I was having a sexy dream and awoke with an erection. It was summer, and there was thunder and lightning from an electrical storm, but no rain. I felt like I was on the verge of having an orgasm, and as the feeling intensified there was a sensation from my testicles. It was like a physical tension that sent out intense sensations of electricity from my genitals, through my body. Throughout the entire OBE, each burst of sexual energy provided the energy necessary for the astral travelling experience.

I opened the eyes of my second body and the room looked dark, then I opened the eyes of my third body and found myself in the lounge room. I moved to the lounge room balcony in my first floor flat that looks out over the end of a short cul de sac, and gives me a view of a small range of hills about 5 km's away. As I perched on the railing ready to launch off, fear of hurting my physical body forced me to do a reality check, to ensure that my physical body was safe in bed, and that it was only my astral body that was going to take the jump.

I flew from the balcony, down the street and towards the hills. Writing these notes some 8 years later I do not remember all the details but what sticks in my mind is the following: I flew slowly into a room with tiered seating, as you would find in a lecture theatre. There was an 'audience' of about 100 identical women who sat motionless and silently in their chairs. Their eyes all stared towards some unknown object, but one of the women moved enough to look directly at me. As I hovered closer towards her we made eye contact, and I swear that she could see me. The feeling is that she was an intelligent being who was aware of my presence as much as I was aware of her presence. Nothing was said, there was just the feeling of recognition.

I remember that I explored a lot of territory far from home, which unfortunately now I have scant recollection, but that experience of meeting that woman shall always remain with me, and I know that it was not a dream, nor ordinary dream content.

In this OBE there was the usual merging of dream content from each of the subtle bodies, but as with the other OBE's, the Witness/Awareness is strong enough to be able to explore the experience. I do not know if an astral travelling experience brings with it a partial awakening in the third body or if it 'just' the Witness/Awareness that has the experience of the dreams of the astral body.

Raised body temperature triggers an OBE. (Palm Beach, Gold Coast, Qld. 1995)

It was summer and the night was cool. On this occasion I must have covered myself with a blanket during the night because by 5:00am my body was overheated. Once again I was having a sexy dream and there was a feeling of electricity which radiated in pulses from my left testicle.

I freed the astral body, then found myself on the balcony of my flat. After doing a reality check I flew from the balcony and quickly found myself at night in a laneway at the back of a block of strip shops. It was illuminated with street or security lighting. On one side of the lane there was a wall, and on the other were the backs of buildings, old and dirty brick walls, drainage pipes, small windows with security screens, and fire stairwells. I was alone and spent some time just floating around the laneway examining the features.

Then I flew from the laneway and found myself near a camp fire circled by men and women. The memory is now quite hazy but I remember thinking that the new landscape contrasted with that of the laneway. It was more day than night, there was a full moon, and the area was illuminated by a yellowish light. The ground, people, buildings and trees were bathed in the same yellow glow.

When I left the yellow area I came to the edge of a forest. It was very dark, and there was no moon. I did not have the courage to explore this area, as it seemed so vast and it felt like it would take a lifetime to do so. There was also something a little foreboding about being on the edge of this territory.

Even though my memory of this OBE is scant, what I remember quite clearly was that I visited three or four different areas, which were at different times of the day or night. It seemed as if some of these areas just abutted onto the next, without the gradual transition you would expect in our normal waking world. This experience also gave the opportunity to explore a range of totally different environments in close proximity to each other.

Attempting to get contact details from a character in a lucid dream. (Palm Beach, Gold Coast, Qld. 2004)

In this lucid dream I say to myself, "I am having a lucid dream therefore I can fly and do anything." So I fly but cannot get very far from the ground. I ask one of the characters in the dream for their address and phone number, which I write down but of course I do not have when I wake up later. At one stage there is a huge landscape, with hills and large steel factory type sheds. It is night time and I can hear beautiful music which reminds me of Vivaldi, The Four Seasons, so I try and make my own music. Somehow I create a CD player and insert a CD but the music is weak. In a way this experience is similar to the previous attempt at flying. I go up to a few people and try to engage them in conversation, but the result is what you would expect in normal life, where it can be difficult to get rapport with a stranger in the street.

Reflecting on this lucid dream makes me think that the characters in this type of dream may be the images of other people who are asleep, and unless they are lucid dreaming then they are not going to have any awareness of their state. I shall try and place and advertisement in my future dreams to hold a meeting with other lucid dreamers.

My feeling is that the landscape and characters in a lucid dream may have a structure similar to the that of the waking reality. In the waking reality we engage in real world behaviours which are constrained by real world physics. In the lucid dream and OBE reality we are probably constrained by the physics of this type of reality. In the same way that we learn how to move in the real world, we should also be able to learn how to move in the worlds of lucid dreaming and OBE's.

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