I folded the pillow so I'd sleep reclining instead of supine, and on my side so that my ear amplified my pulse and I could chant "I'm dreaming" in time with it. That way, I got discursive images instead of discursive thoughts, but I don't think they were hypnogogic images or dreams. In short, WILD failed. I don't remember that first dream, or the rest of the REM cycles for that night. BUT...
I that dreamed I woke up. It must have been a dream, because deep golden light blazed through the apartment and lit up every corner and crevice-- and no clear afternoon, at any time of the year, does that much. Still, I thought I was awake, and did a WBTB because that's what worked for me the most this month. No sooner did I relax into my sleeping position (but before closing my eyes) that I found myself floating towards the hall.
So I'm dreaming, I thought, and wondered how to transport myself out of my apartment so I could have a fun lucid dream. I floated over to the balcony, and my mom (where did she come from?) made an annoyed hmming sound behind me, as if to say it wasn't a good idea to float beyond the balcony but she was too distracted to stop me.
Which was silly, of course-- it was a dream, my dream! I was already floating, so I should, well, be able to fly. But, the "hmm..." was already out, I'd already heard it, and so I became irrationally afraid of floating beyond the balcony.
For those who haven't experienced a qualitative difference in an OBE versus a vivid dream, it's easy to say that they're one and the same. It would be notable that I always begin an OBE in the location where I was meditating, except that false awakenings (dreams of waking up, without actually waking up) like the one above, also do that.
Then there's the physical sensations that accompany a meditative OBE-- "vibrations", thudding in my case-- but, I've heard from more experienced OBE'rs that these sensation quiet with each successive OBE. So, once smoothed over by practice, how can you tell? (Other than witnessing something that you can confirm later happened exactly as you shouldn't have been able to witness it happening otherwise, that is.) (You can parse that. I believe in you!)
Somehow, in the above dream, I was floating around the room having left my sleeping body behind, but it became a lucid dream. It was too easy, too smooth, for me to suspend disbelief that it was anything else. I suppose it's just that Quality that I keep mentioning but not specifying. After this morning, though, I'd have to say 'Not even that.'
I'd been planning to get back in practice this November. 30 minutes of blank-mind meditation daily, no chakra development, no OBE's, no WILD's, no spirit guide channeling. Just, back to the basics.
This morning, I had a not-false awakening, so I thought I'd start the morning with a meditation. No attempts at anything but a quiet mind. I was still a little too sleepy to change position, though, so I fell asleep. I dreamed that the bed had changed position, and I was writing in my notebook. I seemed to still be in a meditative state, because I was pushing myself to be aware of every curve and line the pen made, immersing myself in the moment. Presently, I let the pencil drop and lay my head down on the page, seeing a smear of ink, and meditated on it. I meant for engrossment in the shape to drown out any other thoughts.
The next thing I knew, I was peeling away from myself. In the dream, I was meditating on my side-- unlike my usual method, because I never got a hang of rolling out until now. After that, I was floating upside-down in an unfamiliar room. There was a garish, brass chandelier that from my view stuck upwards like a tree. The ceiling it hung from was painted white. That's all I saw.
I figured that the meditation got me out of body, so I tried to project to a specific subject.
LD4all.Com, a lucid dreaming website and forum, hosts monthly dream missions. This month's was "Meet an alien" and I figured I might combine a hobby I long had (lucid dreaming,) with a current interest that I was exploring (spiritualist interpretations of extraterrestrials,) and incubate a dream where I interview a starseed. I also considered that if I were able to initiate an OBE again, I could project myself to one such subject, and if they confirmed I went there to meet them, then we'd both have a cool story-- or, since OBE's are also considered dreams by (I guess) more deductive than inductive thinkers, I could take advantage of that and pass it off on LD4all as this month's mission accomplished.
Unfortunately, in this OBE dream, I wouldn't budge. Nothing was happening. Actually, just the effort seemed to pull me back into my dream-body, where, figuring that an OBE was that easy now, I tried to meditate on another mark in my notebook (the letter 'a' and then 'b') to go out again.
But, the dream continued another way. My garden oregano was overgrowing into a jungle. Then I was passing through a compound, the houses with rusty tin roofs, and the sun beating down on the cement ground. I was typing this dream up on the forums. Then I was sitting on a plot of grass by a lake, as a pleasant blustering wind passed through, and I was wondering how to get to the raft in the middle and go fishing. I was writing this dream in my notebook, then I woke up to find that I hadn't written it. Then I woke up to find that I hadn't found out that I hadn't written it... and also that I hadn't written it.
While I didn't get to do what I'd planned, I still appreciate this experience as the closest I've gotten in over a year, to returning to OBE's. What used to be the distinctive quality was present, in this dream. It wouldn't make that much sense to me, to interpret this as they (dreams and OBE's) were always one. Why would it take this long for the subconscious to inculcate and regurgitate the OBE? On the other hand, if they were the same thing, then Auntie J.J. and Mahadevi (and myself,) had much less to worry about.
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