have been developing an easier to understand, improved technique for out of body projection via the newsgroups. I have combined the feedback from people learning to project with my experience as a mystic and with the OOBE. As an offshoot of this we have stumbled on a way of stimulating and heightening the lucid dreaming experience.
I have had hundreds of reports from people using the energy raising technique of having powerful lucid dreams afterwards, even though they have failed having a conscious OOBE. This is occurring too frequently to be a coincidence. Myself, I have also noticed increased lucidity in dreams after energy raising and chakra stimulation during meditation.
What seems to be happening is that by raising energy and stimulating the chakras, the astral body is filled with energy. This increases the degree of awareness in the astral body and during a dream it gives stronger, more vivid memories of it afterwards.
I would like lucid dreamers to try this energy raising method, combined with their own lucid dreaming technique. Could you please email me with your results and comments and also, PLEASE, post some comments to this newsgroup so everyone can learn from this?
Below are some exercises that are designed to teach you how to relax the body, clear the mind, raise energy, stimulate the chakras and heighten your body's awareness of itself:
Relaxation
You must learn a full body relaxation exercise. If you know one already it can be adapted to suit. Sit in a chair, or lie down, and relax your whole body. Starting with the feet, tense them and relax them. Continue this with calves, thighs, hips, stomach, chest, arms, neck and face. Go over this a few times until you feel completely relaxed.
Breath Awareness
Breath awareness will help to calm and focus your mind and awareness. Breathe deeply and slowly. Be aware of the breath entering and leaving your body. Feel it coming in and feel it going out. Focus your whole attention on your lungs and the breathing process and it will help to occupy your surface mind. Gently push any intruding thoughts away as they begin, before they distract you. By feeling your breath coming in and out you are shifting your awareness into your chest.
Mental Hands
The mental hands technique will train you to shift your point of awareness to other parts of your body. This will also give you greater body awareness which is very important in lucid dreaming.
Calm your mind and relax your body. Imagine you have a pair of invisible hands. Feel your awareness in these hands, just the same as with breath awareness where you concentrate your awareness on your lungs. Stroke yourself slowly with these hands, start at your feet go on up through your legs and through the rest of your body. Try and FEEL these imaginary hands relaxing and soothing you.
Become aware of and use these hands as you are doing the relaxation exercise. Start at the feet, tensing and relaxing muscles. Feel your mental hands in these muscles as they tense and relax them. Work your way through your whole body this way. Feel your body relaxing at the touch of them. Your point of awareness is in these hands. You are shifting your point of consciousness into different parts of your body as you do this.
Energy Raising
When you are familiar with your new mental hands, use them to pull energy up from your feet and through your legs to the base chakra. Imagine you are gripping energy and pulling it up through you. Combine this with your breathing. Draw it up through you with the inhale and hold it in place on the exhale. Do this over and over again for at least a few minutes.
This is the natural path of the energy that flows through you. With practise you will actually feel this energy tingling and surging through you.
Chakras: These are situated at: 1. The base of the spine (between the anus and the genitals) 2. The spleen (slightly below the belly button) 3. The solar plexus (1 hand-span above the belly button) 4. The heart (centre of the chest) 5. The base of the throat. 6. The centre of the forehead. 7. Crown ( whole top of your head). They are best imagined as roughly the size of your hand, except for the crown chakra which is much larger and covers the whole of the head above the hairline.
Chakra Stimulation
Chakras are transformers that convert raw energy into energy of a different type. During these exercises your chakras will be pumping energy into your astral body.
Pull energy up through your legs with your mental hands to your base chakra. Use your mental hands to open this chakra. Imagine you are tearing open a bread roll where the chakra is. Draw this energy up to the next one and open it, and on to the next one and so on. Repeat this over a few times. You may not feel much at first, but with practise you will feel a tingling surge of energy like adrenalin and a fluttering or pulsing under your skin as you do this.
Even if you don't feel anything you are still raising some energy. When I first started using my chakras, many years ago, I didn't feel anything happening in them for several months. Many people report feeling some sensation in them the first time they do this. Some people seem to have more natural chakra activity than others.
Heart Chakra
The heart chakra merits special mention due to the odd sensation it causes. When it activates fully it will feel as if it is racing at a seemingly impossible rate. It is a powerful sensation. Ignore this when it happens, it won't hurt you, it is not your heart racing but the chakra working.
The heart chakra, when fully operational, feels like this: Place one hand on your chest, with your finger tips resting in the middle of it over your heart. Tap your fingers on your chest, in time with your heart. Increase this rate until you are tapping as fast and hard as your fingers can move. The sensation can vary from a gentle fluttering, to a pulsing, like a muscle twitching under the skin, to a deep robust thrumming. If you place your hand on you chest when it is active you will actually feel the flesh pulsing. The flesh over any active chakra will throb like this.
Closing The Chakras
After any work on opening the chakras it is Very Important to close them unless you are going to use them, or go to sleep shortly after. During sleep they will close naturally after an hour or so. This closing is especially important if you feel strong activity in them. If you leave a chakra open during normal day to day activity, you can bleed energy. This will can fatigue and health problems. To close them, simply reverse the process until no activity is felt. Feel your mental hands closing them and push the energy back down.
Stop and Check
Keep checking your muscles for any tensing during the energy raising and chakra stimulation exercises and re-relax as needed. Your muscles will automatically try and respond as you draw energy up through you. Remember, this is all mental. Your body must stay calm and relaxed throughout this.
Practise
The relaxation, breath awareness and mental hands exercises should, ideally, be carried out daily. They can be done anywhere and anytime you have a few minutes to spare. You will, in time, condition your body to respond quickly and easily. Every time you do these, keep in mind your intention of having lucid dreams. Whatever your lucid dreaming trigger is, keep this in mind while you are doing these exercises.
Lucid Dreaming Trigger
To become aware in dream you need a trigger to make you realize you are dreaming. You can, for example, program yourself to become aware when you find yourself flying during a dream. Another way is to look at your hands many times a day and repeat to yourself: "When I look at my hands I will know if I am dreaming."
Every time you look at your hands, do a reality check. Ask yourself, is this a normal situation? Is this part of my normal life? Is there anything strange about where I am and what I am doing? Look around you for anything that doesn't seem right, strange people, weird animals and that sort of thing. This trigger programing and reality checking must become habitual.
Another good aid for lucid dreaming trigger programing is an electronic watch. Set the timer to beep every half hour or so, until it becomes annoying. Every time it beeps look at your watch and do a reality check. Try and anticipate when the watch is going to beep, so you look at it more frequently. This will become a habit and will have you looking at your watch during a dream.
When you look at your watch during a dream do a reality check, you will realize you are dreaming and can take control over it. It is then important to convince yourself you are going to remember everything when you wake up. Tell yourself over and over again. " I will remember all this when I awake."
To Prepare For Lucid Dreaming
Do the relaxation exercise and use breath awareness to calm your mind. Raise energy through you and stimulate your chakras for five or ten minutes, or until you start feeling heavy.
This heaviness happens when you enter a trance. The trance state is brought on by deep relaxation. In a trance you are very open to self hypnosis and suggestion. This is the best time to program yourself with the trigger to become lucid in a dream. In the trance state you may feel like you are paralysed but you can usually move if you try, its just a big effort. If you can't, do your lucid dream trigger affirmations and go to sleep.
Note: Once you reach the trance stage, stop any further energy raising or chakra stimulation and proceed with the trigger programing stage.
Do your normal affirmations that remind you to become lucid during your dreams and remember all when you wake up. Say to yourself, " I must remember to look at my watch" or " I must remember to look at my hands" Say this over and over to yourself until you fall asleep.
Note: These exercises are best done, one at a time, apart from the combined energy raising - chakra opening one, lying on your back.
If you have trouble and feel it is all too much to do at once, do them one at a time in this order. 1. Relax. 2. Clear your mind with breath awareness. 3. Raise energy. 4. Open chakras. 5. Raise energy through chakras. 6. Trigger affirmations. 7. Go to sleep and dream.
When you have completed them and are ready for dreaming, assume your normal sleeping position for the night.
Remembering It All
One of the biggest problems with any kind of conscious OOBE is remembering it all when you wake up.
Here's what you can do about this not remembering. As soon as you awake, sit up in bed and pull those memories back. Sit up and think hard. Put aside a few minutes quiet time each morning to do this. It will train your dream memory.
During this quiet time, run key phrases through your mind until you hit on something. Say things like: I looked at my watch and... I looked at my hands and... I was walking... I was talking to... I was just going to... I was over at... I was flying over... I was having a... I was inside a... I was with... These are examples of phrases that can lead you to a fragment of dream memory you can lock on to. Make up some more phrases to suit yourself.
It may not feel like there is anything in your mind to remember, but try hard and put some REAL effort into it. They are there, you just have to reach in and locate them. Once you lock onto a fragment of memory, more can be located and more and more. You will be surprised how much you can remember this way.
It is important to write these down as you remember them. Even if you wake up several times during the night. They may seem vivid and unforgettable at the time but dream memories will usually vanish in a few seconds if you don't record them. Just write down a few key words and you can fill in the blanks later. With practise, this writing down can be dispensed with as your dream recall develops.
