Tag Archives: Focus 10

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My Free 60 Page Book, “My Astral Projection Truth”, What is Astral Projection and How to do it!

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Direct Download Link – PDF Format
My Astral Projection Truth: What is Astral Projection and How to do it!

I just finished editing version three of my free Book! It’s now ready for downloading!

I’ve also re-branded it in honor of Frank Kepple, who put in so much time and effort into teaching others to experience the larger reality. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have progressed as much as I have.

It’s now “My Astral Projection Truth: What is Astral Projection and How to do it!”

This Book represents everything I’ve learned over my life, but mostly the last 2 – 3 years of my practices in Projection and Phasing. It’s now a 60 page Book full of great information regarding how you can begin to explore the furthest reaches of reality on your own! All the information I provide in it was the same information that helped propel me towards the experiences I now enjoy.

Feel free to pass it around to where ever you wish, as long as the information remains intact and all credit is given where due.  I hope the information helps you as much as it has helped me.

Thanks for reading! Please leave me some feedback on how you like the Book, and if there was any parts of it that are unclear or confusing. I’m happy to re-write sections to make them easier to understand.

Asking For Guide/Helper Assistance

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I was listening to some of the explorer tapes from the link that Dave (http://gravatar.com/galahadz)  linked in my other post the other day.

I got the idea from them to \”ask\” for assistance while I was in Focus 10 or 12 and just see where that takes me.  Well… I did just that about 20 minutes ago and was quite pleased with the results.  I was just sitting here at my desk, meditating in Focus 10 and I asked if a helper or guide of mine can help me to experience something \”different\”… after a minute I saw my field of view (the blackness behind my eyes) start to spin and rotate, it turned into what looked like a tunnel with me \”moving\” through it.  I began to feel a shift occur, but it eventually stopped and I found myself back at my desk.

So yeah… that was definitely \”different\”.  I\’m going to play around with \”asking\” for assistance from now on when I go about my meditations and phasing practices and see where it takes me and I highly suggest adding this to your own routine as well.  🙂

Goodluck and have fun!

Connection Between Classic OBEs and Phasing

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I\’ve recently figured out for myself the connection between Classic Separation OBEs and Phasing.  Simply put, a classic obe is what comes about when you interrupt a phasing practice and initiate an \”exit technique\” and alternatively, if you\’re doing a classic separation obe and instead of initiating an exit technique you just kept doing what you were doing, you\’ll eventually phase directly into the Astral.

Three things came forth recently to get me to this line of thinking.  I first began thinking about this back when I was reading about when Frank had to slow down his own projections in order to have a RTZ Projection.  Next there was a method posted on the Astral Viewers from one of their Admins, Bedeekin.  His made mention of the method that he used for many, many years that was successful for him.  Well, one part of his method takes him to what sounds like a deep Focus 10/early Focus 12, which as I know it is the precursor to a proper Phasing attempt.  However, he then interrupts that Phasing process and initiates an exit technique. Then just now I got to thinking about a night when I experienced this particular thing first hand and, as Frank would say, the penny dropped.

My experience was back in March 2010, and I\’ll relay that quickly before moving on.  I went to bed on the Saturday night as usual.  It was around 2am.  That night I gained a lucid awareness in the dream I was having which was taking place just outside my house.   Some time went by and I began to feel that usual sensation that meant I was beginning to physically wake up.  The dream faded to black, I felt a shift, and I felt myself back in my bed.  I now recognize this state as Focus 12, as I didn\’t fully wake up.  I didn\’t bother opening my eyes, since I knew where I was.  This was the first time I ever experienced and learned about what I call the \”Eyes Closed/Body Still\” state upon waking.  Well, almost immediately, I felt another shift and I found myself in another lucid awareness experience.  This happened two more times.  All four lucid awareness experiences happened quite rapidly and in succession.  Each time I was in the non-physical for what felt like 2 – 4 minutes.  Each time I phased back to the physical, I kept that \”Eyes Closed/Body Still\” state.

After the fourth experience something strange and completely unexpected happened.  I attempted to slip back into another lucid awareness experience like I did the four times previous, but I didn\’t quite make it in.  I felt that it was immediately slipping away.  What I usually do to strengthen the experience in this kind of situation (as I\’ve mentioned on the forums before) is spin, but it\’s usually done while already having the lucid awareness experience, this time I don\’t believe I actually got all the way into the non-physical!  So I started spinning trying to get a grip on the experience, however after probably 3 seconds of spinning I felt I had fully lost the dream, however I was also still sleeping and I felt I was in my bedroom.

I couldn\’t see anything yet, but I felt my arms and legs floating upwards and the distinct \”separation\” feeling.  I sat up and kinda floated awkwardly upwards a bit and towards the end of the bed, kind of out of control.  By the time I had fully cleared my body, my vision came in.  I\’m not sure if I had chose to see or if it just clicked on, but either way I could see.

So that\’s it, that\’s the connection.  By interrupting a normal Phasing session at a certain point, you can then initiate an exit technique and have a classic separation OBE.  This also works in reverse, in that if you\’re going for a classic separation obe, you can for-go the exit technique and just keep doing what you\’re doing and you\’ll end up Phasing directly into the \”astral\”.  So for people who have problems having \”astral projections\” this is what I suggest you try.

We should be able to use this information to guide where we want to go in the non-physical directly from the get-go.  If you\’re someone who only does RTZ projections and wish to visit the greater non-physical (astral), then simply stop doing your usual exit technique and just keep doing what you were doing prior to that and eventually you\’ll phase.  And if you\’re a phaser and wish to experience the RTZ, then interrupt your phasing practice in Focus 12 and initiate an exit technique.

Lunchtime Meditation – December 15th, 2010

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I had a bit of time again during my lunch hour, so I decided to relax a bit and practice my \”Noticing\” exercise.

So, my usual stuff… I put on my iPod, listening to one of my Hemi-sync CD\’s, and began my relaxation.  It took me slightly longer than usual to fully relax, mostly because of all the noise going on in the main office outside of mine.  I was able to hit Focus 10… I slid into Focus 12, but only for a minute or two.  However, that minute or two ended up being quite eventful.

My Focus 12 states, lately, have been about formless, colourless shapes moving around randomly… well this time, they weren\’t shapes as much as lines moving from the base of my field of vision, moving upwards.  About 30 – 40 seconds into Focus 12, I encountered an abrupt \”black tunnel\” that sped towards and around me.  It felt as if I was standing still, yet someone was moving a black tunnel towards and past me and I was moving through it.  It definitely felt like it was moving towards me though, not the other way around.  But anyway, it surprised me and snapped me back to Focus 10.

If was I able to hold on through it, I THINK it was an intermediate step that I usually skip past quickly on my way from Focus 12 to 21… just this time I was witnessing it live and in person.  I have experienced this particular thing a couple times before, but that\’s it really… and the last one was quite a bit ago.

In any case, it only lasted a half second or so… but it was a fun, and wild ride.  🙂

Phasing Realization! Thanks Monroe!

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As I\’ve been saying lately, I\’ve been re-reading the first book written by Robert Monroe, \”Journeys Out of the Body\”.  I\’m getting so much more out of it now that I\’m a little more experienced and have more knowledge under my belt.  I\’m able to pick out some of the subtle nuances of the information he\’s presenting.

One particular point of interest was around page 86/87, where he\’s talking about Locale III and his \”turning 180 degrees\”.  The first time I read this I was really confused… what is he turning?  Is he trying to physically turn 180 degrees?  Is he trying to turn his second body (astral body)?  And which direction is he doing this turning?  Well… all those questions are aiming in the wrong direction.  He\’s turning his focus away from the physical and towards the non-physical… he\’s PHASING.  He even explains this slightly in a passing manner on the following pages.  It was something I completely missed at the time of my first reading… however, I doubt that I would have figured it out anyhow.  So, back in 1958 he first discovered Phasing.

I was lying in bed a few days before that, I think it was Friday or Saturday night.  I had closed my eyes and started a really basic noticing exercise… and I began to, really quickly, slip into a Focus 10 state.  It really caught me off-guard… but just as this happened my girlfriend asked me a question and it brought me out of it.  Now, I didn\’t really give this much of a 2nd thought at the time… until I read those few pages in Robert\’s book, then it all clicked back into memory.

What\’s intriguing about this is that I did it while going to bed that night.  Given some more practice at this, I might be able to \”pull-a-Monroe\”  (LOL) and do some phasing on the way into sleep at night instead of having to wake up in the morning or rely upon lucid awareness experiences during the night.  This really opens up a whole new avenue of progress with which I can take.  🙂

To say I\’m excited about this would be quite the understatement.  hehe

A Theory – Visual Fading Away

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I have a theory that I\’ve been tossing around in my head lately that I wish to share.

If you fixate upon a single point in front of you and are able to keep your vision from moving around due to the micro movements of your eye or from objects moving within your field of vision then a strange phenomenon begins to happen.  First, things around your fixated target begin to disappear… a line here, a corner of something there… they vanish before your eyes.  Eventually, everything starts to fade away into a background white or black, depending upon how lighted the area around you is.  Generally, during our normal waking lives, this phenomenon doesn\’t occur because even if there is nothing \”moving\” in our field of vision, the micro movements of our eyes tend to keep things moving.  Think of it as a computer monitor, the micro movements of the eye cause a screen refresh 30 frames every second.  It might be hard for some people to keep this movement to a minimum… but give it a shot and see if you can make this happen.

I feel that the fading away of the visual spectrum is the beginning of the shift into Focus 10!  I find that as this visual shift begins to happen, my mind is nice and relaxed, but that may just be me.  See how you feel when you try it.  But it\’s just the beginning of it.  Now, this is the reason that we usually do our practicing with our eyes closed, due to the visual distractions.  Your eyes are much easier to remain still in this state… this is also a great exercise to do to learn to \”passively observe\”, as you need to keep your eyes passively still for the fading to initiate.

If you can get it so that the visual field you\’re viewing completely disappears, I think you\’re good to close your eyes and try it.  As I said, I think this shift is the beginning of Focus 10… it\’s the start of removing ourselves consciously from the physical.  If you can actually hold this (which would be hard due to having to blink), theoretically, you should be able to project even with your eyes open!

Any other ideas?  Thoughts?

My Recent Phasing Practice Sessions

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I guess there isn\’t too much to post about lately, so I\’ll just write about my two previous phasing practice sessions.

The recent one was last night an hour before I went to my Yoshinkan Aikido class.  I sat down on my recliner couch, put my iPod earbuds in and started listening to one of my hemi-sync songs.  I think I was listening to \”Touching Grace\”.  Anyway, I started to relax… I generally work on my face first, I find that I hold a lot of muscle tension around my ears and cheekbones.  My body tends to relax very quickly now-a-days, so I don\’t usually do a progressive relaxation method on that part of me.  It\’s just my face I find most difficult.

When my face was relaxed, this includes my eyes now (which is a change I started just recently as I never did the eye relaxation thing before), which I\’m finding to be a great thing to do in order to \”passively observe\”.  I started my \”Fixated Staring\” routine as noted in my previous post (Xanth\’s Phasing Method) and began slipping very quickly into Focus 3 (Monroe model)… and within 8 – 10 minutes Focus 10 followed.  When I felt the Focus 10 state sink in, I started my Noticing exercise.  So I was staring at the blackness behind my closed eyes, noticing what\’s going on… and then I feel what can really best be described as an \”expanded awareness/consciousness\”.  I really do feel EXPANDED… then the visuals kick on and I\’m now staring at floating formless colour clouds in front of me.  I never made it to Focus 21 this time, but I did come to the conclusion that Focus 12 is now always within my reach and truly is easy to get to once you\’ve done it once and realize it.

The practice session before that one also went just like that… except I think I was in my bedroom at the time sitting on my bed.  It took slightly longer to hit Focus 12, but I did get there.  It\’s really something you need to stumble into once, then it should be easy to get to from then on out… with just a bit less effort each time.

So that\’s really all I have to say right now… I just wanted to relay those experiences out there.  Hopefully reading it might give you some glimpse into a point you\’re at where you\’re stuck.

Xanth’s Phasing Method

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I posted this in my last article I wrote where I focused on a couple posts from the Astral Pulse, but I thought that it’d be nice to get it down separately and with a bit more detail.  So, what follows is my current Phasing method which has been giving me a lot of success as of late.

What I’ve been doing lately has been a slight combination of a few methods, rolled up into something that has been really easy for me to do.  Doing this takes me, pretty quickly, through Focus 10 into Focus 12… my sticking point right now is the transition from Focus 12 to Focus 21.

Anyway, let’s get into what I do!
I’ll type up a quick overview, then go through each step in more detail.:

  1. Stretch your eyes out… close them really tightly for a few seconds.  Do this a few times.  Then rotate them around several times, making sure they’re completely stretched out… I’ll give them a good rub too.
  2. Close eyes, fixate upon a spot in the blackness directly in front of you and visualize something at the spot to help hold your focus there, I use a spinning vortex.
  3. Start your relaxation process.
  4. As you’re relaxing, move that spot you’re fixating on slowly upwards as high as you can comfortably go without straining your eyes.
  5. When your eyes have gone as upwards as they’ll go, you’ll hopefully also be fully relaxed at this point, you should be in Focus 10 at this point… to shift to Focus 12, begin the “Noticing” exercise.
  6. Should you begin to see floating, formless shapeless blobs in front where you’re fixated, this signifies you’re now in Focus 12.
  7. Keep “Noticing” the formless shapes floating around and eventually, without trying (just allow this next part to happen), you should find yourself engulfed within the 3D Blackness of Focus 21.

Ok, so let’s drop into more detail!
Lately, I’ve been listening to some hemi-sync MP3’s that I bought off the TMI webstore.  Stuff like “Dreamseed”, “Touching Grace” and “Voyage to the Other Side”.  Actually those are the only three I have, I cycle through them quite often.

The first thing I do is stretch out my eyes… this helps to relax them and allows them to stay closed easier.  I’ll do this by closing them tight for a few seconds, then release.  Do that a few times.  Then rotate your eyes around in whatever direction you wish.  But try to stretch them as far out in each direction as you can.

Now after my eyes are stretched out nicely (they should feel a lot more relaxed at this point), I close my eyes and fixate on a single point directly in front of me.  I visualize a small spinning vortex at that point to draw my gaze into it.  You can use whatever you want.  I use this time to begin to relax my body… I used to have to use a progressive relaxation technique, but lately I’ve been able to bypass that and start moving directly into a fully relaxed state.  So, if you can’t do this, feel free to use whatever method you want to achieve your relaxed state.

Now, throughout this relaxation phase, I’ll really slowly shift that point I’m fixated on upwards in small increments.  This has two effects… first it locks the eyelids shut and secondly, for some reason it assists the action of phasing (perhaps it’s just me, but try it anyway).  I find I have to find a new point to fixate upon which is slightly higher than the last one each time.  Just remember to continue your fixation visualization each time (in my case, the spinning vortex).

Try to coincide your finished relaxed state with your eyes reaching as comfortably high as they’ll go.  At this point, hopefully, you should be in Focus 10.  You’ll know by the greatly reduced bodily sensations and a general sense of relax and calmness about you.  I want to point out here that your body WILL NOT be asleep at this point… and really, it never will.  You’ll simply be disassociating your focus from everything physical.  I can put it this way… at this point, your focus will be roughly only 20% in the physical and 80% within the non-physical at this time.

From here, we’ll start Franks “Noticing” exercise.  You’re going to continue fixating on the point that you’ve been using… and you’re going to just “notice” and passively observe what’s going on in your field of view.  It’ll start with blackness, or you might, right away, start to see abstract shadows and areas within your field of view that will begin to shift and move around… keep “noticing” these things.  The more you “notice” this stuff occurring in front of you, the deeper you’ll shift your focus into it and the more you’ll remove your focus from the physical.  When this happens, you’ll roughly be 10% in the physical and 90% in the non-physical.

Now, there will come a point when you’ll feel a shift… and you might find yourself within a scene or some kind, or floating in what’s best described as a 3D Blackness.  When this happens, try to remain passively observing… you’re now in Focus 21.  Congrats, you’ve now phased your consciousness as close to 100% as you can go.  You still might retain some sensations of the physical, but that’s normal.  🙂

Post Focus! Focus 10 and 12!

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I\’ve been doing a bit of research lately on Focus 10 and Focus 12, and I came across yet another gem-of-a-post from our good buddy Frank. The poster is called \”Difference between Focus 10 and Focus 12\”:

Is there any difference between Focus 10 and Focus 12 ?
I would like to get the answer especially from tose who were/are successuful with the tapes from Monroe Institute.
Any different body sensations ?
Different visuals ?
Different type/quality of OOB ?

Thanks in advance
Jan

Franks reply:

Yes, a distinct difference.

Focus 10 is where you have retreated from the physical about 85 to 90%. You still have an awareness that somewhere \”back there\” is a physical body. You are aware that you have one, but aren\’t really interested in it, and receiving next to no input from its physical senses. Your mind is awake and alert, but your focal point of consciousness is contained in what feels like a black 2-dimensional compartment somewhere about the centre of your head.

The primary difference between Focus 10 and Focus 12 is the 2D blackness becomes 3 dimensional. In other words, you get a sensation of an opening up of space, all around you. It\’s like if you suddenly found yourself in an unfamiliar room, where you were standing in the middle, and there was no light whatsoever. You wouldn\’t have any spatial awareness at all. All you\’d see would be a 2-dimensional blackness before your eyes.

Now, say, someone very slowly began to turn on a light. There would come a point where you\’d begin to see abstract shadows. Then, as the light got steadily brighter, the shadows would become more distinct and you\’d begin to recognise basic shapes. This is what Focus 12 is like.

People perceive the state slightly differently, but the primary difference is the fact that the 2 dimensional blackness becomes 3 dimensional. Which gives you a distinct feeling of spatial awareness. You can\’t really see much at this stage, just indistinct shadows, or maybe whirls of foggy sort-of darkness. But, as I say, you cannot miss the *distinct* feeling of spatial awareness that comes about.

From Focus 12, it\’s like the light progressively gets brighter. Taking the room analogy a step further, as the light got slowly brighter, there would come a point where you\’d recognise some object, previously perceived as an indistict shadow, as a chair (say). But you wouldn\’t know the colour of the fabric or the pattern (if any). As the light got brighter still, you\’d start making out that there might be a pattern on the fabric, but you still wouldn\’t be able to see the colour. As the brightness increased, there would come a point where everything would come into view. This is Focus 21

Yours,
Frank

I like his description of how the Focus 12 state slowly comes out of the Focus 10 state. \”The light progressively gets brighter\”… that\’s really a great way to describe it… and then his description of the progression into Focus 21 using the chair is really good too.

All of these posts by Frank that I keep relaying here are part and parcel of the progress I\’ve made over the past year. I wouldn\’t know what I do now if it wasn\’t for reading and understanding this stuff. 🙂

Oh! I want to add this post in a different thread from Clandestino, one of the other moderators on the Astral Pulse.

Hi there Nick,

this reminds me of another post a few weeks ago, I think Frank was talking about a guide giving him info on how important the focus 12 state is in the whole scheme of things.

It is the transition from focus 10 to 12 that is often hard to acheive. Once you are there though, the whole thing should unravel towards focus 22 and \”out of body\” experiences.

One common technique is focussing on something in your field of view…e.g. a dot of light, or a slightly different coloured area in the blackness around you. If you are in focus 12, you may find that the dot of light you were focussing on takes shape, and grows into an astral scene.

However, if you are in focus 10 and you focus on something behind your eyelids….not a lot is likely to happen !

\”how do you get to focus 12?\” i hear you ask ? I don\’t know yet, it just happens sometimes. I would compare my experiences to a blind man walking down the street and then finding the edge of the pavement (or sidewalk if you\’re that way inclined). All of a sudden, there it is !
After a while of walking down the same street, the blind man will find it easier to reach the kerb. Ask him how he did it though, and he might find it tricky to explain.

I\’m sure there are a few folks out there who have more positive suggestions..?

ps – don\’t infer from the above that i\’m a regular at this sort of thing; i\’ve managed it a few times only so far.

That\’s very much exactly what goes on. Just find some point of \”interest\” in your current field of view… and focus on it. If you see that which you\’re focusing on start to take shape… it doesn\’t have to be any particular object, just a formless blob… then you\’re most definitely in Focus 12. From there, it\’s a simple matter of just doing what you\’re currently doing… and ALLOW yourself to be taken into the 3D blackness of Focus 21.

The part where he talks about HOW you get to Focus 12… the point here is that it does \”JUST HAPPEN\”.   Just as you allow yourself to get swept into Focus 21… you must also allow yourself to be taken into Focus 12.

I\’ve changed up my routine slightly lately, as I now use the Noticing exercise more than anything else these days.  I\’ll sit there staring at a single point on the back of my eyelids.  As I begin to slowly feel my body relax I\’ll start to move my physical eyes upwards REALLY slowly… moving them upwards as much as is comfortable as I don\’t want to strain my eyes because that would become counter productive.  At the point when my eyes are pointing upwards as much as I can, I should be pretty relaxed… you can use a progressive relaxation technique here if you wish and as you go through each muscle, move your sight upwards slightly.

For knowing how MUCH to move your eyes… stare straight ahead while you\’re awake, then move your gaze upwards as far as is comfortable.  With your eyes open this is easy, with your eyes closed, you\’ll need to fixate on a portion of the blackness in front of you for your eyes to lock there.  So, now that you know your range of eye movement, just split it up into nice sections and move your eyes accordingly for each progressive muscle relaxed.

So now you\’re relaxed and your eyes are comfortably looking upwards… just watch the scene infront of you and see what happens.  Wait for something to happen.   That\’s all I do.  🙂

Post Focus! Frank

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I was just doing a bit of research on Focus 12 and I wanted to share this wonderful gem of a post.  It\’s Frank responding to someone asking a few questions.  The following is from someone named Ash, back in March 28th, 2003:

okay i\’ve started to notice a strange phenomenon during my practice sessions. Sometimes I feel like I might be about to phase, or obe, or I\’m viewing hypnagogic imagery, and then I will \”snap back\”. This snapping back is something like being in a daydream and then realizing where you are in real life. It\’s sort of a sudden change in your focus of awareness. What I realized is that every time I snap back it actually feels like a very subtle, quick movement down and to the left. After it happens I feel totally awake, just looking at the backs of my eyelids, my awareness centered behind my eyes. But if I drift off again, my awareness moves up and to the right. Once it moves there, if I can regain control without snapping back, I get all sorts of astral and dream-like symptoms. I may get astral sight, or if not I can easily visualize and actually see whatever I visualize (ordinarily my visualization is the pits)

A couple of things are interesting about this.
1) it absolutely cannot be forced. I only realize it has happened after I snap back. During the process it all seems perfectly natural. I can\’t reproduce it if I actually try to move my awareness.

2) I\’m wondering if this has something to do with the \”Brain Method\”

3) When people access memories, or try to imagine, they either look up and to the right, or up and to the left. I can\’t remember which is which, but one is to remember facts and one is to imagine something. I wonder if this awareness shift is related to accessing a different part of my brain.

Comments or similar experiences?

And here is Franks reply:

quote:
Comments or similar experiences? 

Yes, definitely, what you are describing IS the Phasing process!

quote:
Okay i\’ve started to notice a strange phenomenon during my practice sessions. Sometimes I feel like I might be about to phase, or obe, or I\’m viewing hypnagogic imagery, and then I will \”snap back\”. This snapping back is something like being in a daydream and then realizing where you are in real life. It\’s sort of a sudden change in your focus of awareness.

Yes, that\’s what you should be experiencing. It\’s a distinct shift in your focus of awareness. And there is no mistaking it too. Like, you are not placed in a situation where you are left wondering did you make the shift or not.

The reason why you currently keep snapping-back, is due to your protective sense of awareness kicking in. It\’s not something you can consciously control as the protection aspect operates on a very base level. But it does stop happening the more you practice. As your protective sense of awareness gets used to the shift, it becomes a case of, yawn, here we go again.

quote:
What I realized is that every time I snap back it actually feels like a very subtle, quick movement down and to the left. After it happens I feel totally awake, just looking at the backs of my eyelids, my awareness centered behind my eyes. But if I drift off again, my awareness moves up and to the right.

Again, this is how it should feel. Although I only mainly feel an upwards movement, with just a slight hint of a twist to the right.

quote:
Once it moves there, if I can regain control without snapping back, I get all sorts of astral and dream-like symptoms. I may get astral sight, or if not I can easily visualize and actually see whatever I visualize (ordinarily my visualization is the pits)

At first the whole situation can be a bit of a muddle. But after a while you will be able to distinctly recognise the different states of conscious-awareness as you phase through them smoothly.

The point at which your focus of attention is completely directed inwards, this is Focus 10. Following which you then start to see all kinds of abstract movement (or hypnagogic imagery as you term it) this is Focus 12.

If you are in the position where, like you say, you can visualise and actually SEE what you are visualising, this is Focus 22. Note: Focus 22 is basically the same state of consciousness as Lucid Dreaming: only with a very much greater sense of mental control.

Also, Focus 22 is the first proper realm of conscious awareness where thought equals direct action. So, as you have discovered, it is easy to visualise anything simply by thinking about seeing it, and it immediately materialises.

quote:
A couple of things are interesting about this.
1) it absolutely cannot be forced. I only realize it has happened after I snap back. During the process it all seems perfectly natural. I can\’t reproduce it if I actually try to move my awareness.

That\’s right, and this part of it I find ever so tricky to explain. You cannot will yourself to have the experience. It\’s something you mentally allow yourself to become open to.

It\’s like where I\’ve tried to explain it before by saying that Astral Projection is not about finding the right projection technique, but more to do with developing the right kind of mental understanding. Techniques can be very useful but, ultimately, I believe their effectiveness stems from them acting as a kind of mental primer that serves to kick-start the natural process.

quote:
2) I\’m wondering if this has something to do with the \”Brain Method\”

I don\’t know what the Brain Method is exactly. Someone coined the term a while ago and it seems to have stuck. What I can say for sure, however, is that what you are describing are characteristics of the beginning stage of the Phasing process.

If you keep practicing you will find that you will be able to ultimately make a complete smooth transition from Physical to Astral.

quote:
3) When people access memories, or try to imagine, they either look up and to the right, or up and to the left. I can\’t remember which is which, but one is to remember facts and one is to imagine something. I wonder if this awareness shift is related to accessing a different part of my brain.

This phenomenon can vary between different people. I\’m not sure if they are linked in any way. But the awareness shift you feel is due to the shift in your focal point of awareness. As it shifts it gives a sensation of movement like you were travelling in a particular direction.

If you keep practicing to the point where you can reach the Astral fairly reliably and keep your thoughts/emotions in check; you will be able to contact other members of your Astral Family who I\’m sure will only be too happy to explain and give demonstrations and/or exercises that will show you how the Mind is a separate entity from the physical-body and the physical brain.

Yours,
Frank

Everything he explains here is just perfect to describe everything from the description of Focus 12 to the process of just ALLOWING yourself to Phase. So many insights in one post.

And I\’m just figuring out today at how good the \”noticing\” exercise really is… and I think because of my experience at lunch time today, I might give it a better try again.

Focus 10: Mind Awake / Body Alseep, Written by Ashes/Fred

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I wanted to share this article with you that I read a short while back, written by Fred, the administrator of Explorations in Consciousness.

I was always unsure about the state of mind known as Focus 10, and it helped me IMMENSELY in recognizing that I was, indeed, getting to that state… and getting there rather easily.

Focus 10: Mind Awake / Body Asleep

I’ll put the first bit here just to wet your appetite.

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Copyright 2006, explorations-in-consciousness.com. All rights reserved. Permission for non-commercial use is hereby granted, provided that this file is distributed intact. Quotations must be properly cited.

The concept of phasing
For those unfamiliar with the focus levels a little background is in order. The story goes back to Robert A. Monroe, who began to experience involuntary Out of Body Experiences (OBE) in 1957. These early experiences have been documented in his first book “Journeys out of the body” (Monroe, 1971). It was also during this time that Monroe discovered that sound patterns could induce certain states of consciousness, which eventually led to the creation of the Monroe Institute and patented sound technology called Hemi-Sync.

While the early experiences of Monroe were often characterized by a sensation of leaving the body his development took a different turn in later years. Monroe discovered the “quick-switch”, which allowed him to move from one “location” to another in an instant by stretching or reaching out with his consciousness. Eventually, this led Monroe to consider the “second body” to be no more than “local traffic”–mere habit due to the physical experience (Atwater, 2001). Thus, the implicit philosophical background behind ‘phasing’ is that there is no such thing as “leaving the body”, since consciousness is never really ‘in the body’ to begin with. Rather, all experiences which constitute things such as “trance”, “hypnosis”, “altered states”, “meditation”, “OBEs”, and “astral projections” are simply variations on the same theme where consciousness is focused in different ways and in different degrees away from the physical.

The term phasing is a metaphor derived from physics, which conceptualizes consciousness as a waveform that can either be aligned or non-aligned with physical reality. For example, when we are 100% phased into the physical were are considered perfectly aligned with normal physical input and waking reality. In Monroe speak, this is called C-1 consciousness or primary phasing. As consciousness moves further away from the physical (and the senses) consciousness is said to phase into other “focus levels”. The first of these is focus 10 – the state of mind awake/body asleep.

Achieving the focus 10 state is facilitated by tapes or CD’s, which utilize binaural beats to influence brain wave patterns in the person listening to them. These tapes are sold as part of a set of tapes/CDs called The Gateway Experience by the Monroe Institute. In particular, the set of tapes (Wave I) of the Gateway Experience is geared towards establishing the focus 10 state, while subsequent series (Wave II to VI) gradually increase the phase shift away from the physical. These focus levels have been described as follows (Monroe, 1994, p. 248):

Focus 10: Mind Awake/Body Asleep
Focus 12: A state of expanded awareness
Focus 15: State of no time
Focus 21: The edge of time/space where it is possible to contact other energy systems.

It is important to realize these focus levels are merely arbitrary numbers and signposts to identify the state of consciousness one is in. In case you’re wondering, there is no focus 14 or focus 16. However, beyond focus 21, several other focus levels have been identified further removed from the physical, and which involve among other systems the perception of belief system territories (“astral planes”). Thus, The Gateway Experience is meant as a platform from which to explore further on your own. For more information, I suggest you visit the website at the Monroe Institute at www.monroeinstitute.org.

It’s a long read… but a very worthwhile one, in my opinion.
I hope this article helps you as much as it helped me.