Missesmidnight's List: The Power of the Mind

• Transition to and from sleep may be attended by a wide variety of sensory experiences. These can occur in any modality, individually or combined, and range from the vague and barely perceptible to vivid hallucinations.
• sensory features of hypnagogia are phosphenes which can manifest as seemingly random speckles, lines or geometrical patterns
• Snatches of imagined speech are common
• Humming
• rushing
• (SP). This happens when the REM atonia sets in sooner than usual, before the person is fully asleep, or persists longer than usual, after the person has (in other respects) fully awoken
• noises are frequent in conjunction with sleep paralysis
• electric "tingles" or "vibrations
• intense emotion: fear
• many people report seeing a flash of light or some other visual image in response to a real sound
• . Proprioceptive effects may be noticed, with numbness and changes in perceived body size and proportions,^[35] feelings of floating or bobbing, and out-of-body experiences.^[36] Perhaps the most common experience of this kind is the falling sensation, and associated hypnic jerk, encountered by many people, at least occasionally, while drifting off to sleep.^[37]
• turning abstract ideas into a concrete image

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• or a dream-like state
• while others report having found themselves being pulled from their bodies (usually preceded by a feeling of paralysis)
• Falling asleep physically without losing wakefulness. The "Mind Awake, Body Asleep" state is widely suggested as a cause of OBEs

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• Sensory deprivation. This approach aims to encourage intense disorientation by removal of space and time references.
• Locale 2 experiences are less overtly physical in nature and have much subjective overlap with lucid dreaming. The subject is immersed in unrealistic worlds, modified forms of reality exhibiting physically impossible or inconsistent features. Bright and vivid colors are a common feature of this form. Robert Bruce considers this type of OBE to be an astral projection.

• problems distinguishing your waking memories from dream memories.
• excess, illogical memories to sort out
• Finding evidence of having done things one can’t remember doing
• Not remembering important events in one’s life
• Being in a familiar place but finding it unfamiliar
• Seeing oneself as if looking at another person
• Other people and objects do not seem real
• Looking at the world through a fog or haze
• The main reason for this phenomenon is the result of the lucid dreams expanding the length of time between REM states. With fewer REMs per night, this state in which you experience actual sleep and your body recovers becomes infrequent enough to become a problem.
• step over the boundary without conscious effort,
• Undesirable false awakenings
• sometimes, while trying to leave a dream, you'll get "stuck" in a series of false awakenings.

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• Astral travel in traditional Wicca can be used for many purposes, among them: meditation, meeting the gods (and perhaps animals), solving problems, doing rituals, and learning more about nature and life.
• As with meditation, you should be well rested and clear-minded.
• Some people feel more comfortable if they cast a circle before doing their astral projection
• Fifteen minutes is a minimum, but a half hour to an hour is much better.
• Wear comfortable clothing that won't be a distraction. Dim the lights or light a candle. Choose a type of incense you will burn each time you do astral travel
• We recommend sitting (either on the floor, a cushion or a chair) but some people do prefer lying down. Begin by centering and grounding. Centering is making your spine straight, and grounding making a conscious effort to relax and allow your stress to drain away while you make a “connection” with the Earth.
• You might want to try counting slowly from one to ten feeling your relaxation get deeper with each number.
• first astral journey you will need to establish a home base
• Relax, breath naturally and close your eyes, and find yourself in your chosen place, your “astral temple”
• in your mind visualize your “astral temple” as though you are sitting (as you are in ordinary reality) in the middle of it. At first it may feel like you are pretending, but ignore that feeling and follow the rest of the procedure.
• Open your eyes in your astral place, and look around. Be sure that you are in your astral body.

•  Feel the ground or floor on which you are sitting. Notice the temperature of the ground. Is it dry or wet? Sniff the air. Notice what aroma is there (incense? flowers? vegetation?) What do you hear? (Birds? Insects? Wind? Water?)

    

  Figure out which direction is East in your astral place. Notice the position of the Sun. (Is it rising? Over head? Setting behind you?) Turn slowly clockwise viewing everything you can see from your position in the middle of your astral place. Don't try to do too much on your first journey. If you have difficulting seeing a lot of details on your first few trips do not be concerned. It gets easier with practice.
• count slowly up from one to ten
• When you are ready to return home sit back down in the middle of your astral temple where you started and close your eyes.
• When you reach ten open your eyes, take a deep breath and rub your hands together, touch your face, or feel the floor to “ground” yourself back in ordinary reality.
• next step is to explore a bit. If you astral temple has no water source you may want to explore somewhere toward the West to find a pond, stream, sea, etc
• If you have not yet had any close encounters with a god or goddess you may meet them in your astral temple.
• You might find something as you explore which you'd like to bring back to your astral temple.
• A little more advanced journey might include planting a tree

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• Centering will help you keep yourself balanced and focused on what you are doing. Grounding keeps you from getting "spacy"or distracted.
• Centering:
   Close your eyes, and place your feet firmly on the ground or floor. Gather all the energy in your body to a nice round glowing ball in what you feel is the center of your body. This is centering. Find a center point in yourself and feel it there, steady and calm. If you are only centering and not moving on to grounding, maintain this as long as you need to until you feel you have centered yourself enough.

• What you are actually doing when you meditate to reach astral projection is changing the vibratory frequency of your Self.  

   On the physical plane, we operate at a much lower frequency than the spiritual plane. It's for this reason we don't always percieve the spiritual world - we're just not on the same wavelength.
• you're so relaxed you fall asleep. If this happens while you are meditating, you need to do some exercises in focus - performing a task without losing interest, having your mind wander, or simply becoming bored.

• Learn to watch at all times where your mind is placing its attention. If you find that it is not conducive to your growth, change it. The more you do this the stronger your will power will become. You will have the power to direct your mind towards your intention. When you know your personal intent, it helps you stay centered and lets you know when you are not centered.

• The process of Dreamwalking is the concept of walking dreams to make control and understanding of other people of ability, easily, or to get places. This process uses focus and astral plane projection. To make this process work just focus on the idea of projecting your mind into the astral plane with a purpose. Then, feel a shift happen to you to the dream plane, by feeling a lighthearted feeling or happy thought of what you will achieve while focusing on the 'being there' in the astral dream plane. Now let your mind rove through peoples thoughts and dreams as it needs to with your direction of desire, need and thought.
• imagine a gray shield around you to make yourself unseen

• To get in tune with your senses begin by immersing your self in nature
• . You need to learn to suspend disbelief and judgment if you are ever to expand your awareness.
• You need to be able to distinguish a real feeling.
• heart it will transform you because you will take action.
• consumed by your feelings but only remains a feeling with no action, then you will know it is pseudo.
• . Let your mind play its role of logic and reason. Let your heart function for its purpose of feeling.
• many people say I “think” I love you. If you trust your feelings you will simply tell the person “I love you”. Do not let them mix into each other
• The role that meditation can help you with is learning to go from thinking to feeling. We live in a society in which we think excessively, the problem with thinking is that it needs time to formulate an answer. Being able to feel requires no time because it already knows, because by its very nature it is intuitive.

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