AP_12.TXT ------------------------------------------------------------------- FILE 12 of 15 - CompuServe Astral Projection Class by Don DeGracia, 1994 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Astral Projection Class on CompuServe by Don DeGracia: 72662,1335 Copyright 1994 None of this material may be reproduced without explicit permission from the author. IN THE OOBE REALM - PART 6 B. Meeting People: Dead Verses Dreamers Meeting people in the OOBE realm is one of the most fascinating and eye-opening aspects of the projection experience. Now, there are a variety of aspects when it comes to meeting people during your OOBEs. First, some authors report that you can observe people who are on the physical plane while you are out-of-body. Monroe for example makes this claim. In my own personal experiences I have never been able to do this, except perhaps once during my very first astral projection and a couple other times that were, however, very ambiguous. So, if it is your intention to spy on people while you are out-of-body, good luck cause you're on your own - I have no experience with this to share with you! When I meet people during my projections, they are actually on the subplane I am on. And, like nonhuman entities, people you meet in the planes will respond to you in all manner of ways, from friendly to hostile to ignoring you. Now, theoretically, if you accept the occult viewpoint, there are two main classes of people you can meet during an OOBE: dreamers and deceased or "discarnate" humans. I think I have met both during different projections. Of course, it is very difficult to verify if someone you meet during an OOBE is a dreamer or a discarnate person. If you can get a name or address or phone number from the person, then you are doing very well and have some kind of evidence to determine if the person you met does or ever existed here on our physical plane. I will get more into the idea of questioning the people you meet during an OOBE below. Now, I suspect that there are different subplanes for dreamers and discarnate humans. I think that there is a "dreamers current" in the subplanes close to our physical plane, and it is on this "dream current" that most of us go every night when we dream. On the other hand, I think that the regions inhabited by discarnate people are "farther away" from the physical plane. Living people exude a different type of energy than do discarnate people, and as oil does not mix with water, I think that living people (i.e. dreamers) tend not to mix with the deceased, except under certain special conditions. For example, we have all heard stories of people meeting deceased relatives in their dreams. In this case, a strong emotional tie between the individuals either "pulls" the dreamer to the regions where discarnate humans dwell, or "pulls" the deceased person to the regions where dreamers dwell. If a strong enough force, or emotional resonance, is exerted, one could conceivably bring the deceased person's aura very close to the physical plane, in which case one may see ghosts. This latter idea is the basis of seances and spiritualism where, 100 years ago, it was fashionable to attempt to communicate with deceased relatives. Now, how can you tell a deceased person from a dreamer? Again, there is no sure method to do so. It is only in extreme cases that you might be able to make a reasonable guess. You might think that by becoming lucid during a dream that the people around you are dreamers too, and this is a reasonable presumption. If you meet people in your OOBEs who are dressed in fashions from another era, this may be a clue that it is a deceased person. Likewise, if you find yourself in a region that looks like a past era, it is conceivable that the people there (if there are people there) are the deceased who lived in that era. However, there are simply no guarantees about this. The only way you can be sure you met a dreamer is by getting their name, phone number or address, remembering these upon waking and contacting the person here on the physical plane. Next, you will have to find out what this person looks like. If you can actually do this, and the person you contact here on the physical plane is indeed the person you met in your OOBE, then you can say pretty much for sure that this person was a dreamer. Actually, if you can bring a valid name and phone number back from a projection with you, you've done something quite amazing. I've never succeeded at doing this though I try every chance I get. I have never done this for reasons I will get to shortly. To be sure you met a deceased person you will have to go through a similar process; get the person's name, the general era in which they lived, where they lived, and if you can, some facts about their life. Then, again, presuming you can remember all this information upon waking, if you can verify this information, then you can say with a high degree of certainty that you met a deceased person. Now, the above methods are only valid for people that are strangers. Different factors seem to be operating if you meet someone you know during an OOBE. In many of my projections I have seen and interacted with my close friends. Throughout these notes I refer to a fellow named J.C., or John, and this is a close friend of mine who answers to both names. Numerous times I have met J.C. in my projections, yet I don't know what to make of my having met him during an OOBE. In some cases he was awake here on the physical plane when I met him in my OOBE. In other cases he was sleeping here on the physical plane when I met him in one of my OOBEs. I don't understand what is going on when I meet J.C. during an OOBE while he is awake here on the physical plane. Am I only conjuring up his image in my OOBEs (i.e. creating a thought-form of him)? That is, when I meet J.C. is he merely a hallucination within my OOBE? Alternatively, am I meeting a part of his subconscious mind in my OOBEs? I do not know the answers to these questions. I know that there is no apparent correlation between what he is doing while he is awake and what he was doing, apparently at the same time when I have met him in my OOBEs. Likewise, the times I've met him when he was in bed sleeping here on the physical plane, he has never once woken up and remembered meeting me in my OOBE. So, unlike other authors who claim to meet people they know during their OOBEs and later get confirmation of this meeting from the person here on the physical plane, I have never had such confirmation. I do not have the slightest clue what is going on when I meet people I know within one of my OOBEs. This is why I said above that the methods I suggest to use if you want to prove a person is a dreamer or deceased person will only work with strangers. If you can meet a stranger during an OOBE, then later, here in the physical world, actually confirm that that person does or did exist here in the physical plane, then you have gotten very strong evidence of meeting a bona fide person during your OOBE. However, I have had three experiences that are very close to being confirmations that I really did interact with a specific person during one of my OOBEs. In the first case, I had a long OOBE in one of those resting places for deceased people that I mentioned earlier. While I was in this "Rehab Center", I found a friend of mine who I knew from about 10 years prior. This frind of mine, whose name was Steve, had muscular dystrophy (and was confined to a wheelchair) and we were very good friends in junior high school. I lost contact with Steve during high school because I moved away and have never contacted him since. The only time I have seen Steve since junior high was in a projection I had in 1987. When I saw Steve in the projection, he was completely dazed. He was in a complete stupor (I will talk more about people being in a stupor immediatly below), and he did not recognize me. But it was Steve, in his wheelchair, looking very much like I remembered him. In the projection, I told him that he didn't need to be in a wheelchair because he was in the astral plane, and he could do anything he wanted, but he didn't seem to hear me. I then introduced him to a couple other guys that were in the room with us who were in wheelchairs too. These guys were much more lucid that Steve and they took to him. The three of them then wheeled off out of the room and I went on to other adventures in the projection. Well, it was maybe a year after this projection (1988) that I had found out that Steve had died in 1983. All I could figure is I found Steve in the after-death state. A second instance that I had during a projection that seemed to possess an uncanny validity also involved a deceased friend of mine. One of my very close musician friends committed suicide in 1987. About 6 months after his death, I saw him in a projection. He was complaining about how much the world sucked. He and I got in a big argument and I told him that just because he was dead didn't mean anything, he was still being an asshole and that he'd better quit feeling so sorry for himself and get his act together. In my mind, this was a very legitimate meeting. My friend, who obviously was so desolate that he took his life, had the same attitudes after death. For whatever reason, I was drawn to him in one of my projections, and I gave him my two cents worth! Whatever the case, I feel I really did meet him in the after-death state while I was out-of-body. Finally, my third close call was when I met one of my best friends during a projection. I came upon this friend, whose name is Tim, while I was flying through a strange city. Tim was sitting on the ledge of a building and naturally I was surprised to see him. I went over to him and started to talk to him. I knew that it was early Sunday morning and chances were good that Tim was home sleeping on the physical plane. I decided I would see if I could help him become lucid so that when he woke, he would recall our meeting. I told him that we were projecting and that we were in the world of dreams. At first he responded as if in a daze, but I started shaking him and kept telling him to wake up (i.e become lucid). Finally, he seemed to become himself, which is to say, he started to act lucid. I then showed him how to fly and we proceeded to explore the city we were in. I kept pointing things out to him, telling him to remember all we were seeing so that when he woke up he would remember it. I also kept telling him to call me as soon as he woke up. Well, we were together for a long time in the projection and I kept reminding him to call me when he woke up. Eventually, I lost him and continued with my projection. I woke up straight from my projection and it was about 11:00 AM. And then, within minutes of waking up from my projection, Tim called me! For real - on the physical plane! I was very excited, but didn't say anything to him about the projection. I asked him how long he had been awake, and he said he just woke up, which meant that he really had been sleeping at the same time I was projecting. I then asked him if he had had any dreams that he could remember. He couldn't remember anything though, but he said he had an urge to call me! So, these three episodes were the closest I have ever come to having a meeting with a specific person during an OOBE verified. Now, if you were a hardcore skeptic, you'd probably think I was grasping at straws, but, then again, if you are a hardcore skeptic, you have never even astral projected, so I'd ignore you. Still, in spite of these three provocative episodes, the fact that I have never been able, with any absolute certainty, to confirm the meetings I have with people during my OOBEs makes me leery of people who make such claims, and also makes me question just how far we can take the projection experience as occurring in some kind of "objective" world. However, because I have not done this does not mean it is impossible. To think such a thing would be completely foolish. Lots of people can do things I cannot do. So, the bottom line here is that I am in no position to pass judgement on people's claims of meeting and verifying meetings with other living (or deceased) people. I still remain open minded that it is possible to interact with other people (living or not) during an OOBE, and am constantly testing and looking for ways to verify the validity of my meetings with people, friends or strangers, during my own OOBEs. i. The Character of People In OOBEs Now, to explain what I was saying above about these friends of mine being in a daze, one of the most interesting things I have observed when meeting other humans in my OOBEs is generally how completely out of it they are. What I mean by this is that, when I meet people in my OOBEs, these people, more often than not, act like they are in a daze. In other words, they are NOT lucid. I will present a number of examples of this from my journal. In fact, when I meet a person who responds to me the way a person would respond to me here on the physical plane, I am very surprised. Let me elaborate on what I am saying here in more detail. When I meet people during an OOBE I ask them a number of questions. This has become a habit with me and I strongly recommend that you do this also. Here are some of the questions I will ask people I meet during my OOBEs: 1. What is your name? 2. Where are we? What city is this? 3. Did you know we are in the dream world right now? 4. What year is it? 5. Are you dead or are you dreaming? You have to imagine what you would think if someone came up to you out of the blue and just started asking you these questions. If someone came up to you and said, "Hey, we are dreaming right now", you'd think they were nuts or just being silly at the least. If someone asked you your name, or the date, or what city you were in, you would be able to answer this immediately. Well, the people I have met in my projections generally CANNOT answer these simple questions. I think this is one of the most amazing discoveries I have made in my OOBE explorations. That is to say, PEOPLE IN THE OOBE REALM ARE GENERALLY *NOT* AS LUCID AS PEOPLE IN THE PHYSICAL PLANE. You will be doing very well if you get yourself into a postion where you can either confirm or refute this statement. A typical scenario of me meeting a person in one of my OOBEs is as follows: I approach the person and they may or may not respond to my presence. If they do respond, it is a rather feeble recognition that I am there. I will then talk to the person, and, more often than not, ask the questions I listed above. And, more often than not, the person will NOT know their name, will NOT know where they are at, and generally speaking, will respond to me as if they are in a daze. Examples of this are below. Now, another thing I've learned to do is the following, and I will give examples if this below too. Sometimes I will be SLY with the person and not let on that I know I am astral projecting. I will approach the person and interact with them in a matter of fact way, without any indication that I know I am projecting. Whatever is going on, I will just go along with it. Then, out of the blue I will say something to the effect, "Hey, wake up, we are in the dream world; This is all a dream." Often, in such circumstances, the person looks at me as if I am joking or I am a nut. And then, I will float up about five feet off the ground and say, "Ha! Can you do this in the physical world?". When I do this, I often elicit a reaction of surprise from the person I am talking to. They no longer think I am joking! Often they are genuinely surprised. However, depending on the circumstances, they will either fall back into their catatonic stupor, or I will bring them into some kind of adventure or another. Another thing I do when I meet people during my projections is to teach them how to fly. The overwhelming majority of people you meet in your projections have no idea where they are at and what they can do. When you meet someone during an OOBE, you can teach them to fly. It's easy, it's fun, and, to some extent or another, you are helping that person out. Also, you will find situations where you can console people. You will find people who are scared or angry and violent, and, simply because you are lucid and know your "powers", you can often help mellow out both types of people. I will give examples of this kind of behavior too. Finally, before I start presenting journal entries, I want to comment about one last aspect of meeting people during your OOBEs. This involves trying to tell a person you meet that you are NOT in the physical world. This is the strangest thing to try to do. A number of times in my projections, while I am trying to tell someone that we are in the astral plane, it dawns on me how weird it really is to try to communicate this idea to someone else DURING A PROJECTION. See, we don't have such a problem here in the physical world. It's totally trivial if I come up to you and say, "Hey, we are in the physical world right now, and we are NOT in the dream world". You'd look at me and say, "yea, so what? big deal!" I mean, it is so obvious to us that we ARE in this physical world that we don't even think of any other possible way it could be. But imagine you are standing in the world of dreams trying to tell somebody that you are in the dream world and NOT in the physical world. It's almost paradoxical trying to do this. Don't forget, most of the people you meet out-of-body are NOT lucid. They have no idea where they are at in the first place, and then you come along and try to tell them that there is this place called the "physical plane" and that is where you come from, but that is not where you and this other person happen to be at at the moment. They generally do not get it. All I can say is, if you get the chance, try to tell someone you meet in a projection that you are not in the physical world. So, let me summarize this section: 1. People you meet during OOBEs can potentially be: in the physical plane, or dreamers, or deceased. However, it is very difficult to determine which is the case. 2. People you meet during OOBEs are generally in a catatonic daze. YOU will be lucid, but they will NOT be lucid. 3. Question people for as much information as you can. Ask the kinds of questions I have listed above; simple questions. This will get you two types of information: you will get information that could help verify if the person you meet exists on the physical plane, and you will get information that will allow you to gauge how lucid this person is. 4. Teach people how to fly, or help them if they need help. 5. Try to tell the people you meet during a projection that you are not in the physical world. Ok, let me give you some examples from my journal illustrating what I've said above. 1> (In this episode, from my very first full-scale projection, I had planned to go to J.C.'s room if I actually left my body. Our plan was that whoever got out-of-body first would go to the other's room and see what they were doing. And that's exactly what I did. Turns out in this case, what I saw actually happened, only my projection occurred about 3 hours after the events I saw. This was a fourth case that was a type of confirmation of the validity of what I saw, though this case too, like the other three, is ambiguous.) "...I remembered to try to go to John's room as we had planned... I stepped out into the hallway. It felt a little eerie, but familiar recognition made me feel good and only fed my enthusiasm to push on. I pushed forward about two feet, and instantly appeared going up the stairs to the third floor. I didn't quite think this at that point, but basically I quantized through space! I was three or so steps from the top so I made my way up. There was John's closet which was in the hallway in front of his room. Again the recognition filled me with enthusiasm. I turned and looked at his door and it was closed. I did my new trick and looked away, then looked back, and it was open. And there was John standing there facing toward me talking, and Gregor sitting on John's bed staring at the wall. I was so surprised that our experiment had worked that I very enthusiastically rushed into the room shouting, "J.C., Hey J.C.! I did it!". This was very strange because, as I yelled, my voice seemed to come out of me in slow motion as if someone were playing a 78 record at 16 speed. But at the same time, I was hearing this, I was hearing another "me" actually shouting out these things normally. But this voice sounded far in the background and behind the slower voice. As I'm realizing all this, meanwhile I'm rushing into the room trying desperately to get J.C.'s attention. But he doesn't notice me. I'm talking and shouting at him and trying to grab and shake him. But to my surprise my arms pass right through him as I try to grab him. I notice that John seems to be talking about something that quite enthuses him but his back is to Gregor, and Gregor doesn't seem to be interested anyway, he's just sitting on John's bed, smoking a cigarette and staring up at the wall. It occurs to me to try to look at the clock and see what time it is. The clock seemed to read 12:56, but I wasn't sure because it was blurry and not quite legible, no matter how hard I would try to focus on it. Then, I seemed, for no apparent reason at all, to completely lose interest in the situation. I turned and left the room. When I went back out into the hall, I looked into John's closet. There was now a window right in the middle of his closet. In the window was a pink rainbow swirling mist that enchanted me enough to want to dive right into it. I thought to myself, "Well, I've only gotten this far by pushin' on ahead!" And so I plunged into this glimmering, enchanting window. I really don't recall well what happened to me after this point, other than it really freaked me out in a very pleasant way..." 2> (Earlier, I presented me trying to pass through a wall [FILE 8, entry 7 under "b. Moving through walls"]. Here are the events leading to that. This was the first time I met a "dazed" person during a projection and it was a little child. Note here also how I forgot the children's names upon waking. It is NOT easy carrying information from the OOBE state back to the waking state.) "...When I regained my vision I was standing on steps leading down into what appeared to be a basement laundry mat. It was very distinct - a perfect lockmold, and I felt very conscious. Yellow painted walls, pipes on the ceiling washing machines and wash tubs up and down the room. It was a corridor extending for about 300 feet. There were various other turns to my right but I did not explore these. To my left was a wall with windows at the top which seemed to be at ground level. All of a sudden, a little colored boy about 10 comes walking out of nowhere. He's wearing a blue parka but looks quite normal otherwise. I said "Hello. I love you" but he didn't seem to hear me. I thought "Wow! He must be sleeping" (that he was dead never entered my mind). I said "Who are you? What are you doing?" He still didn't seem to hear me even though he was looking right at me. I said "Who are you?" quite loudly in his face. He turned dazedly and started walking away from me and he was mumbling his name. I don't remember what he said, I forgot since I woke up. During the projection I heard it and it seemed to be quite important to me at that point. But he seemed uninterested in me and he disappeared into what I thought was a bathroom. I stood waiting for him and out of the same door comes a little white boy, about 10 or 11 years old. He had reddish brown hair in a bowl cut, wearing a green shirt and blue jeans. He was much more receptive. He came out and saw me and said "Where am I? I'm scared here". I said "Don't worry, you are only sleeping and you'll wake up soon. I asked him his name and he told me right away. But it seemed to "blend" with the other boy's name and I just can't remember. Then the little colored boy comes out with us. "How can we get out of here seems to be the mutual thought of all of us. All I could see as an escape route were the windows to our left. The windows were sunk back and about 7 feet off the ground. There were a series of pipes blocking the way so I hovered up into the air..." 3> (Another dramatic example of how UNLUCID people are that you meet in projections. Notice too here in this entry something I have found; that it is very difficult for me to read things during projections.) "...(I was flying through a sea of faces) As I was flying through the faces, I passed the face of a very beautiful woman and her beauty caught my attention so much that I reversed my motion until I came upon her face again. I stared very hard trying to focus my lockmold and I began to materialize again! And there she was standing in front of me, in the flesh! We seemed to be in the middle of an old west town and she was in line at the theatre or something. She was wearing a dark business outfit with green eye shadow and deep red lipstick. She didn't look as beautiful now as her face appeared in the sea of faces. I was standing there staring at her intensely and she looked at me and asked "Can I help you?" I asked her what city we were in, what is her name, what State is this. She looked at me pensively, then a look of confusion swept her features. Then, as a couple of policemen entered the street, she pointed to them and said "Why don't you ask them"? And she hurried off into the building we were in front of. I seem to recall her asking "Do you think I'm beautiful?" either when I first saw her or as she was leaving. At any rate, I went up to the policemen and asked them the same questions. And I got the same response! The cop I was addressing looked at his partner and they both shrugged their shoulders. I noticed a sign in front of a building and got the idea to go try to read it so I thanked the cops and hurried off. The sign was on some steps leading into a building and I got the sense that it was some kind of official sign. I tried to read it but had a very difficult time. I could not get it into focus that easily. All I could make out were the letters "OR", which for some reason I interpreted to mean Oregon, and the statement "Cheyan Country". At that moment I thought to myself "This sign is senseless. These dead people decorate their landscape, but there is no function for this sign it's just a decoration". I gave up my attempt to read the sign and walked back down the steps somewhat shaken up. I noticed my hand were in my pockets and thought to myself that I was glad I had materialized with clothes on this time. I wondered if the cops would have noticed had I been naked. I walked into the street again and tried to survey my surroundings. The sign gave me a definite impression of the Old West. The cops looked thoroughly modern though. The woman in green looked like someone from the late nineteen hundreds. The city itself seemed to be a cross between the 1920's and the 1950's in terms of the appearances of the buildings. The buildings were at most 5 stories high, some of yellow or red (like a rose) brick, others of the usual brick red color. I noticed I was on a dirt road. Then that flimsy feeling came over me again and I felt my lockmold fade. I was now in the void again..." 4> (Here is an example of teaching someone how to fly as well as being an example of my being "sly" with the person I meet. Again, by "sly" I mean going along with the person and whatever they are doing, even though I know I am projecting.) "...(I had become lucid during a dream. I was in a typical looking suburb...) Then I felt the heaviness come over me that indicated my lockmold was getting weak. I was afraid that if I just kept walking I would lose my lockmold, so I turned and walked back by the school. I met up with a young fellow who was walking home from school. I was really feeling my lockmold slip and I caught up with this kid. He was maybe a few years younger than me, heavyset and had greasy blond short hair and was wearing blue jean overalls. I approached him and asked if I could hold onto him because I was going to disappear otherwise. He was quite casual about it and said ok. So as we walked for a few yards, I clung on to him and I felt my lockmold return. It was stable but shaky and I knew I had to go along slow and not get too excited or I would lose it. We started talking and he asked me if I would like to go hunting or fishing with him. I really didn't want to, but I said ya anyway just to keep things smooth. I thought the hunting was to take place over a small hill that we were walking up and I ran forward to the top of the hill. The scenery had changed from suburban streets to a country-like environment and there were woods about and I saw a small lake about a quarter mile down beyond and through the trees. My friend laughed and said the fishing spot was over the ridge and that we had to stop at his house first. We took a turn down another road into the woods, past what I thought was a garage and came to a shack that was his house. We went inside and the place was very small. My friend's brother was there but he went into the bathroom. My friend told him to hurry because we were going to go fishing. While waiting I started talking some more. "What's your name?" I asked. "Cameron," he said. "Where you from?" "Cleveland," he said. I told him my name was Don. But I started getting bored and decided I was going to fly away and explore, so I went outside. I was about to fly off and Cameron came out. "Aren't we going to wait for my brother?" he asked. I told him I was going to fly away. He looked at me and started laughing as if I was joking, and he told me that I couldn't do that. I was ignoring him and ready to fly away. I jumped up to go but a tree got in my way and I only went up about 10 feet, so I smoothly landed back on my feet. Cameron looked at me in awe, his mouth open and eyes wide. I told him not to be so surprised, he could do it too if he wanted to. "Try it," I told him, "but first let's go into some open space." So we walked over to a gravel lot that was adjacent to his house. I encouraged him to go on and try to fly. So he took a long running start, like an airplane on a runway, and lifted off into the air with his arms flapping like a bird's wings. He went up about 5 feet off the ground and coasted a few feet before landing. I was standing there laughing cause he looked so funny flapping his arms. But I was still enthusiastic with the fact that he had got off the ground. "All right!" I said, "I knew you could do it!" Cameron was quite surprised and happy about his first flight. Now I decided I was going to be a show-off and show him how it was really done. "Watch this!" I said, and I shot straight up into the air, at least about 100 feet up. Cameron was down below me telling me something, but I couldn't make out what he was saying. I shouted back to him: "You should see the scenery from up here!" It was really quite beautiful. I could see for miles around me in all directions and I realized that this was one of the best lockmolds I had ever had while I was flying. I could see the landscape spread out below me. It was a large forest area dotted by numerous little lakes. It also looked like winter because everything seemed to have a thin layer of snow covering, though the water was sparkling blue where ever it was to be seen. I circled around in the air currents a few times to get a good view, as it seemed like I was now quite a few hundred feet up. I wanted to go explore, so I tried to make some direction with the wind, and I had began to drift away from Cameron and his house. Cameron was below me running and trying to stay up with me, and he was shouting at me telling me to come back. I could tell he didn't want me to leave and the wind was forcing me lower anyway. I began to circle downwards towards a small field next to the gravel lot where we started out. Cameron was running towards where I thought I was going to land, but as I got within 20 feet or so of the ground, I completely lost my lockmold and was laying in my bed wide awake. I felt very refreshed upon waking." ------------------------------------------------------------------- END OF FILE 12 -------------------------------------------------------------------