Recently, I've been looking into astral projection. As a lucid dreamer, I used to just write off astral projection stuff as mislabeled lucid dreaming stuff. However, when I read more closely and see what experts on both lucid dreaming and astral projection have to say, they do seem to be different experiences.

I remember some remark made by Kenneth on the old kennethfolkdharma wetpaint site. He was claiming something like the ability to leave his body and dive into the earth at will. I'm not quite sure what practice he was referring to. Perhaps it was astral projection.

Anyways, I've found a lot of good works on astral projection, but I thought I'd ask here, since I figure some of you might be experimenting with this stuff as well.

Anyone know about this phenomenon? Is there a particular meditative state that makes this practice possible? My jhanas are in good shape. Any speculation on what's happening in astral projection? Any particular point in the path when these abilities happened? Maybe a spontaneous occurrence? A&P related? 2nd jhana?

I have a little experience with this practice and would be happy to explain what I have come to understand. First of all your consciousness does not reside in your body so you are not projecting anything. Your consciousness is being inundated with data from the 6 sense doors. If you turn this information stream off (meditation) you can then use your intention to tune into other data streams.
Try this-
Set your intention - "I wish to explore non physical reality for the benefit of all beings."
Get to at least the 4th jhana and look for a swirl. See if it resolves into anything. There is a spectrum of experiences here tapping into non physical reality. It can start with black and white grainy pictures and get all the way from color video (visions) to full 3d holographic immersion (out of body). Remember that the data obtained is not necessarily related to the quality of your reception. All of the powers stuff totally rocks and gives your ego a big boost.

With this advice you can now get distracted for the rest of your life and spend it exploring the non physical instead of getting enlightened. Or perhaps with a little experience in this you can satisfy your curiosity and enhance your practice by adding some insite practice to these realms.
Good luck
~D

Yes, Traveling, as I call it, is different from lucid dreaming in some ways.

I always refer people here.

I have Lucid Dreamed often and Traveled a moderate amount. Lucid Dreams can turn into Travels and vice versa. Travels can happen out of the waking state, and they usually return to it, though on rare occasions you can return to a dream from them.

There are many tricks for how to get out in the link above.

The stage of the A&P is definitely the most conducive to this. Strong concentration skills help a lot.

A strong inclination and repeated practice helps.

I have usually jumped out when laying down, but on rare occasions have jumped out off the cushion: it is much trickier for me anyway.

His advice about detailing the waking world is really gold.

Enjoy,

Daniel

I've enjoyed the Robert Monroe books esp Ultimate Journey which deals with OBE or traveling.
I like Bruce Moen's books on the subject especially how he volunteers to help dead people transition (psychopomp work) and then he gets a boost to do that work and when done kinda hangs out and explores...he has some cool tales to tell about his experiences.
My favorite traveler (Thomas Campbell book "My Big Toe") was taught by Robert Monroe and he went on to explore not only this reality and associated non physical reality but the systems related to ours as well as universes completely different from our rule set. He has many incredible things to tell. They answer such things as why are the 3 characteristics the way they are.

I recommend them all but esp. Tom's trilogy

Waking, Dreaming, Lucid Dreaming, and Various Layers of the Astral are all distinct and separate states from one another, there are other's various trance states obtained while waking.

It is probably possible to entertain consciousness in other even subtler bodies (though they might be included the in the previous *various* layers of the astral). Consciousness is indeed on a gradient from the most base to the most subtle.

Reginald Ray - Touching Enlightenment. In this book Regie goes into a 'body' based meditation he learnt and developed with an African dude. He went on to say that Tibetan Vajrayana is a somatic practice at its core. I tried practicing it each afternoon in the Botanical Gardens under the biggest tree I could find. One time I felt like I was zooming off to the middle of the Earth but I freaked out and came back straight away.

Google 'obe4u' for this Russian dude who studies and produces instructions to hit out of body experiences. I got some of his older e-books a few years ago, they presented a stack of different methods to get obe. It looks like he may have updated his books and info recently. Had some weird experiences during the time I was trying to do this. If you get the 'sleep paralysis' experience where your mind wakes up but your body is asleep, appaently this is a good time to go obe. I get sleep paralysis when I sleep under too many blankets and overheat.

http://sorcery.yuku.com/topic/2412/Russian-Dreamhackers-on-dream-mapping (-- this is just one chunk of text I found, there are other more detailed decriptions around on the net)
Google 'Russian Dreamhackers', instead of dream journaling they created maps of the dream environment. Apparently if you stick with it it gets to the point where your dream world is recognised as being cohesive. You can travel to and from your dream locations and locations from your old dreams are all still there.

later on I want to get a floatation tank, this is where it's at!

I get the following error:

Forbidden
You do not have permission to access the requested resource.

http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=385c6462-dbd0-4177-bdc1-a448a6e885e0&groupId=10128

Edit: It turns out that the link works when I try it from home.

It's working for me, FWIW. Message me an email address and I will send it to you.

Is it Traveling: An Accidental Expert's How to Leave Your Body Handbook? I think I have it somewhere. Thanks, though.

Awesome, that's very intuitively appealing. Often when reflecting later on vivid or lucid dreams I do something like this automatically but have never thought of actually drawing the map out. Very interesting, thanks!