This article may be totally 'out-there' to some of our more spiritual newbies, but fascinating all the same. It may also be of use to those who feel that they have left their body, or perhaps dreamt they have. And if we can leave our bodies, then there must be more than just 'physical' existence - right! I hope you really enjoy this fascinating piece and if any of you do try it out please come back and share your experiences.

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Glossary

Lucid projection - Out-of-Body Experience (OBE), Astral Travel

Extraphysical - nonphysical, astral

For most people, projecting with lucidity at will (as opposed to spontaneously) is a skill that has to be learned. In this sense, the learning process is not dissimilar to learning a new sport, language or musical instrument. There are no shortcuts and no substitutes for effort and determination. If you are really serious about becoming a lucid projector, the ideal is that you practice as many techniques as possible and dedicate yourself to training your physical, energy and extraphysical (astral) bodies to adapt to the specific demands of each one. I mention this so as you understand that, although not impossible, it is probably unlikely that you will have a lucid projection after trying one technique just once or twice.

While there are no perfect techniques that guarantee success, the three techniques devised by one of the world’s foremost consciousness researchers and prolific astral travelers, Dr. Waldo Vieira, that I describe in this article, are among some of the most effective, based on the results of thousands of students of the International Academy of Consciousness (IAC, where I have been a volunteer and instructor for many years) who have applied them in practical classes around the world.

In addition to practicing the techniques that follow, I recommend that you do some research and put together a set of around 15–20 to work with in total. Vieira describes 37 in detail in his 1200 page reference book, Projectiology, just for starters. The aim then, after practicing each one every night for a month or so, is to identify five or six that take best advantage of your strong traits and that seem to work well for you. For example, if you have a good imagination, techniques that require that you use your imagination and visualization will be easier for you; if you have good lung capacity, you will find the techniques based around breath control easier to do, and so on. You can even combine certain elements of different techniques that suit you to create your own.

Think of your every attempt to project as an opportunity to learn from all the little details and experiences that you have and don’t have any anxieties or expectations about what you should achieve beyond that.

Whatever you find difficult about a certain technique will reveal a limitation or blockage that you have and this is positive, because once you’ve discovered what’s preventing you from leaving the body you can work on overcoming it. Maybe you find that you are not able to relax sufficiently or perhaps you discover that you have an energetic blockage in one of your chakras that is holding you in the body.

Tips

Before you lie down to apply a technique, take some time to think about how you are going to occupy yourself when you are projected. If you are busy outside the body you will avoid thinking of your physical world and increase your chances of staying projected for longer.

Some activities you can include on your to-do list are:

• try to fly
• examine your extraphysical body
• stretch your extraphysical body
• test the capacity of your vision (can you see 360 degrees?)
• change the appearance of your face
• change your clothes
• feel your silver cord
• meet your helpers (guides)
• see if you’re emitting a light.

Include a target in your agenda, something or someone you are curious to meet or a place that you are really motivated to visit.

Once you have gotten yourself comfortable and are ready to start, there are two important steps to take before applying the projective technique.

First, you should spend 15–20 minutes working with your energies; absorbing energies from the environment around you, installing the vibrational state and sending your energies out in all directions (refer to chapter 4 of my book, Less Incomplete, for detailed instructions on how to do these exercises). This will help loosen up your energy body, which will make it easier for the astral body to detach and take off.

And second, you must relax. I am shortly going to describe the Psychophysiological Self-Relaxation Technique. It is, in itself, a technique to leave the body, but it can also be used for the purpose of helping to establish a deep state of relaxation prior to applying any other projective technique. Or you can use any other effective method for relaxation that works for you.

As you are going through the steps of any technique you will probably get distracted at some point and find that your mind has wandered off. When you realize this is happening, no problem, just go back to the beginning of the technique and start again. With time and practice you will improve your ability to concentrate. Remember, too, that your aim with all the techniques is to relax the body enough to let it sleep but to remain lucid and alert in your mind at the same time.

Techniques

The Psychophysiological Self-Relaxation Technique

A deep state of relaxation is a technique for causing the extraphysical body to gently detach from the physical body and float. You will easily recognize when the separation has taken place because you will no longer be able to feel your physical body. It will feel numb. Numbness is just one of many sensations that are commonly experienced when the physical and astral bodies are in a state of discoincidence or nonalignment and this is completely normal. I describe this and several other sensations in more detail in my book.

To apply the psychophysiological self-relaxation technique: inhale deeply—fill your lungs—then contract or tense a muscle group in your face—e.g. crinkle your forehead—hold your breath for five seconds—then exhale and relax the muscles as you do so. Then, again, inhale deeply—fill your lungs—and contract another muscle group in your face for five seconds—e.g. squeeze your eyes tightly shut—hold your breath for five seconds—then exhale and relax the muscles; and so on, moving through all the muscles in your face. You can push your lips forward, clench your jaw tight, contract your neck muscles, etc.

Continue in this manner, contracting and relaxing all the muscles in your body: your neck, shoulders, chest, arms, hands and fingers, abdominals, lower back, buttocks, upper legs, shins (pull your toes toward you), calves, feet and toes. Take all the time you need. There’s no need to rush.

We often carry tension in our bodies without even being aware of it. The idea of this technique is that as you relax each muscle you will release any tension you are holding and gradually establish a more profound state of relaxation. Once you feel the body becoming numb you will know that the astral body is starting to float. At this point you should concentrate on the target of your projection (where you want to go outside the body) to encourage a full projection.

The Projective Target Technique

Curiosity or motivation to reach a target is a very effective technique for leaving the body. Sometimes after teaching a practical class at the IAC, I tell the students to try to project to the classroom from their homes during the night to see what object I have placed on the desk or what I have written on the whiteboard. More than once students have come in the next morning with a word written down on a piece of paper that matches exactly the word written on the whiteboard. When they have described how they captured the information, it was clear that they had had a lucid OBE as opposed to an experience with remote viewing or traveling clairvoyance. The fact that the words matched allowed them to confirm their experiences.

You could set up just such an experiment yourself by asking a friend to leave an object out on his kitchen table or a colleague to draw a symbol or write a word on a whiteboard at work for you to try to see out of the body.

Here are some examples of both physical and extraphysical places that you could choose as the target of your projection.

A physical destination could be an object that you have always wanted to see, such as Monet’s waterlily series at the Orangerie Museum in Paris; or a place that you have always wanted to visit but haven’t had the opportunity to do so yet, such as Antarctica, the Serengeti plains or Ayers Rock in Australia,. Or perhaps you would like to travel 30 miles under the sea to learn what strange creatures live at such depths, fly into the heart of the Krakatau volcano in Indonesia, or visit an international space station orbiting the Earth.

In terms of extraphysical targets, you might like to visit your extraphysical hometown (the place where you reside during the periods between physical lives) and be reunited with extraphysical friends and family (people who are no longer alive in the physical sense) from your current and previous lives. Or you could go to an extraphysical colony of specific interest to you, e.g. a colony of pacifists, ecologists, geniuses or politicians. Remember too that every physical place has an extraphysical “backstage.” So you might choose as your target the extraphysical territory and community associated with the headquarters of the United Nations, the Peace Palace in The Hague, or with your own home or place of work. What is it like there? Who is there? What is happening there?

There are some human districts and extraphysical environments that projectors should avoid and consider to be off-limits, such as:

• Houses that are known to be haunted by poltergeists. Poltergeists are extraphysical individuals that have the ability to produce effects in the physical dimension. If you project to a haunted house, a poltergeist might be hostile towards you or even follow you home and create problems for you there.
• Places where violent crimes have been committed or where humans have been assassinated in large numbers, such as the Coliseum in Rome, the site of the former World Trade Center in New York, and the battlefields of wars past and present. Psychotic extraphysical individuals who died in deeply traumatic circumstances may still be attached to places such as these.
• Other peoples’ bedrooms. Everyone has the right to absolute privacy in his or her bedroom.

The Extraphysical Self-Awakening Technique

If we consider the fact that nearly all of us experience some level of separation between our physical and extraphysical bodies during the natural course of nightly sleep then a useful technique for producing a lucid projection is one that prompts us to increase our lucidity and “wake up” outside the body when we are already at least partially projected.

The extraphysical self-awakening technique is an effective method for achieving this and it works like this. When you are in the normal waking state, saturate your mind with the idea and determination of extraphysically awakening yourself anytime something happens that suggests you are projected. For example:

• you find yourself suspended in an empty space
• you notice that you’re not breathing
• you discover that you are emitting your own light
• you perceive that an ordinary mirror doesn’t reflect you
• you are able to confirm that nobody can hear you
• you recognize that your vision is superior to physical vision

Program yourself to think about this as often as you can, every day. Wear a watch that alerts you on the hour for example, and spend a few moments concentrating on this idea every time the alarm sounds. Immerse yourself in this technique until your extraphysical lucidity automatically increases any time you realize you are no longer in the physical dimension. (Vieira, 2002)

There is much to be gained from learning to control this unique phenomenon. Regularly spending time outside the body has numerous benefits, such as:

• you will have absolute certainty that as a human being you are more than just your physical body which means that when the body dies, you will continue to exist. This allows us to lose our fear of death.
• we can come to understand that for every one of our thoughts and actions, there is a karmic consequence for ourselves and others . . . and that these consequences can extend beyond our current physical life.
• people typically become more self-referenced, more self-confident and less reliant on the approval of others.
• the development of one’s psychic abilities, an exciting natural consequence of having OBEs.
• people often develop an increased interest in discovering their purpose in life and end up reprioritize their lives as a result.

Fortunately these days many misconceptions surrounding the OBE are diminishing and there are some excellent books and courses that offer theoretical information and practical techniques on how to master this phenomenon that allows us to greatly expand our abilities and potential and know ourselves more completely. 

Author biography

Sandie Gustus, B.A., Dip. Ed., Associate Practitioner CIPR, has been a volunteer and instructor at the London Educational Centre of the International Academy of Consciousness (IAC) (an organisation associated with the work of Dr. Waldo Vieira) since 2003 and is the author of Less Incomplete: A Guide to Experiencing the Human Condition beyond the Physical Body.