For those of you who have been unsuccessful in your astral projection attempts after a few months of practice, and are perhaps feeling frustrated and discouraged, this post is intended to inspire and encourage you to keep up your practice and hopefully help you to find success in the very near future.
Astral projection is not always easy and it definitely requires persistence, dedication and plenty of will power. If you are struggling to experience astral projection and feeling frustrated, you are not alone! I hear you because I have been there myself, and I’d like to share with you some of the solutions that I have found to the common problems that we all face when we begin our astral projection journey. (Please read my post How to Astral Project for an introduction to astral projection.)
Problem #1 Falling Asleep
Solution: Astral projection (AP) requires a delicate balance of walking the fine line between awake and asleep. So if you find yourself continually falling asleep during your practice then I would look to adjusting a couple of things namely your timing and your body position.
For timing you want to choose times to practice AP when you are not too tired. Right at bedtime is not a good time for obvious reasons. Early mornings are usually the best – around 3 or 4 am or 2 hours before your usual wake up time – when your mind is well rested and in a naturally dreamy state. Afternoon naps can work very well too for some people, so try them out and see what works best for you. I actually recommend to keep practising at different times and to keep practising often. The more often you practice at any time of day, the more likely you are to hit the perfect timing for you. Dozing in and out of sleep as you practice can be very beneficial as it may help you to access your perfect brainwave state for AP.
In terms of body positioning, if you are falling deeply asleep then try a position that is a little less sleep-inducing. Lying flat on your back is the classic position for AP because most people don’t usually sleep in this position. If this is too sleepy for you then try sitting slightly upright, either propped up with pillows or on a comfy chair. Just try to find the position that will allow you to linger longest in that delicious zone between awake and asleep.
Problem #2 Staying Awake
Solution: Now at the opposite end of the spectrum let’s look at the problem of staying awake. Although we don’t want our mind to fall asleep, we don’t want it to remain fully awake either. We need a shift of perception to achieve AP, away from the physical world and onto the astral world. We don’t project into this world, we project into the astral realm and this requires us to enter an altered state of consciousness.
So if you are experiencing physical body distractions such as discomfort, itchy skin, swallowing, or are simply being kept awake by a busy mind, then you need to detach more from the physical world by allowing yourself to sink a little closer to sleep. If you are lying on your back, then try a more comfortable position such as lying on your side instead. Find a position in which you are deeply relaxed and let your mind soften a little more. Don’t try too hard. We can’t force astral projection, we need to let go and surrender to it.
Again, practicing in the early morning while our mind is naturally in-between the worlds will greatly increase our chances of success.
Problem #3 Feeling vibrations/rapid heart beat/strange sensations and waking up
Solution: For beginners the sensations that accompany the separation stage of AP can be VERY intense and our challenge is to remain calm and detached from our physical body despite these feelings. Often when we get to the separation stage we will find ourselves getting too excited or too fearful to continue. This is where we need to stay very calm and focussed on whatever astral exercise we have been doing to get us to this point, because it is obviously working and we are on our way to the astral realm.
Some of the sensations that are totally normal to feel are: racing heartbeat, intense vibrations, voices, roaring noises, feeling the presence of other beings, clenched jaw, full body tension, and many more.
Prepare yourself beforehand to encounter these sensations by imagining and visualising yourself experiencing them and maintaining an attitude of neutral acceptance towards everything you experience. Personally, nothing could have prepared me for the intensity of the noise and vibrations that I experienced the first time – it felt like an angle grinder was making its way up my spine and the noise was DEAFENING! I was so shocked of course I woke myself up. However the second time I had prepared myself, so when the sensations began I was ready and stayed calm… and successfully projected.
This attitude of neutral acceptance is extremely important for all our astral work; because the astral realm is very sensitive to our thoughts and projections, we need to be as calm and detached as possible in order to observe the astral realms objectively.
Problem #4 Fear
Solution: There is often some fear to overcome when AP’ing because we are entering into an unknown world. And, like our familiar physical world, the astral contains both light and dark energies of which we need to be aware. However from my own experience and many others who have AP’d thousands of times, it seems that the astral realms are usually safe. That said, I do recommend to take protective measures to ensure you have a beautiful, safe and high vibrational journey.
Feeling fearful will usually block our AP attempts and with good reason – because fear on the astral plane can be dangerous as it will attract negative energies towards us. The best ways I have found to overcome fear and stay safe and protected while AP’ing is through affirmations and working with plant spirit allies. I have a strong connection to the plant mugwort, which is a powerful dreamer’s plant and an incredibly wise and protective plant spirit. I smudge my house often with mugwort that I grow myself, put fresh sprigs under my pillow and mist essential oils on my body and around my room. I will speak a protective incantation as I cleanse the space, usually “Only helping spirits may enter here. May it be so.”
Other plants that have been used traditionally for psychic protection are rosemary, white sage, clove, basil and garlic. Treating the plant spirits with respect and gratitude will foster a loving and protective connection between you.
Calling in your angels, guides and power animals and speaking affirmations such as, “I am completely safe and protected and surrounded by loving energies,” will further help to keep you feeling safe and protected in the astral realm.
If you have a fear of encountering ‘negative entities’ while in the astral realm, I recommend to explore dream work and lucid dreaming to encounter your own personal dark entities and welcome them into the light. I think its best to have done a lot of shadow work before we AP so that we are not projecting our own subconscious fears into the astral realms. In the astral realm if we are fearful we may attract negative experiences towards us, so it’s important to be in a calm, confident and positive state of mind when we AP. If we do find ourselves seeing or feeling negative energies while in the astral realms, the best option is to stay calm and simply move away by flying straight upwards or just waking ourselves up.
It’s important to have a healthy reverence for the astral realm and its inhabitants and to remember that we are visitors there, and act accordingly with deep respect for this very magical and mysterious realm.
Problem #5 Lucid Dreaming
It’s very common to find ourselves lucid dreaming instead of astral projecting when we begin our practice. This happens when our astral body is projecting but we are experiencing this projection through a dreaming state of consciousness. The difference between an astral projection and a lucid dream is simply that we are in a different state of consciousness. During lucid dreams we are creating a lot of our experience with projections from our own subconscious mind. Its a highly subjective world we inhabit when lucid dreaming, constructed from the living-poetry of our own personal mythology. During astral projections we are in a shared & collective dream-space, it is a more objective reality. However the lines between objective and subjective are always being blurred somewhat as our own state of consciousness is usually fluctuating throughout our astral experience.
The feeling of lucid dreaming is similar but different to the feeling of astral projection, and takes practice to recognise. Personally, when I am astral projecting my energy body ‘buzzes’ in a unique way. Sometimes when I am lying in bed lost in my thoughts I will suddenly recognise this buzzing feeling and realise I am actually floating above my body and can then begin my astral adventure.
The best ways to encourage an astral projection experience rather than a lucid dream one is to first set our intention for what we really want (astral projection in this case) and second work on enhancing our skills of objective observation (ie. lucidity/mindfulness meditation.) For successful astral projection, we need to enter a very detached, very objective state of consciousness so that we don’t slip into our habitual dreaming mode. We can practice our astral projection lucidity by practicing meditation while awake in the physical world. Holding our concentration and awareness on the present moment without being seduced into following our thoughts and feelings will allow us to enhance the skills of neutral observation that are needed for AP. I recommend every day to practice eyes-open lucid meditation or taking a lucid walk; practising being a pure observer without judgement or thought, just being pure awareness in the present moment. This state of awareness will take us into the objective astral realms rather than the subjective dreaming realms when we astral project.
Outro
I hope these tips will help to launch you into your astral adventures. Willpower is also key so if you don’t really, really, really want to astral project then you may not ever get there… but if you really, really, really do then just keep practising and you WILL!! Remember that every time you practice you are getting closer and closer, and every practice could be the one that is successful.
Also, please remember that an AP practice is about so much more than just astral projection. It’s about meditation, learning about our energy body, and experiencing all kinds of altered states of consciousness including lucid dreams, vivid dreams, hypnagogia, the trance state of deep relaxation, and many more. I really recommend pursuing a dream-working practice in parallel with our AP practice because the two are intimately linked. Please see my other posts for more on dreamworking and lucid dreaming.
And please let me know if you are having any other AP issues and I will try to address them too.
Much Love and Enjoy your Astral Journey!
~ Awesome art by Elena Masci ~