Robert Monroe - Journeys out of the body, Practical Guidebook

Ivan could have simply opened it. The skill of going through objects should be learned after first fine-tuning the ability to deepen and maintain the phase. There was no reason to return out of fear, but even a return to the body, another immediate attempt at separating would most likely have been successful.

The use of the term of “astral hand” indicates that the practitioner harbors esoteric views on the subject.

No. 5

Natalya Kozhenova

Engineer. Shchelkovo, Russia

When I was about 17 or 18 years old, I read some esoteric articles on astral projection. They seemed quite interesting to me, but no more than a curiosity – I did not particularly believe in such things.

One evening, I went to bed as usual. I woke up in the middle of the night, but was unable to move my body and there was a loud noise in my head. Having been reminded of those articles, I simply tried to levitate and I managed to do so, as if through my forehead somehow. The sensation of flying was very realistic, to my great surprise. The first thought that occurred to me was, "Wow, these astral guys weren’t lying!” I hovered above my body for some time in the dark. I thought of vision, and it started to appear. I then flew towards the window, and upon turning around in to face my body, I saw it in its proper place. I decided to fly back to it and touch it.

When I finally poked it, it sucked my back into it, causing a quite strange sensation.

Questions:What type of technique did Natalya use? What would she have needed to do if her attempt at levitating had been unsuccessful? Why was the phase short-lived? What should she have done upon returning to her body? Why did she use the term “astral”?

Were the articles about astral projection of any significant help?

Answers and Comments:Upon awakening in a state of a sleep paralysis, Natalya stumbled upon the idea of employing indirect techniques. She managed to separate immediately, but if she’d encountered problems in doing so, she could have started the technique of listening in to the “noise” in her head. The phase was short-lived due to a lack of activity and failure to perform deepening and “maintaining” techniques. After returning to her body, she should have tried to immediately separate.

Natalya holds esoteric views on the nature of the phase phenomenon, which is why she uses such terminology for it.

However, the articles helped her to perform the right actions at the right moment.

No 6

Alexander Furmenkov

Student. Saint Petersburg, Russia

I woke up at early in the night after some difficulties with falling asleep. Blurred images started to float before my eyes and I realized that I could enter the phase. I started to discard unnecessary images, and after getting ahold of one of them, I emerged in some kind of a yellow corridor. The level of general realness and awareness of the experience was about 80% to 90% of that of reality. I remembered about the methods for deepening, which is why I started to look at everything going on around me, but this did not yield any serious results. I started to touch myself, but all sensation seemed somewhat dampened. I realized that I was losing awareness. I came round, but nevertheless fell asleep in about 20 seconds.

Questions:Is it possible to call the technique used in this description a direct technique? What specific technique for creating the phase was employed? Which separation technique did Alexander use? What could have been the reason for the “dampened sensation”

and inability to deepen? What caused him to fall asleep?

Answers and Comments:The technique employed cannot be considered a direct one, though it was used at the beginning of the night. As a matter of fact, it appears that the preliminary lapse of consciousness into sleep was significant. If such preliminary sleep had lasted only several minutes, the technique could have been considered partially direct. The technique for observing images was employed correctly because the images appeared on their own.

Alexander did not employ any techniques for separation, as the observing images technique often brings the observer into the observed image or some other world, which is exactly what happened here. Most likely, the weakness of the phase was due to meager levels of activity and motivation, which were caused by the fact that it was early in the night. The practitioner fell asleep because he failed to deepen sufficiently and not keep from falling asleep. General activity was also very low. The body’s desire to fall asleep played a major role in the process. Alexander had, after all, been having problems sleeping.

No. 7

Roman Reutov

System Administrator. Samara, Russia

Truly, the most interesting things almost always happen unexpectedly.

After a sufficiently long break in my attempts to go to the other world, tonight I decided to try it again. I threw in the towel after yet another unsuccessful attempt, rolled to my other side, and decided to simply get a good night’s sleep. I do not know exactly how much time passed while I lay down and thought about what I was still doing wrong while observing interesting images that my imagination was drawing. But at one fine moment, I suddenly felt the phenomenon that is commonly referred to as vibrations. I started to intensify them (I should add that the feeling is indescribable), but I could not levitate, though I really wanted to take a look at myself from the outside. I decided to simply stand up, and that’s when it all became most interesting! The entire process of transitioning from a horizontal position to a vertical one was accompanied by increasingly palpable vibrations and a louder and louder roaring sound in my head. The sensation was the same as that experienced after going to bed after not having slept for 24 hours and then being suddenly roused by somebody: my head spun, everything started crackling inside of it, and I was about to lose consciousness. Then, a flickering picture started to appear. It stabilized after one or two seconds, the roaring in my head died down, and I realized that I was sitting on my bed.

I was in my apartment, thought it was noticeably altered. My room seemed more or less the same, though the interior was indeed different upon detailed examination. For example, my mobile phone, which is always within a reach, was somehow an older and different model. It turned out to be the first object that I tested, as I suddenly wanted very much to find out what time it was and check which day of the month it was. I distinctly felt the phone in my hand, but upon attempting to concentrate on and look at the display, I was thrown back into the reality. I immediately climbed back out of my body and decided to simply pace around the apartment while trying to remember what I could experiment on. I tried to conjure an object, but that didn’t work and resulted in some mental activity. This caused the phase to fade and my being thrown back into reality. In total, there were about five successive entries into the phase that lasted for 2 to 3 minutes each. The experiences were not stable at all, which is why I was examining my surroundings in a hurry, always trying to get ahold of anything I could get my hand on. However, there were a good amount of impressions, considering that it was my first entry.