20. Technique Variations

This chapter offers solutions to some common projection-related problems. It also offers rope technique modifications and alternative projection techniques that may suit some people better. I also find it helps new projectors if they try several different projection techniques during each projection attempt.

This not only provides a much-needed variety of exercise for awareness hands actions, but helps prevent boredom. Using the same projection technique for long periods of time can become a trifle monotonous and may cause some projectors to lose interest or fall asleep. Also, the relaxation, trance, and energy work exercises can be done separately from an actual projection attempt.

Go through the full sequence right up to the projection technique, then get up and take a short break to relax or refresh yourself. During this break, try to hold on to as much of the deeply relaxed physical and mental state as you can. Return to your bed or chair and spend a few minutes resettling and re-relaxing yourself, both physically and mentally. Once you are settled and ready, use the quick or instant projection method.

If climbing the rope has a strong effect on you, the rope technique can be used on its own as a viable alternative to other trance-induction techniques.

This can speed up the preparatory work required for a projection attempt.
 

Variations on the Rope Technique

• One-Handed Rope: If one awareness hand does not appear to obey or feels weak or uncontrollable, the rope technique can be done with one hand only, using the hand that is most responsive. If you can manage it, have the weaker hand just hold on to the rope (as if the rope were slipping through the grip of the weaker hand), while the stronger hand does the real climbing. Feel the strong hand reaching out and pulling the rope toward your chest, then reaching out and pulling again, in a continual one-handed climbing action. Try reaching out much farther than your physical arms could.

   

  Imagine that your awareness arms are made of rubber and feel they are stretching way out as you climb up the rope.
   

• Chasm-Crossing Rope: Instead of a rope hanging down from above, imagine a strong, taut rope running across the ceiling of your room, in line with your body and just above it, within easy reach of your hands. This rope is firmly attached to strong brackets mounted on two opposing walls of your room. Feel your hands reaching out and feel yourself climbing along this rope, dragging yourself across the room toward the wall behind your head and out of your body. If you have a wall behind your bed and this puts you off, either change ends in the bed during projection attempts or imagine you are climbing through the wall.
   

• Hanging Rope: Another way to get around weak or uncontrollable awareness hand actions is to reach out and feel they are hanging on to a strong rope coming from above. Don't try to climb this rope; just feel yourself hanging on to it. When you get used to this, imagine you are being slowly winched upward by a helicopter, dragging you up and out of your body. Feel yourself being lifted and sliding out of your body, moving higher and higher. Feel yourself slowly leaving your body behind you. Feel your spatial coordinates in the room changing as you rise up and out of your physical body and through the ceiling.
   

• Water Ski Rope: Instead of a rope hanging from the ceiling, imagine you are holding the handle of a ski rope attached to a powerful speedboat in front of you. Feel yourself hanging on tightly to the handle of the ski rope, as if you were floating on your back, ready for a deep-water start. Adjust the angle of the ski rope to whatever feels most natural. Imagine you can hear the engine revving up, the excitement building, then suddenly the boat takes off and drags you out of your body in a flurry of astral spray.
   

• Rope Cargo Net: Imagine that you have a large rope cargo net hanging down in front of you, similar to the heavy rope netting used on military assault courses that is hung from poles to make a short, high rope fence that trainees have to climb. If sitting, imagine this heavy rope netting hanging in front of you within easy hands' reach. If lying down, imagine the net hanging from above you.

   

  Climb the rope netting in the same manner as described for the normal rope technique. With this method, it does not matter where your hands go, as they will always find a piece of rope to grab. Scramble up this net any which way you can, using hands and arms and legs and feet in any way that works to propel you upward and out of your body.

   

  This technique solves many awareness hands control problems, where they appear to have a mind of their own and flop and slide all over the place.

Alternative Exercises and Techniques

• Washing Hands Exercise: Hold both awareness hands out in front and perform a washing action, as if washing your real hands and forearms with soap and water. Vary the speed of the washing action from slow to rapid and keep it at arm's length from your body.
   

• Steam Engine Exercise: Hold both awareness arms out in front of you. Imagine a circle whose diameter is the distance between your chest and hands. Circle your awareness hands around each other, following the outside diameter of this circle (something like the hand and arm actions if you were playing at being a steam engine).

After a short time, the action will settle into a rhythm. Now, here comes the difficult part: after doing it for twenty seconds or more, stop and reverse the action. The awareness action momentum will force this circling to continue in its original direction, making it difficult to stop or change it. If you concentrate, you will find this can be achieved with effort. Don't worry if you fail to do this the first few times you try.

Keep at it and you'll succeed. The difficulty of this exercise shows its training value. If you practice this regularly you will quickly gain better control and strength with all awareness hand and arm actions. This benefits all stimulation and energy-raising actions, including those used with projection techniques. This exercise can also trigger the projection reflex on its own.

Look on this as a muscle-building workout for your awareness arms and hands.

• Big Wheel Method: An extension of the above method is to imagine yourself holding a large bicycle wheel upright in front of you. This wheel should fill the room, with its center hanging in space in the middle of the room between your physical body and the farthest point of the wheel from it.

Prepare for projection.

Feel a single point of awareness moving out from your body, from your head area, and flying upward and away from you. Push this point of awareness up and over the top part of the circumference of the big wheel, moving it all the way over and down and around and back to your body. Feel this point of awareness moving up through your body, through your base center and up through all other primary energy centers until it moves out through your head. Feel this point of awareness as being heavy and solid. Move your point of awareness around and around this big wheel until you build up a steady rhythm.

As with all bounce-type actions, vary this speed until you find the most natural speed for it. Feel the heavy point of awareness tearing upward through your body each time. You will notice as it passes through your body that this action slows, then speeds up again as it moves away from you each time. This momentary drag is caused by the awareness resistance factor that is encountered with any awareness bounce action through the body. It shows that this action is stimulating your etheric body as it passes through it.

This method is quite powerful and will easily trigger the projection reflex if you can hold it reasonably steady for long enough. It does not matter if your point of awareness wavers or wiggles a bit from side to side as it circles the big wheel, as long as you keep it roughly under control and circling.

Keeping it steady can take a bit of effort, but as with the above steam engine exercise, it is also invaluable for training the will to control exterior body-awareness actions.

• Ladder Method: A good alternative to using a rope is to imagine a strong ladder hanging from the ceiling. The lowest rung of this ladder should be within easy reach of your hands, or whatever feels most natural. Climb this ladder hand over hand, feeling yourself moving up the ladder toward the ceiling. Feel the room changing around you and your spatial coordinates changing as you climb. Feel yourself moving higher and higher up the endless ladder. If you imagine yourself reaching the ceiling, feel yourself climbing through it and beyond as if the ladder were infinite in length.
   

• Point Shift Method: Point shift is the most direct and powerful projection technique of all, although it can be somewhat difficult to learn. It requires a great deal of concentrated mental effort, in that projectors must hold their whole-of-body awareness image exterior from their physical body for some time in order to trigger the projection reflex. This is the technique I first learned and used for most of my early conscious-exit projections. Its difficulty accounted for many of the projection-related problems I had at that time. Despite this, it is extremely effective when mastered. It is well worth the effort of learning it; some people will find they'll take to it like a duck to water.

I currently use a combination of rope and point shift for most of my projections.

I start by using point shift, then when I am partly out, I include rope. I generally switch back and forth between these techniques many times during an exit. I find alternating techniques like this makes the exit easier and quicker. If I am projecting from a bed, I also use the rolling-out method (described later) to finish off the exit.

First prepare yourself for a projection attempt in the usual way: Go through the relaxation, trance-induction, and energy-stimulation techniques, as per the full-, quick-, or instant-projection sequences - whatever is required.

Feel and become aware of your whole body. Feel your body's spatial coordinates in relation to the room around you. Run your mind over where the doors, walls, windows, and furniture are in your room. Build a spatial map of this with your imagination, in your mind's eye, in your perception of yourself and the room around you.

Using imagination powered by whole-body awareness, feel yourself rising or stepping out of your body, then floating or standing just out of arm's reach from your physical body.

If you are lying in bed, feel yourself as floating at arm's reach above your physical body, staying in line with it and facing the ceiling. If you are using a chair, feel yourself as standing three feet (one meter) away from your physical body. Imagine, feel, and perceive as strongly as you can what it would feel like to actually be out there in front of your physical body.

Hold your whole-body awareness firmly centered in your imagined exterior body in its new location. Do not try to see or feel your double as being above or in front of you; feel yourself as being above or in front of your physical body, from your projected double's perspective. This is tricky but will get easier with practice. Concentrate on sensing the changed spatial coordinates of the room around you from this new perspective.

Feel and be aware of your physical body waiting behind or beneath you. Imagine and feel your projected double as already having separated from your physical body. Concentrate on holding your point of whole-body awareness inside your imagined projected double in its new location.

Feel the pressure of your physical body trying to pull you back into it. Feel yourself fighting this pressure. Concentrate and use your strength of will to force your projected double to strain and fight against this pressure. Fill your mind with the single-minded, determined intention to project free of your physical body. Use maximum willpower, but do not allow your physical body to tense or respond in any way.

If you are projecting from a bed, mentally grit your teeth (without tensing) and feel yourself slowly but forcefully rising away from your physical body. Force yourself to rise an inch at a time. Roll your projected double's shoulders one after the other and try to shoulder yourself higher and farther away from your physical body a bit at a time. Try to feel yourself rolling away toward the center of the room if that helps.

If projecting from a chair, mentally grit your teeth (without tensing) and take one small but forceful step at a time away from your physical body. Step away an inch at a time, struggling against the force binding you to it. Feel this force steadily weakening in response to your efforts! Feel your imagined projected double's shoulders hunching and heaving and your head straining forward as you slowly but steadily tear through the force binding you to your physical body.

Hold the above actions strongly enough and they will trigger the projection reflex very quickly. Do not allow your physical body to tense up while doing any of the above - this is the real trick to point shift.

These are all imaginative body-awareness actions.

• Steam Method: Prepare for a projection attempt as normal. When you are ready, become aware of your whole body and of where it is in relation to the room around you, as in the above point shift technique. Imagine yourself becoming lighter and lighter, as if your body were turning into steam. Steam expands and rises. Feel yourself becoming bigger and lighter and, slowly but gently, rising up and out of your physical body.

   

  Feel your perception of the room changing as you rise higher. Stay aware of where your physical body is beneath you as you float free. Feel your whole-of-body awareness centered firmly inside your steam body and feel this as being just above your physical body and slowly floating free of it. Do not hold your steam body rigid. Encourage it to gently bob and sway about wherever it wants. This slight floating movement makes the steam method easier.
   

• Rolling-Out Method: Rolling out of body is a popular and reasonably effective projection technique. It makes use of a natural whole-of-body awareness movement - that of rolling over or out of bed - something you have done thousands of times. This method is especially useful if a spontaneous projection has already started, or if you find yourself partially stuck to your body during an exit attempt.

   

  When used as a main projection technique however, it leaves a lot to be desired, as it can be difficult to cause a projection with this method from scratch. I consider this method best suited to assisting with difficult projections or for finishing off projections.

Feel yourself rolling to the side, as if you were rolling over and out of bed. Repeat this action as many times as necessary. Get a whole-of-body awareness feeling into the body roll as if you were really doing it. Do not allow your physical body to tense or respond to this action in any way.

Alternatively, if using a chair, feel the rolling action as if you were curling up and rolling out of your chair. Feel your perspective of the room changing around you as you roll. This technique is definitely worth a shot as a main projection technique if other methods have failed you.

I find the rolling-out action also helps during difficult projections, say if I find myself glued to a part of my body, as occasionally happens if I have not prepared myself correctly.

• Rocket Method: Prepare for a projection attempt. When you are ready, imagine you are lying flat on the tip of a very large rocket. The bulk of the huge rocket is hidden deep inside a subterranean tube beneath you. Your bed or chair is firmly attached to the tip of this rocket and enclosed by an impenetrable glass nose cone. The ceiling and walls slowly fall away, disappearing all around you to reveal the stars.

   

  Feel the rocket rumble and tremble beneath you as its enormous engines fire and it slowly lifts off, taking you with it. Feel and imagine yourself slowly rising toward the stars with the great engines thundering beneath you. Feel the rocket's vibrations coursing through you and feel yourself rising out of your body and room and toward the stars. Stay aware of your physical body remaining where it is as you rise.

   

  Feel these vibrations increasing and spreading and coursing through your whole body, as the rocket blasts off and roars into the star-filled night.
   

• Boomerang Method: This technique uses a one-pointed bounce action from the brow center. It neatly overcomes the difficulties encountered when holding a point of body awareness exterior to the physical body, by using an awareness bounce action. This causes you to feel and see a brief flash of a new spatial location in your mind's eye at the end of each outward bounce action. This tricks your mind into accepting a momentary shift of a point of awareness to an exterior location.

First, pick a target on the ceiling above your bed, or high on the wall opposite you if using a chair.

This can be a light fixture or picture (anything) or you can affix a small paper target there instead. Stand on your bed, or stand on a chair (be careful not to fall!) and get the feel of what it's like to be right up close to this target. Lock the image of this target in your mind's eye. Get the feel of how the furniture, windows, doors, and bed all look and feel like from there while you are facing the target. Memorize what it feels like to be at the target area.

Lie down or sit and prepare yourself for a projection attempt. Spend a little extra time stimulating your brow center, using the extra brow center stimulation method given earlier (see chapter 14). Hold your point of awareness firmly in your brow center, in your mind's eye. Bounce your point of awareness away and feel it touch the target, then rebound it back to your brow center in your physical body. Try to see this happening in your imagination, in your mind's eye.

As you bounce outward and your point of awareness touches the target, for that single moment, briefly become aware of being at that location, as if your face were right up next to and facing the target. Feel this with your awareness and see it in your imagination, in your mind's eye. The details of this action do not have to be precise: A vague blurring feeling, the room changing and feeling yourself bouncing off the target, being there, with this perspective being momentarily highlighted in your mind's eye, is all that is required.

As you rebound your point of awareness back to your physical body, feel your perception of the room suddenly change back to your brow center. Briefly try to see in your mind's eye your target across the room, as from the perspective of your physical body, from within your brow center and mind's eye.

Once under way, this action causes a blurring in the mind's eye, with the target being seen and felt briefly from two different perspectives, from the physical body's brow and then from up close to the target, alternately. It is not necessary to keep close track of what happens between these points in the mind's eye. Feeling this change in your awareness and seeing it in your mind's eye is enough. Each bounce, in or out, should take about one second each way, but this speed should be varied to suit what feels natural to you.

Repeat this process, continually bouncing back and forth between your brow center and your target, until the projection reflex is triggered.

If you feel close to projection during this but it does not actually happen, change to another technique like rope or rolling out, to finish the exit.

• Driving Method: If you have ever been on a long drive, or spent a long time on a computer driving game, you may have noticed that later a shadowy but animated image of your long drive will be impressed into your mind's eye. This imagery will be much clearer if you are overtired as well.

   

  When you close your eyes and relax, the view you had, of that long road, and the scenery on either side unwinding toward you, continues to play in your mind's eye for some time. This often lasts for an hour or more if you have spent several hours driving. This effect can be used to trigger the projection reflex.

All you have to do is relax and let this scenario play itself in your mind's eye while you deeply relax and allow your sense of body awareness to move along the road toward the horizon. Use the scenery to hold your mind clear of thoughts, aided by breath awareness if necessary. See the road and trees and buildings moving toward you and feel yourself moving toward them as the scene unwinds.

In the back of your mind, feel your physical body being left behind as you drive toward the horizon and away from your body. If you can feel this forward awareness movement strongly enough, it can trigger the projection reflex fairly quickly.

• Two-Person Remote-Eye Projection Method: It is possible for a type of projection to occur while the physical body and mind are still partially awake (see chapter 5). To re-create a remote-eye projection under controlled circumstances requires some preparation and dedication. You must allow yourself to become extremely overtired, by missing a night's sleep, or by staying up very late until the wee hours of the morning, then waking your controller for the projection attempt.

   

  What is needed is not a normal level of tiredness, but a deeply relaxed state, both mental and physical, caused by overtiredness, the kind of tiredness that can make you literally fall asleep on your feet. Coffee and other stimulants should be avoided during the preparations for this experiment.

When you are tired enough, lie or sit down in a comfortable position. You must not be disturbed by anything other than your controller.

For that reason, this experiment is best done fairly late at night - with the telephone off the hook. The other person, the controller, must talk to you and keep you just awake, but they must not overdo this or break your delicate mental state.

The controller must also monitor you for REM (rapid eye movement) activity. The REM state is an important sign, because it indicates that you are entering the dream state while still awake. The REM state is easily detected by a continual flickering motion disturbing the eyelids. You must be gently kept awake and reasonably coherent throughout the entire experiment. The controller should gently wake you if you fall asleep, by talking to you and rubbing your arm, or even by lightly shaking you awake.

You can aid this process by deliberately stimulating your brow center before and during this process.

This same thing also happens if you force your tired eyes to stay open for part of the time, but your eyes must also be allowed to regularly close. If everything goes to plan, you should soon begin seeing things behind your closed eyes: patterns of light, colors, images, pictures, and scenarios. These will be hypnagogic images, lucid dreams, or clairvoyant visions, or a mixture of these. You must try to describe everything you see so that the controller knows what is happening.

At some point, a part of you will project out of your body, and you will be able to give a running commentary of a projection as it happens. The mind-split will occur at the moment of separation, and your mental coherence will tend to weaken from this point. The controller must work on keeping you just awake and coherent enough to talk, but not so awake that your delicate relaxed state is altered.

Perspective will often flicker back and forth between your projected and physical bodies, and even the dream state may become involved here. The heavy trance state (caused by deep overtiredness, brow center stimulation, and the partially awake state being forcibly held) can enable you to maintain a fairly stable visual connection with your remotely projected double.

Once you manage to connect with your projected double, you will become aware of seeing through your double's eyes, but will not be aware of actually feeling yourself at that remote location, unless your physical body and mind are allowed to fall too deeply asleep. I suggest a tape recorder be used and turned on as soon as you begin seeing hypnagogic imagery.

One of the best times to attempt a remote-eye projection is after a lengthy period of lovemaking, when a couple finds them selves deeply relaxed, maybe even exhausted, but still awake enough to be talking together in the early hours of the morning, when everything is quiet and there are no distractions. This is when spontaneous remote-eye projection is most likely to be experienced. If both partners lie talking in the near dark, with their eyes gently opening and closing, they can keep each other awake and both try for a remote-eye projection.

The first one to succeed should become the subject, and the other the controller.
 

Helping Other Projectors Out
While I have heard many rumors to the contrary, I do not believe it is possible to directly assist another person out of body. I have tried many times and it does not seem to be feasible. In my opinion, if this is remembered at all by the subject, it will be sense-interpreted as a direct psychic attack, which is extremely unpleasant.

It is possible, however, to awaken sleeping real-time projectors while they are out of body. When natural sleep projection occurs, the real-time body drifts out of its physical body and hovers just above it, often mimicking its sleeping position. The real-time projectors in this state are asleep, just as their physical bodies and minds are. A helpful conscious projector can then try to help by gently waking the person from real-time-zone sleep. Sleepers who can be made to focus and realize they are projecting could then interact with or become a travel partner for the conscious projector.

Whether awakened projectors remember their experience or not after the event will remain to be seen. All the factors that make projection difficult to remember are still there, and still need to be overcome by awakened projectors. Without the skills necessary to project under their own steam, remembering ax^ experience like this will be a difficult proposition at best.

The best chance for success would be if the awakening comes before the sleeping projector has fallen into a deep sleep. The original projector can then instruct the other on how to maximize chances of remembering that projection. But this is still a very hit-and-miss thing. I have tried this many times with sleeping real-time projectors and, while I have managed to awaken and travel with quite a few, none so far have remembered it after the fact.

As a side note, over the years many people have reported feeling hands dragging them out of their bodies, or touching them in some way during spontaneous projection exits. I suspect these people were already at least partially out of body at this time, hovering close to their sleeping physical bodies without realizing they were already out. The hands they felt may have originated from overzealous friends or even from helpful spirit beings; it's very hard to say for sure. This may also be a tactile hallucination generated by the projector's own subconscious mind, which I think is the most likely scenario.

If anything like this happens during a projection (and this is quite rare, I might add), I suggest that you clear your mind of fear and go on with your projection regardless. Conscious-exit projections are way, way too precious to waste, especially in the early days while you are still learning to get out and about. You must not allow yourself to be fooled or tricked into aborting successful projections for any reason. As with all common astral noises and voices, once out of body nothing will ever be found that might have caused the original worrying sensations or problems. Look upon this type of event - as worrying as it may be at the time - as a true test of bravery.

If you don't like what you find when you get out, you can always turn around and dive straight back into your physical body. This is not only the fastest and easiest way to abort a projection, but it also gives you firsthand experience with the conscious exit and reentry, which is invaluable.

It also helps to keep firmly in mind during the exit - spontaneous or deliberate - that nothing can truly hurt a projected double. The original copy of mind and all memories are always safely tucked away inside the physical/etheric body, which cannot be destroyed and is not vulnerable to interference or possession merely because it is projecting. In my opinion, the physical/etheric body is far more protected during an OBE than in the awake or normal sleep state.

There is really nothing to fear but fear itself.
 

Calling and Meeting Other Projectors
Many people have asked me how to project to, or meet, other people or projectors. I have found the most reliable way is to call the target person just before the exit. When you are in the trance state and/or close to the exit, imagine your target person.

Everyone has a distinct essence of personality. This feeling can be used to tune in to and locate other people. Hold the image of your target firmly in mind and call his or her name several times, voicing this strongly in your mind. If the target person is asleep or out of body, he or she will usually hear and appear just before the exit, or be waiting close by when you finish getting out of your body. He or she will often reply audibly.

This is not an actual voice, although it sounds real, but is a telepathic transmission that is heard with a kind of clairaudience, or astral hearing. If you have real-time or astral vision at this time, you may also see him or her in the room waiting for you, usually a little perplexed about why he or she is there, often not realizing he or she is out of body.

If this fails, repeat the above process after the exit out of body. First, move at least twenty feet (six meters) away from your physical body, then call out to the target person aloud.

Another way to target people is to tune in and project to them using the instantaneous-travel method (see chapter 24). Simply tune in to them and feel yourself moving toward them. This will cause you to shift to where the target persons are.

None of these methods will be truly successful if you do not know the target person fairly well. Do not expect to be able to project to famous personages or to people you do not know well. On that note, it is also extremely difficult to project to people you do not like, or who do not like you. A certain level of harmony is required to make an astral connection and rendezvous.

The target does not have to be living, but projecting to a deceased person's spirit is far more difficult than might be expected. If a spirit person is targeted, you may find yourself shifting to an astral level, usually one of the spirit worlds, where you can interact with your target.

Your energetic makeup, development, and projection skills will have a lot to do with whether or not you are successful.
 

Alarm Clock Aid
Many people find it easier to project if they set their alarm clock an hour or two before their normal waking time, then attempt a projection.

The physical body is already deeply relaxed and heavy with sleep - trance state - making projection much easier. (If you have to get up for work at a set time in the morning, I suggest using two alarm clocks to avoid oversleeping, one for projection and one for work.)

Another use for an alarm clock is to use the snooze button for short projections. This is also a handy way to get around some mind-split effects by limiting the time of a projection. Set your snooze button to gently wake you at ten- or fifteen-minute intervals. When the alarm goes off, hit the snooze button and attempt a quick projection, going straight to your projection technique each time.

Every time the alarm wakes you, hit the snooze button and try to recall a projection, in case one occurred, then repeat the projection attempt. The longer you do this the more chance you'll have of scoring a hit with a remembered projection fragment. As soon as you remember something, write it down.

It helps if you have the alarm clock, pen, and notebook within easy reach, so you will not have to disturb your relaxed state too much while using them.

Back to Contents