I’d never had a lucid dream before. The idea of being conscious in other states of consciousness besides the waking state was an incredible idea to me. It never even occurred to me that one could be lucid and aware in their dreams. I read Teachings of Don Juan by Castenada and began applying the palm of the hands reality check technique. A “reality check” is genuinely asking oneself if they’re dreaming and then checking reality for inconsistencies which are characteristic in dream states. For example, in dreams if you look at the numbers on an analog clock, look away and then look back, the numbers on the clock will change. By doing reality checks often in the waking state, it is possible through impressing the habit on the subconscious to find yourself doing this in a dream and thereby becoming lucid. As often as possible during the day, I would look down at the palms of my hands, ask “am I dreaming right now?” and then check to see if the lines on my palms would move.
One night after two weeks or so while in a dream I looked at my hands and noticed that after reality checking the lines on the palms of my hands were moving! I got so excited I woke myself out of the lucid dream. Soon after this I began developing the capacity to enter dreams directly from the waking state, which is called a wake induced lucid dream (WILD). A whole new world opened for me as I discovered and entered fascinating inner worlds of shamanic power within my dreams. In shamanic lucid dreams I rode through jungles on the head of a basilisk and would enter the ancestral underworld by becoming a giant ant and crawling into the roots of a massive a tree.
One night I had emerged from sleep early to employ the wake back to bed method, which is when the dreamer sleeps for 4 or 5 hours, awakens and then returns to sleep shortly after with the intention to become lucid. As I was falling asleep, I used a scene from a previous dream as my gateway back into the dreamscape. I began to feel the waves of the ocean against my feet just as I had experienced it in a dream before. As I was remembering and feeling the gentle push and pull of the ocean, gradually the sensations became more real and real and then suddenly, they were real. Standing in the water, I marveled at all the shimmering light dancing on the ocean surface and the cool water my feet were submerged in. I started laughing and thought to myself “how is this even possible?”
It only took 2 weeks of reality checks to have my first lucid dream so after having a few more I wanted to explore further. Randomly, a friend brought me a copy of Robert Bruce’s Astral Dynamics and handed it to me in a shopping mall parking lot of all places. I was amazed by Robert's descriptions of out of body initiations and explorations of what he called “the greater reality.” Robert Bruce explained that they key to astral projection was the combination of physical relaxation, mental alertness and the use of an exit technique that would trigger the separation of a non-physical body from the physical. One of the primary concerns of people who read about astral projection is the myth that the soul leaves the physical body empty during an out of body experience. It was Robert Bruce who coined the terms “astral double” and “mind split phenomena.” It became clear to Robert by observing beings and animals go out of body during sleep that a “soul” doesn’t leave the physical body at all. The energetic substructure of the physical body is known as the etheric body. This substructure according to Bruce, produces a non-physical copy or double, which floats a few feet above the body during sleep. I found this to be true when later in OBEs I experienced this mind-split effect in dual consciousness, meaning I was simulatenously aware in the physical body as it was sleeping while also aware in the astral body as it was floating at a distance. Above all else the most fascinating thing about OBE was the capacity to test premises in consciousness exploration and see if they were experientially valid or not.
One night when using fractional relaxation in combination with wake back to bed, I noticed my physical body falling deeper into sleep while my mind remained awake. Out of nowhere this immense, intense, overwhelming vibration exploded inside my physical body. The whole body felt like it was being electrocuted, as if I were inside a tube of thunder. The vibrations were accompanied with jet engine roaring sound and the whispers of hundreds of thousands of voices. My astral vision turned on, I could see through my closed eyelids even though my body was still in sleep paralysis and unable to move. Fear began to set in and a shadow appeared in the corner of my room. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It began walking towards me and my fear exploded through the roof. I began screaming and woke up from the experience. Everything had stopped and returned to normal. It was, up to that point, one of the most vivid and real experiences of my entire life. I told my friends about it and a couple of them felt worried I was plunging forward into unknown, dangerous and demonic territory.
Fortunately, soon after this I was listening to an interview Robert Bruce did on YouTube, where someone asked him exactly about this shadow appearing in the bedroom during an OBE attempt. Robert explained how this phenomena is experienced by a significant percentage of explorers. That actually such phenomena is so common, even for people not trying to have an OBE, that there’s a name for it, which is the ‘sleep paralysis demon.’ Robert told the interviewer this paralysis demon is not real at all and that it’s simply a test presented to the aspiring astral projector by one’s higher self, which vanishes upon completing the separation from the physical body. For some reason I took what he said to heart despite the overwhelming fear I experienced.
A few days later I attempted another OBE in the early morning hours. The vibrations came again, the jet engine roaring thunder again, the hundred thousand whispers and cries of the underworld again and finally the shadow in the corner of the room again. My whole system exploded in fear, but I managed to calm myself and remember what Robert said. I noticed that when I relaxed the fear, the shadow stopped moving towards me. From there I proceeded with the rope technique, which is to feel yourself pulling on a rope hanging down above your body to trigger the separation of the astral double. I kept pulling and pulling and suddenly began spinning rapidly. My consciousness spun in a whirlwind of movement and spiraled right out of body. I was floating in my room and just as Robert said, the shadow was gone. I was totally amazed and within a split second snapped back into the body.