OccultForum.org

Original post: Ludi

What precisely is the Astral Body?

Original post: Frater Manjet

The only way I know to best explain the subtle bodies is by asking a few questions. In the process hope that you can find your own answers...

First how do you perceive "mind"?
...or that abstract "thinking" ( intellectual ) aspect of being?
...or that abstract "feeling" ( emotional ) aspect of being?

To me, these ( intellect and emotion ) are the primary divisions of the first subtle realm of "mind" or consciousness.

I personaly avoid thinking of the subtle realms of being as seperate bodies ( plural ). In order to describe their functions and nature plurality of such divisions is an unfortunate neccesity.

...my two copper

- VVV

Original post: Ludi

Ok, what I'm trying to find out is what people mean when they talk about the "Astral Body" or "Body of Light."

Thanks.

Original post: Frater Manjet

That was what I was attempting to discuss. I apologize if you didn't follow me. I will perhaps rethink how to better approach it. I can't think of any way right now but I will try.

- VVV

Original post: visceral/spagyrical

Catholicism is the only religion I've ever known, so I can't help but think of things in terms of the Bible before I go anywhere else. For me, the Bible is the first step up to the diving board when it comes to forming my own ideas.

"Man was made in the image of God."

You see the image?

Well, that's your astral body.

v/s

Original post: Diggit

it's rather simple if ya ask me.

You have a body when you walk arround don't you? When you go for a drink at the local bar, when you eat your diner, when you .... well you get the point. Your everyday human body.

The astral body is the astral equivelant of that, this is what they mean by an astral body;

Now what is an astral body?
Well I have my theorys that I shall tell for the purpose of discussion,but nobody is really sure what exactly it is.

My theory is a simple one to. Your being is a form of energy. I tend to call this the spirit. it is the conciousness that is you. The one who is the pure you.
the spirit needs somethign to protect himself from ennemys and from simply drifting appart since he's just a bunch of energy.
This something is the soul, it's isn't aware and has the same function as your clothing(well xept for looking good then) to protect you.

Then you have the physical body, in order to incarnate into one of those you must forget who you are as long as your aware. Because of this the spirit becomes the subconciousness and the body forms a new self. Sometimes verry different then the original spirit. This conciousness is called the mind.

Now if you astral travel you do something your not supposed to do. you put your minds awareness into your soul.
Tough we astral travel every time we sleep(well, not everybody agrees on that either) when we travel normally, the mind is unaware, and just kinde does nothing, and therefor remembers nothign when you wake up. When you put your mind into your soul your actively runnign arround on the astral plains and therefor you remember.
(this isn't a 100% acurate, you could remember astral travel that didn't include the mind, you could spontanously astral travel as well and so on and forth)

the astral body most refer to when taking my theory to be fact would be the soul+mind combination.

Original post: Ludi

Thank you for these insights.

V/S, do you see the astral body being the imagined form of one's own body as one sees it with the mind's eye? Just looking for clarification.

Diggit, do you experience the astral body as the self you experience while dreaming? In your opinion, is dreaming an experience of the astral plane?

Thanks for helping me get a clearer picture of what you're saying.

Original post: Diggit

well it kinde depends,

when you dream it does not necairly mean your on the astral, it could be that your subconciousness is trying to tell you something, or that your short term memory is active while you process the events of the day and then you have that your astrall traveling.

if it is the case that your dream is in fact an astral travel then yes, the self at that moment is the astral body.
if your dreaming it isn't the case then the self is just a proection of yourself in your mind, and not on the astral plains.

i'm happy to help
makes me feel smart, so if you got any more uestions plz do ask

Original post: Ludi

How do you know if your dream is astral travel or not?

Original post: Frater Manjet

I always suggest becoming proficient in lucid dreaming as fundametal in becoming more competent in this area.

Lucid dreaming helps you familiarize yourself with the various states of dream.

I catagorize dream, as was mentioned earlier, into three primary aspects.

My divisions are:
1.) Astral, etheric or other travel and experience.
2.) Communication between states of consciousness and/or problem solving.
3.) Mental vacations.

They all share similar enough modes of function that becoming an active or lucid dreamer will assist greatly in differentiating the different aspects however you define them.

- VVV

Original post: Ludi

Although I am an active dreamer and frequently remember my dreams well (as many as a dozen different dreams a night), I have only had a few experiences of lucid dreaming. Can you give some tips on how to increase lucid dreaming abilities? Or is there a thread on that already? (I know, "go look" )

Original post: Frater Manjet

...I find that the first real step forward in astral awareness and functionality in that state is lucid dreaming.

...I also find that the first step in becoming a proficient lucid dreamer is to recognize when you are dreaming.

...In that context I will present a paraphrased version of an exercise presented by Lon Milo DuQuette.

Portal exercise *

...Imagery of portals is a very potent aspect of our psyche. Iconic language finds this image such as doors and similar ilk to be represented on many levels. Representing passing through, entering, leaving from one place or state to another etc...

...In accordance with this imagery we can create a sort of sympathetic connection in our waking world that will overlap into our dreaming world.

...When passing through any portal such as a doorway pause berifly and touch it. While pausing thusly ask your self in alll honesty " am I dreaming?". This may seem quite silly at first, but it soon becomes very simple and breif as it forms into habitual action.

...My first attempts at this were very unimpressive. I felt like a complete ass tbh. After a couple days however I began noticing a subtle shift in my perceptions while doing this. I can only really describe this feeling as a drifting almost lightheaded intuition that "felt" as if my dream self were touching the door and asking " am I awake?". Very odd and hard to explain other than that. Being already a pretty capable lucid dreamer I noticed no real effects for almost a week. It had been about a week when I found myself brushing yet another doorway and passing through only to take pause....I realized that something wasn't right. The doorway was made of cheese! ...oh that's just wrong? In my prior dream state I realized it was made of cheese but the oddity of this fact eluded me until I performed this little trick in my dream.

I hope this helps...

* my own term coined as I do not know what L.M.D. calls it.

- VVV

Original post: Ludi

Thank you.

Original post: Diggit

[QUOTE=Ludi]How do you know if your dream is astral travel or not?[/QUOTE]
actually that's a tough one to explain.
I just kinde know.

one differance that you could use is to test if your almighty.
if you are almighty you are dreaming. Try something weird, or something that shoudn't happen. But don't try to make the other beings arround you explode or something cause if you are astral traveling they might take it as on attack or even worse, actually explode.

Or ask one of the denizens that you see, tough this could be dangerous as when you do that you'll also make obvious that your not used to astral travel and might be eazy prey.

as for techniekes, yup go look(the sticky has some if i'm not mistaken)

Original post: Ludi

My dreams always seem completely real to me, and I've only had powers in them a few times, when I realised it was a dream....

Original post: Diggit

this is a bit of a late reply

but I was talking bout this with a friend.
He disagrees with me that I say dreaming and astral travel are quite different.

he sais that dreaming is astral travel, but you create the plain and the life forms of your dream. When you awake the plane you created collopses.

keeping this theory in the back of my head and reading a topic arround here a while back on how a person managed to get to the astral by going outside the borders of his dream it does make sence.
Why don't you try to see if you can find a border, or a limit to your dream. Like a wall or the sky. Then go beyond it.

i tried it a few night ago(I rarely dream anymore, I usely just go to the astral plains) and indeed I ended up on the astral plains in a part that was familiar to me.

Original post: Ludi

I need to become lucid in my dreams in order to find a border to them. Currently I always accept the dream as reality and never question it (or very very rarely). How do you manage to be aware of the fact that it's a dream?

Original post: darkshadow

[QUOTE=Frater Manjet]...I find that the first real step forward in astral awareness and functionality in that state is lucid dreaming.

...I also find that the first step in becoming a proficient lucid dreamer is to recognize when you are dreaming.

...In that context I will present a paraphrased version of an exercise presented by Lon Milo DuQuette.

Portal exercise *

...Imagery of portals is a very potent aspect of our psyche. Iconic language finds this image such as doors and similar ilk to be represented on many levels. Representing passing through, entering, leaving from one place or state to another etc...

...In accordance with this imagery we can create a sort of sympathetic connection in our waking world that will overlap into our dreaming world.

...When passing through any portal such as a doorway pause berifly and touch it. While pausing thusly ask your self in alll honesty " am I dreaming?". This may seem quite silly at first, but it soon becomes very simple and breif as it forms into habitual action.

...My first attempts at this were very unimpressive. I felt like a complete ass tbh. After a couple days however I began noticing a subtle shift in my perceptions while doing this. I can only really describe this feeling as a drifting almost lightheaded intuition that "felt" as if my dream self were touching the door and asking " am I awake?". Very odd and hard to explain other than that. Being already a pretty capable lucid dreamer I noticed no real effects for almost a week. It had been about a week when I found myself brushing yet another doorway and passing through only to take pause....I realized that something wasn't right. The doorway was made of cheese! ...oh that's just wrong? In my prior dream state I realized it was made of cheese but the oddity of this fact eluded me until I performed this little trick in my dream.

I hope this helps...

* my own term coined as I do not know what L.M.D. calls it.

- VVV[/QUOTE]Nice little exercise Frater. I think that I'll try it in order to become lucid more often. I've been dieing to astral travel since the first couple of times I did it but haven't had any success. Being lucid in dreams would help. :twisted:

Original post: Serpentiferous

I need to become lucid in my dreams in order to find a border to them. Currently I always accept the dream as reality and never question it (or very very rarely). How do you manage to be aware of the fact that it's a dream?

Perseverance. Training yourself to repeat the phrase "I'm in the astral", or options Frater MJ gave work well. Most of our daylight thoughts stay in the upper area of the brain (yeah, I forgot the names of the brain regions), you need to get the phrase or acts so well grounded in your lower brain (subconscious) that it becomes instinctual even while dreaming. These triggers will help establish the link between the alert daylight mind and the portion that takes over while you dream.

Sometimes I will wake and not remember my dreams. Then during the course of the day something will happen that will trigger my memory. Suddenly I remember everything that happened in my dream with amazing accuracy. It's the same process in reverse here... you have to find triggers to remind your dreaming self that the waking life exists.

It's also helpfull if you've had a nap during the day, so that your not too exhausted at bed time.

Original post: Serpentiferous

What precisely is the Astral Body?

In general, I would say it is our consciousness. During astral travel -which can actually be throwing ones consciousness to different levels of perception- you can use different bodies for different tasks. Mainly, we send out our conscious or subconsious and explore our inner and outer worlds, which is dreaming (whether lucid or not).

The most drastic version is when you take with you actual bio-energy and move about in the real-time physical world. In this form you are seen as a ghost and do have some ability to move light objects. I scared the crap out of my parents as a child doing this by accident. They saw me walk out of my room wearing my robe, then I walked through a closed door... emerged a minute later and they saw me remove my robe and get back in bed. I remembered doing this, but at the time simply felt so dazed that I didn't see a problem with walking through a closed door. I didn't realize that my physical body wasn't with me.

There are a multitude of ways that we can throw our consciousness and differnt senses that we can experience. I'm just not sure how to classify them all. It's all about integrating the areas of our mind that normally operate independantly, from what I can tell.

Original post: Serpentiferous

Man, it gets real quiet after I post. Talk about rejection. lol

*slithers away pouting*

Original post: Ludi

Don't slither away! Thank you for your thoughts! Aside from asking for tips on how to remain conscious while asleep, I don't really know how to respond right now....

Original post: Serpentiferous

I can live with that.

Original post: Diggit

serpentiferous you have a natural affenety for leaving your physical body and walk arround on the physical plane?

how interesting.

Are you capeble of controling it now? Do so by will?

As for becoming more aware i'm affraid I'll be of little help to that. I just do it.
Geuss i got a natural affenty for astral travel.

Original post: Will B. Dunn

The simplest method I've encountered for increasing lucidity awareness is to make a habit of pausing several times a day to briefly examine your hands- a second or two should be enough. It's unobtrusive and quickly becomes habit, and when you do it in dreams you very frequently notice something's amiss (your hands will often distend, stretch, or otherwise distort when you examine them in dreams). The principle is the same as the exercise Fr. Manjet suggested, but perhaps less inclined to make you feel silly.

Once lucid, you can (in my so far limited experience) increase mental clarity, stablity, and achieve further lucidity by requesting verbally and firmly "Increase lucidity now" or "Clarity now". This can lead to many interesting results including astral projection, and can be requested ad nauseum. However it's good to take it slow and allow yourself a few moments to stabilize between increasing levels of perception.