I am all set up for astral projection but I heard it is just lucid dreaming, whats the point in taking a month of two to learn AP when I already can lucid dream everyday? Or is AP TOTALLY different, everyone just says they are the same.
Well theyre full of shit.
That’s like saying you don’t want to go to Tahiti because you have a photograph you can look at instead.
1 Like
Not only this, but do you know what level of lucid dreaming you are doing, and have you actually tried to do anything with it? Shamanic dreaming is the type of “lucid dreaming” folks are talking about being akin to lucid dreaming, not necessarily the “I’m going to have sex with a super hot chick” or the “I performed basic psychological work” type of lucid dreaming. Not saying that is not useful, but the dreamstate is WAAY more valuable and corporeal than those experiences.
The most powerful folks I have ever seen were “dreamers”, but what we are referring to as lucid dreaming is not the level of soul travel they are doing. I don’t know to even call it astral projection… I’m not sure many people know what they are talking about period. But having a “dream” where you can literally walk into that dimension with you entire being… that’s probably not the lucid dreaming you are talking about. It’s also quite easy to project from a lucid dream, so I don’t even know why they are declared so differently.
It’s probably just the level of experience. Whether one is superior is completely due to the practitioner, and whether they are even different may also be do to the same. Try to keep it simple, then you can find out the truth for yourself.
1 Like
The difference is dreams, while a form of astral projection are mostly internal dialogue, astral projection is when you interact with realms outside of yourself
I don’t have much experience with E.A.'s method of soul travel (1 time) but I in my experience I feel the difference really kicks when it comes to get into sleep paralysis, once in it I can notice either two roads:
- I stay in the body and can elaborate dreams withing my third eye, or “enter” little television with already running shows on it (aka pre-made dreams).
2)In sleep paralysis, instead of putting attention on the third eye “movies” I move it to the “etheric” body (some people call it astral, whatever, that is the difference I’m trying to get clear, it may be even just a “choose a word” problem) and after a reality check, for example, moving my mouth in sleep paralysis will get my attention not into my physical mouth wich is paralysed but into my etheric mouth and once that happens I just get up, or flote or sometimes I roll right next to my body.
SO yeah, totally different situations for my point of experience… I’ve also notice that one can travel towards our own pineal gland/super drupel chakra like an inner dimension and even being “conjured” into it for other entities, like being evoked into an inner dimension… well having Lucid Dreaming and AP (I calle it “etheric projection”) that’s where everything start to get weird, specially if you don’t have the experience with magick nor magickal allys.
man, that’s why E.A.'s method for developing the 3 godlike powers is genious, I wish I could have learned in order prior to have weird experiences but not much I can do now except keep going and enjoy the results.
Yea, it’s really perspective. I mean, there really is no outside, there really isn’t. One of the things that is related with the lucid dreams is that it is “all in the subconscious”… this is true. The problem is that this subconscious is a pretty unlimited field, and kinda connects us to everything. For example, Castaneda dreaming occurrences takes you to places way “outside” of yourself, but it is approached from a “dreaming”. However, as with shamanism that utilizes these states, it is always stated that the person is always the center. So the “astral realms” are no more outside of you than your own blood, but that your expansiveness is far too great for many of us to comprehend without viewing it as “outside”.
I’ve had experiences projecting to “chakras”, which are considered within us. However, those chakras are fully-functioning, sentient and sovereign realms that you would never think are “you”. However, if you read Questing After Visions, EA already mentions a soul traveling exercise that revolves around the 5 tattva elements. Thing is, these realms are all intrinsically tied into the first 5 chakras, and are actually synonymous with them. So If you are travelling to the Earth tattva realm, you are actually travelling to the Muladhara chakra realm, and most specifically your Muladhara chakra realm.
So the orientation of outside or inside… this stuff is where it gets confusing because it is very easy to begin seeing quite a few loopholes in the idea. It doesn’t matter too much, but the superiority or expansiveness of these practices, once again, is completely dependent on the individual. Many people cannot get over the idea of viewing the dream realm as insubstantial or “lesser” (probably because you don’t have to do hardly shit to be completely powerful in that state), so having a “separate” astral tier makes it easier to associate to power while having these limited views.
Precisely.
Where you said, “I mean, there really is no outside, there really isn’t” - in my opinion, the only thing that’s truly outside, once you’re talking on this level, is anything we assume we don’t have power over, and power OF - not in our everyday, stop-at-the-red-light, don’t-drink-the-bleach selves, but on the higher Godself we aspire to maintain awareness of.
It’s “outside” because we make it that way - we take some experience, power, potency, and we make it “Not-Us” and then sooner or later we start to believe in the walls, the definitions, thereby giving them power, then we work up a heirarchy in which we’re lesser, and it all goes awry.
As for whether lucid dreaming IS the same as whatever else, there’s no harm in trying all of them within their own paradigms because it’s like that old story of the blind men with the elephant, when you’re dealing with such big concepts outside what you’ve been raised with, seeing as many angles and approaches as possible can only be helpful.
There’s no denying that things APPEAR to be external, out of your control: that everything from your heartbeat to the jet plane travelling on the other side of the planet all exist and run their own courses without your conscious awareness of them, without your conscious will watching over them 24/7, and so the art of making peace with the perception of your limited human state versus the reality is a skill - one which being able to accept differing paradigms as equally true and complete can only help you with.
A defining feature of magick, as opposed to religion, is that having realised that everything’s just perception, we set out to shape that perception, whereas religion relies more on trying to convince everyone else of the same idea of the fundamental non-relevance of the material world in particular, and to dispense with the perceptions altogether.
Learning how to work with different perceptions in the trance/dream states is an important part of seeing both material and non-material reality as your tools.
I’ve had no luck in converting lucid dreams to ap’s if I am right in thinking they are totally different experiences. One feel real only while you are in it (lucid dreams) and one feels real even when you return to physical life. All that happens is I dream I am APing when I wake up I realize I didnt actually go out of body!