AP_11.TXT
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FILE 11 of 15 - CompuServe Astral Projection Class by Don DeGracia, 1994
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Astral Projection Class on CompuServe
by Don DeGracia: 72662,1335
Copyright 1994
None of this material
may be reproduced without
explicit permission from
the author.
IN THE OOBE REALM - PART 5
7. Things And People You Meet
We've discussed the things you can do and places you can go
during an OOBE, now I'd like to discuss the creatures you can meet
during an OOBE. In general you can break this topic down into
two parts: 1. the nonhuman things you meet, and 2. the human
things you meet. I will now discuss each of these in turn,
beginning with the nonhuman things first.
A. Nonhuman Denizins Of The Planes
A number of the entries I have presented so far are
examples of meeting nonhuman entities. I have described
meeting the following "creatures": a talking rhino (FILE 8, entry
9 under the heading "Exercising psychic powers"), a friendly
spirit (FILE 8, entry 4 under "Moving, Flying and the "Wind"),
numerous ghouls, and describe meeting a number of people as well.
Basically, and this is commonly reported in the astral plane
literature, there are any number of nonhuman entities you may meet.
Such entities include "intelligent" animals, spirits of all types,
fairy folk, strange monsters, ghouls, zombies, rotting bodies
and pretty much anything else you can imagine. These entities
may be friendly, hostile or anything in between. They may be
completely indifferent to your presence.
About all I can say in terms of meeting nonhuman entities
is that you want to try to ascertain a number of factors.
First, you want to try to determine if the entitiy displays
volition. That is, does the entity act of its own accord? If
it does not, then it is possible you are seeing a thought-form.
I will give an example of meeting a thought-form below. Second,
try to communicate with the entity if you can. It can't hurt you
to try. Finally, if the entity appears hostile, don't worry about
it, as we saw with the creature that tried to capture me in the
void (FILE 9, entry 3 under "Life in the void"), the situation
was basically harmless. I will also present entries below where
I confront hostile nonhuman entities so you can see what I have
done in such circumstances.
Let me now present some entries.
1>
(Note that this is part of the entry in FILE 9,
number 13 under "Excercising psychic powers". Here
I merely said: (I then met a monster in the cave,
which lunged at me and caused me to lose my lockmold...).
I will now present this meeting with the monster. This
is a good example of illustrating how a threatening
encounter, though startling, is harmless.)
"I was standing back in the mist filled cave wondering what the
heck I had just seen (as described in entry 13, FILE 9). The
dangling objects caught my attention and I hovered up to get
a closer look at them. They appeared to be highly
colored paper mache tubes suspended from strings, real reminiscent
of Chinese artwork. I focused on them in the same fashion I did
above and their appearance changed. Now they looked like little
creatures dangling from strings! They had bodies that were small
in proportion to their heads. They had little bead-like eyes and
long tube-like beaks. They had short little dangling arms with
little detailed hands that reminded me of mice hands. I figured
that they must be some kind of elementals. I touched them and felt
them. But the focus broke again and they reverted back to colored
paper-mache tubes.
I looked around wondering if there was a mirror. Inspecting
the shelves against the cave wall, I saw a mirror about 10 feet up
on the cave wall! (No real surprise, huh?) I flew up to it and
looked at myself. What I saw looked like a horror story version
of myself. It was me , but my skin was all white and flaked, my
eyes were completely white and chalky looking, and my eye sockets
were deep as if my face was just a skull. I thought to myself,
"Oh my!". But I wasn't unusually startled. This is not the first
time I had seen weird images of myself in astral mirrors. I
continued staring at the image and it then transformed into a
normal image of myself. I thought that that was interesting. I
turned and looked around the cave, then turned back to the mirror.
I saw the same thing; first the horror image, which then transformed
to the normal image. I hovered down to land on the cave floor
wondering if there was any significance to these mirror images.
I was staring forward into the mists at the cave entrance and
saw an outline of a humanoid form there. "What the hell is that?"
I wondered. I became a bit trepid. The image was moving towards
me and I focused on it with my new focusing method. And boy, did
I get a surprise again! What I saw was a ghastly looking monster
ready to lunge at me! I got a good glimpse of what it looked
like. Its face had the same quality as my horror mirror image;
white chalky skin, pure white eyes. Its mouth was agape, fangs
protruding from its jaws. It seemed to be over 6 feet tall,
humanoid, and was unquestionably bigger than me. It had its
arms extended to grab at me, and it had huge claws on its hands.
It seemed to be wrapped up like a mummy.
I backed up into the air, more disturbed than scared, and tried
to pass through the back of the cave wall, but to no avail. There
was no way I could shoot past it, it was too close and would grab
me. And then, it also shot up in the air and was coming at me. I
at least wasn't panicking and the thing lunged at me with a loud
growl. At the last moment it dawned on me, "What the hell can
this thing do to me anyway? After all, I'm in my astral body.
It can't hurt me." The monster bounced on me and grabbed me. The
shock of its impact was enough to cause my lockmold to break. I was
back on my bed...."
2>
(Here's another example of a monster lunging at me.
This time it's a ghoul. Again, you don't have to fear
these things.)
"...I turned away from the mirror wondering what my appearance
meant and I noticed that my window which has a fan in it on the
physical plane did not have a fan in it now. But then I noticed
that there was somebody or something standing out in the backyard.
I looked and it was a ghoul! There was a ghoul creature standing
outside my room! It was wearing a ragged yellow shirt and ripped
red shorts. It had long stringy, dirty gray hair, and looked like
a corpse in an advanced state of decay. God, now I was really
wondering what the hell was going on! Not only did I look weird,
but now there was some astral slime in my very own backyard.
It didn't strike me during the projection, but what was weird was
how the ghoul was positioned in my backyard and the angle I was
viewing him from out my window. He was standing at the corner
of my room on the outside, with its side facing in my direction and
its front facing towards the street and its back facing into the
backyard. What I didn't realize until I woke up and wrote this
is that there is no way I could see someone if they were standing
in this position on the physical plane. I just tried to look out
my window from where I was standing in my room in the projection,
and you simply can't see that corner of the house. I have to put
my face right up to the screen and turn my head to see that position
from my window. But in the projection I could see that position
perfectly standing back a few feet from the window. Geometrically,
this would mean that the corner of my room was less than 90
degrees in my projection on whatever plane I was on. Either
this or that I could very naturally see around a 90 degree corner!
And I know that I was NOT seeing through the wall. I saw the
zombie through the window. Whatever the case, the geometry of
space was definitely very different in my projection than it is
on the physical plane.
So there I was looking at the ghoul wondering what I should
do. It was just standing there at the corner of the house and I
didn't know if it was conscious, or if it knew I was looking at
it or what. But my curiosity got the best of me and I figured I'd
dive out my other window that was up over its head and see just
what it looked like up close. I figured, hell, this is the astral
plane, and the thing can't hurt me anyway so what have I got to
lose? So I dove through my window. I passed through the window
and there I was in front of it. I tried to look at its face, but
its face was just a blur and I couldn`t focus on it. But it looked
like a dried up corpse with long dirty, stringy hair and its ripped
up clothes. Then an instant after I jumped out the window, it lunged
at me. I remember that the thing growled as it lunged. It startled
the shit out of me and I pulled myself awake. I sat there in bed
wondering what it all meant. Was that thing still outside on
another plane? Did it wander off again? Why was something like
that in our backyard? Was it just passing through? Did this
household emit vibes that attracted it? Why did my body materialize
into such a deformed shape? I didn't know what to think. After
I awoke, I wasn't scared or spooked or anything like that, just
very curious. I've know enough about this projecting now to realize
that nothing can hurt me out there except myself and I never need
to fear anything. Wrote this entry."
3>
(Here's a description of some strange creatures I
met that seemed to have their own volition, but
didn't seem too intelligent. It is my suspicion
that these were some type of fairy-folk.)
"Was dreaming in my old room at Ma's house. I knew I was
going to go into it. I fell off my bed and flew up. I was looking
out my (old) bedroom window over Ma's backyard. I flew through
the window effortlessly. I was up over Ma's backyard. I could
feel the wind whipping past me. I was glad to be back. Flew
around a bit then went straight up. Blacked out at about one quarter
mile up. Was in the void, but I flew downward anyway. I regained
my sight but didn't recognize where I was. I wanted to experiment
so I hovered in the air and imagined I was at Dad's house. I
wanted to materialize there. It didn't work, or if it did I
couldn't tell because I blacked out again. I remembered what I
had read in Greene's book about going into space, so I decided I
was going to try to fly to the moon. I flew upwards and imagined
I was at the moon. I was still in the void, and I didn't really
know where I was, or where I was going, but after flying upwards
for some time I tried to regain my lockmold. I concentrated on
trying to perceive around me in the void, and I started to
materialize somewhere. I was standing in a clearing in a misty
old forest. I thought to myself, "This is the moon? It doesn't
look like the moon." I remember a moss covered fallen tree at my
feet, mist creeping across the ground, yellow dead grass. My
vision wasn't perfect, the lockmold was shaky, I couldn't see
into my peripheral vision. I heard a weird gooing noise in
front of me. It sounded like little babies laughing in a
demented way. I looked up and saw little people coming at me.
I became frightened a little bit, but I was as equally curious.
The gooing noises were coming from them and it was creepy.
They were ugly little creatures- grey purple skin, black matted
hair on the tops of their heads, about 1 and 1/2 feet tall,
stout little bodies with pudgy arms and legs, and pitch black eyes.
They were wearing what looked like rags about their groins.
They approached me with their arms outstretched trying to touch
me. I was frightened as much as I was repulsed. I said "let
me go!", as they were now grabbing at me. They weren't hostile
though, they only seemed to be curious. I looked one of them
distinctly in the face and it stared back up at me and seemed
to smile- though it was an empty and nonintelligent smile. I
began to lose my lockmold and felt myself fading away. Could
feel myself in my physbod again. Could see hypnogogic images
behind my closed eyelids. It looked like a duck staring at
me-but I really don't know what it was, it wasn't moving though.
What was really unique though is that the image was undulating
like: (drawing in my notes). It looked like the undulations
produced by dropping two rocks in the water. The bottom
undulation was covering some type of landscape. Lost the
image and woke up."
4>
(Here's an example of meeting a thought-form.
In this case, it was a thought-form of Superman!
Thought-forms have no volition at all and often
look like mannikins.)
"...I was laying on my bed again, but I still felt my feet
tipped upwards higher than my head. I was still a little afraid
but I began tipping and sliding backwards again. I saw the green
and purple spiral motion again, but this time I slid quickly though
it. Next I recall, I was floating in a great darkness, but before
me was a structure that looked to be made up of passages of flags
or curtains draping downwards. As I got closer the passages seemed
to form a maze. There was a figure floating at the entrance to
this maze and as I got closer, I realized it was Superman! But
Superman looked like a toy doll, or a manikin and he didn't look
real at all. The expression on his face was completely immobile
and looked like it was made out of plastic. I asked him if he was
real, but I got no answer. Then I figured it was probably just
a thought-form. I drifted past Superman into the maze of hanging
flags. I noticed that the Superman thought-form was following me,
but I didn't really care. I studied these flags and noticed that
each one was of very specific colors. The colors seemed to be laid
out on a black velvet background. Then it dawned on me that the
colors that each flag was made up of was identical to the colors
of a particular superhero's costume! I saw one that was mostly
blue and red with a little yellow; that was Superman. Then there
was one of red and blue with black in it; that was Spiderman.
There was another one of yellow and red - and that was Ironman.
As I stared at these I realized that they weren't really flags
like I had supposed. They were more like strips of black velvet
with colors laid out on them. The texture of the colors was very
similar to the texture of colors on a flag (i.e. like dyed cloth)..."
5>
(Here is an interesting encounter I had with a giant
minotaur. I do not know if this creature was a thought-
form or not. It seemed to display volition, but
its behavior was highly repetitious, which makes me
suspect this creature may have been a creation of
my subconscious mind. At any rate, the following
adventure is kind of comical. I suspect there is
a lot of personal symbolism in this projection.)
"...I had a false awakening. I awoke in bed, not realizing
that I wasn't in my real bedroom. I was very excited about this
adventure and my first thought was, "Wow! I have to call Rob and
Joey and tell them about this projection." For some reason I
thought it was mid-afternoon and I could get a hold of them on the
phone. Then I looked over at the digital clock to see what time it
was. But I couldn't read what time it was because I could see about
twenty different times displayed at once, fading successively
backwards. And I could also see the gears spinning around inside of
the clock. "Goddamn!" I thought to myself, "I'm still projecting!"
Still, I tried to read the time anyway. It seemed to say 6:47,
but I was simply seeing too many numbers at once to be sure. But I
knew for sure I was still projecting. I looked around. I was in a
bare bedroom, with only my mattress and the clock. I seemed to be
in an apartment. The door was open and went off into a hallway,
and there was a window on the wall of the hall.
I got up out of the bed and realized that my lockmold still felt
incredibly stable, solid and wide awake. I walked out into the
hall and looked out the window. Through the window I saw that I
was quite a few stories off the ground, and there was an unfamiliar
city off in the distance. I decided to fly about and explore. I
passed very easily through the window and could even feel that
weak tugging feeling as I passed through the window.
I was now hovering in the air just outside. I could see that
I was definitely about five stories up. It felt like sunset was just
around the corner and the city lights were sparkling off into the
distance. Beyond the city I could see countryside. Then I looked
directly below me and got an incredible shock. Here I am hovering
five stories up in the air, but down below me on the ground is a
gigantic creature that looks like a centaur! It was easily three
stories high. I freaked out! I was just gonna fly away and hope
that it didn't see me. I tried to fly but I couldn't, it felt like
I was locked in place.
And then, as if in response to my desire to split, it saw me.
It looked up at me and pointed at me and said in a low, deep,
rumbling voice, "Excuse, me. Oh excuse me, sir, but I must ask
a favor of you." I couldn't believe it, the thing's voice sounded
like a low thunder filling the air.
"Oh my God!" I thought to myself, "this is like something
out of Jack and the Beanstalk. Wait till everyone hears about
this one!" I was actually quite excited about the prospect of
being able to brag about having met this creature. Still, I
tried to ignore the thing and jet away, but I couldn't seem to
get any leverage to move. As I was trying to pull myself away,
the creature yelled up at me again, "Excuse me, sir, but I must
ask a most important favor. Could you please assist me?"
At this point, a gust of wind came along and grabbed me and
carried me up, away from the creature, and around to the other
side of the building. As I went higher up, I got an even better
view of my surroundings, and I was much more interested in exploring
these than in dealing with this unknown giant below me. Then I
heard it yell again, "Sir, I said I need your assistance." I
couldn't see it at this point, but its voice was like thunder.
Then it riveted up into the air and spiraled around the building
and began to follow me through the air.
I wasn't scared by this creature. I actually felt bothered
by it. I didn't have any sense that it wanted to hurt me. But I
was actually being pulled by many desires - what should I do?
All the while I was looking around at where I was at and I was
in awe of the incredible beauty of the place I was in. The sun
seemed to be coming up over the horizon behind the city, and the
city itself glistened like so many jewels far below me. And once
I got around to the other side of the building, off in the
distance the sky was filled by huge billowing clouds draped
across the sky in wave after wave. And if things hadn't been
dramatic and spectacular enough to this point in the projection,
I realized as I was looking at the clouds that there was a city
built right into the clouds! It was like a fairy tale - a castle
built into the clouds!
My mind was spinning. I was attempting to assess what
actual subplane I was on to encounter so many fantastic things.
And I was wondering what this giant creature wanted from me, and
how I could just get away from it. And once I saw the castle on
the clouds, I decided that that was where I wanted to go. The
wind was carrying me in that direction. The clouds themselves
seemed to be getting bigger and bigger, dwarfing everything else
in my view. They were beautiful as the rising (setting?) sun was
shinning off them, making them look like some gorgeous pastel
painting. There was an incredible vividness to everything; very
real, but not like the physical plane. Everything seemed almost
like claymation. But paradoxically, even though I was moving in the
direction of the city in the clouds, it didn't seem like I was
getting any closer to it. I began feeling frustrated that the
wind wouldn't have enough power to get me to the city in the clouds.
Then the creature, which had been flying after me, caught up
to me and was now following alongside me in the air. "Shit, I
guess there's no way I can avoid dealing with this guy," I
thought, resigning myself to my obvious fate.
"Sir," it said, rather impatiently, "I asked if you may assist
me on a rather important matter." It was funny how formally and
fairy-tale like it spoke. The centaur, flying along side me now,
looked smaller up close, about twice as big as a horse. And it
didn't really look like a centaur anymore. It seemed to be some
type of a giant that was riding on a headless horse.
Staring ahead towards the beautiful city on the clouds, I
spoke to it, "Ok? What do you want?"
It replied, "Sir, I need to find the whereabouts of a very
important person."
"Ok. Who is it? Tell me who you are looking for, and I'll
help you find them," I answered.
But it kept rambling in its thunder voice, "Sir, would you
please give me your assistance?"
Now I was getting impatient with it. "Who are you looking
for?" I kept asking. But he just kept asking for my assistance,
and all the while, as I was getting closer to the clouds, I was
getting no closer to the beautiful city on the clouds. Next
thing I knew, I was back in my physical body, laying in my bed.
This time I was awake for real. I looked at the clock. It
was 6:00. Only an hour had passed. I laid quite in awe at this
unexpected adventure while I was gathering up my memories."
6>
(Here is an example of me meeting strange fish
creatures. I do not know what these creatures were,
but I was afraid of them and responded accordingly.)
"...When I stopped falling backwards, I had landed in a
rather large room that seemed familiar to me, though I couldn't
place why. The floor looked like it was made up of piles of long
(5-10 feet) bean bag chairs and they were colored in blue and
white, green and white, or red and white swirl patterns. This floor
was lumpy, not at all smooth. When I had stopped from sliding
backwards, I had stopped with my face pushed up against some kind of
transparent wall that reminded me of an aquarium. I was looking
through this wall into what seemed like a dark, watery medium.
Then, something on the other side seemed to get up from the mud
and swim away off into the darkness. This startled me and I pulled
myself up. I stood up and stepped backwards away from the wall,
but the colored "beanbag" that I had stepped on got up and swam out
from underneath me! The floor was alive! This really scared me and
I started to feel claustrophobic. I hovered up into the air, and
this "beanbag' was actually a fish-like creature, maybe about 7
feet long, colored in red and white swirls, and it was now swimming
around through the air in the room. I hovered around trying to
avoid it. It swam up to me as if to investigate me and it circled
around me. I was too afraid to move. But then it got close
enough to me and I punched its face. It swam over towards the other
side of the room. I looked around me trying to get a better sense
of where I was at and it was then I really noticed that the whole
floor was made of these creatures! I was very afraid that they
were all going to awake and start swimming around. Then another
one did get up and start swimming around in the room. I flew up
and hit this one too, but my movements were slow and jerky. I was
very scared. I got a good look at the room I was in. It was
circular, with a diameter of maybe 50 feet. The walls were
transparent and there was a lot of motion and activity going on
beyond the walls. I couldn't make out anything definite beyond
the transparent walls, but it all seemed very biological. The two
fish were swimming about, though keeping their distance from me.
Then I faded and was back in my physical body...."
(END OF ENTRIES)
Well, looking at the above entries, I wonder how justified
I am in telling you not be scared, given that I *was* frightened
in many of the episodes I reported above! Still, in the years I have
been projecting, I have obviously survived all of these encounters,
and during this time have learned not to be scared of the nonhuman
entities I meet. Perhaps the scariest aspect of all this is the
fact of the unknown. We are always scared in the face of the un-
known, and most of my above reactions reflect this reflex. I
can assure you though that as you get more proficient at
projecting, and more familiar with the OOBE realm, you will
become less and less afraid of what you encounter there. So, if
you like, you can build on my experience and simply accept
that you do not have to fear things you encounter in the OOBE
realm. Otherwise, you can go through the same learning process
I did. Whatever the case, the bottom line is never be discouraged
and try to keep an explorer's attitude about your projections.
When you project, you are entering the unknown and there is
nothing you can do about this fact. As you transform the unknown
into the known, your responses to the OOBE realm will transform
too.
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