Astral Travel.

When I tell people about astral travel (otherwise known as out-of-body experiences or OBEs) I get mixed reactions. Some people react with open-minded skepticism, where as others flat-out disbelieve it, putting it down to some trick of the mind. But then you speak to those who have experienced it - as I have - and they will tell you the phenomenon is just as real as the reality you find yourself in right now.

If you've not had an OBE yourself, the concept may sound like something from a bizarre science fiction movie. But in actual fact it is something that is very natural, very normal, and something you do every single night when you go to sleep, only you just don't remember doing it!

Astral projection is when your consciousness leaves your physical body and goes into the astral plane. When we do this consciously it is called astral travel, or an out-of-body experience.

We are multi-dimensional beings. Our physical body resides in the physical plane, which is the 3rd dimension (length, width and height). We are subject to time, which is of the 4th dimension. But our psyche resides in higher dimensions, with the 5th dimension being the realm of our thoughts and emotions. It is in this 5th dimension that we find the astral plane.

The 5th dimension is not some far away place – all these dimensions exist simultaneously right now, as though they over-lap each other. And the various parts of us reside in these various dimensions, all at once.

There are 3 ways you can have an out-of-body experience. I have only ever experienced the first way, and that is when you go to sleep. Every time we go to sleep our conscious leaves our physical body and goes into the astral plane, but I will explain about this in much more detail in a moment.

The second way is to have a near-death experience, and by this I mean when a person is either close to death or is clinically dead, but is later revived. There are numerous accounts from all over the world of people who have found themselves outside of their body after experiencing some severe trauma. Often these include descriptions of a white light or tunnel. I have never experienced this for myself so I won't comment about it any further, but you can read more about them here and here.

The third way to have an OBE is at death itself, as the astral plane is where we go after we die. I will talk more about the astral and death in another post as it relates to an astral experience I had with my deceased mother, but for now I want to talk about the astral and sleep.

From the moment you wake up, there is a constant stream of thoughts going on in your head. You go from your bed to the shower thinking all sorts of things, like what you have planned for the day, what you are going to wear, what you are going to have for breakfast, revisiting conversations you had the day before etc. This constant stream of thoughts continues the entire day, and the vast majority of our waking moments are spent in a perpetual day-dream.

This process continues when we go to sleep at night, and our day-dreams become our night dreams. At the moment of sleep our consciousness leaves our physical body and enters the astral plane, but usually we are not aware of this because our thoughts project as images onto the astral plane and instead of seeing what is really there, we find ourselves in a dream - lost in these subconscious projections of the mind.

But the astral is a very real place, just as real as the physical. And you can learn to experience the process of astral travel consciously, just as I have.

Astral travel is perfectly safe, it is as safe as sleeping - after all as it is part of the naturally occurring process of sleep. Every morning you wake up safe and sound in your bed, so being conscious of the process doesn't change this.

And it is an amazing place too. The laws that govern the astral are different than the laws that govern the physical, for example there we can fly and go through walls etc. We can also get teachings from spiritual beings and investigate amazing things.

I had my first conscious OBE in 2006, after taking a free course in 'Dreams and Out-of-Body Experiences' run by Gnosticweb. Since then I have had close to 20 OBEs, and they have changed my life in the most profound way.

To actually experience yourself outside of your body, to know you exist independently of your body, completely changes the way you perceive life. It is one thing to believe something, but it is a whole other thing to actually experience it.

Maybe you don't believe me, maybe you think it is all in my head. Or maybe you are open-minded to the possibility. Either way you will never know for sure unless you experience it for yourself. And I really encourage you to do so, no doubt it will change your life too!