ITTME - In To The Mind Experience?
November 21st, 2006Some may say this is radical thinking, and they may well be right. But I’ll continue with this though regardless.
The common theories behind ‘Astral Projection’ all tend to agree that the soul/mind/higher self (call it what you will, I’ll call it soul here) leaves the body and moves around a non-physical world/universe. Most also agree that the soul enters other dimensions. Now let’s have a quick look at the proof for this…
The closest thing to proof (proof to the subject) is that it feels 100% real. Not much else is available. Some may have life changing experiences, others just strange sensations. Now let’s look at what these people claim to experience… Some meet with people who are known to have died, some communicate with other travelers, ghosts or entities from other worlds. Some may gain insight into personal goals (sometimes subconscious goals). All in all, these can have positive effects on the individual (although it may be the other way around for some).
Now let’s look at this from a skeptical point of view for a minute. We know that the brain works in strange ways at times, this could be due to chemicals (to much, to little, strange mix etc). The cause could be due to psychological problems, brain disorders, bad diet or many other things, including brain disorders (diseases, injury etc). Anyone who has experienced extreme emotions (sadness, anger, joy to name a few) know that the normal brains thought processes can be severely altered for a period of time, and during this time all thoughts that pass through the mind have a bias leaning towards the current state (the thoughts are filtered to an extent). This related to hypnosis, if a person is a good hypnotic subject then the thoughts in the mind can be altered easier - and the outcome can be very powerful. Anyway, I digress. With all of this in mind we can see that Astral Travel can usually be explained away as a figment of the imagination to some degree. A skeptic can always have an answer, and sometimes they may well be correct, other times not.
Before I continue with the topic of this post, let’s bring to mind the subject of ‘Remote Viewing’ or RV for short. Remote Viewing is the ability to describe a remote location (object/feelings etc) from a relaxed state of mind. There are many people who have devoted decades of their life to professional Remote Viewing, and some say to exceptional success. The theory behind RV is that the subject allows their mind to calm and keeps the cue (could be remote coordinates for example) as there last though. They allow there mind to receive data, and either write this down as it comes or speak it to a tape. One of the most important factors is to NOT analyze the incoming data in any way (as the persons own connections/experiences/judgments could change the original data). This is a very basic explanation (search it for more details if you like!). So what does this tell us? It tells us that the mind receives incoming data. The medium which brings the data is unknown.
Okay, back to the subject at hand. ITTME or ‘In To The Mind Experience’ in my opinion could be a better name for the excepted ‘Astral Projection’. But the theory is different to an extent. Let’s assume that when a person experiences a sensation of being out of their body and/or exploring a different dimension, that this is all happening in the mind. Let’s also consider RV. 99% of claimed OBE’s tend to occur during sleep or at the onset of sleep. This is when the mind is relaxed, right? When someone consciously attempts an OBE, they use one of various techniques - but they all tend to have the one base….. The thought of having an OBE! (They imagine being out of body) Do you see the connection yet?
In RV, the subject is relaxed with a clear mind. Same with OBE!. In RV the subject uses a cue to start the experience. Same with OBE!
So what make these 2 different? Could it be perception? Sure. Could it be beliefs? Sure could. Could it be that on the onset of sleep the body and mind are one step deeper and the onset of dissasociation is there, which presents a more ‘not connected to the body’ experience? I think so.
What am I getting at then? In a nutshell I’m saying that ‘Astral Travel’ could be information traveling into the mind, and not the mind (or body double) going out to get it. I’m saying there is a hidden, not yet understood, media which duplexes the information. And that RV and OBE’s are more connected that most people like tend believe. This of course brings even more questions to the subject.
I know I have not explained my thoughts as clearly as I would have liked to, but hopefully there is enough to gain some insight. I’m sure I’ll come back to this soon.
Any thoughts on this?
December 14th, 2006 at 9:20 pm
One problem. The majority of OBE experts agree that the “mind” is actually not a part of the body. In other words, there is an external mind that is part of the spirit. This external mind is connected to our physical bodies through the brain (which is a physical extension to this external mind). For more on this, read any book by Robert A. Monroe or Willaim Buhlman.
The point being that when we die, it is only the death of the physical body. The mind continues to exist and is therefore separate from the body, though still an integral part during this life during our regular consciousness. Whether or not the afterlife exists is not the debate here though. Regardless, from this point of view, out-of-body, and into-the-mind are synonymous. It is only when the existense of a spirit or soul is negated that these two terms become opposing phrases.
December 27th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
I agree with the point your raised Ike, and have read all the Robert Monroe books as well as William Buhlmans book. The theory I mention is to demonstrate the opposite version to this common theory - a more skeptical view point if you like. Again this is only one of my theories, I’ll most likely come up with something which contradics much of it in the near future
April 12th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Hope people understand me, as I don’t speak English, and only can write it to some extent.
The problems around this isues, I think, is that a lot of “gurus” has made Lucid Dream where you fly and see you own body, the same as OBE, and as it’s more easy to get a Lucid Dream, where your hopes are manifested around you, than the real thing, then most stream to the “gurus”, whoes books then are seen as the “way” things are.
For those who have tried both, and have taken the time to probe the experience a little, while having it, will soon find out that they are nothing alike, as a simple test like watching a text or a clock twice in a lucid dream, will show how fragile/unstable the scene are, just as you can alter things in the scene or the entire scene after what you want (if ones start in the small, it will show that fx similar sized objects are more easy to transmute, fx a brick to a shoe).
In most OBE’s I’ve had, the only part who can change like in a dream, are my body, and I’ve only seen it with the texture, in special as a child, where I’ve tried to go from a texture like snow on a TV, to random pieces of clothes I remembered, who only stayed as long as I focused on it, over a glas like texture, where only a small light breaking showed where my “body” was, to a golden transparent texture, who also are the only one I’ve experienced in my adult years - The scene are this “reality”, nothing else.
Both OBE and RV gives a possibility to check things you othervise would know nothing about, with RV being the best in my experience, because of distance, and as such I’ll say its allways a good idea to make a few test while having the experience, so it can be tested, and one can be sure on what there is real, and as I’ve tried visual RV’s over distances of 300km, who could be confirmed, I can then understand the sceptics, but can’t agree with them.
The part around “testing” I’m not sure all who follows the “guru’s” does - In the end, what sells are what makes people fell good about themselfes, and removes their wories for things like dead.
Tho I’ll have to admit, that both out from my own experience, and from others I’ve heard or read, it does seem possibol to have dreams, even lucid, where others, friends, family etc. are part, and where they the morning after can describe many of the same things in the dream - My experience are also that years after someone close to one dies, they can linger in that sort of dreams, sometimes even shared with others, and in that way, even when awake, one can get a sense of them around one self, doing everyday things they did, while alive.
That have made me speculate, that if a soul/self etc. not can exist for long outside a body, or maybe behaps not at all (even tho I’m not sure how some of my tested OBE’s and RV’s then can be explained then, if the later) - then behaps one can “flee” in the mind of ones friends and family, as long as they can remember one as a seperate individual - See also the saying about being alive, as long as you are remembered.
One would not need to “transfere” all parts of ones memory, nor abilities like spoken language, math/calculation etc. as they not are needed for the new enviroment anyway - The host might however benefit from some “transfered” abilities or knowledge, so a window are keept open for evolution to take place.
What you could just “transfere” would just be enough to maintain an unbroken “self”, and if “transfered” to a person who knows you, then that person can “maintain” part of the “ego memory” you might need to maintain a seperate ID from the host or hosts.
There where things might go ugly, are if/when the host(s) starts forgetting you, or dies.
I think there might be a real chance, if this hypthesis are true, that if you are “forgotten”, you will merge with the dominant ID holder of the body, and as such you will be gone in most meanings of the word, only popping up as faint echos of the past.
As for the host dying, you might then have the chance of jumping on another host, but gain same problem as in the above, if the new host never have known you.
The third possibility are to hijack a newborn baby, or a yet unborn one, as you then atleast have the chance to “survive” with a unbroken self, even tho most memories will not survive jumping to a so small unfinished mind - Not a nice choise to have, in special if it means saying goodby to those you loved in life.
Grim posibilities, but its a grim world, so who knows.
I note that in many parts of the world, where some form of reborth are part of the belief, or has been, hereof fx. also Scandinavian/Nordic and Celtic folkbelief/lore, the belief goes that it’s normal to be reborn in the same family, if within a year, or to friends, or if anything else lacking into a person/animal close to the point of dead.
Sometimes the belief also goes, that you after the dead, can exist in a tree planted over the fresh grave, but then also are bound to that place (been used for morders, rapiest etc. out on the countryside, untill a little 100 years ago).
Something similar goes around the belief in dobbelsouls who follows the living, who up till less than 100 years ago, was a fast part of the belief here in Scandinavia out on the countryside, whereof some could be made by planting a young oak over the newborn childs placenta - The tree with the doublesoul can according to belief exist as long as the tree are alive and healthy.
If that part should hold any truth, it then ain’t a brain as such the “soul” would need, just a wessel who don’t reject your “being”.
Best regard,
Poul Martin Jensen
Silkeborg, Denmark