Indirect

 I haven't made too much progress with astral projection or having another lucid dream. I learned about indirect methods and figured I should give that a go. So you set an alarm to wake up during REM sleep which is about 5-6 hours after you go to bed, then you get up for a moment or two so you don't immediately fall back asleep. You set the intention to leave your body when you wake up naturally next. The issue I keep facing is that "waking up" isn't a very defined action usually. One minute I'm sleeping, the next minute I'm reacting to my cat coming over for cuddles or something. The transition from sleeping to waking doesn't include me realizing I'm going through that process. So I need to just practice becoming more aware. I found an alarm app that will wake me up and the alarm shuts off automatically, so I hope to practice with that.

I set that alarm for this morning at 8 am, because I fell asleep at 2 am. I forgot that my cat would definitely wake me up at 6 for food though and she did. I got up to feed her and turned the alarm off, because I figured I'd just start the process now. I got back into bed and figured the natural waking for astral projecting was unlikely, so I more intentionally started to meditate and try to do mind awake body asleep. I slipped into sleep though and started having a regular, albeit vivid dream. At some point my cat was hyper and my boyfriend who was awake asked me if everything was okay, because he heard her running around. I was pulled into a state of awareness but I was so tired I couldn't even respond. I allowed myself to sink back into sleep, but man did I sink! It felt like suddenly my whole body was being pulled through my mattress toward the floor. I ended up in a portal tunnel and got so excited because I knew something was happening. It felt like my whole body moved and not just my spirit body, so I wasn't sure if I was astral projecting or lucid dreaming. A lot happened so I don't remember the exact sequence of events but I ended up in my room and remembered I should check my hands. I had a hilarious amount of fingers. I laughed and said, "okay this is a lucid dream". It lasted quite a while and I felt like I didn't have full control of everything I wanted to do, but that's okay. I'm so happy it happened again! The second of many in my life I hope.

North

 I'm making progress, but not fully successful yet. I'm trying various tips and tricks I've read about, such as the position you lay, and I did notice a difference when I pointed north. I had a much stronger sensation of movement, either spinning, floating, falling, or moving in one direction. I'm still not able to separate though. When I try to shift my consciousness, the feeling gets stronger, but I never fully leave my body. 

I have one week left of my undergrad degree and then I'll have the summer off before grad school. It'll be nice to focus more on my practice during my time off.

Gateway

 I haven't had any new lucid dreams despite trying. I also haven't had any breakthroughs with astral projection, but I haven't been as focused lately since I've been so busy. I'm going to move onto Wave 2 of the gateway tapes and I'm sure I'll progress. I need patience and focus and it will happen.

Blocks

 I'm on the 5th Gateway Experience tape and I'm making a lot of progress. I think I know one of my current hurdles and that's forgetting my body enough to shift my consciousness fully. Part of that is because I find it impossible to get fully comfortable. When my body starts to fall asleep, my limbs and head feel like they're concrete and it's hard to fight through that feeling and ignore it. It's possible eventually with my limbs, but my head and neck are obnoxious. Over the past few years, I've had a hard time finding a good pillow, and now more than ever that's painfully obvious. The other part of the issue is my cat, Squishy. When I lay down, she wants to be near me. That means when I start to get into the right body conditions, she falls asleep and moves a ton, knocking me back into my present awareness. I've seen the advice to make sure pets aren't in the room with you, but this is already a dedicated practice for me that I spend at least an hour doing daily, and I don't want to push my cat away. I'd rather push through and get to the level of focus I need in order to shift my consciousness with her there so we can be together. 

Last night I got very close. I was spinning in the void and forgot my body completely. Then of course Squishy launched into hypnic jerks. 

I want to note that the commands to leave my body aren't working yet. Nor is visualizing myself elsewhere. I think the least successful is the rollout method for me. I remain baffled on that one. I do think I'm able to float up but it doesn't seem to actually get me out entirely. What has worked best so far to shift my consciousness is imagining myself doing something mundane. I read someone say they imagined peeling an orange and separating each segment and that works really well. I feel something happen as I imagine that action. Curious about what ended up working for others.

Experiences.

Here is a summary of my experiences to date. It all started when I was doing meditations to get in touch with my intuition. I started to have the feeling that I could see through my closed eyes. After more practice, I began seeing deep indigo colors which is supposedly associated with the third eye. On top of that, I felt immense pressure between my eyes. That immediately prompted me to want to delve deeper and see what my mind was capable of. That led me to the concept of astral projection. I tried a few videos that I found online and I had an experience at first where it felt like I was ascending still in my body but rising up into what appeared to be a maroon and gold patterned area that resembled a honeycomb. I can't explain what I perceived but it was so intense that my heart started pounding and the vision left me because I got too scared. Since then I've been practicing for months, and I started right before Christmas. I'm now able to get that feeling of ascending and or spinning and floating away but I'm not able to fully leave my body and I'm not able to see. I believe what I need to do is shift my consciousness into my astral body but I'm having trouble doing that. This journal in particular is going to help me remember what it takes to get to that point so I can help others in the future.

As a byproduct of trying to astral project, I ended up lucid dreaming for the first time. Well technically it happened two times but I only have full control the second time. The first time I gained consciousness in a dream it was because I was finding crumpled up money on the ground as I walked which is a common theme in my dreams. I realized this as I was dreaming, and dream me got excited and tried to talk to dream version of my boyfriend who didn't seem as excited about it. As I tried to explain it to him I lost control of the consciousness and the dream continued on as normal. The next time I gained consciousness in a dream was a few weeks later. I had a dream that I was in Atlanta driving around and I needed to find a hospital for some reason. I got to the hospital and I saw my friend Liz and the minute I saw her I realized I was dreaming because there would be no reason for her to be there. I got so excited in the dream that I grabbed Liz and I shook her and I told her I'm dreaming and I could control it. Realizing my mistake from last time I didn't want the control to slip away from me so I knew I needed to do something fast. I turned around and said I'm going to fly up those stairs and I realized I didn't know how that would manifest. Would I flap my arms or would I float? Turns out I leaned forward a little bit and kind of hovered up the stairs. It didn't feel as cool as I thought it would and I realized I needed to do something much more exciting. I commanded take me to a beach and all of a sudden I was in the water. When I tell you this felt so real I don't think it's possible to differentiate it from reality. In the dream, I even said I can't believe this is happening this is actually real. The water was only up to my knees and it was teeming with sea creatures. I looked down and saw a giant blue tropical fish right by my feet and knowing I couldn't hurt anything here I picked it up and I looked at it. I put it back down in the water and then walked up to a stingray that was laying on his back with his feet kicking up and I tickled its belly. I realized I didn't want to keep feeling like I was hurting anything so I commanded I want clear water and white sand. I closed my eyes and opened them and the water was clear as glass and the sand was so white. I felt the warmth of the sun on my body and the cool water on my legs. In this new version of the beach, my family was there as well and I talked to them asking what I should do next because I wasn't expecting this and I didn't know where to go. As I talked out ideas with them I lost control and it turned into a regular dream. I haven't been able to lucid dream since. But I've been trying to state my desire to have a lucid dream every night before I go to bed. I repeat the mantra: I will gain consciousness in my dream and I will be able to control it.

Lastly, I've been catching angel numbers all day. 3:33, 11:11, so on. 

Sorry, this is an absolute word salad dump. I wrote it with voice-to-text and just wanted to get it all out.

New beginning

 I want to document my spiritual awakening and the new journey I'm embarking on. I took a class on the psychology of meditation and started to meditate for the first time in my life. I don't remember the exact catalyst that got me interested in the metaphysical, but a few things started aligning in my life that made it clear to me that I needed to go down that path. I started getting deeper into astrology. My meditations started focusing on getting in touch with my intuition. During one meditation session, I had a profound experience that then launched me into wanting to explore more possibilities with my consciousness. That led me to astral projecting and lucid dreaming. I'm going to use this blog to document my journey and my growth. I had always felt that I was barely tethered to reality and that my consciousness was elsewhere, but in this process, I'm discovering that I'm more grounded than I had thought. It seems that for others being able to astral project, lucid dream, and be in touch with their intuition came much more naturally to them. If I ever had the ability to do any of these in the past I was too afraid and I became closed off to the possibility. Now that I'm older, these things are not coming naturally to me. Everything I've learned about the mindset and the perception needed is what I feel like I've been living with my entire life, but there must be some aspect I'm missing. That is what this journey is about. I've been humbled about my capabilities and I'm ready to put in the work to get to where I want to be. The next post will be a summary of my experiences to date.