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.