I forgot who/what I was

[kilham]

Busy night!! OBE-WILD-DILD I can't still put into words or feelings what happened in the first part. It was about 4 am, woke up and decided to concentrate on breathing to quiet my mind. At some point I lost FULL concentration and was dreaming I was a young woman, dressed almost like a nun, in the dream I was another person, it was not the me I know but of course I didn't noticed it, suddenly in the dream I felt as if something was separating from my body, I really don't know how to explain it, some part of me began floating, at that moment I noticed it was a dream and I was not that woman, it was a false image to which I had identified myself, but for a brief moment, I forgot who I was, I knew I wasn't that woman, but I couldn't remember who I was, I had no memory of the "me" that is writing this, my name, my life... I didn't even knew WHAT I was, as if someone had just completely erased my memory of what a human body is, physical things, whatever you choose to mention I didn't knew anything. After that brief moment I also felt like being in two places at a time, I could feel a body concentrated on breathing (some part of me was still concentrated on the initial task of the breathing) and I could feel being this ______ (I really don't know how to call it). After this extremely weird feeling, I began to feel the buzzing and vibrations of astral projection, that's when I remembered who, what and where I was. I'm still kind of shaken by this.That's why I still refuse to make breathing concentration and meditation... I usually get mind-blowing results I have trouble to recover from, but it's the only way I've found to succeed in WILD, I just want to WILD!! not troubling side-effects. Well, I got my WILD later... I certainly would like to know the neurophisiology of a state like that one, not knowing anything. And also the philosophical and mystical points of view. Has anyone experienced something like this??

[Diamondec]

Here is another method you can try. Breath in your nose and then out though the mouth do this three to four times. Then breath normally don't think about it just breath. Think about your bed fell the softness of it. Imagine it moving up and down under one of your fingers. I find the pointer finger is easiest. Note: if it helps move your choose finger up and down very slightly then stop and imagine this motion continuing. i.e bed moving your finger. After a while add more fingers but don't move just imagine them moving. Then add your hand. You should at this point just causally feel the imagined movement. Let your mind drift a little into sleep while thinking about causally sleeping while feeling you hand move up and down. Now try to imagine your hand movements becoming bigger (moving more) deeper down just slightly and more up. Eventually you want the whole bed to rock. One side moving up while the other moves down. When the bed starts rocking imagine it tipping you out of your bed. Once in dream and on bedroom floor try feeling the carpet and concentrate on how it feels. Don't be alarmed if you can't see. This has happened to me a lot. Just remain calm and just concentrate on feeling of carpet or try imagining your mind slip into a deeper sleep. Your dream eye sight should start working after a while. You may have to think about going into a deeper sleep several times before getting to a really stable point. After you feel reasonably stable feel free to explore. If you feel like your losing control or like your waking-up close your eyes and concentrate on feeling the ground. I once tried imagining that i would see what was going on in my dream while my eyes were closed in head. The dream world was cartoon looking but stable.

[Dthoughts]

Well, I think the brain needs to process information to really access it. When you are not in reach of the brain and using a different part of the wholesome "you" to travel there is no link to the ego sense of self. Or not even the subconscious or autonomic sense of self. So effectively, I think that neurophisiologically speaking you find nothing odd. Atleast, not much. You might be in delta state or in rem sleep. Or go through all those sleep stages. I don't know Electromagnetic fields are the medium for travel. There is more to it. Way more. But I think that random pieces of consciousness are found in the entire electromagnetic field around people,animals and the earth. Shifting focus on any material part of the world should allow you to eventually experience. I.E. Shift focus to air molecules and you travel through air. Shift them through your bed and you will experience being a soft matrass. Shift them to other people and you will BE those people. Those are my thoughts on what is going on. EDIT: I changed my mind, and am open to possiblity that you simply acces different part of ur own brain and was unable to acces the other parts which constitute your ego.

[Sageous]

Forgetting who, what, and where you are is more common than you might think, Kilham; we all do it every night in our NLD's! When we are dreaming, access to memory is reduced to the point where we believe that our entire universe began an instant before the dream did. So, memory-wise, there is nothing in your past, so there is nothing from which to draw to define yourself. I normal NLD's this is not a problem, but if you become lucid in a dream schema that lacks familiar scenes or DC's (even the one representing you), and then are not able to access memory, you are indeed going to be a little confused about who you are and where you came from. One way to deal with this is day work on your memory. When you do RC's during the day, include a brief thought about where you were a few minutes ago, and why you were there. Work to prepare yourself to be ready to notice that memory is currently inaccessible so that when you do notice you do the right things about it -- like working to gain access -- instead of being overwhelmed by the unavoidable sensation that you are an alien in someone else's world. tl;dr: Your experience might have felt exotic, but it wasn't. What was exotic was that you lucidly noticed the conditions that can occur when memory is not available; that's a good thing, but it can be enhanced by some mental preparation that includes questioning your recent past.

[kilham]

Shifting focus on any material part of the world should allow you to eventually experience. I.E. Shift focus to air molecules and you travel through air. Shift them through your bed and you will experience being a soft matrass. Shift them to other people and you will BE those people. Those are my thoughts on what is going on. I like your thoughts about that, I believe that also One way to deal with this is day work on your memory. When you do RC's during the day, include a brief thought about where you were a few minutes ago, and why you were there. Work to prepare yourself to be ready to notice that memory is currently inaccessible so that when you do notice you do the right things about it -- like working to gain access -- instead of being overwhelmed by the unavoidable sensation that you are an alien in someone else's world. I usually make RC's like that, I go all the way back from the moment I woke up to the present moment. I know it's shorter the nose-pinching method but I prefer to analize all the day to notice how I got where I am and other small details. What I've been thinking is about the neurophisiologic aspect, I've been searching these days about the brain areas involved in the construction of the self, memory and all the changes there are in certain brain areas between waking state, mind wandering, different types of meditation, sleep, lucid dreaming, and I'm getting some idea of many things. But back to the point, I think that what caused that experience was the activation/deactivation of different parts of the brain, overlapping waking/lucid/sleep or something like that. Anyway, now I'm glad that happened because that made me search and read many incredible neuroscience articles which I'll probably post later on research forum.

[Dthoughts]

Anyway, now I'm glad that happened because that made me search and read many incredible neuroscience articles which I'll probably post later on research forum. Please do, information is scarce on this subject! I'm making it a thing to do a meditation and lucid dreaming project for school. Ofcourse there is much information. But it is Always nice if it is served on a platter. hehe I'll hand you some things I know as well. I'll make a goal out of it.

[kilham]

Sure Dthoughts! but what's exactly the project you're planning?? because there's a lot of information on the subject. Maybe, for a school project you'll want information like this: Neurobiology and clinical implications of luc... [Med Hypotheses. 2013] - PubMed - NCBI ... there's the link to full article-text. I've continued on this selfless research and I've found this in D'Agostino A. et al (2013). Dreaming and the neurobiology of self: recent advances and implications for psychiatry. Frontiers in Psychology, 4:680. Most dream reports involve the presence of a dream self around which the dream itself develops. Indeed, “selfless” dreams are exceedingly rare reports of disembodied centers of awareness that generally occur during Slow Wave Sleep (SWS). Then I searched for the characteristics between SWS and REM, the differences may be implied in the "self" awareness in dreams.

[Sageous]

I'm not sure it'll help here, but I did a thread a while back called Exploring Delta Sleep that you might find interesting, given that delta sleep is another term for the SWS you listed above. There is not much science to be had there, but I think the conversation did wander occasionally in directions you might like.

[Dthoughts]

Sageous, I often Gossip about ur experience in delta sleep and have done a lot of contemplation based on ur experience alone. I now think trees have cognition. Kilham, my project involves making an EEG. Information on EEG is probably most applicable to my project. I am planning on visiting a Hemi-sync try-out weekend (150 euros!) this week. It is a 2 day program with meditation and hemi-sync sound to produce a lucid state of dream/obe awareness. This is also part of my project. I am deeply interested in achieving lucidity and what it takes to gain 100% control over ones' dream states.(or as much as nature allows). Hypnotism, magnetism and Sounds are one of the things that are on my list of things I would like to learn about in relationship to altered states of consciousness. As for research. The article you mentioned is a gem and i am almost 100% sure that i will use it as a source and maybe an introduction for my project (3-4 pages only). It seems to imply that non-lucid dreams are basically chronic episodes of psychotic experiences and that Lucid dreaming is the way to go when it comes to dreaming. Btw, if you want to download articles without paying give me a heads up and i'll ask around on another forum for friends who are more than willing to share the PDF for free without asking further questions. Not sure if legal but yea

[Dthoughts]

Oh, almost forgot. The latest research in memory formation is sky-rocketing afaik. If you happen to have some studies on those I would be eternally in your debt. hehehehe. okay, don't take me literally. But i would appreciate it if you happen to have it.

[snoop]

Ego Death - Wikipedia Not necessarily saying that this is what happened to you, but in my experience the effects such as OOBE and ego death that are attainable naturally during sleep states usually lack the "mystical" feelings that tend to go along with these experiences when experiencing them on psychedelic and dissociative drugs. The brain is in a very altered state of consciousness when sleeping, dreaming, and in cases, when falling asleep or first waking up. Anomalies in regular behaviour, states of being, perception, and hallucinations are all fairly common.