I personally don't believe in reality shifting or astral projection, so I wanted to hear other opinions on it. Do you guys believe in reality shifting and/or astral projection? I personally think it's just lucid dreaming.
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I personally don't believe in reality shifting or astral projection, so I wanted to hear other opinions on it. Do you guys believe in reality shifting and/or astral projection? I personally think it's just lucid dreaming.
Honestly, if we can reality shift, I don't understand why no one found a reliable utility for it. These things are often considered esoteric, only accessible to the spiritual elite but even them have found no use for it which is very perplexing to me in this capitalist world. It's not like no one is making a livelihood out of spirituality, religion, faith, holistic practices, the magic esthetic, hope and belief. Generally, anything you can think of, people are making it their job, whether it be art or beauty, love or companionship, sport or play, knowledge or information... And they are getting money in exchange. It's their livelihood, even if for others, it might be a hobby. I just imagine that if there were such things, our world would be very different. Some people would find a way to capitalize on them, make it their livelihood. Maybe they would be healers or private detectives or cartologists. But whatever it were, they would give it their all and find a way to give a service to others and live off of their passion or trade.
Imagine if modern medicine only worked often enough to nurture faith but not enough for anyone to make it their profession? Imagine if it were the same for teaching... tTere would be no teachers because learning was something that only the most faithful could experience for themselves yet, unprovable to others. It's kind of senseless.
I guess this doesn't mean much but if it's real, this is what perplexes me the most.
As far as I'm aware, the methods/techniques I use lead to lucid dreaming—be that WILD, DILD, DEILD or whatever you want to call it. I do not believe in astral projection or reality shifting.
I do the same. I believe it is just lucid dreaming too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Summerlander
If we could Reality Shift in real life then the government would have probably made it illegal or it would be for a select few who are a little more mentally sound or went through proper training. In some ways, you probably don't want to know what would be like in your other realities. I don't think most would actually be mentally prepared to deal with even the slightest of shifts, in real life. If I could, I wouldn't tell you. (IMO)
Astral projection, if I was into such things, I would never tell anyone. It would be my belief. I don't need to tell people my spiritual beliefs.
I’ve never had an astral projection experience but even so I don’t believe it to be true. So many strange and bizarre experiences can be had whilst lucid dreaming and attempting a WILD so I find it much more plausible that an astral projection is just another form of dream. I don’t see the need to add anything else spiritual to the experience. Same for shifting. It sounds to me like people have had a lucid dream where they believe they’ve shifted realities and that’s it.
Btw. I think this may be better in the beyond dreaming section of the forum.
I was going to categorize it there but I accidentally hit enter and it submitted.Quote:
Originally Posted by HumbleDreamer
I also agree. Also, when I tend to get into an argument with "astral projectors," they bring up the Stargate Program from the CIA, which is a long series of documents on the CIA attempting astral projection, which is funny because if you go to the wikipedia page for the Stargate Program, the CIA stopped Stargate because of it being found to not actually work, then AIR (American Institutes for Research) considered it dubious. Just something I thought I'd share.Quote:
Originally Posted by HumbleDreamer
I'm not sure I would even trust Wikipedia or Reddit. People have been known to add things that are not true. ;) I mean you are probably better off thinking critically when it comes with reading things online and not some source that can be edit at any time.Quote:
Originally Posted by MoonOfBacon
BTW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks_UHmaZcSg
I've never heard of 'reality shifting', but I'll just take the words as what they mean to me. If you could 'reality shift', people would not be able to tell, provided that you shift reality in a consistent way. Memory would change along with current circumstances. How can you tell that people aren't "reality shifting" when they do affirmations? Affirmations affect a person's brain, obviously, but if they affected more than that it would be really hard for a skeptic to tell.
If you could shift reality in inconsistent ways, so that you have objective evidence of it, your life would be a chaotic mess, with every change producing a mess of subtly interrelated but frighteningly obvious unintended consequences. And other people would be scared of you.
I don't feel like rehashing astral projection again, there are many, many threads on it. Indisputably the sensate aspect of it is a lucid dream. And I'd argue that as a practice it definitely is not a spiritual path that goes anywhere worth going, in contrast to what proponents generally say about it. But that doesn't mean that there's nothing else interesting going on that's inspiring the lucid dream.
Agreed.Quote:
Originally Posted by shadowofwind
I also think that it is lucid dreaming, at least, in most cases. I have heard, however, that Tibetan monks who study dream yoga can project themselves into a reality so close to waking reality, that they can see people traveling up the mountain paths to their temples before they arrive. I don't know if this true, but the idea fascinates me. Especially because (as I've mentioned in previous threads) I had a situation like that in a lucid dream where I saw my brother at the door - and he was really there in real life. Also, reading up on near death experiences suggests that this sort of thing is possible.
Where most stray, I think, is delving into the hyper-spiritual "realms" of heavens, hells, akashic? library/records, that kind of stuff. I just don't buy into most of that. Maybe it's real? Maybe not? I really can't say, though - I haven't experienced it.
I do think there's something to the idea that there are multiple reality paths we can be on. However, the differences may be very subtle on a day-to-day basis. Combining this idea with law of attraction principles, I can see this as a real possibility, to some extent. I know people who are miserable, and you know what? Bad stuff always happens to them. I swear, they manifest it. And other people? Just naturally lucky. Is it coincidence? Or does our energetic frequency play a role in our life outcomes? I don't know, but I'm very interested in the subject.
MoonageDaydream,
I agree with you about the things you doubt. I think that having definite faith in ideas that aren't actually quite right has drawbacks, and its better to leave some things open, even while we try to figure out how to make the concrete descriptions more accurate.
I used to think of multiple paths as being sort of like sci-fi parallel universes. It never quite made sense though, because I don't think there are multiple concurrent versions of myself. Now I'm thinking about it in another way that I know isn't correct either, but I think it is closer. The multiple paths are all present in the same reality. To use a really bad analogy, if you listen to a musical note, there isn't just one frequency in it, there are a lot of harmonics that combine to make the note. We think of it as being a particular note, but there's more depth to it than that, otherwise every instrument would sound like a whistle. Now image you could separate all the component frequencies, rearrange them, and put them back together in a different way so that it was actually a different note. I think we're doing something like that when we 'change' the path we're on. It is possible because everything in the new path was also in the old path, but somehow oriented in a different direction. So for the purposes of understanding our 'choice', we live in just one world, but it has a lot more depth to it than is commonly recognized. Premonitions are possible because the future is completely determined by the present, for the current 'orientation'. But there's freedom because the 'orientation' can change. In this idea, there are not any random events in the future, there are only what appear to be random events because we're not thinking in a way that sees the whole present, and because there's freedom in the 'orientation'.
An angel of fate, so to speak, sees the future as part of the present, and does not have to extrapolate from a mental caricature of the present in order to guess the future. It sees it directly. But it sees it as some kind of superposition of many of the possible orientations, and it can prune the possible outcomes by limiting the multiplicity of 'orientations' to a narrower range. There's a tradeoff between the richness or depth of the present and being able to control or 'know' the future, and those have to be balanced. When I'm thinking in a way that produces accurate premonitions, maybe I'm not reaching outside of the present so much as I'm focusing on the present in a different way. That different focus, which is largely subconscious, involves feeling the 'future' states that are in the present one, and forming picture and sound metaphors to describe those feelings. There's a pretty close resemblance between those metaphors and the corresponding future events, but it isn't exact, because they're metaphors, and because the steering of the fuzzy 'orientation' isn't precisely determined.
To the extent that there's any truth to what I'm saying, I guess there must be a spatial analogue to this also, where far away objects and events are also dimly represented in the local aether, so to speak. So telepathetic empathy works in pretty much the same way as precognition or choice.
I realize it must be pretty hard to follow what I'm trying to say here, because of the strange way I'm using words, but hopefully it makes as least some vague sense.
Nah, makes perfect sense to anyone with a sufficient understanding of physics and how we humans interpret and resolve available informationQuote:
Originally Posted by shadowofwind
If you thought it was clear, maybe you understand it better than I do.
If you're potentially interested in collaborating on physics, artificial intelligence, or other engineering projects, provide a way to contact you and I can give you more info. (That invitation is open to everybody else with relevant interests and skills also.) I'm involved with grant supported research as well as software related projects.
I'm also always interested in talking about purposeful activity related to 'spiritual growth', for lack of a better phrase, since I'm not entirely sure what my next step is.
I believe there is more to life than just this physical, temporary world and body we are in. Because of that belief I see dreams as a step into these spiritual realms, that are just as real as this physical world. I guess it's up to what you believe can be possible. If this material world is all there is in your belief system, then you will see dreams as mere projections from a brain that's processing the things we experience in waking life. Hence why the first reply to this post talks about 'real world' applications for dreams. This comes from an idea that the waking life is all there is. Many religions and spiritual practices come from the idea that there is more than just the physical reality. And practitioners of these practices simply have a different view on what is real, what can be real. It takes a major paradigm shift to go from a materialistic view to a spiritual one. We call it spiritual because that's the descriptor we have used throughout the ages to talk about the essence of the worlds we visit and body we use to visit these worlds.
Sorry if this is necro, but while I struggle with belief in shifting, I want to believe in it. I have opened my heart to manifestation being possible.
I actually came to DV because I think the popular persistent realms blogs here made by Hyu have a powerful spiritual significance. If there are realms of consciousness the brain can go to that, seemingly magically, can start up where they left off and feel "real", who's to say shifting isn't? I am definitely exploring the realms concept made by Hyu during my sleep, and hey, if I make it to an alternate timeline for real, I'll definitely post about it on another Dream Views.
You are fine.Quote:
Originally Posted by SharedDSRee
What are you going to accomplish when you go to these Alt realities? What is wrong with your current one?
My introductory thread I made was called "reality shifting" and it got moved to this area.The concept of 'reality shifting' is a result of developments in scientific understanding. Mostly the opinion so far here is justifying how reality shifting can't happen or that astral projection doesn't exist. While it's good to be skeptical I think there is some missing information or misconceptions floating around. When there is a lack of information, you are not going to be able to make sound conclusions.
According to Donald Huffman consciousness is fundamental. If you are not familiar with Donald Huffman's work, then you really need to because it is significant scientifically. When we take the understanding that consciousness is fundamental, that means it's not your brain that is giving you consciousness, physicality is then an emergent property of consciousness. We should be aware by now that the model of things being 'material' that science is dead now. Matter isn't solid.
How does this relate to 'reality shifting' or 'astral projection'. Well if consciousness is fundamental it means it can be independent of the body, in other words it can separate from your physical form. I actually have direct experience of this happening to me, which some skeptical people here would call 'dreams'. The problem is, it's not really the same as a dream in the way that it is experienced. Depending on how you define 'reality shifting' if you have a vivid experience such as this, it does very much feel like a reality shift when you are having the experience, when your consciousness 'wakes up' or arrives back to your body, that is like a shift back to this waking reality. If you are talking about a more permanent shift, that could be something more advanced that I won't go into. I'm definitely not going to say 'reality shifting is impossible' when we have no idea of the potential of consciousness. In fact a lot of paranormal groups there is a lot of stories about different types of time distortions or reality glitches. Things like UFO abductions and all sorts of different phenomenon which seem related. It just wouldn't be balanced to close your mind to absolutely everything.
In terms of official applications of reality shifting, there is a declassified CIA document that talks about the gateway process. If it was not real, they would not have had this program or studied it. The documents provide their conclusions on it.
Lucid dreaming is likely more related to astral projection and out of body experiences than you might be willing to admit. When you consciously go to sleep, it feels very much like you are leaving your body by the time you get to the dream environment. At least those who have trained ourselves would have some experience of the effect of separating from the body. That's the only way I really have Lucid dreams is I slide out of my body from my bed, into the 'astral', you then encounter a copy of your bedroom and house, but it's not the same house, you are in a different environment mostly.
I could go into different examples based on my journals of my experiences, but this post is already very long. So I'll just leave it there.
How to say you go about permanently reality shifting to that new reality? what do you think the risks would be?Quote:
Originally Posted by RockStarHeart
No idea about reality shifting, but coming from an LD background, when you read AP "how-to" material, it reads word for word like a LD manual (WILD). If you read their explanations for what is going on, the explanations get very intricate and involved. The fact that you can really only AP from a sleeping state is highly suspicious. I tend to go with Occam's razor. You can't get any simpler than the explanation "it's a dream." But not ever having had anything that the AP people would call AP, I'm keeping my mind open. The AP how-to literature, however, is a treasure trove of techniques for relaxation, "energy work" (which I do tend to believe in), and techniques for having OBEs, so as an LD practitioner, the AP literature can be very helpful, and I think shouldn't be ruled out. Just filter out the unnecessary stuff and focus on learning the techniques/methods.
Agreed.Quote:
Originally Posted by FryingMan
I have never consciously done a reality shift experimentally where I have measured differences based on an intention that are permanent. So anything I say is speculation. But I could give an educated guess.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lang
Permanently shifting reality. To put it briefly I think the key is faith in the reality you are shifting to. I base this off of people who have being hypnotised in different ways and how the mind responds to that. So if you believe something without any doubt, you shift into it's reality. This is much easier in the dream world than waking. You can fly in a dream by a certain belief and it can be fairly easy, but try the same thing in waking reality and you have to deal with the concept of gravity and your faith is going to have all these roadblocks. So before you could fly the same way in waking reality, so significant way in your perception would have to be rebuilt before you could believe it was possible.
Essentially if you did reality shift your waking reality, one of the things that would come to mind is it might not be reversible immediately, so if it's a drastic shift and you are not used to it, that could be very psychologically challenging, especially if the change is not fully what you really wanted. So I think the risks involve changing your beliefs too extremely, getting confused and disoriented, ending up changing things in a way that is too big of a jump, causing psychological stress.
That's just my ideas.
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I thought about this too. Why is it that when awake, there isn't some technique to just separate from the body at will. Why am I always forced to deeply relax and get into this special state where I can finally leave my body once 'asleep'.Quote:
Originally Posted by FryingMan
Here is what I came up with so far. Firstly, if I am aware when I'm separating from my body, even though my body is fully relaxed, does that really constitute a sleep state if I am lucid through it, or is it just a certain frequency of brain activity. Perhaps I just have not mastered it enough to where I can do it quickly or often as I want. It may be possible to project in less than 3 minutes or even less. So I cannot lump the process fully in with "sleep" when it involves something intentional.
Secondly, I've thought about experiments with body identification while awake. For instance the fake hand experiment. It's possible to get the body to identify with an object as if it was that object and to feel pain from that object, even though it's not part of the body. In addition as John Cleese in his recent work has pointed out. Many people report things during near death experiences that are factual. Such as a conversation happening in the hospital in another room. This essentially proves that we can not only leave our physical body in a factual way, but that we could identify with things in our environment, the same way we identify with our body.
Given those data points. It's likely that this involves more than simply 'dreams' in the traditional way we have been taught.
Which was shut down due to irrelevant, erroneous data.Quote:
Originally Posted by RockStarHeart
The assessment and analysis was "concluded" that's very different from "shut down" as such, it just means they were finished with the report. It was based around Robert Monroe's work. Once the report was made it was filed. CIA documents are very different in that they are intelligence reports. So there's no 'erroneous data' as you describe it that comes out of a report. Since it was declassified you can read it for yourself. Fair warning though it does not say that the gateway process is fake it says that it works and that it's real and it describes the science behind it. This is where your cognitive dissonance might kick in a bit if you WANT to believe it's erroneous? The simple fact is they tested it properly. Which is significant. So I just go where the evidence leads myself. I don't know about you but my experience with projections and lucidity, perfectly aligns with that report. There is nothing to suggest otherwise!Quote:
Originally Posted by MoonOfBacon
From my understanding, we also may need to be careful about knowing the difference between something that very well aligns with something you believe in vs just wishful thinking. (IMO)
If you have a mental illness like DID, I read somewhere author that Robert Waggoner advises that people experiencing mental health problems should not induce lucid dreams in case they find the content overwhelming. So, I would talk to your doctor before trying it out if you have DID or anything other mental Illness that would cause you negative effects of lucid dreaming including:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lang
Poor sleep quality, resulting in fatigue and irritability
Confusion
Dissociation
Subclinical psychosis
Blurred lines between dreaming and reality
I would think that same applies with Beyond dream type things. I would think Reality Shifting falls in this too. (IMO)
:)
If you read what the AP community considers some of its most well-respected authors, (e.g., Robert Bruce) the explanations are highly complex, and involve a hierarchy of many different energy bodies, and the instantaneous upload/copy of your full consciousness into the body that eventually is the one that will project. This process, he claims, can only take place while the body is asleep.Quote:
Originally Posted by RockStarHeart
I'm keeping an open mind while I'm reviewing the AP material, but seems really clear that the AP proponents come up with increasingly complex explanations, whereas the "it's a dream" explanation remains the simplest and clearest.
For example, they claim that in a real AP OBE, the projector cannot change the environment via expectation like how a lucid dreamer can. If someone has an experience where he can change the environment, the AP logic goes, "well, it wasn't actually AP then." That's the sort of circular explanation/logic that is unattractive about the AP hypothesis.
I don't get that: why is the argument circular? From my perspective there is no circularity, since "Change possible" => "Dream", "Change not possible" => "AP".Quote:
Originally Posted by FryingMan
Personally, I would argue that it is always possible to effect change, also in an AP. It is just a lot more difficult in an AP than in a dream. (Also, I am increasingly not happy about the names given to all these mental experiences. They all seem misleading to me nowadays).
The circularity usually manifests something like this:Quote:
Originally Posted by Voldmer
Person 1: AP is XYZ
Person 2: I disagree, had an AP and experienced PDQ
P1: PDQ is not compatible with XYZ, therefore what you experienced is not AP but (a dream, etc.)
P2: !!!??!???!!??!!
I am a little skeptical about 'energy bodies'. I've come across this theory before. That the 'astral' is less dense and so we have a different 'body'. I have looked in the mirror before during a 'projection' and I still looked exactly the same. I wouldn't be so quick to say it was my copied energy body. It could just as well be my mental mind construction of what I expected to see.Quote:
Originally Posted by FryingMan
There is also this theory about 'the silver cord' connecting the two bodies. I've never encountered this cord before. So either it's hiding from me, or it's just a psychology thing that some people get.
I have experienced the realism thing where the environment is insanely realistic that you can barely tell it apart from waking reality. During that period it's pretty difficult to change things unless you have some tool or prop that you can use (explained about that in my dream tech thread). So this is possibly what they are referring to when they are making the distinction between AP and LD. APs just feel almost exactly the same as if you are awake the only difference is you know you are in that different world. When a AP goes on for more than 5 minutes, that's where things can merge into a scene that is much closer to a LD, and sometimes even lose lucidity which has happened to me in projections longer than 20 minutes or so.
Edit: Robert Peterson in his book did mention when he started to project, that he 'fell out' of his body in the waking state by accident. He did not mean to do this, but if this testimony is true, it means we can separate from our body while completely in the waking state. He is not the only person that has testified this that I know of. Even one of my friends said it happened to them. I also remember testimony of someone that was in a car crash, and they said before the impact they were launched straight out of their body and viewed the crash from outside their body. That was before the impact when completely awake. So we have to take these things into account.
I see that simply as a disagreement about the nature of AP, where Person 1 thinks AP = XYZ, whereas Person 2 thinks AP = PDQ. Maybe I am missing some context (I did not read the thread from the start; I'll go back and do that).Quote:
Originally Posted by FryingMan
EDIT: This thread is great! :) I don't know why I have been missing out on it before. But now that I'm here, I'll chip in with this bit:
I have traditionally distinguished between dream and AP, and very precisely too, since my dreams never have peripheral awareness, whereas my AP's always have that. This difference is quite staggering, because it makes every dream feel "fake", whilst every AP feels "real". But there is something else at play also, because to me an AP is not "real" simply because there is peripheral awareness. It simply feels like an actual world, exactly like the physical world does, as if there was a special sense for that, beyond the ordinary senses.
Apart from this, I am now leaning towards an understanding of all experiences existing on a multidimensional spectrum without hard borders between anything. Still, my experience of getting into an AP has little in common with my experience of getting into a dream. The latter is entirely without the "physical" whoosh, where the former always has it.
The situation is that anyone (including large groups of practitioners, "the community of APers," etc.) can assert what they think AP is, the definition is unassailable and anyone who criticizes it or disagrees with it based on personal experience that is contradictory to that definition is shot down, with the only reason given being that they disagree. Any sort of phenomenon that is defined by an unassailable, unquestionable definition, does not qualify in my mind as something serious. Holes in their logic or definition are trivially smoothed over without having to actually engage in a serious discussion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Voldmer
That, plus the fact that the explanations are highly complex involving multiple hierarchies of various "bodies" and "dimensions," leads me to lean on the side of "it's all a dream."
I had a great LD last night, in fact. I took a moment in this LD to evaluate the environment, its visual vividness, tactile feedback of touching objects, etc. I quickly reached the conclusion that it was indistinguishable from waking existence. And it most definitely was a dream. Vividness and clarity are not valid arguments for (or against) AP.
Okay, that is pretty bad. They should at least amicably agree to disagree.Quote:
Originally Posted by FryingMan
That was my impression from reading what other people write about their interactions with the APers. I myself have an open mind but I have to say, every time I read the AP material, I just keep thinking, "Sure sounds like a dream!".Quote:
Originally Posted by Voldmer
Take "you can't change an AP while you can change a LD," for instance. Well, LDers know quite well that dreams are driven by expectation. If there is the expectation that the dream environment will not change, then it won't change.
This is an interesting issue. First I have to say that in my experience AP's can very well be changed, exactly like the physical world can be changed; it's not set in stone. But, also in my experience, expectations just don't happen in AP's the way they do in LD's. Again, in this respect the AP seems like the physical world (to me), with the LD seeming different. (To clarify, because I'm not sure I expressed this clearly: in ordinary reality I don't suddenly expect stuff to happen, and this goes for AP's too. But in dreams I tend to expect strange stuff rather a lot). This could be taken to indicate that I myself create the difference between the AP and the LD via my tendency to expect. But that would still imply the difference exists. (I apologize if I am not being very clear here, but it's late in the day in my neck of the woods, and my stomach tells me that dinner is nearly overdue). :)Quote:
Originally Posted by FryingMan
When you sketch a drawing out you use different shades or intensity of shade in the pencil for example. It seems to me like you are treating AP and LD as separate things. Don't you think there could be some kind of spectrum going on here from one side of the spectrum being fully AP and the other side of the spectrum a pure dream. Not under a polarity but part of the same thing in different degrees. Lucidity works this way, there's isn't fully lucid and non lucid. There's different degrees of lucidity.Quote:
Originally Posted by FryingMan
I don't really have any strong opinions, having not had what I would call an AP. I'm just commenting on what I've read about it. But, it's hard to know just what AP is, from the various definitions. Maybe it's one of those "you'll know it when you have one" things?Quote:
Originally Posted by RockStarHeart
Very well, where can I find more of the documents? I cannot really seem to find a document where the effectively discuss it, it seems very out of order on the reading room on the CIA website.Quote:
Originally Posted by RockStarHeart
But, why does the review of the project after termination say this: "The foregoing observations provide a compelling argument against continuation of the program within the intelligence community. Even though a statistically significant effect has been observed in the laboratory, it remains unclear whether the existence of a paranormal phenomenon, remote viewing, has been demonstrated. The laboratory studies do not provide evidence regarding the origins or nature of the phenomenon, assuming it exists, nor do they address an important methodological issue of inter-judge reliability."
They clearly wanted to shut the programme down, whatever their actual reasons for doing so were. The remote viewing projects under different names ran operationally for two decades, getting renewed funding every year through the congress. They got this funding because they yielded results.Quote:
Originally Posted by MoonOfBacon
In the quote you give there is this: "Even though a statistically significant effect has been observed in the laboratory, it remains unclear whether the existence of a paranormal phenomenon, remote viewing, has been demonstrated." This is basically their way of saying, even though the facts state that it works, we don't care, because the facts don't matter to us!
Of course, they may very well have continued the projects secretly (these projects were always secretive before).
It more so seems to me that something powerful was observed, but it wouldn't be appropriate to label it as 'remote viewing'? Not really sure but good points.Quote:
Originally Posted by Voldmer