Thread: Concept: astral projection as a way for physical teleportation. Shared perception

Very interesting dream! I have read about "shared planes" during AP while I was practicing AP, though I have only ever been able to explore the physical world. one of the books was by CW Leadbeater and the other one I dont remember, but the author had a strange name that started with an O. Im not sure how much i would believe in the concept though, since i have never seen it myself, but multiple people have written about it.

I have been having similar issues recently where I can't gain control of my lucid dreams (or I'm dreaming about lucid dreaming instead of actually LDing; can't tell which), but I think it may be due to a subconscious psychological block. I believe that the subconscious can sometimes 'take back' control over a LD when there is a strong enough reason to, or at least that has been my observation.

Since your dream seemed to reveal conflict surrounding LD and AP as well, I wonder if your subconscious is trying to tell you something. Especially since your dream had such a distinction between day vs night, war vs fighting to protect the woman, dry desert Egypt vs island among water. These symbols seem to me like a strong distinction between the conscious and subconcious. When you were handed the scimitar and told to protect the woman, maybe the dream was telling you that the conscious 'war' or conflict will be solved by protecting what that woman represents in the subconscious.

According to the jungian dream framework, men will sometimes dream about their Anima which is their repressed feminine traits which are kept in the unconscious. Often she can represent the unconscious itself, sometimes creativity or arts, or vulnerability and nurturing depending on the dream and on the individual. Since the dream was so strong and the woman seemed familiar, I think she may represent your anima. It may be helpful to you to look into the concept, or at least write down any times you see her again. It can be an important figure for men throughout their lives, and you may encounter her again as you keep dreaming.

Thanks for a very insightful reply. While I am fascinated about the idea of AP, I honestly can't tell if I have ever had this particular experience, as it is described. Maybe some variation of it. I have definitely dreamed about it though, as noted above. I believe your point of subconscious taking back control to be true, simply for the fact that our whole body is being controlled this way every waking and sleeping moment. From basic breathing, to whatever happens deep in the mind.

Interesting point about a conflict in my dream. I myself did notice the contrast between Egypt and island the way you did. Next morning, I smiled and told myself: "It probably means I need take more action to bring a certain change in my life".

I honestly know nothing of Anima, but I sure will read about it, to get acquainted with the concept. What I can tell you, are some of the other dreams, where I have met this woman. In all of those dreams, I would become lucid early in the dream, usually after some kind of transition in the story. All dreams with the woman felt more or less romantic. I will try to describe dreams shorter.
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#1. The castle of two souls

Outside, it's a dark night, bright full moon hanging in the sky. I lived in a big castle, in some ancient times. I was not a king or prince, but some nobleman. Servants worked all throughout, family members did their own things (none of the people seemed to be from real life). I climb one of the towers and enter my room (at this point, I become lucid). Took a moment to understand what is going on, check my surroundings and then let the story continue. Apparently, once there was a girl. We were deeply in love. However, now she was dead. And therefore, I was sad every day. In my room, I am alone. Soon, as if from nowhere, the girl I loved appears in front of me, in a spirit form. Apparently, that specific night was special (like in real life have moon eclipses a few times a year, this night in dream was something similar), something that happens once in about 10 years. Because of the moon, that specific night, she was able to enter physical world, though in her spirit form. I was joyful to see her again. We talked all night. I asked if she could stay, and she told me that as once the first ray of morning sun rises, she will disappear until another such night, in next ~10 years. Knowing that, I got an idea. Though I don't know why I was sure it would work. Just before the sun rising, we hugged. Naturally, we could not actually touch each other, but we still hugged. We told each other we love one another. We smiled. Closed our eyes. And deep in my mind I said: "I want to exchange my life for hers, so that she could live once more". As we opened our eyes, she was ready to see me for the last time. And she did. Only, now she was in physical form, actually alive and I was now dead, a spirit. I smiled and as the sun rose in my dream, I woke up in real life.

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#2. The red letter in train station

It was a western town, think of cowboys in the old days. Bright day, lively town. I did not see many cowboys per se, most people were common folk, dressed appropriately to the time. There were some activities I did in town - not important. As I entered a big, really big train station, I became lucid. Train station was spectacular, had two levels, high curved glass ceilings. I see a girl in the crowd. She wears a beautiful red dress, it seems like she knows me, but I do not know her. I just have some unspoken attraction to her. She goes further and it seems, wants me to follow. I believe we are supposed to catch a train. As I move through the crowd, she climbs the stairs that lead to second level, where trains are waiting. As I am catching up to her, she reaches out her hand to me. I am a little too far away. I have a strong feeling that we are running out of time and she has to tell me something important. She feels that too and it seems we won't reach the train in time. I catch up to her completely and she gives me a red paper, folded note/letter. Whatever important thing she has to say, is on there. Unfortunately, we run out of time and just before I can open the note, I wake up in real life.

- As I read recently, apparently, in dreams people can't really read things. I wonder if that was the case here, although I did not even open the note yet.

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#3. The lighthouse, stuck in time

Dream starts with me alone, in a wooden boat. It's a dark night, full moon. I am swimming in a swamp, surrounded by thick forests. I am all alone. In the center of the swamp, stands an ancient, long-abandoned, crooked lighthouse. As there is nowhere else for me to go, I swim to the entrance. Big metal doors are hard to open. I see that inside is completely dark and empty. Complete silence surrounds me. The moment I enter inside, (I become lucid) I see the most amazing thing. A masquerade ball. I realize, that I am still inside the lighthouse. I look behind myself - the doors are completely gone, it's now just a wall. Since I know I am dreaming, I don't get scared about it. I am standing in a massive round hall, unproportionally big for the lighthouse I saw from outside, on a white shiny marble floor, with gold ornaments. There are lot of candles hanging around on massive chandeliers, it is very bright. There are windows, high on the walls, it looks like it's night outside, but other than that, I can't tell anything. The most amazing music plays all over, but I can not see where it is coming from. People are dancing. They are smiling, happy. They are wearing fancy clothes, from middle ages. Every person has a mask on. The more I look at them, the more mesmerized I become. I look down at myself, and now I too am wearing fancy old clothes. I touch my face and I can feel a masquerade mask on. I step towards the dancing crowd and I too begin to dance. I am in a complete trance. I am joyful, I am happy, I don't want this to ever stop. I feel like what is happening here, inside, is stuck in time. An eternal masquerade ball. For a brief moment, I raise my eyes towards massive steps, leading to second floor. On top, stand the same girl I dreamed of before. Here, she is again in a red dress, she too has a mask on. The moment I see her, it feels like the spell breaks and I snap out of trance. Who is she? I need to talk to her. I need some answers. I feel like she has them. I feel like she knows me. I come to a second floor, I see corridors leading to both sides and I don't know where to go. Some guests are mingling around. A group of small children, also in masks, run past me. One small boy takes my hand and leads me somewhere. "Come! I will take you to her. She is waiting". He leads me to a room. I enter. It looks like big bedroom, very rich in fine cloths, a lot of pillows, everything around is elegant, rich. And I see the woman in red dress. She tells me to take off my mask, she takes off hers. I remember looking deep in her blue eyes, but today I could not describe her face exactly. It feels like we know one another, we finally met again. We kissed. She gives me a golden envelope and walks out of the room. Apparently I am supposed to read it. There is something important. And although she has not said it, I feel like I know a promise has been given that we shall meet again. However, before I can open the letter, I wake up in real life.

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#4. This might be unrelated. Not exactly a dream. Just that one morning I woke up, as if remembering the name: Sofia. It feels like her name. But other than that, I have nothing.

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These are the times I remember vividly. If there were any more, I do not remember. Speaking of astral projections, I do have a fun memory of me and 2 friends, as kids, sitting in the garden on sunny day. We had just read a story about astral projection in some book of mysterious events around the world. And we decided to try and do it. Sitting in lotus position, on the grass, trying to meditate and imagining how we leave our bodies. We sat there for about half our. One friend fell asleep, fell down and woke up. Another was constantly checking what others are doing. And I was just fantasizing the whole time of how cool it would be to fly around. Fun times.

I'm also not sure if AP is 'real' in the sense of me literally leaving my body. However, it feels very different than LD and it begins differently so I use a different name to describe it. I have only ever entered LD through a dream that was already going on, but AP I enter from a sleeping-meditative state. What has been best for AP so far is keeping my eyes closed after waking up or while trying to sleep and staying still while meditating. after what feels like a very long time, i dont see the backs of my eyes anymore (it looks more like a void, if this makes sense) and I feel a movement of air, water, or my body feels like its rocking back and forth. Then i gently try rocking back and forth harder until i 'unstick' myself from my body. at this point I can open my eyes and see my surroundings as if i was awake. I havent APed lately since my last experience was not very good.

Its interesting that all of these dreams seem to have a time-related conflict. I wonder what that could be. The letter also seems significant.

The anima can often appear as a wife or lover, and she is actually sometimes described in books as 'Sofia' (what a strange coincidence!). But basically she is a representation of a man's repressed feminine characteristics. Jung's 'Man and His Symbols' or 'Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious' may be a good place to start reading! He wrote a lot about the Anima that I think would be useful to you in interacting with this dream character of yours.

Wow. Well, thank you very much for pointing me to the book. As it happens, I have a free day from work tomorrow, so might as weell read it.

If I happen to have more dreams, related to this, I will post them in this thread.
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In reality, I have an issue of repressed anger. From what I came to understand, it's that as a child, I was sometimes treated unadequately to given situations. Namely, I often experienced excessive expressed anger towards me. As a child, I did not understand reasons as to why, nor I was given an explanation. Life seemed to make no sense. And I could not handle anger. Subconsciously, I began to repress my own anger. It had to go somewhere. I believe, I have created an alter ego, that hold all my anger. But I was also afraid of what my anger can to, having experienced destruction from others. So, my alter ego is bound to release anger in it's most violent form only and only if situation can not be resolved otherwise and my actions are justified. Until now, I have not released my anger.

I came to this forum, thinking that perhaps my dreams are trying to show me a away of becoming whole again. Dreams are very tightly related to our current real life conditions, to what we experience, to what we feel, to what we think about. And for the past year or so, I have made a lot of personal discoveries.

Today, I feel like my mind or character is fractured. I do not know, how to incorporate my alter ego to my whole self. I am trying to find answer through lucid dreams in a sense, that I bieve this is the best way to communicate to your own subconscious mind. Until I find the answer, I am also experimenting in a different way. Trying to actively communicate to my alter ego, as if giving it more autonomous power. Think of being an actor, and learning to become a different character. Difference being, that this has real life implications.

I came to an interesting idea. That if you want to change your life, then it requires a different kind of you. And this is where alter egos may come in very handy. The more I try, the better I become at changing myself from main ego, to alter ego, in a split second when I believe situation demands it. And I have been activelly changing, recreating my alter ego. To try and release anger in the form of unstoppable "just get it done" and "do it right" state.

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Maybe my dreams are about resolving this issue from childhood (time conflict). Maybe the woman represents my fractured self. This is my personal agenda here.

Originally Posted by squirrelly

The anima can often appear as a wife or lover, and she is actually sometimes described in books as 'Sofia' (what a strange coincidence!). But basically she is a representation of a man's repressed feminine characteristics. Jung's 'Man and His Symbols' or 'Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious' may be a good place to start reading! He wrote a lot about the Anima that I think would be useful to you in interacting with this dream character of yours.

Thank you again, squirrelly, for pointing me to the book. Today I was reading it and parts of Jung's ideas about anima, archetypes, etc. My belief is: "Things in the world exist the way they exist, despite whether you believe in them or not, despite whether you know of them or not, despite whether you understand them or not". In other words, as long as Jung is right, everything he proposes, exists the same way to all of us. And thus, can be discovered by any of us, on our own. Based on our personal perception of everything, we may talk about the same thing in different words and still, all be right. I guess, I mean to say, that a lot of what I read, resonates with me, feels right. I came to this website to try and get possible answers to my dreams, and it seems I may have gotten them. I may not understand everything yet though.

Here is what I found interesting:

- Sophia is supposed to be the final level of anima, where man becomes one with it. Anima, in our dreams, perceived as a beautiful woman, is told to be leading the man somewhere and always seeming to be just out reach. This fits with my dreams, word for word.
- As anima is one of the archetypes each of us possesses, so Jung proposes, that we have a shadow. It's like our worst traits, about which we do not think, but they are there. Shadow holds our repressed feelings. This would suggest, that what I called my alter ego, holding my repressed anger, shame, self doubt, insecurities, is actually my shadow self. It is written, that without acceptance of fact, that our shadow self exists, there can be no relation to our anima. What happened in real life, over last 10 years or so, was that once I spiraled into a dark place, where you could say, I lost a grip of myself and my life, it became increasingly worse and all I wanted, was to escape myself. No matter where I ran, I could not do it. Finally, I have accepted the fact, that I made mistakes. Since then, I tried to understand myself, as to why I did those mistakes. I did what I could to correct those mistakes. Finally, I tried to forgive myself. I know of my dark traits. And you could say, I have accepted them. Since then, what I call "jumping between my self and alter-ego", Jung describes as me having assimilated my shadow into my self.
- I found it written, that before man can become one with his anima, or specifically, the Sophia version of it, the final one, he will be faced with a test. A test, where man's shadow will fight the man to prevent the joining with Sophia. I was fascinated by this finding, because my last dream could be interpreted as this test.

For the last 10 years or so, I tried to understand myself through various ideologies, through different perspectives. My goal could be worded like this: "If I have a full understanding of myself, it means I have a full control over myself. Having this control, I can change myself at any moment, adapt, to achieve any goal I desire. Through understanding and control, I can be free."

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But we have to be careful with anything we read. All of this, above, is not something that can be measured or logically proven to exist. When we read some kind of ideology and find a few points, that fit us, we risk of adapting the rest of the written points, to make the whole ideology fit us. Which means, I found possible answers. But I should not take it for granted. I should explore this more, to find out what is true to me personally. Right? I think it's right.

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By the way, have you explored your connection to your anima? You seem to be knowledgeable about the matter and Jung's work. Do you believe in anima, the way Jung describes it?

Im very glad you found this stuff useful! to be honest, the more you wrote, the more i wanted to info dump this stuff on you! But, i think its best for people to discover the concept of the archetypes on their own. I would definitely encourage you to continue reading!

I am also glad you brought up that jung's theories are not very scientific since i think it is important to note. Especially in his later writings, his theories occupy (what society would consider) an awkward space between psychology, art, and mysticism. His framework has been very useful to me and I think it holds a lot of truth, but it is not all-encompassing and holds some bias.

according to Jung, women have an Animus instead of an Anima, so i can't speak much on the anima. The Animus shows up in different ways, but Jung did not write as much about him. Jung theorized that the animus was more complex than the anima. I have been looking into different author's thoughts on this particular dream figure. I am currently reading a very interesting book on feminine psychology that im hoping will illuminate this a bit more for me.

In my own experience, I have multiple 'Animus-like' figures rather than a single one. The one I encounter most often is my twin (I don't have a twin in real life), but usually during times of crisis. Often in my dreams I am my male twin, but sometimes he helps me or gives me advice. I sometimes also encounter a group of male teenagers or men, and sometimes a very judgmental professor. I believe women may have an 'anima-like' figure as well, since we also repress certain feminine traits in order to fit in with modern life (though Jung would call this animus-possession). I have encountered a dream-sister figure who helps me out like my dream-brother (though usually with emotional or artistic issues) and sometimes acts as a muse, though I dont encounter her as often. This is interesting to me because my experiences dont necesarially follow Jung's idea of animus development.

Im not at the stage of development where I integrate my animus yet. Im still young and need to work more on my shadow. This is actually what drew me to Jung in the first place -- I had very intense nightmares and sleep paralysis episodes throughout my childhood that coincided with negative psychological states which still effect me today. I want to learn more about what could have caused this and what it means for me, hopefully how to correct them too.

Im hoping to use LD to map out my own unconscious and 'test' out different theories.