Quick WILD question

[m3th]

Has anyone here read the Robert Monroe series? I'm sure a few of you have. It seems WILD and what Robert was doing at the Monroe Institute are almost exactly the same. Although Monroe's pertains to an OBE and WILD pertains to a LD. This is very confusing as a lucid dream is pretty much nothing but your own thoughts, meaning it's all in your head. Astral Projection is much different. If they are the same event then that pretty much throws all of Monroe's theory and writings out the window, or complicates lucid dreaming much further.

[Seeker]

I've read a couple of Robert Monroe's books now. My opinion on it is that he was just experiencing a lucid dream about astral projection. I'm sure others will disagree with me on this though. I like to accept the simplest explaination for things. Lucid dreaming is a proven scientific fact, astral projection is not, henceforth, my opinion.

[Asclepius]

Here's an article by LaBerge on an attempt to approach this from scientific perspective http://www.lucidity.com/NL32.OBEandLD.html

[m3th]

Thanks for the insight. The thing that still baffles my mind is how Monroe was able to collect information from what would seem to be dream characters (if an AP and LD are the same event). Yet all this information, wild stories of how the universe was created and such. All seem to come together with no contradictions. This information is also gathered from YEARS of OBE's and from several different people. Now, from my personal experiences. I have had several odd conversations with dream characters, I ask them things like the meaning of life, how we got here etc... I either get a response completely off topic to what I asked, or I get several different stories from different dream characters, none of them making much sense at all.

[Asclepius]

M3TH, you raise some good points. Most of my DCs are idiots and also speak nonsense. Occasionally I have dreams where there is some useful information. In Tibetan Buddhism, they distinguish between ordinary karma based dreams and dreams of clarity. I find this hierarchy useful. In Far Journeys Monroe talks about getting information from the beings he meets not through conversation, but through exchange of 'ROTE' (not sure of his acronym)? I know that many OBE/AP experiences believe that what they have gone through is more real than an LD. I don't have enough personal experience to state anything with confidence.

[Callista]

You'd have to find some external means of testing to figure out whether it was astral projection or just a normal lucid dream, wouldn't you? Take your astral projectionist (or whatever he's called) and put him to sleep in a monitored room. Cover his eyes, of course. Then grab a big towel or some other bright object, add it to the room after he's asleep, and ask him the color of the object when he wakes up. If he can tell the color a statistically significant amount of time, he might be doing astral projection; if not, he's just a normal lucid dreamer. Should be simple enough to do... has it been done? Regarding gaining information from DCs: If you are doing this, there has to be some way to prove that the information does not come from your own mind (subconscious). You could use the same method above; only ask the DCs about the color of the object. Or you could find some information the dreamer has no way of knowing and ask him to find out from his DCs.

[m3th]

Good ideas. I went lucid again last night for a brief period, decided to foo laround with the DCs once again. I held up a silver spoon in front of a DC and asked him what he saw. He did not respond, after a little while I got bored of him and he said "Lets go take a looksy at the upstairs" like he was trying to sell me the house we where in. Not exaclty what you would call an inspect.

[wombing]

i heard of astral projection a couple years before 'lucid dreaming'. it only limited my success thinking of dreamscape in those terms, as most 'astral projections' are most likely just lucid dreams. i've had MUCH greater success looking at things from the LDing viewpoint. that being said, i am very open to the possibility that there is some validity to astral projection. a girl i trust pretty well claims that once she astral projected while at school (at her desk) and found one of her friends in the hallway. she further says that she read a note the girl was reading. after the AP was over, she found the friend, and what she remembered of the note was supposedly accurate. who knows..although for the time being i plan to master LDing before experimenting scientifically with AP.