My first voluntary out of body experience
I was a young teenager, around eleven years old, when I attempted my first “astral projection”. At the time, I could not tell the difference between a mental or astral projection. I was familiar with the fact the consciousness could leave the physical body, as I had an interest in Hermetics since I can remember, but no experience nor idea on how to proceed.
I recall that I had come across an article related to the matter of Astral projections a few days earlier, on a magazine specialized in vulgarization of occult topics, to the general public; oddly enough, I eventually was involved with its editor and the company running this publication and others, and confirmed none of the articles published was the result of any serious work of any kind.
Anyhow, that particular article was enough to push me to try for myself, and not knowing better, I settled down for going early to bed, and rest on my back (I’m a side sleeper, I can’t fall asleep on my back), committed not to move. I don’t have any memories of the agonizing urges to move or scratch at that time, but I do remember being quietly there for a very long time, thinking it was not really working. I didn’t have many expectations in any case, and it was a Friday night – I had no obligation for an early bird start-, so I was just relaxing without much psychological pressure, if any in fact.
Eventually I must have fallen asleep, as my next memory was waking up a few hours later (I didn’t expect to fall asleep, or to be able to, on my back position); but when I did wake up from my sleep, it was only to find that my whole body was floating up, but still attached to my head by the neck. Only my head was still my earthy one, the rest was light and trying to float away in the air. It was uncomfortable and I found it, at the moment, scary, as it seemed nothing I did would change anything. I started breathing heavily and my projected body immediately came back “home”.
After that night and after reviewing the experience I had, I came to the conclusion my fear was a natural reaction and that, should I get to that point again, I would just keep waiting until the projection became complete – only it took me years to gather the courage to attempt the experience again. And when I did, I never found the determination not to move or yield to fatigue.
It was only over a decade later that I approached again the phenomenon of projection, with the help of the knowledge, wisdom and practice gathered in between, and proposed to purposely develop the ability to project out of the body. It did take me several years to come to consistent, actually systematic, results – through the approach herein shared.
