Thursday, April 14, 2016

Astral Projection - Is Exhaustion Beneficial?


Just like anything when it comes to Astral Projection, there doesn't seem to be just an easy "Yes, No" answer to this one. Thinking back, I believe that exhaustion can be placed into one of three categories.

Physical - Your body is worn out. Your muscles are tired. Your mind is clear, optimistic and positive, but you could easily fall asleep if you were to try. This could be after a hard workout, a long physically taxing week, or anything else that leaves you in a physically fatigued state.

Mental - When I think of mental exhaustion, I think of those long days at work where I spend eight to ten hours in a cubicle with very little if any physical engagement. This sort of exhaustion can come from a hard day of problem-solving, or something like a week of preparation, cramming, and memorization for a final exam. Everyone has experienced this at some point in their life. It is the feeling of being mentally drained.

Emotional - This sort of exhaustion for me personally comes from situations like dealing with disgruntled employees or having a fight with my wife. It could be the result of road rage, a misbehaving child, or a heated disagreement with a family member. The feelings that I associate with this state are frustration, anger, and depression.

So what role do each of these states play in your ability to project if any?

Let's start with physical since that is that is an easy one.  I can say hands down, without a doubt, physical exhaustion is beneficial to my own projection practice.  I have seen this manifest itself in my life dozens of times. This is likely for several reasons.  For me personally, exercise is an escape. It is a chance to clear my head. When we exercise, our brains release endorphins, adrenaline, serotonin, and dopamine. This results in a feeling of happiness, contentment, and optimism. I have emphasized multiple times in previous posts that your mood and state of mind plays a critical role in your level of success when it comes to projecting. Aside from the general good feeling that comes with physical exertion, there is the fact, plain and simple, that if your physical body is incredibly tired, it will fall asleep more quickly.  The faster you are able to make that transition to the void state; mind awake and body asleep, the better chance you have of remaining conscious through it. During a 10 day trip to Ireland with my wife, we walked between 15 and 20 miles a day.  That physical exhaustion resulted in the easy induction of back to back projections during our final nights there. I can also say, the only success I have ever had projecting during daytime hours has come after working all night long and remaining awake for over 24 hours. Not necessarily my ideal scenario, but effective.

Mental exhaustion is a bit trickier. I have been successful projecting when mentally exhausted and I have also run into insurmountable roadblocks when mentally exhausted. The conclusion that I have come to when talking about mental exhaustion is that if I am mentally drained but able to focus, I can succeed and my mental state is not a hindrance to the process. If I am still repeating problems, scenarios, and questions that I was unable to resolve during the day, which lead to this state in the first place, that lack of focus will ruin my attempts. I need to just shut down that analytical part of my brain and say to myself, I will continue tomorrow, but for now, it is time to focus on projection. If I can redirect my focus successfully, I can usually achieve positive results.

Finally, let's talk about the arch enemy of projection. emotional exhaustion.  If physical exhaustion is one end of the spectrum and ideal for inducing the desired state, emotional exhaustion is the polar opposite. I can confidently say that I have never been successful when I am emotionally drained, upset, depressed, or angry. I think there is a combination of factors at play here. First and foremost, that positive optimism that lends itself so well to this effort is not there. Second, when I am re-playing angry conversations in my head, thinking of what I should have said, redirecting my focus to this effort is nearly impossible. Finally, the natural physical state when you are angry or upset is tension. Muscle tension in your shoulders, tension in your jaw, clenched fists, etc.  Being that relaxation is an absolute requirement, if you cannot release that tension and just let that negativity go, you will not succeed.

There you have it; my experience with exhaustion.

Physical = Good
Mental = "It depends..."
Emotional = You might as well try on another night.

So what is the takeaway here?

Get out there and exercise! Wear yourself out doing something you love and improve your chance of success at the same time.  :)

7 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. First comment again! I'm on a roll.I recently tried to explain to a 14 year old how much harder it is to get OOB when you have a mental job. I don't think they will truly understand until they have responsibilities.

    Check out Grammarly, it is quite a refined grammar checker. It works with MS Word and most textboxes in Google Chrome (not the one I am typing in for some reason).

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    1. Very true. I can say, as I work in the IT field, mental drain is a regular occurrence and nagging issues make it hard to focus, not to mention being on call 24/7 keeps you always thinking about work in one respect or another.

      Thanks for the suggestion! I will definitely check it out. Having a master's in software engineering doesn't help me in the field of proper grammar I am afraid. It is great that there are tools out there like that to help non-english majors like myself share their experiences in a grammatically correct way. Love the feedback. Thanks again.

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    2. Oh software engineer eh? Me too. I currently use a pseudonym to keep my programming work separate from my altered states work. Nobody has noticed yet, but the last name in my pseudonym is "InAstrals" backwards LOL.

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  3. Loving the site man! Nice! i find that being exhausted stops me from AP, I just fall asleep because my mind is so done over it just loses focus. Interesting article though, if I had a mental stress free day, but plenty of physical exhaustion, I would project pretty easily I think.

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    1. Thanks! This site helps me sort of organize my thoughts before I sit down to record a video. I figure one day when I have enough content I will fund someone better at writing than I am and have it all edited and put it in an eBook or something.

      Yeah, I have great success when my day is full of nonstressful physical exertion.

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