Below is a message I posted about a year ago on another site. I think I was on the right track with most things, others I'm not so sure about. Please take a look and let me know what you think.

Kevin




What a Great Question!!

Where does the conscious mind go?

I was reading a section from a book by Muldoon and Carrington. The section is titled "Where and What is the conscious mind?".

Here is a summarized text from: The Projection of the Astral Body

Where does it exist? Where is the conscious mind, when it is not conscious? . . . we know we are using the mind, and that it (apparently) becomes unconscious. Yet, where is it, during unconsciousness? That is the great question! It seems . . . ridiculous to believe that the conscious mind can instantly evaporate into nothing . . . Now, if it were possible for the conscious mind to become 'nothing', during the interval of sleep/coma, how could it recreate itself at the end of that interval, with duplicate perfection - from nothing? And, on the other hand, if it be still in existence, throughout the oblivious period, how can we account for the fact that we are not conscious at the place where consciousness exists? And where DOES consciousness exist?

. . . Others are of the opinion that, when sleep intervenes, the conscious mind is exteriorized in the astral body - therefore one is unconscious. But how is it that the subject is not always aware of being exteriorized in the astral body, . . .

I think this is truly a great question!

Here are my thoughts along with some questions and possible answers.

If it is possible that during astral projection for the conscious mind to shift from the physical to the etheric, then to the real time body or the astral body and so on. Then I believe it is possible that the conscious mind is always active, moving from one body to the next. Think about this, it's the physical body that needs sleep, not our consciousness. Why would God, higher beings or even ghosts need to take a nap, unless it be habitual? What I mean is, isn't their consciousness constant?

I believe we've been given a wonderful learning tool in astral projection (with or without physical awareness). Astral projection is the only way (I know of) a physical human can access "hands on" higher levels of learning. What would be the purpose of accessing this information in a comatose state. Perhaps, while our physical mind is inconscious our conscious mind is making its way from one body and plane to the next like grades in the oldest university in existence. The whole time storing what it learns and experiences in the memories of the corresponding body or highest developed body. If you think about it, the higher bodies have the ability to store memories. After all, if the physical conscious and subconscious were our only storage centers then death of the physical would be the death of us. Hopefully, the following Q & A will fill in some of the holes I left in this statement.

Why do we not remember any or all of this?

1. Maybe all the memories are being stored in the subconscious (shadow memories) waiting to be accessed by whatever body is developed enough to retrieve them.

2. Maybe the highest body is the only body that has complete access to all the memories of all the bodies, with each body below it having access to its corresponding level and all the ones below it.

3. Some combination of the first two.

What about conscious exit and re-entry?

1. The physical/etheric awareness maintains control of the projected body via the silver cord or some form of telepathy.

2. Version of mind-split: During re-entry the memories are downloaded into the physical brain during the sleep/awake or flicker stage of consciousness.

What about when I become conscious in the middle of a projection?

1. The physical becomes roused for some reason, creating the sleep/awake state of consciousness, like the waking hours when most spontaneous projections take place. During this stage the projected body's awareness shifts back to the physical creating a link to the physical brain via the silver cord. You ever wonder why, when you become aware in the middle of a projection you can't remember what you or projected body were doing? Why you were at that particular place. Maybe, this is a result of the physical/etheric not being developed enough to access these memories.

What are my astral bodies doing while I'm not aware?

1. I believe we are higher beings in training and if consciousness is 24/7, why sit idle? Hopefully, we are out there learning, exploring and doing good deeds.

What about duality?

Maybe this happens while awareness is moving between bodies, like what you might feel if your awareness moved into the middle of the silver cord between bodies momentarily receiving and storing information in both locations.

What about those mindless semi-conscious projected drifters you see on the astral planes?

1. Consciousness has moved on to a higher body/plane, leaving that body behind like bread crumbs or a link in a chain that holds our bodies together.

2. Or they are simply thought forms, never seeing a drifter until you read or hear about one.

What is the mind?

I believe it is conscious awareness: Gaining more power, awarenss and memories while moving up through the bodies. Next time you project, explore your memories, not your surroundings. Maybe it's possible to gain access to the higher level memories if they exist or if you're developed enough.

----------

I only read this yesterday and posted this today, so if it has some holes in it, you have to forgive and remember it's a theory.

I think this is a valid question, and if there is some truth to what I've said about the conscious mind, then it brings about the possibility for some new and ingenious projection techniques or refinement of older ones.

Maybe the reason Robert Bruce's NEW energy system works so well is because it increases psychic ability/power helping us create that telepathic link with our projected bodies.

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts and inputs on the conscious mind.

Kevin,

Much of the difficulty, if not the question itself is created by thinking of the body and the mind as two different things. All the various bodies you refer to are just different views of the same consciousness. Consciousness does not come and go it is always active -- awareness comes and goes with attention -- like being in a dark room with a narrow beamed flashlight -- objects come and go in and out of your awareness as you scan the light around. What you are experiencing is one uninterrupted always-on consciousness with many aspects or many views as seen from specific filters -- each of these views of part of the whole (or part of the data set) you label as various bodies because that is how we humans are all used to thinking -- in terms of separate objects. Nothing moves back and forth between bodies -- it only appears to move -- and there are no separate bodies it is just that the focus of your attention moves from subset to subset. All are one. They are not separate things sharing a consciousness.

Tom

Tom,

Thanks for your quick response. I think maybe the question should have been- Where does awareness go? Is it possible to maintain a constant awareness? What happens to the time I can't account for (asleep or unconscious)? Where are those memories? Is unconsciousness an oxymoron?

Thanks in advance for your patients and Happy New Year!
Kevin

Kevin,

Happy New Year to you too!

Yes, it is possible to maintain a constant local awareness 24x7x365.25. But there is no real point or great advantage in doing so. Don't confuse your conscious awareness in PMR with your consciousness -- the first is a function of your physical memory -- the second is always on and active -- i.e., constantly aware. Your awareness in PMR can fade as your overall awareness shifts its focus elsewhere (like when you sleep in PMR or have an OOBE or dream). Your PMR memory may or may not have any recollection of what your larger consciousness experiences -- what the flash light is illuminating. Just because you have no physical memory of all of your conscious activity does not mean the activity is not continuous. It is only your PMR physical memory that is discontinuous. Some activities of the consciousness do not translate back into the memory of your physical manifestation. Why would your physical part have to be, or even be allowed to be, aware of experiences that have no potential for profitability within the context of PMR. All that extraneous data would just be confusing and useless. Where does awareness go? It doesn't go anywhere -- your PMR existence is not the center of your consciousness. You are not the leader or master of your consciousness. You are a fragment that is off on the side having a virtual experience. You only get the data you need to learn what you are trying to learn within the PMR experience. Just because you turn the light off (no longer receive data) doesn't mean everything in the room ceases to exist or function. The problem is created by putting yourself (present PMR memory) at the core of, the very definition of, your consciousness.

Tom

Tom,

I just re-read your reply again, great answer! I didn't quite grasp it fully the first time around.

Do you have any recommendations on a course of study? I read everything I can get my hands on, looking for something interesting. There has got to be a more efficient way!


Thanks again,
Kevin

Kevin,

Of course, the answer from the author of My Big TOE is that you should read the My Big TOE (MBT) trilogy. Therein you will find reality laid out like a frog on the dissecting table -- physics and metaphysics, consciousness, mind, and physical matter all naturally and logically interrelated. Otherwise, I do not know what to tell you. I know very little about what else might be useful to you.

Some thoughts to consider: No books, including MBT, are likely to get you where you want to go because real personal growth is derived only from experience, not from intellectual understanding. Reading about it and being it are two very different things. A book like MBT can give you the framework or context within which you can better understand your personal experience, but you have to get out there in the world of consciousness and being and have the experience or you can not learn what you are seeking. You need to be it or become it and you can not get there just by reading about it. The key you are seeking is not in a book or contained within an intellectual abstract understanding. We, in this culture, have a belief that all knowledge must be created through intellectual effort which often leads us to look in books for what is right in front of our noses all the time. The more efficient way you seek is through experience -- opportunities are everywhere -- its about being, not manipulating symbols with the intellect (thinking). Though thinking is very useful and necessary, it is only a tool; it is an error to believe that thinking is the primary engine or tool that drives personal growth. Meditation, for example, is a more robust tool on this path of experiential learning. Bottom line: Use the intellect to provide direction and interpretive context while using experience (mediation experience and/or every day experience) to provide the substance.

You will find a much more detailed discussion of these points in MBT.

I hope some of this is helpful. I have a friend, Lyle, who is a voracious reader, I will ask him to pop into this discussion -- perhaps he has discovered something that he can point you towards.

Tom

Kevin,

Yes, “where does it go?“ is a great question. I have to agree that the best starting point is to read the My Big TOE trilogy. It will help you clarify your thinking about consciousness in general which is the heart of the problem. MBT will introduce you to the “PSI Uncertainty Principle“ (PUP) which governs information transfer between simulation levels (realities). My understanding is that, even if your consciousness is exploring and discovering deep truths beyond the usual physical limits (i.e. via paranormal means) during sleep, the PUP will limit what you remember upon waking, based on the quality of your consciousness, motivation and some random variables. There is no loophole around the PUP and in my opinion compatibility with the principle is a most useful gauge when evaluating any New Age belief system.

Donald J. DeGracia, Ph.D. has written “Paradigms of Consciousness During Sleep“
http://www.geocities.com/octanolboy/paradigms.pdf
which explores various conscious states during sleep.

Tom and Lyle,

Thanks for your quick responses! I have read the MBT trilogy; they are some of my favorite books. I catch something new every time I reread a book; maybe its time to reread MBT, there’s a lot of information to absorb in one sitting. I think perhaps what I need most is little more discipline.


Thanks again,
Kevin

Tom,

With what was said to Kevin's questions about "where does consciousness/awareness go" and with your answer stating that it goes nowhere but shifts its focus, I have a question about flying, floating, falling experiences in OBEs:

How is it that we experience the falling, flying, and floating sensations? Is our soul/etheric body experiencing movement and that is hwo we "feel" thes sensations while in OBEs? Or, is it merely info we are given based on what we need to see in our OBEs that creates the illusion that we are actualyl feeling these things?

Also, when going into and coming out of OBEs, why would we experience the vibrating, moving, separation from our physical bodies sensations if our consciousness is simply shifting its focus? Why would we "hear" whirring noises and experience the other OBE phenomena? I am trying to understand exactly what happens in these cases. I understand what you are saying that we simply shift focus (our consciousness) and that we are not actually going anywhere. Are the sensations the physical body's response to shifing our consiousness from the physical elsewhere?

Also, can you explain the silver chord idea better?

Thanks,
Shawn

Shawnimac,

"Or, is it merely info we are given based on what we need to see in our OBEs that creates the illusion that we are actually feeling these things?"

Yes, that is often the case. You said it very well. Motion in NPMR is always an illusion. The purpose for these illusions are sometimes just to give you an experience that you need -- to help you grow, to wake you up, to get your attention, to egg you on or nudge you to take the next step, or to give you a choice that exercises your intent. Sometimes it is just how you interpret an experience of change that doesn't translate well to PMR.

Nuts and bolts: Much of the flying, floating, falling experiences are the result of you interpreting your consciousness experience in terms of the spatiality of PMR. You must translate the NPMR experience into terms that make sense to you. You add the motion because your PMR conditioned belief structure cannot imaging how you could go from point A (someplace) to point B (someplace else) without traveling. [Notice the space-word “place“ — our vocabulary and thought processes do not allow us to communicate about moving about within spaceless consciousness — we are trapped by our language and habitual way of thinking in terms of PMR process/experience. We add in the feeling of motion to make our experience more understandable — so we can think and talk about it. Motion appears to be required to go from one “place“ to another in NPMR because our belief system, logic, and communication system ( thoughts and words) need that construct to form coherent thoughts, explanations, and experiences that are meaningful to us and that we can communicate to others. NPMR has great variety and vast differences of experience and interaction but no places. Space is a mental construct of consciousness -- not something consciousness flies around in — needing space to move around is a PMR 3D concept.

Space or physical dimensionality, within NPMR is an oxymoron. Activity in NPMR is relevant to the interaction of beings -- no space or spatial concepts are necessary. Thus all spatial functions such as motion, are simply how you interpret your NPMR experiences as you translate that experience to something comprehendible to your PMR perspective. In mind-space, there is no space — I know, the limitations of our PMR concepts and language make such statements difficult to understand.

Here is an experiment you can do that will help you gather evidence of your own. Next time you are out of body flying around to get somewhere, just stop moving and simply teleport to where you wish to go — think about where you want to go (in terms of relationship if you can) and you will instantly find yourself there. No travel or motion will be necessary. Everywhere is just a thought away.

Likewise the sensations of vibrating, moving, and separating from our physical bodies are because of our need for the trappings of physical process and the expression of trepidation, barriers, and portals in order for our experience to make sense to us — in order for what is happening to us to be more familiar and comprehendible. We are habituated to a linear causal (PMR type causality) process with attributes (sound, motion, sequences of events, etc.) that signifying change. It’s a cultural belief trap. Eventually, with lots of practice and familiarity you will learn to dispense with the ingrained habits of physical process and just get to the end point without them — they are entirely unnecessary — you experience them as an indulgence to you habituation of PMR constructs.

Same with the silver cord — a lifeline back to the body — only necessary if you believe the physical body is fundamental and the “astral body“ is somehow a derivative of it, dependent upon it or tethered to it. Your beliefs determine how you interpret what you experience — they limit your understanding. You go through tunnels, portals and passageways because you can't imagine any other possible way to get “there“ from “here“. Discard the beliefs, outgrow your habituation to PMR constructs and all the pseudo-physical stuff will disappear — that may disorient you for a while, but you will get the hang of navigating a spaceless space with practice. (Sorry about that wording.) You will still have to bring your NPMR experiences back to PMR by making them comprehendible in terms of your present understanding — but that understanding will become bigger, less belief based, and less limiting as you gain experience of the Big Picture and let go of unnecessary assumptions born of habitual PMR thinking (or assumptions accepted from the from the books you have read). Experiment. Have no expectations or fears. See what you can do. The freedom you have may surprise you. Probe the boundaries of you assumptions and limitations. Test your beliefs with carefully planned experiments.

Tom

Thanks for your info, Tom. I completely understand what you are saying. I have experienced some of the teletransporting when I am in many different OBEs in one night. Sometimes I will be in one scene, then I will jump immediately into another, and into another, and so on. When this happens, when I wake up I cannot tell in what order I was in each one, and I have let go of wanting to know. I have realized that is not important at all.

The thing I want to work on is being more conscious in my OBEs so that I can do more from conscious choice... i.e. doing things on demand because I want to instead of just "experiencing" events how they seem to happen.

Besides focusing on this, is there anything else I can do to make more conscious decisions in my OBEs?

Thanks,
Shawn

Shawn,

Don't push yourself too hard or try to go too fast. Just exploring as you are doing until you become very comfortable with it is valuable in and of itself. Your experiences have a point (your growth) and should change to something more structured as you are ready to take more control of the process. When it begins to get repetitive or slightly boring (your growth rate slows), decide ahead of time what you want to accomplish while OOB or an experiment you want to do -- then focus on it. If you can't get out of automatic mode, then try going out of your mind instead of out of your body. I like the sound of that! However, despite the humor, it actually is a serious suggestion. What I mean is, try projecting your consciousness into NPMR without doing an OOBE first. The mind, the consciousness, is the real deal — the OOBE reflects a particular process and expectation — by launching you mind directly (no out of body body) you will find that you are in a much larger and less limited NPMR reality and that your decisions are naturally directed by your consciousness without difficulty. You don't have to enter NPMR through an OOBE. There are more direct and less limited ways. The OOB reality is a limited reality -- just one small subset of the whole -- it is a sibling of the dream reality. Going out of your mind (OOM) might seem too simple and lacking in sufficient process to be real (outside of you) or credible because you are used to the OOB process with all its pseudo-physical trappings. However with practice and by requiring hard evidence of the independence of the reality you are exploring, your world of NPMR (and what you can do in it) will expand greatly. If going out of your mind is too big of a step, just keep exploring the OOB reality until you get really good (fast) at getting OOB. Speed, ease, and control of going OOB at will will help get you ready for going OOM. Don't ya just love it when you can get the words to play with you?

Tom

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your info again. I like the sound of going out of your mind, too! Well, I guess I can also say that I'm not quite sure what you mean by going out of mind instead going out of body. How do I know when I am doing that and not going into an OBE? Is it very different from going into an OBE? How do you get there?

Very often, I experience communicating with other people while sleeping, but it's different than an OBE. I don't see anything, but I communicate with others and know I am by intuition, by "feeling" it, and by just knowing. I know exactly who I'm communicating with, sometimes I know exactly what is being said, but other times I don't know what is said but I just know that we communicated. Is that what going out of mind is, or is it something different? If it's not the same thing, what is the communication referred to as, or is it simply telepathic/spiritual communication while being physically asleep? This is starting to happen more and more and is so fascinating!

Can you please explain the going out of mind process/experience more thoroughly and suggest ways of getting there and how I will know if/when I am there?

Thanks a bunch,
Shawn

Shawn,

This is a tough one to describe. Be patient, you'll probably get there, it just takes time to gain the necessary experience and collect the necessary evidence.

OOM is more like exploring NPMR from a meditation state.

Few physical sensations (except some pulsating under some circumstances), the conscious mind is continuous, operative, and in charge. Parallel processing is an option -- you can take the trip and be conversing with your NPMR friends, or healing an ill PMR friend, while listening to or participating in a conversation in PMR or driving a car in PMR, or walking around with eyes open in PMR. It is a consciousness meld with the larger reality -- you can pop in or out of it in less than a second. Much more efficient process than an OOBE and the reality you get to work in is much larger.

I hope this helps more than it confuses.

Tom

Hi Tom,

Yes, it helps. I have meditiated before and have seen many things. It does require more work, for me anyway, because if I pressure myself too much to meditiate it feels like a sort of control, so I need to work on doing it in a more relaxed manner.

About the communciation in NPMR, I have also experienced that while being awake in PMR, many times. It happens all the time, but I think most people don't realize, some don't buy into it, or whatever, but I take the time to notice it as much as I can and am working on seeing it more.

I have had instances where I have "heard" in my mind someone say something, and then they end up e-mailing the very thing I heard them say. This happens quite often, but I don't always know who it's coming from. Just this morning, when I was sound asleep and had a fan running, I suddenly woke out of my deep sleep but didn't hear anything that woke me up. After I woke up, I thought I heard something, so I listened. Then I realized someone was pounding on the door. I went to the door, and my housemate had locked her keys in her car. That's a perfect example of spiritual communcation, because I did not wake up because I physically heard something, but it was because I received the message spiritually then had to really figure out if I was physically hearing something or not.

Thanks,
Shawn

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2