
                      Plane Talk: Astral Meanderings

                by Don DeGracia (dondeg@compuserve.com)

                   Copyright  1995. All rights reserved.

                                October 1995

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     Introductions and Update:

     This is the first in a series of columns I'll be writing for
     Charles Goodin's Astral Projection Home Page. What I'd like to do
     for this first column is introduce myself to those of you who
     don't know me, and provide an of update of things for those of
     you who do know me, as well as give a sense of what I'll be doing
     in these columns.

     First off, I'd like to thank Charles for inviting me to write
     these columns for his page. I've gotten to know Charles over the
     past year. He and I are in the midst of conspiring to make as
     much information as possible about OBEs and altered states freely
     available over the Internet and throughout cyberspace. We
     encourage those of you out there who also have insights to
     contribute to do so.

     There is no question that there has been a continued growth of
     information about OBEs and other altered states multiplying like
     weeds out here on the Net. This is both good and bad. It's good
     because cyberspace provides a world-wide forum for us to all
     share our experience and express our ideas - in other words, many
     of us are discovering through cyberspace that we are not alone in
     our quest to explore altered states of consciousness. It's good
     because a beginner or someone with interest in altered states can
     get a lot of information easily via cyberspace. It's bad because
     the quantity of information that is accumulating is simply
     massive. Just look at Charles' Astral Projection Home Page or
     Ren K. Mller's Spirit Pages to see how much information there
     is. This quick and easy access to information lends itself to a
     particular abuse: absorbing too much without digesting it. When I
     got into all this stuff, I had to read books; one at a time, the
     old fashioned way! This gave me time to think about what I was
     reading before I moved on to the next book. With all the info out
     here on the Net, its easy to skim over lots of it without really
     integrating any of it into your thinking. This is a pitfall to
     avoid, no matter how tempting it is to try to absorb large
     quantities of ideas quickly as the Net tempts us to do.

     Another potential problem with the ever-multiplying info on
     altered states out here on the Net is simply the variety of
     viewpoints you'll encounter. Actually, this too is good and bad.
     It's good because diversity is good in its own right. Its good
     because this diversity simply reflects psychological reality. No
     one viewpoint is correct (a theme I will continually dwell on).
     On the other hand, spiritual matters, altered states, occultism
     and such topics are highly personal and highly dependant on where
     any one of us is at in terms of our psychological growth and
     maturity. When it comes to spirituality and exploring altered
     states, what is good for one person may be totally unhealthy for
     another and completely irrelevant to another person. Thus, in the
     plethora of information of spirituality and related topics
     available here on the Net, each of us has to use caution and
     discrimination when evaluating if a particular idea is relevant
     to our present needs. In other words, what I am saying is don't
     unthinkingly accept everything you see and hear out here on the
     Net. The variety that exists out here reflects the variety of
     needs that all of us are experiencing when the information is
     posted. Thus, any piece of info simply may or may not be
     relevant. Based on my experience, most people out here do indeed
     know how to discriminate this kind of stuff, but its worth saying
     and reminding everybody.

     So, having made my introductory remarks, let me say a bit about
     myself and this column. My name, as you can see from the author
     credits, is Don DeGracia. Those of you who know me know I'm the
     author of the free e-book DO_OBE, which is a "how-to" book about
     astral projections/OBEs/lucid dreams. For those of you who
     haven't read DO_OBE, I've been exploring astral projection since
     1987 and have had quite a few of these experiences, well over 150
     of them by now, though I've given up counting them to be honest.
     I've extensively studied these experiences, both in terms of
     reading about them (though there is still plenty more I have to
     read!) and in terms of actually having them. I've also studied
     occult ideas extensively. As well, I'm a scientist. I make my
     living doing biochemistry in a university. In a few months I
     should be getting my PhD in the field of physiology (but please
     don't call me "Doctor"!). I am very interested in all of science
     from physics to sociology, but I am especially interested in
     brain science. I'll have a lot to say in this column about brain
     science and its relation to the altered states we can achieve. In
     general, I take pretty much a scientific attitude towards altered
     states, but I respect and am open to occult theories of altered
     states (unlike many scientists, unfortunately). And most of all,
     I really try to stress a practical approach to altered states.
     Talk and ideas are one thing - being able to do something for
     yourself is another. So, more than any particular theoretical
     framework, I stress practical ideas and direct experience.

     For those of you who do know me, let me update you on things. Its
     been over a year since DO_OBE was released into cyberspace. Over
     this year I have received email from literally hundreds of people
     around the world who've read the book and took me up on my offer
     to drop me email. People have written and given me many nice
     compliments on the book, they've written with lots of questions,
     and they have shared many of their direct experiences with me.
     And I have to say, its been an incredible education experience
     for me! All this feedback has had a substantial impact on my
     ideas.

     For one thing, hearing from so many people has allowed me to see
     many similarities in our projection experiences. This only
     reinforces my contention that projecting is a natural ability
     that most of us can achieve with some effort. I am also now more
     convinced than ever that projecting (or whatever you want to call
     it) is a completely objective experience. There are far too many
     similarities in people's experiences to think that these
     experiences are somehow merely "subjective". Something very real
     and valid is going on here. As time goes on, more and more
     people, layman and scientists alike, are coming to appreciate
     this.

     But probably most importantly, talking to so many people about
     OBEs, about spirituality and about life in general has really
     driven home something to me: our similarities really outweigh our
     differences. Its been an amazing experience for me to interface
     with so many people involved in pursuit of spiritual paths, and
     to see just how much we all really have in common. All this has
     only served to humble me even further and help to dissolve
     pretensions hidden in my ideas and my personality. In DO_OBE, I
     stated, that practing OBEs had a strong element of therapy in it,
     but I never imagined it could manifest like this - by simply
     communicating and sharing ideas and experiences with so many
     people!

     In terms of my ideas about OBEs, my thinking has continued to
     grow and mature since DO_OBE was written. After the book was
     written and released into cyberspace, I ended up taking a
     graduate class in neurophysiology (brain science). What I learned
     in this class had a major impact on my thinking. Most
     importantly, this class opened me up to the vast and complex
     field of neurophysiology, When I wrote DO_OBE, I only had a scant
     familiarity of this field. Since taking this class and basically
     learning the language of brain science, I've beg un to read and
     investigate the scientific literature on sleep, dreams, OBEs and
     other altered states. What I have learned in the past year is
     that the scientific study of sleep, dreams, OBEs, and altered
     states is more sophisticated than I had ever thought and
     definitely more sophisticated than the simple minded impression
     of scientific approaches to altered states I presented in DO_OBE.
     For example, and this may be surprising to many of you, at the
     time of writing DO_OBE, I was unfamiliar with Dr. Stephen
     LaBerge's work and research on lucid dreaming at The Lucidity
     Institute. When I read his book Lucid Dreaming (Ballantine, 1985)
     I was amazed at how sophisticated his viewpoint was. Likewise, I
     have discovered many other very good ideas in the scientific
     literature that have expanded my views about what OBEs/lucid
     dreams/astral projections could be.

     Given all the new ideas I have learned, both from talking to
     people through the email and from all the material I've been
     reading, its pretty clear to me now that the ideas I present in
     DO_OBE are not as balanced as they are in my mind now. I leaned
     heavily on occult ideas in DO_OBE and missed out completely on
     many important scientific ideas. One example is in DO_OBE I
     describe something called an "etheric projection". During an
     "etheric projection" one is essentially paralyzed and cannot
     move. Well, as many of you know, the idea of sleep paralysis is a
     common one, and what I call an "etheric projection" in DO_OBE is
     actually referring to this phenomena of sleep paralysis. And as
     many of you probably know, sleep paralysis occurs during REM
     (rapid eye movement) sleep, when all of the muscles of the body
     are paralyzed except the muscles in our chest that control
     breathing and the muscles in our eyes that lead to REM.

     So, in some respects, I've been playing "catch-up" through this
     last year, trying to get better informed about scientific ideas
     relating to sleep, dreams and OBE/lucid dreams (and other altered
     states).

     I have a vision. This vision is that scientific and occult ideas
     about Nature and Humanity can and should be mixed. Science is a
     method for testing the validity of our ideas by using
     experiments. Occultism is a study of the inner facets of our
     psychology and spirituality. There is massive overlap between
     these two sets of teachings. Some scientists, such as Carl Jung,
     can be considered to be either a scientist or occultist, or both.

     The study of OBEs/lucid dreams/astral projecting sits smack in
     the middle of science and occultism. Originally, this experience
     was the purview of occultism and called an "astral projection".
     During the first three quarters of this century,
     parapsychologists brought the study of projecting into the realm
     of science by conceptualizing it as an OBE. In the last decade
     and a half, psychologists have brought the study of this
     experience even deeper into the realm of science by seeing it as
     a lucid dream and bringing to bear the tools and understanding of
     psychology and neurology.

     Today, many scientists eschew the occult views of the projection
     experience and dismiss occult ideas as the mythologies of a less
     scientific and more naive age. Even the idea of the "out of body
     experience" appears to have fallen out of favor. LaBerge argues
     that seeing lucid dreams even as OBEs is also a primitive attempt
     to explain what these experiences are. I basically agree with
     LaBarge's ideas about the parapsychological approach. In DO_OBE I
     made no bones about criticizing the parapsychological idea of the
     OBE. However, I am less ready to dismiss occult ideas about the
     planes of nature. Too much is still unknown in brain science and
     in physics for me to conclude that the planes don't exist or that
     the occult idea that we have transcendental aspects (such as a
     soul) is hogwash. However, my ideas now are more tempered and
     more refined because I have a better understanding of the state
     of current scientific ideas about sleep and dreams and about the
     operation of the brain in general.

     So, in a nutshell: Since DO_OBE was released a year ago I've
     learned more and continued to grow in my ideas about what
     projections are and what they mean to us as individuals. I've
     studied more of the scientific angle and have integrated this
     into my thinking, leading to a more balanced point of view
     between scientific and occult conceptions of the projection
     experience. And I've communicated with a lot of people, hearing a
     lot more about people's personal experiences projecting than I
     ever dreamed I would. This has really given me a lot to think
     about and I hope to use upcoming columns to share with you all
     some of the new insights I've gained. As well, all the new things
     I have learned over the past year have also affected my own
     projection experiences, and I hope to talk about these in future
     columns. So, stay tuned, there's more psycho-babble to come!

     Take care, Everyone!

     Don

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