This chapter offers solutions to some common projection-related problems. It also offers rope technique modifications and alternative projection techniques that may suit some people better. I also find it helps new projectors if they try several different projection techniques during each projection attempt. This not only provides a much-needed variety of exercise for awareness hands actions, but helps prevent boredom. Using the same projection technique for long periods of time can become a trifle monotonous and may cause some projectors to lose interest or fall asleep. Also, the relaxation, trance, and energy work exercises can be done separately from an actual projection attempt.
Go through the full sequence right up to the projection technique, then get up and take a short break to relax or refresh yourself. During this break, try to hold on to as much of the deeply relaxed physical and mental state as you can. Return to your bed or chair and spend a few minutes resettling and re-relaxing yourself, both physically and mentally. Once you are settled and ready, use the quick or instant projection method.
If climbing the rope has a strong effect on you, the rope technique can be used on its own as a viable alternative to other trance-induction techniques. This can speed up the preparatory work required for a projection attempt.
Variations on the Rope Technique
One-Handed Rope: If one awareness hand does not appear to obey or feels weak or uncontrollable, the rope technique can be done with one hand only, using the hand that is most responsive. If you can manage it, have the weaker hand just hold on to the rope (as if the rope were slipping through the grip of the weaker hand), while the stronger hand does the real climbing. Feel the strong hand reaching out and pulling the rope toward your chest, then reaching out and pulling again, in a continual one-handed climbing action. Try reaching out much farther than your physical arms could. Imagine that your awareness arms are made of rubber and feel they are stretching way out as you climb up the rope.
Chasm-Crossing Rope: Instead of a rope hanging down from above, imagine a strong, taut rope running across the ceiling of your room, in line with your body and just above it, within easy reach of your hands. This rope is firmly attached to strong brackets mounted on two opposing walls of your room. Feel your hands reaching out and feel yourself climbing along this rope, dragging yourself across the room toward the wall behind your head and out of your body. If you have a wall behind your bed and this puts you off, either change ends in the bed during projection attempts or imagine you are climbing through the wall.
Hanging Rope: Another way to get around weak or uncontrollable awareness hand actions is to reach out and feel they are hanging on to a strong rope coming from above. Don't try to climb this rope; just feel yourself hanging on to it. When you get used to this, imagine you are being slowly winched upward by a helicopter, dragging you up and out of your body. Feel yourself being lifted and sliding out of your body, moving higher and higher. Feel yourself slowly leaving your body behind you.
Feel your spatial coordinates in the room changing as you rise up and out of your physical body and through the ceiling.
Water Ski Rope: Instead of a rope hanging from the ceiling, imagine you are holding the handle of a ski rope attached to a powerful speedboat in front of you. Feel yourself hanging on tightly to the handle of the ski rope, as if you were floating on your back, ready for a deep-water start. Adjust the angle of the ski rope to whatever feels most natural. Imagine you can hear the engine revving up, the excitement building, then suddenly the boat takes off and drags you out of your body in a flurry of astral spray.
Rope Cargo Net: Imagine that you have a large rope cargo net hanging down in front of you, similar to the heavy rope netting used on military assault courses that is hung from poles to make a short, high rope fence that trainees have to climb. If sitting, imagine this heavy rope netting hanging in front of you within easy hands' reach. If lying down, imagine the net hanging from above you. Climb the rope netting in the same manner as described for the normal rope technique. With this method, it does not matter where your hands go, as they will always find a piece of rope to grab. Scramble up this net any which way you can, using hands and arms and legs and feet in any way that works to
propel you upward and out of your body. This technique solves many awareness hands control problems, where they appear to have a mind of their own and flop and slide all over the place.
Alternative Exercises and Techniques
Washing Hands Exercise: Hold both awareness hands out in front and perform a washing action, as if washing your real hands and forearms with soap and water. Vary the speed of the washing action from slow to rapid and keep it at arm's length from your body.
Steam Engine Exercise: Hold both awareness arms out in front of you. Imagine a circle whose diameter is the distance between your chest and hands. Circle your awareness hands around each other, following the outside diameter of this circle (something like the hand and arm actions if you were playing at being a steam engine).
After a short time, the action will settle into a rhythm. Now, here comes the difficult part: after doing it for twenty seconds or more, stop and reverse the action. The awareness action momentum will force this circling to continue in its original direction, making it difficult to stop or change it. If you concentrate, you will find this can be achieved with effort. Don't worry if you fail to do this the first few times you try. Keep at it and you'll succeed. The difficulty of this exercise shows its training value. If you practice this regularly you will quickly gain better control and strength with all awareness hand and arm actions. This benefits all stimulation and energy-raising actions, including those used with projection techniques. This exercise can also trigger the projection reflex on its own. Look on this as a muscle-building workout for your awareness arms and hands.
Big Wheel Method: An extension of the above method is to imagine yourself holding a large bicycle wheel upright in front of you. This wheel should fill the room, with its center hanging in space in the middle of the room between your physical body and the farthest point of the wheel from it.
Prepare for projection. Feel a single point of awareness moving out from your body, from your head area, and flying upward and away from you. Push this point of awareness up and over the top part of the circumference of the big wheel, moving it all the way over and down and around and back to your body. Feel this point of awareness moving up through your body, through your base center and up through all other primary energy centers until it moves out through your head. Feel this point of awareness as being heavy and solid. Move your point of awareness around and around this big wheel until you build up a steady rhythm.
As with all bounce-type actions, vary this speed until you find the most natural speed for it. Feel the heavy point of awareness tearing upward through your body each time. You will notice as it passes through your body that this action slows, then speeds up again as it moves away from you each time. This momentary drag is caused by the awareness resistance factor that is encountered with any awareness bounce action through the body. It shows that this action is stimulating your etheric body as it passes through it.
This method is quite powerful and will easily trigger the projection reflex if you can hold it reasonably steady for long enough. It does not matter if your point of awareness wavers or wiggles a bit from side to side as it circles the big wheel, as long as you keep it roughly under control and circling. Keeping it steady can take a bit of effort, but as with the above steam engine exercise, it is also invaluable for training the will to control exterior body-awareness actions.
Ladder Method: A good alternative to using a rope is to imagine a strong ladder hanging from the ceiling. The lowest rung of this ladder should be within easy reach of your hands, or whatever feels most natural. Climb this ladder hand over hand, feeling yourself moving up the ladder toward the ceiling. Feel the room changing around you and your spatial coordinates changing as you climb. Feel yourself moving higher and higher up the endless ladder. If you imagine yourself reaching the ceiling, feel yourself climbing through it and beyond as if the ladder were infinite in length.
Point Shift Method: Point shift is the most direct and powerful projection technique of all, although it can be somewhat difficult to learn. It requires a great deal of concentrated mental effort, in that projectors must hold their whole-of-body awareness image exterior from their physical body for some time in order to trigger the projection reflex. This is the technique I first learned and used for most of my early conscious-exit projections. Its difficulty accounted for many of the projection-related
problems I had at that time. Despite this, it is extremely effective when mastered. It is well worth the effort of learning it; some people will find they'll take to it like a duck to water.
I currently use a combination of rope and point shift for most of my projections. I start by using point shift, then when I am partly out, I include rope. I generally switch back and forth between these techniques many times during an exit. I find alternating techniques like this makes the exit easier and quicker. If I am projecting from a bed, I also use the rolling-out method (described later) to finish off the exit.
First prepare yourself for a projection attempt in the usual way: Go through the relaxation, trance-induction, and energy-stimulation techniques, as per the full-, quick-, or instant-projection sequences — whatever is required.
Feel and become aware of your whole body. Feel your body's spatial coordinates in relation to the room around you. Run your mind over where the doors, walls, windows, and furniture are in your room. Build a spatial map of this with your imagination, in your mind's eye, in your perception of yourself and the room around you.
Using imagination powered by whole-body awareness, feel yourself rising or stepping out of your body, then floating or standing just out of arm's reach from your physical body.
If you are lying in bed, feel yourself as floating at arm's reach above your physical body, staying in line with it and facing the ceiling. If you are using a chair, feel yourself as standing three feet (one meter) away from your physical body. Imagine, feel, and perceive as strongly as you can what it would feel like to actually be out there in front of your physical body.
Hold your whole-body awareness firmly centered in your imagined exterior body in its new location. Do not try to see or feel your double as being above or in front of you; feel yourself as being above or in front of your physical body, from your projected double's perspective. This is tricky but will get easier with practice. Concentrate on sensing the changed spatial coordinates of the room around you from this new perspective. Feel and be aware of your physical body waiting behind or beneath you. Imagine and feel your projected double as already having separated from your physical body. Concentrate on holding your point of whole-body awareness inside your imagined projected double in its new location.
Feel the pressure of your physical body trying to pull you back into it. Feel yourself fighting this pressure. Concentrate and use your strength of will to force your projected double to strain and fight against mis pressure. Fill your mind with the single-minded, determined intention to project free of your physical body. Use maximum willpower, but do not allow your physical body to tense or respond in any way.
If you are projecting from a bed, mentally grit your teeth (without tensing) and feel yourself slowly but forcefully rising away from your physical body. Force yourself to rise an inch at a time.
Roll your projected double's shoulders one after the other and try to shoulder yourself higher and farther away from your physical body a bit at a time. Try to feel yourself rolling away toward the center of the room if that helps.
If projecting from a chair, mentally grit your teeth (without tensing) and take one small but forceful step at a time away from your physical body. Step away an inch at a time, struggling against the force binding you to it. Feel this force steadily weakening in response to your efforts!
Feel your imagined projected double's shoulders hunching and heaving and your head straining forward as you slowly but steadily tear through the force binding you to your physical body.
Hold the above actions strongly enough and they will trigger the projection reflex very quickly.
Do not allow your physical body to tense up while doing any of the above — this is the real trick to point shift. These are all imaginative body-awareness actions.
Steam Method: Prepare for a projection attempt as normal. When you are ready, become aware of your whole body and of where it is in relation to the room around you, as in the above point shift technique. Imagine yourself becoming lighter and lighter, as if your body were turning into steam.
Steam expands and rises. Feel yourself becoming bigger and lighter and, slowly but gently, rising up and out of your physical body. Feel your perception of the room changing as you rise higher. Stay aware of where your physical body is beneath you as you float free. Feel your whole-of-body awareness centered firmly inside your steam body and feel this as being just above your physical body and slowly floating free of it. Do not hold your steam body rigid. Encourage it to gently bob and sway about wherever it wants. This slight floating movement makes the steam method easier.
Rolling-Out Method: Rolling out of body is a popular and reasonably effective projection technique. It makes use of a natural whole-of-body awareness movement — that of rolling over or out of bed — something you have done thousands of times. This method is especially useful if a spontaneous projection has already started, or if you find yourself partially stuck to your body during an exit attempt. When used as a main projection technique however, it leaves a lot to be desired, as it can be difficult to cause a projection with this method from scratch. I consider this method best suited to assisting with difficult projections or for finishing off projections.
Feel yourself rolling to the side, as if you were rolling over and out of bed. Repeat this action as many times as necessary. Get a whole-of-body awareness feeling into the body roll as if you were really doing it. Do not allow your physical body to tense or respond to this action in any way.
Alternatively, if using a chair, feel the rolling action as if you were curling up and rolling out of your chair. Feel your perspective of the room changing around you as you roll. This technique is definitely worth a shot as a main projection technique if other methods have failed you. I find the rolling-out action also helps during difficult projections, say if I find myself glued to a part of my body, as occasionally happens if I have not prepared myself correctly.
Rocket Method: Prepare for a projection attempt. When you are ready, imagine you are lying flat on the tip of a very large rocket. The bulk of the huge rocket is hidden deep inside a subterranean tube beneath you. Your bed or chair is firmly attached to the tip of this rocket and enclosed by an impenetrable glass nose cone. The ceiling and walls slowly fall away, disappearing all around you to reveal the stars. Feel the rocket rumble and tremble beneath you as its enormous engines fire and it slowly lifts off, taking you with it. Feel and imagine yourself slowly rising toward the stars with the great engines thundering beneath you. Feel the rocket's vibrations coursing through you and feel yourself rising out of your body and room and toward the stars. Stay aware of your physical body remaining where it is as you rise. Feel these vibrations increasing and spreading and coursing through your whole body, as the rocket blasts off and roars into the star-filled night.
Boomerang Method: This technique uses a one-pointed bounce action from the brow center. It neatly overcomes the difficulties encountered when holding a point of body awareness exterior to the physical body, by using an awareness bounce action. This causes you to feel and see a brief flash of a new spatial location in your mind's eye at the end of each outward bounce action. This tricks your mind into accepting a momentary shift of a point of awareness to an exterior location.
First, pick a target on the ceiling above your bed, or high on the wall opposite you if using a chair. This can be a light fixture or picture (anything) or you can affix a small paper target there instead. Stand on your bed, or stand on a chair (be careful not to fall!) and get the feel of what it's like to be right up close to this target. Lock the image of this target in your mind's eye. Get the feel of how the furniture, windows, doors, and bed all look and feel like from there while you are facing the target. Memorize what it feels like to be at the target area.
First, pick a target on the ceiling above your bed, or high on the wall opposite you if using a chair. This can be a light fixture or picture (anything) or you can affix a small paper target there instead. Stand on your bed, or stand on a chair (be careful not to fall!) and get the feel of what it's like to be right up close to this target. Lock the image of this target in your mind's eye. Get the feel of how the furniture, windows, doors, and bed all look and feel like from there while you are facing the target. Memorize what it feels like to be at the target area.