Perspective Shift

Hey everyone! I just wanted to make a formal post to inform all of my regular readers or even people just stopping by that I am still around. I've been gone lately because I've been in the middle of a rather big move. I relocated to be closer to my university, however in doing so it caused some complications with my free time. I'm just now getting settled in with employment and things are finally beginning to calm down.

The other issue I faced was not bringing my personal computer with me during the move. I need to have it sent here, but in the mean time I'll be able to stop by the library a few days a week for a few hours so I can try to answer any questions you guys might have, or have already asked. I just replied to some of your comments and I'm pretty sure I have more to do. For those of you awaiting my return comment on your blog I will get to that the next time I'm at a computer. Thanks for your patience everyone! I really appreciate it. :).

Take Care,
~Chris

When you hear the word addiction, the first thought that comes to mind is probably a junkie shooting up, or someone living their life at the bottom of there particular bottle of choice. If this is the case then you aren't alone. The majority of people perceive addiction as an urge or compulsion to continuously do or use something without regard for their well being, or the well being of people close to them. Though this is true, this is not where addiction ends, or begins. The true nature of addiction stretches far beyond the pills, needles, and bottles. Addiction can and does strike millions of people in the one place they thought they were safe. Their minds.

At First Glance

That current adopted belief as it applies to addiction is definitely not new. It's also something we see on a daily basis in movies, cartoons, books, and even children's shows (the Hamburgler, Cookie Monster, etc...). The truth is, there are over 22 million people suffering from some form of substance addiction or another in the United States alone. Over 100,000 deaths a year accumulate just from alcoholism related accidents. These numbers are enough to scare any person straight right? Unfortunately not. As time moves forward overall addiction is not decreasing. Younger kids are able to get their hands on drugs from medicine cabinets, and even school supplies. Huffing has become one of the major drug issues in suburban America.

To combat these issues we constantly hear about "The War On Drugs." Well, this isn't a myth as far as I'm aware. Over $19 Billion dollars was spent to combat the distribution and use of drugs in 2003. That equates to $600 a second! Despite this, the drug market continues to be a multi-billion dollar industry. In fact, the value for the global illicit drug market in 2003 was counted at an estimated $13 billion US Dollars at the production level, and $94 billion at the wholesale level. This is taking into consideration all seizures and losses into account, and at $322 billion based on retail prices.

So, it's safe to say that the war on drugs is not being won on either side of the equation. So how to we combat this issue? Awareness. It takes an awareness and constant education to the youth to truly put a damper on the drug issues we face. With more and more substances being consumed to reach that desired state of euphoria, it's our job to educate the youth and our peers about the dangers of these drugs. As parents, monitoring what your children are watching, and reading is crucial. On top of this, beginning to educate them at a young age, and potentially before YOU believe they are ready to hear it, can have a monumental impact on slowing this growing trend down.

All this aside, there are still a number of issues we have to face as a community. These issues are not coming from the things we are putting into our bodies, but our lack of awareness to our own thoughts. The major addictions we face are instilled within our own thought processes, and it is most of the time overlooked or pushed to the side. We all suffer from some form of addiction or another, and many of us don't even realize it.

The Nature of Addictive Personalities

Understanding that addiction is a real issue is the first step. The second is understanding that addiction it self is not limited to substance abuse. It is a common belief that many addicts use to escape their current reality. When you are in that state of euphoria the real world issues no longer affect the person using. They feel free, and absent. Once this high comes down, they realize that not only are they still living in the "real world," but they still have to deal with these issues like stress, finances, school work, relationships, etc... So they use again. We see this process continue and repeat until the person in question no longer has any bearing in our daily lives. They fall away from the work force, end up homeless, or dead.

Stopping these issues has to come not from reducing the availability of drugs (couldn't hurt) but from tackling the psychological issues they don't even know they have. How do we do this? By first realizing that the possible junkie in the subway, or the alcoholic begging for change on the corner is not a stranger. They are you. Quite possibly, perhaps not to that extent, but the truth is that we ALL have with us the nature to become addicted to one thing or another. For some this unseen addiction is stress. For others, turmoil, fear, depression, even happiness. We have personality faults that forbid us from realizing this, and because of it we constantly fail because these addictions impede our view on reality.

If someone is complete and utterly addicted to that feeling of blissful happiness, we may see them completely ignore the very real emotional urge to cry. Instead, they may smile and laugh it off. Well, this may seem completely fine and encouraged, but the act of crying to expel feelings of sadness is completely human. Eliminating this from our lives can have terrible psychological affects that lead to therapy, denial, and even an inability to show sympathy. Understanding that we all possess with us an addiction like this is definitely not the easiest task. I personally discovered that I was innately addicted to being angry.

I grew up in a rather bouncy household (to put it nicely). My father left when I was young and popped in randomly, he was addicted to heroine and alocohol, and when I turned 12 my mother fell victim to alcoholism in a horrible way. This addiction continued well into my college years and she is currently recovering. The situations these issues put me in were harsh, and to deal with my own feelings of resentment, sorrow, and depression, I turned to anger. I was angry all of the time, even if something was completely fine I would find irritants in nothing, just for an excuse to yell, to scream, and to take my anger out in a rage on a punching bag.

All the meditation in the world wouldn't help me. Why? Because I had no idea that I was addicted to this! No body told me, sat me down and let me know that "Chris, I believe you have an anger problem" and realistically, if they did would I listen? I can almost guarantee you that I wouldn't. Truth is, we need to uncover these issues for ourselves. Getting someone to help us can be of great assistance, but unless we are consciously prepared to hear another persons criticism, and make the changes we need to make, all the advice in the world will become irrelevant.

Breaking the Cycle

Breaking this horrible cycle of growing into these personal addictions which can sometimes lead to serious life issues needs to begin with a single step. That step being acceptance. No body is perfect in our world today, and understanding that you have faults is step one. I don't mean just saying "yeah I'm not perfect, I know that," I mean literally sitting down and consciously naming your faults with no prejudice. I often recommend utilizing a method offered within the Soul Mirror for this step.

It can be somewhat time consuming, even upsetting to do this, but it can have a profound impact on your life. It can bring so much clarity into an otherwise overlooked area of your life it's completely worth the work. After you have completed this, you need to take one step at a time to tackle these issues. If you were otherwise afraid of crying, try to cry at least once a week, once a month to start if you need to. I'm not saying you need to sit there and boohoo, crying into a pillow and screaming to the top of your lungs (not unless you want to), but consciously crying can have amazing positive affects on your life.

The same goes for any other issue you may be facing. If you are just prone to a lack of patience, then take steps to developing patience. If you are angry, calm your self. Learn how to walk away from situations that set you off, and if you cannot avoid them take time to think and breathe before you speak or act. I never said it was an easy process, but it's one you will value and appreciate taking for the rest of your life. One more vital component in stopping this horrible cycle is telling your peers. Let your peers know the dangers of ignoring your faults and dismissing your own issues. Let them know what kind of harmful affects it can have you their lives. I don't mean for you to blame yourself for every thing that goes wrong in your life. Just don't let yourself not take accountability for the things you can consciously work to change for the better. It may take some time, but just work at it. We all need to, and we're all in this together. So with that, I'll see you on the other side :).

I find it some what hypocritical that we, often referred to as "spiritual peoples" have a tendency to view the world or reality as a giant puzzle just waiting to be pieced together. Or wait, do we? Quite the contrary actually. Most of the time general spirituality is perceived as being a practice, or some form of undertaking and belief geared towards pursuing and developing ourselves to better achieve some goal in a spiritual sense. Some see this as being enlightenment, others see it as more so a form of just basic understanding or being. The common ground here, is that we perceive it as being something we need to work towards, that we have some innate purpose in bettering ourselves. But compared to WHAT exactly? Here is where things begin to get interesting.

Though I can attest to spirituality being a practice in which we uncover, and advance in things about not only ourselves, but others and the universe in which we live. I also have come to the conclusion that if we are to truly understand where we are going, we should first uncover possible faults, or holes in our thinking about the very thing in which we are pursuing. To do this, we first need to understand one thing. This being the very definitive and shared belief found within every path of spirituality. The belief in the ultimate creator, God if you will. Now, don't jump to conclusions, I'm not dismissing Gods existence, that would be rather hypocritical of me. I'm more so attempting to open you up to a different angle on the subject of God, and how God applies in a more tangible sense to our reality, and our spirituality.

Defining "God" in Spirituality

What exactly is God in a spiritual sense? The question may seem almost pointless to some because God is of course, the creator of all things around us! The supreme being, entity, or thing that permeates our very being! God is responsible for all things! Yet, even though I can't deny this belief, I have a few issues with leaving it at "God is." This isn't some form of rebellion I have, and it's not that I'm not fine with our current views, it's just that if the entire purpose is exploration and understanding, then allowing ourselves to sit in content with one thing, yet not others, is not going to get us anywhere and we in essence become kin the very thing in which we seek to advance from. Ignorance.

Within spirituality we find various different perspectives on the subject of God, many of which do revolve around the common understanding of God being the general creator. But how exactly can we touch this idea of God? In this sense we really cannot. We have meditations, rituals, and various practices to get us closer to this "thing," yet in the end we truly cannot touch what we cannot understand. Then we have another perspective.

That being that God is not only the creator, but God is the creation. God is all and all is God. This would seem more plausible to some, because how could a being, or essence which has existed forever place itself apart from it's very creation. The very creation in which we have been "made in its image." This doesn't seem very likely, and so we can use this perspective because it would mean that God is not just some thing sitting on a pedestal, but God would be all of us, you, me, and that cup of your fancy sitting on the desk. This very thought is where we find the border line between Science and Spirituality, becomes very thin.

Science and God

Many spiritual people perceive science in itself to be somewhat against God. Or let me rephrase, many RELIGIOUS people feel this way. I make this distinction because spirituality in it of itself is not just a set group of people or beliefs. It is an extremely broad topic which contains people of many different beliefs. Religion, though it may be vast and broad in it's own right, is commonly attributed to a set doctrine of beliefs. Many of these beliefs are based on specific texts and ideals in which to worship and live your life. This is where we soon find the conflict between God and Science, because within many of these beliefs we see the view point that science seems to attempt to disprove the existence of God which no doubt, to put it bluntly, pisses people off.

All of that aside, as was mentioned before, science is coming to a point where the border line between science and God is becoming very thin. Quantum physics is a topic that has had a lot of attention by your average Joe ever since "What The Bleep Do We Know," a documentary style movie that was released in February of 2004 which discussed the power of the Law of Attraction. For those of you completely new to the idea of Quantum Physics, let's take a second to briefly figure out what exactly that means.

Quantum Physics is a branch of physics which deals with very small bits of "matter." These small bits of matter, otherwise referred to as parts of reality are called quanta. This is directly derivative of the Quantum Theory, within which we see five main ideas:

1. Energy is not continuous, but comes in small but discrete units.

2. The elementary particles behave both like particles and like waves.

3. The movement of these particles is inherently random.

4. It is physically impossible to know both the position and the momentum of a particle at the same time. The more precisely one is known, the less precise the measurement of the other is.

5. The atomic world is nothing like the world we live in.

Though this may appear to be your typical run of the mill scientific theory, it is actually far more impressive than that. So impressive that once you begin to delve into the topic, you realize that the science it self creates thought within you that borders a spiritual belief or practice all by it self, simply by the amazing relation to thoughts, and life. You may be thinking, well, how could this possibly be? How could SCIENCE be directly correlated to SPIRITUALITY? Well, funny enough, within quantum physics we learn that our very thoughts, have profound affects on our reality. Or rather, what we call reality.

Well WOW, is this NOT something we "spiritual people" have been saying for years?! Well, actually, it is. It's exactly what people have been saying for thousands of years. This directly coincides with the many practices of intention for manifestation that we find in Magic, or the direct manifestation meditations we find in Buddhism or related areas. The list goes on, but within the world of Quantum Physics, we can finally touch, or rather, begin to touch what we before could only describe in a mystical sense.

How Intent or Thought Affects our "Reality"

Whenever this question comes up the first thing I always point people to is Dr. Quantum, otherwise known as Dr. Fred Allen Wolf, and his video about the Double Slit Experiment in which he describes very understandably, the amazing affect of measurement on the quantum reality.

Within this experiment physicists were seeking to understand how particles (little bits of matter) acted. It began by first taking these tiny particles and firing them through a single slit to see the pattern that would emerge on the other side. They replicated it using two slits, and found a similar pattern. What had occurred is that when the particles were fired towards a wall with a single slit, the pattern on the other side directly reflected this. Showing the pattern directly in line with the slit. Similarly, when they were fired at a wall with two slits, then two patterns directly in line with the slits emerged.

What really began to baffle scientists is when they started looking at waves, and what soon followed. When they saw a wave come in contact with a single slit, they realized that similarly to the previous experiment, the pattern on the other side directly reflected this. Where the slit was, the pattern on the other side was a lot stronger, indicating that more passed through where the slit was, as expected. When they included two slits, the waves interfered and collided with each other, leaving several "hot spots" on the wall behind it. This was called an interference pattern.

When they decided to "go quantum" as the video describes it, they proceeded to do the experiment again, only firing electrons this time. They got the same result when firing these electrons through a single slit, so nothing seemed out of place. Yet when they attempted to fire these tiny bits of matter known as electrons towards two slits, as opposed to receiving two patterns on the other side, they got an interference pattern just like the waves! This may not seem significant in reading this, but I strongly advise you to watch the video, as it no doubt does a much better job of explaining this and at only five minutes in length it's well worth it.

Scientists were baffled by this, because it simply did not make sense to them. They assumed that the tiny bits of matter were some how bouncing off of each other to make the interference pattern. So to solve this issue, they fired one electron at a time thinking that surly this would change the results. Surprisingly, they received the same affect! The video offers us a very strong explanation of this event. Dr. Quantum suggests that "the single electron is fired, becomes a wave of potentials and goes through BOTH slits, and interferes with it self to hit the wall like a particle." He goes on to say that "mathematically, it's even stranger. It goes through both slits, and it goes through neither, and it goes through just one, and it goes through just the other. All of these possibilities are in superposition to each other."

This was absolutely profound to me and screams alternate realities. If this wasn't enough, things only got stranger from here. Scientists put a measuring device near one slit so they could see exactly what occurred. When they did this though, they got back some hair raising data. When they observed the firing of the electrons, they went back to behaving exactly like the tiny particles, and they received a pattern of just two bands again! The very act of watching, or observing, changed the actions of the electrons as if it was aware that it was being watched. But how could this be? This is where we see the line of science and spirituality border.

The Science of Spirituality

Though scientists and spiritualists often have very different feelings on the subject of creation. Be that, the universe was created by a singular explosion, or that God simply created all that is, we see a lot of similarities. Quite frankly, I find these to be rather irrelevant because I've had discussions with people who take both sides of the argument, that yes, the universe was created with a single explosion, but who created the cause of the explosion? I find it interesting that people can exclude the belief of God, yet believe that matter existed for all eternity. Both are rather mind boggling, but here is where we get into the the issue of defining what "God" is all over again.

What we have found out now, though, is that the simple act of observation and expectation has a profound affect on the outcome of our reality. When we observed the electrons they acted differently based on our expectations, yet when we allowed them to act with their own regard things were very different. This alone leads us to take a different perspective on things like prayer, and the Law of Attraction.

The Law of Attraction states that what we put out, we get back. How we act, think, and essentially live, is what we receive. If we look at everything in a negative fashion then negativity is what we receive. Looking at the aforementioned scientific discoveries, we can see that this is not out of the realm of explainable possibility. On a more profound note, this rings truth in relation to prayer and God. The idea that if we believe, ask, and follow through with something we greatly desire, we will receive it, is the driving force behind prayer. My uncle, a graduate from the Princeton Theological Seminary takes the stand that prayer changes how we PERCEIVE a situation. As in, if one is in a terrible situation, prayer has the power to affect our views on it, to see a situation positivity as opposed to negatively, which in turn would actually have an affect on the situation.

It's how we think about a situation that makes it inherently negative or positive. For one person the current recession and financial strain may be the worse thing in the world, for another it may seem to be an opportunity to make a much needed change in the way they live their life. This is where we really come into the area of learning that we create our own existence all the time. God, the creator, can be defined as whatever you want to define it as. You could even call the gasses that created the explosion which resulted in the universe, God, if that's what suits you. It would be incredibly backwards, but to each their own. It's entirely subjective. But the one thing we are in a position to accept, is that your entire reality is a product of your own will.

This is just some food for thought for those of you set with your current belief system. As opposed to just being content in thinking that God is to directly blame for every event in your life, you can take a step back and realize that you have a more powerful impact on your life than you know it. Also, for those who attempt to take an objective look at your objective outlook on your objective science about being objective, this may give you a better foundation of spirituality so that you can step over that fine line and understand that just because everything is not tangible as of right now, or that just because spirituality is not always defined in a scientific platform, that there still may be reason for you to pursue or undertake similar practices. After all, realizing these closing boundaries will eventually put those into situations where that line is crossed whether they want to, or not, and the only separating factor will be in explanation, and terminology.

Over the past few months I've been experiencing a steady increase in precognitive dreams. These are dreams in which the future in part, or in totality is foretold by symbols or clear images and scenarios within a dream. Many have experienced precognitive dreams in their lives, be those the standard Deja Vu like instances, or the almost premonitory dreams that seem to rattle the minds of those who experience them. This dream is either later recalled at the time of the "future" event transpiring, which is also refereed to as being Deja Vu, or directly after sleeping.

Precognition has never actually been an appealing area of practice for me. The answer for that? I can't really say, but I'm more so grouped with those who feel that the future is, and will always remain completely dependent on the individual, and so I don't see the need in predicting it. I do believe that there is some purpose for all actions, and a grand design within the lives we live, but I do not however feel as though we do not have choice, or different "paths" in this life that we optionally take.

For those of you who regularly read my content, it won't be a surprise to know that I'm an avid practitioner of both Lucid Dreaming, and Astral Projection. What's so interesting to me is that it's only after upwards of 6 years actively practicing Astral Projection, and closer to 9 pursuing Lucid Dreaming, that I have experienced a connection between these practices and precognitive dreams. It's either this, or something has changed within my practice to create this. I'm for the most part at a loss regarding the situation because it is quite foreign to me. I suppose the first step would be analyzing what may be different about my practice in these areas now, as opposed to years ago, or even a single year ago.

The Dreams

Over the years I've had my fair share of Deja Vu experiences, and even a few eerie dreams which seemed to come to pass at a much later date. This is nothing compared to what I've been experiencing lately though. It seems as though I have at least one dream every night that directly correlates to my life in future days. The dreams themselves are hazy to some degree, like a puzzle with small bits that pop up throughout sleep, jarred with clear audio and random clear images. As the events come to pass I can't help but examine them with frustration and excitement. Yes, it is very exciting to experience something in daily life that you had written about weeks earlier, but it is also frustrating because the events themselves seem to alter, seemingly only due to the very act of dreaming about them.

What I mean is, the dreams that I actually dream and write down, seem to be different from their "real life" counterparts. Sometimes this occurs because where in my dream I say something, in real life I'm too preoccupied realizing that I experienced this to some degree already, so all that comes out is the description of the dream I had. I can imagine this is slightly irritating to the people who are around me all the time, so when this happens I'm always met with "yes Chris, it's crazy..." or something else along those lines. Fair enough I suppose, but the cool factor wares off after awhile and I'm left sitting here wondering how, and why this is occurring.

My Current Sleep Cycle

The best place to start in figuring this whole thing out I suppose is within my actual sleeping patterns. Every day I usually get to bed between 10pm and 1am, when exactly depends entirely on my workload for that day. I wake up at 6:30am everyday besides weekends. During the last month or so I've been struck with terrible nights of sleep which I attributed to my increased stress levels. I've had several family, personal, and financial issues lately to leave any average Joe pulling out their hair and running from the men in white coats. Luckily, I love my hair too much and the men in white coats are probably hiding from me.

Despite this, I did feel as though the stress was affecting my sleep. For some reason I haven't been able to get comfortable, so when I do eventually fall asleep I wake up a few hours later and then repeat the process. The actual dream state occurs within Rapid Eye Movement (REM), which is the deepest level of sleep and happens during the first hour or two of falling asleep. So, if we consider that I wake up to a conscious level four times a night, and am sleeping an average of seven and a half hours a night, we can estimate that I hit a REM cycle at least 4 times. I may be waking up more throughout the night though. It would be almost impossible for me to say, but mild sleeping issues run in my family and I've been known to talk and even be conversational, or wake up and do something with no recollection of having done it. As in, I was still sleeping.

I have also been taking regular naps that I just stopped taking recently. I had been taking a nap from around 1 or 2pm to 5pm everyday to try to catch up on any sleep I might have missed out on. I think this could have been in part to blame for my hardships in sleeping at night, creating a vicious cycle of napping because I'm tired and being tired because I'm napping. I since stopped the naps because of this.

This is unlike my usual sleeping patterns. Prior to these past four months or so, I was getting between 8 and 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep every night. Looking back even further, my sleeping patterns have changed based on my activities, but yet and still, I hadn't experienced precognitive dreams to this extent.

My Current Practice

My practice overall is extremely dependent on my mindset. Much of my practice involves nothing more than pursuing and solidifying already instilled beliefs about the reality in which we live. I attribute a lot of it to my spiritual views, and less to my actual active "practice." So to be safe, not much has changed as far as overall practice is concerned. Many of my views change regularly, but the overall perceptions have remained for quite some time now. My lucid dreaming practice has actually lessened over the years. By that I don't mean that I don't experience them as often, but am less inclined to pursue them directly, followed by logging each event. It's not so much due to time constraints, though it does play a factor, but it's more so based on a lack of interest in doing so right now. I still experience lucid dreaming regularly, so it would be safe to say I have one on a nightly basis.

My involved astral projection practice has actually increased over the last month. This is where much of my interest comes from, because out of everything, this is the one thing that has changed the most. I felt the need to improve my skills in this field to sort of "loosen" the hold my physical body or rather "consciousness" has on my astral body. If you're lost, I don't blame you, but my current view on the astral body vs physical body is that it is mostly a factor of shifting your consciousness and awareness. The harder you hold onto the physical world as your reality, the harder it is to shift it into just your astral body. I've felt more disconnected from our physical world, no doubt do to my ever growing spirituality, and because of this, felt the need to make astral projection and interaction with that plane a lot easier. What I ended up doing was actively astral projecting as opposed to falling into a lucid dream first. The issue I faced when doing this was fatigue.

College is never something that people call "easy." With the other things that were on my shoulders just piling up, the workload from this past semester has been higher than I'm use to. So when we incorporate this, with my lack of sleep, we find fatigue, and lots of it. Unfortunately, the only time I really feel comfortable to practice astral projection right now is before sleep. This is a big no no typically, because the practitioner is most likely going to fall asleep during the practice because of the relaxation exercises. Even in knowing this, I really haven't felt like I had a choice in the matter, so I persisted anyhow. Well, not to my surprise I've been falling asleep either right before a projection, or right after some deep breathing.

Recent Astral Projection Experiences

After falling asleep I've experienced some fairly "odd" things. It would appear that I'm projecting at times right before sleeping, but then am caught in some form of dual awareness. It doesn't even make sense to me when I say that because when you're sleeping your consciousness is elsewhere as your subconscious or unconscious mind takes over. So the fact that It feels as though I'm aware that I'm sleeping, yet lingering in an uncontrolled projection is hard to truly grasp, even in writing.

Craziness aside, this is what it feels like. It's almost like sleep paralysis, in which you are awake and know you are awake, yet your body is sound asleep so you have no control over it by usual means. When I'm in this position I don't really know how to break free of it. I've tried various things but then either fall right asleep, wake up, or wake up the next morning wondering when I actually fell asleep, and what happened.

What's This Got To Do With Precognition?

Well, something I've never really taken interest in was "teleporting" to the "future" by means of astral projection. I have heard of numerous people attempting and succeeding in this act though. It is apparently no different than moving from point A to point B, as time nor distance has any relevancy in the Astral. The need I see to alleviate myself of stress has led to some serious time management activities. These activities have included making detailed to-do lists and placing these feelings of "stress" on the back-burner until the unfinished, or soon to come annoyances have successfully passed.

I believe that somehow it is possible that prior to falling asleep, and during projection practice my thoughts drift to some degree on these issues. When this occurs, it seems as though I may fall asleep, and my astral self may leap forward to a specific event, or place of relevancy to whatever issue I was considering so that I could make "time" in a sense by living it or seeing what was to come in more detail before it occurs. I think it would make sense and may be a regular event that happens to us all. The unconscious minds way of fixing an issue with the least amount of conscious exertion. Somehow, because I am trapped in this odd limbo, as I sleep this information is then fed to me and I remember it and even see it as it occurs on a somewhat conscious level.

All of the dreams I have been experiencing have been relevant either to a situation I was facing, to something I was stressed about, something I was curious about, or even just what my last thoughts before bed were on. So this is all I have to go on right now. It makes sense to me I guess. It's almost as if this odd state of limbo acts as a sort of Psychical Google that fetches whatever information I need, and delivers it in a way I can understand. There are some holes in this idea though, or perhaps those holes are due to my current ideas of what exactly is relevant to these experiences.

I don't understand how this would cause me to wake up periodically throughout the night. It may not be related to this though, but I'm curious to know the difference, if any, in these events if I were to get a full and uninterrupted night of sleep. My waking up may be due to my experience in lucid dreaming though. Something to do with noticing a difference in a dream that triggers a light bulb moment, and as opposed to becoming aware of a dream, because of the "state" I'm in it results in my waking up.

Also, if I wasn't stressed, would I be in the position to go through this still? I'm not quite sure as of this very moment, and haven't really taken the time to look at it in depth or experiment with different scenarios or manually doing this, so the information I have from personal experimentation is pretty much none at this point. In fact, in just writing this I have put more consistent thought into the situation than I have up until this point.

Coincidentally, reading over that last paragraph I experienced another Deja Vu moment relating to a dream I had a month or more ago. All of this does put me into a very interesting state. I'm in a position where I have seen various images, many of which change when they come to pass, but all of which are somehow relevant to me. I would love to see if I could bring in more information of topics that do not directly relate to me, to see if the overall "future" is as subjective as impressions of my own tend to be. I can say there is a clear relationship between astral projection, lucid dreaming, and precognition now, after thinking about it more. The true question would be, is this relationship based on an understanding and developed conscious "skill" in these areas? Or is it more so based on the conscious passive acceptance of it?

If you were to talk to me regularly, you would know that I feel as though all areas of spiritual development and practice are connected, and once you develop your understanding and acceptance of this, they are all developed in one motion through means of meditation and intention, as opposed to hard "training" in any one given area. So for me, seeing a connection between the unconscious mind and the conscious mind through these means is very intriguing.

It could also be that because I am in this limbo like state, I am just more conscious to my mind "downloading" information from the "Matrix" or the "Akashic Records," both of which are essentially different words describing the stored information of everything that was, is, and will be. Many spiritualists believe we are innately connected to this and constantly receiving and giving information. Many Technical and Coordinate Remote Viewers believe that we can "link" up to this force at will to get whatever information we are seeking. I've also experienced this in remote viewing, but never such a direct conscious connection, because in remote viewing you distract the conscious mind to allow the unconscious to do the work. Maybe all of this is just me being in a conscious state of seeking that specific information out.

Either way, despite what these experiences are or might be, if it is related to the first possibility, and we have the potential to "send" the astral body to do something while only remaining partially aware of this, the world of possibilities drastically increases. It's not so much that this would be a useful practice, as it would be interesting for the sake if spiritual, and even scientific research and discovery. I suppose now all I can do is wait, watch, and continue doing what I'm doing. I'll be sure to keep you guys posted on any new developments, especially after the next two weeks when the current semester is over and my sleep cycle once again changes.