Your first attempt at an emotional focus might be somewhat closer to home and less adventurous than shark-infested waters. Those little bunnies hopping around a flower garden, for instance.
DEAR DIARY
Hello friendly reader. Please pay attention to your night time activity by writing it down. Simply write a few sentences that describe in minor detail the ‘events’ you recall. Even if your ‘event’ doesn’t seem nonphysical, write it down. Then date it and put it under your pillow. I’m kidding. Don’t do that very last bit. But do all the rest of what I said, like so:
September 22
Last night I accidentally scared a cat that was lounging in the yard near the bird baths. I then watched as my neighbor arrived home late from somewhere and fell out of his car. And lastly, I zoomed past my bedroom window and ran into a tree. Another eventful night.
You can see how great ‘event’ diaries can be and why you should keep one. And now that I’ve talked you into it, I should tell you that I hate writing in a diary. Oh my, it’s boring. But I did it anyway from about the age of ten. I started writing in one of those blank diaries sold to kids. My first one was a manly blue diary so stop making fun of me. These days I keep a small voice recorder near the bed and mumble into it, on ‘return’ from wherever I just was. I call this a lazy-diary and it works just as well as writing things down. So do either one and make me happy.
The point of keeping a diary is to pay attention pay attention. Yes, I typed that twice. It’s very good of you to pay attention. Do I have your attention? Then let’s move on. Pay attention to the small details of your ‘events’ and put them in your diary. You may notice, as an instance of paying attention, that I have avoided using the word “dream” and have replaced that word with ‘event’. Your event may be a dream in your physical or a dream ‘acted’ outside of your physical. Your event may occur while you are semiconscious or unconscious. Your event may be a fully conscious nonphysical travel. You can learn from all of your ‘events’ to improve your chances at traveling the next time.
It is your attitude, focused upon the desire to recall your events, that helps you to do so. It is your unbridled wish to ponder this previously unpondered state that allows you to see it clearly. It is your intentional intensity of attention that enhances your ability to grasp what you are up to while your physical sleeps!
So if you scared a cat near the birdbath or zoomed past your window, Pay Attention. And when you watch from above as your neighbor pours out of his car at 2am, Pay Attention. You may be in your body and dreaming or out of your body and dreaming. You may be traveling semiconsciously. Your attention to the event will ‘wake you up’. Paying attention to the ‘details’ of your event will also help you to improve your out of body skills. I’ll get to those later, so mellow out.
YOU SCORE
As you’ve read (if you weren’t skipping chapters willy nilly) your desire is the force pushing the travel. It is such a strong force in fact that you can use desire, which is step one of seven, without having any working knowledge of the other steps at all! How’s that for getting right to the point?
Tonight, in your bed or futon or dresser drawer or whatever you sleep on, think of an emotional ‘goal’. A ‘goal’ includes an ‘action’ you take that is pushed by desire, resulting in what you set out to do.
For instance, your emotional ‘goal’ might be to visit your sweetie two towns over. You desire to be there. You focus on your ‘action’ which, in this case, is the route you plan to travel as your physical relaxes down to sleep. You’ll go out your window, down the block, up a few hundred feet, ‘home’ in on your wittle whoosy woowoo, and rocket your way there. Pet names are so embarrassing.
The emotional goal is just one type of ‘goal’ you might set for yourself. Your goal might be ‘inquisitive’, a desire to learn something. You might wish to see what’s on the other side of that hill, or take a gander at your neighbor’s new rider mower, or you might want to visit a place that you’ve read about. Although there is an emotional aspect present, in wanting to learn something through these goals, they are more ‘action’ motivated. Your desire pushes you forward in action towards your goal of knowing this or that.
Another type of goal is ‘experience’. You want to achieve something, to do it and feel it. You want to leave your house by walking through the front door. You want to float out over your porch and look up in the night sky. You want to blast off at full throttle, up up up up. Your goal is to ‘experience’ being there thousands of feet above your house. Your goal is fueled by desire, which initiates the action, so that you get what you want. And who deserves it more than you?
As you see, you can use desire and a goal without really knowing anything more of what I plan to tell you. You could just take a week or so of nighttimes and give this streamlined version of traveling a try. It’s simple and almost always brings interesting results. It’s also a good jumping-off point for learning the other six steps, whether you want to know about them or not.
TEN TO SEVENTEEN
My years from ten to seventeen were probably like yours. I was facing the usual demands that most kids encounter. I handled the pressures. I wasn’t the most popular nor the least. I was just average with an unusual hobby.
My out of body travels were in full force. I traveled occasionally by choice and constantly by whim on an average of at least once a day. The unintentional travels brought me to places I hadn’t planned to go, but later I could rationalize why I had gone there. The intentional travels could be frustrating since a method I used might work one time but not the next. This turned out to be a good learning experience, as I’ll explain on another page when I get there. Another page, I said. Stop looking here for the reason. Stop it. I mean it. I’m just going to move on, then. You can keep looking here if you want but you’re wasting your time.
STEP TWO: RELAXATION
ZZZ
Who are you kidding, laying there in your bed? You’ll never relax. But wait, perhaps I typed too soon. You are feeling kind of relaxed now. Yeah, this might be it. There you go. Relaxing. Relaxing. Alright, you’re really relaxed. Now just stay alert. Relax and stay alert. You can do it, relax but stay... ZZZzzzzzzzz.
Huh, what? Oh, hi again. You were looking so relaxed there you made me fall asleep. But I can’t blame you for all the times I fell asleep during my search for nonphysical answers. It’s not that I was sleepy. I simply went a little too far into my work. Or that’s what I tell myself.
I would try to relax, to let my body sleep, while I would stay alert and focused on traveling. I’m relaxing now. Down and down. I’m relaxing and staying focused on my traveling ‘plan’. Focused on my... ZZZzzzzzzzz.
Dagnabit, I fell asleep again. I’m clearly going to have a hard time finishing this section. But let’s press on anyway and tour the ‘awake/asleep line’ while we’re here.
THE AWAKE/ASLEEP LINE
The ‘awake/asleep line’ is a key element of traveling. It’s the line between losing consciousness and falling into sleep, as your physical body does, or remaining awake, alert and in control while your physical body falls to sleep. To reach the line you simply regulate your movement towards sleep. Simply? Haha, what am I saying? Because, just as you bargain for that last moment of rest before having to get up in the morning, when you are close to the awake/asleep line, it’s all too tempting to just drift over