Experiences in the Astral Body

What to expect when astral travelling?

When astral travelling, you mostly enter an environment which is quite different from the physical plane. Even if you stay in your own room and you have the impression to see your familiar physical surroundings – when looking at them in detail you will realize slight differences (for instance, books and little objects have changed). Therefore, though objects seem identical to the physical, they are not. Instead they are astral duplications.
A typical aspect for astral travelling is the experience of intense and deep emotions (in the etheric body you have your normal daytime emotionality).
On the astral plane you are capable of empathy and telepathy as a new kind of perception.
In astral locations you can meet deceased relatives, guardians and friends living in transcendental planes, who seem to have known you for a long time, although you can’t remember to have seen them before.
On the astral plane there are different rules of how matter is composed, shaped and handled. Materialisation and variability of forms are common there.
In these subtle worlds, a "zoomlike" vision is possible, despite distance and translucency.
What people look like is determined by psychic rules.

It needs some experience to get used to these special conditions and to be able to manipulate objects, as well as to handle the way of your own movement.

After nights when I had astral journeys, I mostly felt very good and full of energy. Emotions I had experienced in the astral OBE were accompanying me through the whole day, and I was filled with the feeling of another world. I think the "inputs" I had during the astral travel were still lingering on me, my aura was impregnated with positive energy, and this had a lasting effect on me. Even if the astral journey seemed to have last hours, I did never have sleep deficit from an astral OBE – quite the opposite, I felt much better and stronger, sometimes it felt quite "high" and I was much more aware of everything going on around me. I was more alert and everything around me felt much more positive. It was like seeing the world from another, higher point of view.

On materialisations, possibilities to have influences on your surroundings, communication and rules on the astral plane, see section World Beyond.

Methods To Induce Astral Travelling

General Considerations:

I had some interesting and long astral travels which started with an etheric OBE, where I went further and succeeded to get into the astral state. But most of my astral OBEs, and especially the deepest and most exciting or instructive astral travels, came by chance. There are several techniques to come directly into the astral state or to change from etheric to astral state, but "the method" for astral travelling does not exist, at least in my opinion. It is possible to train it. But for me it was always one of the best ways to increase the chance of astral travels passively: through meditation, spiritual immersion and longing for the world beyond or for some loved person over there.

Relaxation:

The natural way:

In the morning, relaxation methods accompanying the tendency to fall asleep will promote states with higher inner awareness.

Techniques:

In literature you find different techniques for relaxation. Principally, however, they are very similar (well known are autogenic training and "Savasana" in yoga).

Savasana (Indian term and technique for relaxation):

Lay with your back on the floor, your hands resting aside your body.
Put a flat pillow underneath your head and bend your head sidewards a little bit, so as to prevent that in relaxed state your tongue will hinder your respiration.
Tighten your muscles and clench your fists for some seconds. Then relax.
Check through your whole body if it is sufficiently relaxed, starting with your feet, ending with neck and face.
After muscle relaxation, focus your attention on the blood circulation and afterwards on the warmth of your body.
In the next step, turn your attention inwards and just wait what is going to happen. Wait and don’t lose your inward-directed attention by thinking and drifting away in fantasies.