Astral projection is the name used to describe a consciously induced out of body experience, this is where we perceive reality from outside of our physical body.
There is nothing quite like your first out of body experience: the constant feeling of awe, seeing reality from a whole new vantage point and feeling liberated from the fear of death.
We astral project naturally every night when we sleep, it’s only that once we awake we lose all memory of it. Out of body experiences come with ease to us when the conscious mind is out of the way.
In this article I want to go over some of the techniques I use to astral project and talk about the way we can use our body’s natural rhythm to aid us. So many have difficulty astral projecting because they’re unaware of how to work with their body/bodies instead of against them.
3 Step Astral Projection Technique
This is the technique I use to induce conscious astral projection based off my first successful spontaneous experience. I tried many different techniques and just couldn’t get things to click.
When we attempt to astral project we are pushing the limits of our mind, this is not something that comes as naturally as brushing our teeth or riding a bike. This is because we all have this instinct defence mechanism keeping us in our bodies, going beyond those limits means danger!
Building a consistent meditation practice beforehand will be incredibly helpful because we gain some practice with focusing beyond the body, and we can better manage our mental state which is a large part of the process.
Finding my body’s natural flow and synchronizing with my sleep schedule was what finally made it work.
Step 1: Prep
The first step is to prep yourself before going to sleep. Either meditate for ten minutes in the usually seated position or while laying down.
Then lay down in bed and visualize a wave flowing through your whole body. Bring the sensation of a wave from the soles of your feet to the top of your head in a cycle.
This will get your chakras active and you’ll begin to feel energy coursing through your body. After ten minutes of this visualization you can go to sleep. Alternatively you can attempt an exit (skip to step 3) if you can feel your body buzzing or vibrating excessively.
Step 2: Morning Routine
When you wake up the next morning, don’t get out of bed yet but try to stay as still as possible. You want to stay in that half awake half asleep state that we find ourselves in right upon waking. It’s here that you can more easily make an exit.
Focus on your breathing and visualize that wave again going from the soles of your feet to your crown. After about twenty minutes of doing so you’ll feel heavy vibration going throughout your entire body. Your body will feel as if someone has laid a heavy blanket over it.
Step 3: Exit
Once you have stabilized the vibrational state you can attempt an exit. There are many ways to shift your consciousness out of body, different techniques will work better for different people.
- Visualize yourself climbing up a rope ladder
- Feel yourself roll out of your body
- Feel yourself getting lighter and float up
The key to making any of these work is by visualizing them as vividly as you can manage. The combination of the visual and motion of the visualization in your mind works best.
You will feel some pressure on your physical body as you do these visualization but if you keep consistent with it you’ll pop out of body and into your bedroom.
From here you want to stay calm and keep your level of focus high. During your first astral projection it is better to travel away from your physical body as the closer you are to it the easier it is for you to be pulled back in.
Visualize a target destination and will yourself there or float to another room in the house.
We tend to think of astral projection as the act as exiting the physical body when in fact it’s more accurately described as shifting your awareness from your physical body to your non-physical astral body.
When you make this mindset shift astral projection becomes a lot easier. When we meditate and are aware of our body during meditation, we begin to feel this astral body coursing with energy.
Working on the chakras is another way we start to feel this subtle body. It’s simply a case of become aware of this body and learning to shift our awareness between the two.
As I mentioned before meditating regularly can be a big help, it can also be helpful to practice lucid dreaming first and then try astral projection. This is because lucid dreaming also requires the mind awake, body asleep state. When we lucid dream regularly we also become familiar with how to navigate sleep paralysis.
Not everyone can make the routine I suggest above work, I don’t think I could make it work now updating this article about four years later. I no longer have the time or space to prep the night before or spend time in the morning.
As we get older it can be more difficult to find time to astral project, if we have a full-time work schedule or children to look after. In this case I would recommend practicing both parts of this routine seperately.
Tune into your binaural beats when we have free time and get accustomed to operating at that brainwave state. Attempt to project when you have the time and space available.
My Experience Astral Projecting As A Child
The first conscious out of body experience I can remember was from childhood. I was around four or five years old when I fell asleep in my grandma’s room.
I can vividly remember flying all around the room and laughing with joy as I was doing so. It never occurred to me that there was anything unusual about this.
Once I was back in my body I was able to recount what had happened in the room and what had been said, even though my grandma was sure I was asleep.
Those experiences as a child never really left me and into my teenage years I began researching astral projection and trying to have another out of body experience again.
Although I have been lucid dreaming since I was around ten years old all through my teenage years I never managed to have another conscious out of body experience. I research pretty much every technique and tip I could find and still nothing.
Regaining My Senses
A few years back I started meditating regularly at night. I would clear my chakras after the day had ended, clear my mind and use this time to visualize.
I intuitively started to visualize myself as a wave one night. I would feel the wave crashing through me as vividly as I could, this was a technique I used to clear my chakras.
The next morning after doing this I woke up naturally before my alarm usually went off, as it was the weekend I stayed in bed relaxing.
About twenty minutes later I found myself in another room of the house talking to one of my family members. Unusually they told me they left me something in my room and I should go and see what it was.
As soon as I walked into my room I knew something was off. My eyesight went completely black but my sense of touch was as vivid as ever. I could feel the texture of the carpet underneath my feet.
Suddenly it hit me that I never actually got up out of bed! I knew that when we astral projected being in close proximity to our physical bodies could hinder our sight and movement. In that moment I knew I was astral projecting. Instantly I was back in my body.
Astral Projection FAQ
It’s natural to have questions about astral projecting and I think it’s good to be informed before investing so much time trying to achieve an out of body experience.
Is astral projection and lucid dreaming the same thing?
As someone who has been lucid dreaming since they were about 11 years old (over a decade now) when I had my first conscious astral projection I could tell the difference right away.
Now some people draw a solid line between the two experiences but I think they are a little more intertwined that that. Lucid dreaming and astral projection both require that we maintain an altered state of consciousness, they are governed by our mental focus. So naturally quite a few similarities.
If our focus dwindles enough during an astral projection it can take on a more dreamy quality. To contrast this, in my experience it is a lot more difficult to transition from a lucid dream to an astral projection, we have to pass back through the sleep paralysis state.
Is astral projection dangerous?
I think the most common fear people have about astral projection is that they won’t be able to return to their body. This fear is misplaced but has real roots. When we astral project our body can perceive this as a death-like state and we are instantly pulled back.
Our astral body allows returns to the physical body so long as we are alive and well, this is due to the ‘silver cord’ which keeps us grounded. This silver cord is like a bungee cord which propels us back tot he physical, if we are ever in danger.
The real danger that can come with astral projection isn’t that we won’t return to our bodies at all, but that we become disconnected from them. Astral projection is a disembodied state, not everyone is going to be mentally prepared for this.
Many regular astral projectors can become hyper-focused on this state in favor of their physical lives. Transcending the limitations of physical form can be quite freeing, additive even. I would only recommend attempting astral projection if you feel prepared and have some grounding in your physical life.
How long does it take to astral project?
Finally a lot of people wonder how long it will take them to have a successful conscious projection. The honest answer is anywhere from hours to years.
Some people have a natural tendency to astral projection, particularly those who are consistent meditators. Others (like myself) find that astral projection takes a lot more time and effort. To astral project we have to overcome so many natural human fears. We have to learn how to let go.
It’s not essential that anyone learn how to astral project, but it might be helpful for us all to confront the fears we have around letting go and death itself.
Have you ever had an out of body experience? If so, what was your experience like?
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Whenever I try doing astral projection..I always go to that state where I could feel the vibrations..but I always fail to get out of my body..what should I do?
Try to focus on the vibrations and see if you can increase them with intention and then stabilize them. Then attempt an exit technique.
I am new to this and still feeling my way. I beleive I may have had an OBE when trying but thinking back I may have had one or two prior to knowing about them.
Also can OBE be confused with dreams. A long while back I had what i thought a dream but very realistic. I was driving a big truck /trailer ( not a truck driver by trade) and I lost control and went over a big mountain side. I felt the bumps rolls and the rest of an accident before waking up. I must say I knew this road very well and had travelled very often along it.
Wow, this astral projection guide is one of the best and most helpful I’ve read and I’ve read alot! Will definatly try your techniques tonight.
I’ve tried this last night but it didn’t work
is it normal it won’t work the first time and if it is can you give me any more tips?
It’s completely normal for it not to work the first time. It requires practice to get into the right state and maintain it consistently, keeping going alongside practicing meditation and energy work.
Amazing article, I’ve meditated in the past and have lucid dreams frequently and you have a very great way of explaining the things I’ve felt before. I’ve never astral traveled but would like to and this really helped! Shared it tons, thank you!
Amazing article, I’ve
be been meditating since I was 6 yrs old . At my teenage time I started dreaming about flying in the sky. I always saw my self jumping fist and then begun to leap higher the finally it made me high up in the sky. But every time I saw it I felt my flight was controlled by somebody else, who’s having it’s arm around my waist and made me flew .
Now I am 35 and started doing chakras heeling theese days I began to travell to the stars .Thanks for such lovely article. This my first time that I’ve shared my experience.
I used to have a dream just like this when I was little! Nobody was holding me, but somebody was always with me. I had to jump, usually 3 times, but more if I didn’t get it correctly, I had to bounce until I could fly. This is Nuts!
That’s great. Only happen to me once during meditating years ago, trying to get it back.
mines worked when i wasent trying hard to comeout. there was a high pitched buzzing and then suction am out of the body
I remember the weather was like a magnetic storm and this blanket that I slept with – when I moved it had all these tiny blue electric sparks.
After falling asleep I found myself floating a foot off the ground in the middle of my, and my brothers bedroom- we had bunk beads and I was on top. I literally leaned over and saw myself sleeping in bed..thought this is cool..a flying dream. So I proceeded to fly slowly through the screen and glass of the window, out above the front lawn, and had to dodge the power lines and Poplar trees to end up floating around 20 meters above our house. I remember this feeling of total freedom and it scared me. As I looked down at the roof of our house I noticed a few pipes coming out of the roof and thought..how could I possibly know what this would look like from a birds eye view, unless I am actually here right now. In that same split second I zapped back into my sleeping body and woke with a jolt. Totally blew my mind and 40 years later I’ve never forgotten it.
was attacked by a powerful demon small anorexic and strong almost lost held the punk by his skinny arm and placed tug of war with him and woke up
I had three out of body experiences that I can remember as a child. First, I was sleeping in bed, my head hanging out over the edge and my grandmother and mother came in. I watched and listened from above and listened to my grandmothers concern about me having a sore neck when I woke up. Second was watching myself jump over a fire and burning my foot. Third was a not so nice memory. I know people say that trauma causes us to jump out of our bodies to cope and that may well be the reason I did. It took me along time to realize that they were out of body experiences and not a movie or watching someone else…I have the scars to prove it was happening to me. I’ve always wanted to train myself to have the out of body experiences.
I’ve always dreamed of flying but I’m going to work hard on these steps and see what happens
I was living in California back in 1993. I had a wonderful accounting job in a very famous restaurant/night club. One morning as I thought I was getting up, I found myself flying on Venus Beach. I knew it was an out of body experience and i was so happy. When I walked in to the restaurants office, my co worker asked me what I was on because I was so happy. I told her what happened and she replied…..oh I do that all the time and I see Angels. I haven’t had the experience ever again. I would like to try it again. Lately I’m having trouble getting deep with my mediation. Don’t know why because I studied to be a Hypnotherapist while I lived in California. I go extremely deep when I mediate. I guess for me…the last 2 1/2 years of so much negativity has caused me to spend most of my time just thinking good thoughts and doing things that make me happy.