Escape from F10 Purgatory

After about an hour of meditation, practicing expansion into “Locale 1” and then projection, I decided to give myself an hour or so to either go for a Lucid Dream or practice various projection exit techniques. Once more I put my headphones and mask away, rolled over and began my struggle with afternoon sleep initiation. It’s not that I only want to quickly fall asleep so I can get to what I want to do fast (or at all); sometimes I want to nap and lately that has been difficult as I often find myself in F10 purgatory for an hour or so.

Today my struggle was actually a bit alleviated. Instead of my usual count down or count up with relaxation techniques I used a simple repetition of my intent. This worked well and I was able to produce four sleep/wake cycles in an hour. Usually when I set my intent for these missions I do it in F10 during meditation or as I exit that state, but I noticed something: that does not make my intent stronger than simply making the same intent while awake with emotion behind it, because F10 is literally “mind awake, body asleep.”

So really, time and setting do not matter for intent. I have had situations where I set my most powerful intent without paying attention to it while thinking about something else. That has worked out well in the past and I am still chasing it, trying to figure out how to recreate it reliably. It is my Moby Dick, so to speak. One more note on intent: there is another time and place where setting intent is much more powerful and that is in F15, but getting to that state takes practice and is not practical to repeat every day. If you want to focus on manifestation, F15 is the place to have a lot of success. Be clear and confident in your approach and what you want.

Enough about that. What I am really setting out to write about here is imagination. During my experiments with repeating intent until I fell asleep, I naturally moved to practicing visualization as I approached the sleep/wake threshold. Hypnagogic images are visual phenomena that occur during the transition state between wakefulness and sleep, commonly called hypnagogia. Usually I let these scenes come up and fade as guideposts that I am approaching my target, but this time I decided to engage in active visualization. My goal was to start with a simple object, like a blue ball, and hold that image as clearly and as long as possible. After I lost it I repeated the exercise and added detail: a white stripe on the blue ball for the next attempt, a red star on the white stripe for the one after that, and so on.

I encourage everyone to practice this as they fall asleep at night. Repeat your favorite intent (for example, “I am out of my body,” as William Buhlman wrote) or remain a passive observer until the images begin to creep into awareness. Once you are in the zone, begin to create a simple image as described above, such as a ball or a box. The goal is to hold that specific visual for as long as possible; once you achieve that, add more detail. This practice will strengthen your visualization skills, which are important for altered states, especially when you engage in non-verbal communication. As a side effect you may fall asleep more quickly.

Lucid Dream

By my third sleep/wake cycle and threshold visualization attempt I had not yet had an OBE or a Lucid Dream. During the fourth cycle I changed my visualization from a simple object to an entire scene. I reconstructed my office from a single vantage point to the best of my ability and held it as long as I could at the border of losing consciousness.

Moments later I found myself standing in front of the white bench in my office, taking in the entire room. It was extremely well lit, something that rarely happens and that I doubt could be achieved to that degree if I tried while fully awake. In that moment I did a quick reality check by looking at my watch and asking myself, “Am I dreaming?” Nothing dramatic happened, which was odd since my watch looked like gibberish. I stepped back and felt the chain around my neck lift and tighten. I began to feel moderate pressure around my throat and resistance as I grasped for the chain, and at the same time it felt like I was being pulled down into the office floor.

My situation suggested three explanations: someone much smaller than me was attempting to choke me, I needed to look into the symbolism behind my chain and cross, or I was having a hard time breathing in my physical state (head turned into the pillow, for example). As I resisted, whatever had me began to fight back. I had zero fear; I cannot recall how many times I have been attacked or assaulted in altered states at this point. It is never life threatening and, in my experience, it is either something trying to spook you or a confrontation with yourself. Mostly the latter, as I have discovered through shadow work.

To end the struggle quickly I used an old trick: envelope whatever is being aggressive with a brilliant white light of love. I imagined a blinding ball of white light energy behind me and sent all the love I had toward it. Then I enveloped myself in that light and blasted it in every direction through my office. The incident stopped immediately. My exit from the sequence left me with low rumbles of vibration rolling over my physical body for about a minute as I came to on the daybed in my very dim office.

Perhaps this was a brief OBE after all.

Unlimited Power Of Imagination

How does that relate to imagination in general? I created site and setting for my Lucid Dream or OBE with visualization. When I was “attacked” I used my imagination to manifest a bright, powerful sphere of white light and enhanced it with love. Those are clear examples of action and consequence through pure thought. Why do people often fly in OBEs and Lucid Dreams? Imagination. You think “I want to fly” and then you do. You think “I want to go to the top of that mountain over there” and then you find yourself on top of that mountain.

Sure, but are these examples just awareness in dreams? Yes and no. A Lucid Dream is an altered state of consciousness. OBEs and NDEs are altered states. Psychedelics induce altered states during waking life. Recalling a memory uses imagination. All of these, including physical-local-time reality, are part of the overall spectrum of reality we operate in. If you are conscious and lucid, you are using imagination.

We have done a poor job of valuing imagination in modern culture. Imagination is not frivolous or separate from reality; it is a powerful feature. It is time everyone took it more seriously.