Alrighty, well, I left this longer than I intended to. But, better late than never I guess!
The best starting-point to recommend would be with basic meditation. After-all it is one of the lynchpins to any practice involving any sort of inward or outward journey. Besides, it's also the literal starting point. Might as well go from the beginning, right?
There's a youtube I found not too long ago that is very useful. It is a slow discussion, and can feel a little like you just took a sleeping pill. But it has very good information and a guided meditation that I would definitely call good for entry-level practice; https://youtu.be/ukTaodQfYRQ
Meditation, at its most basic, is the practice of being still and within the present moment. The goal is to be cognizant of yourself and your thoughts. Or in other words to be actively aware. I personally find it easiest to begin with breath. It's something we do all the time but rarely pay much attention to.
Sit or lay in a comfortable position, ideally so long as your back is straight and supported, and your airway is open while you can relax. Once comfortable, take a deliberate breath in. Let the breath fill your chest and belly until you just start to feel a tension/stretch. Hold it for just a second, while paying attention to the feelings of tension in your body. Then, consciously relax yourself and let the breath just fall out of you. Imagine the tensions over your whole body falling away with the breath, leaving you relaxed and comfortable.
Repeat the breath two or three times, but don't force the process. don't try to breathe in more slowly or quickly than you feel the need to. And don't worry about over-inhaling or pushing out every little bit of air. The idea is to create a sense of being aware of yourself and willfully reaching a state of relaxation. It may take a few minutes the first few times, but with practice/repetition, it can become achievable with a few seconds of focus.
From there, would be practice in raising energy/vibration, deepening relaxation, and cleansing (all useful practices before any journey). I find it best to begin at the lowest part of the body and work up. It is significant for a couple of reasons; Upward motion is synonymous with raising frequency, drawing up earth (support, healing, cleansing) energy, raising of the Kundalini, and lifting from earth (physical) to spirit (non-physical). To that end... pun not intended... begin with the feet.
Be aware of your feet. How they feel. Is there tension? Are they relaxed? Consciously relax them, letting go of tension, letting it fall off of you. if you want, imagine a soft violet* (high vibration) glow soaking up into your feet from below. Then move your attention upward, paying attention to your lower legs. Repeat the deliberate relaxation and continue to let the visualization follow behind, slowly rising up your body. Repeat for the knees, thighs, hips, back, belly, chest, shoulders, neck, and head. Taking a short time at each step to first be aware and acknowledge what is present, release it, then raise energy. If you are familiar with chakras and meridians/energetic systems, this is a good opportunity to incorporate ideas of clearing/aligning and opening balanced inward and outward flow.
*You don't need to actually imagine purple, or any specific color. you can imagine no color at all and just connect with an idea or emotion of healing, cleansing, and upliftment. Also, this energy you visualize can both travel through your body, and also through the aura/energy around your body equally. The goal is to deepen relaxation, build up ideas of radiant health, and feel a connection between energy and action following intent.
From here you can move on to the meditations more specifically geared towards astral projection/travel.
The first; Rope technique.
Continue to focus on deepening your relaxation. After some practice, you will start to experience shifts of awareness and vibration. For example, gaining a sudden sense of depth and space while observing the spots behind your eyelids, and a shaking/vibrating sensation not unlike that feeling of falling that sometimes happens right as you drift off to sleep, or mild vertigo/room-spinning. It can be a bit of a surprise at first, but stick with it, and practice bringing this 'wobbly' state on in different places on your body, until you can bring your whole body into this state. It can be thought of as your consciousness shifting awareness from one side (the physical) to the other side (the spiritual) and back again, leaving your attention literally wobbling back and forth from one to the other.
From this point, imagine a line or rope of light hanging down from above. Recognize one side/sway of your vibrating as awareness of your physical self, and the other side of the sway as awareness of your spiritual/energetic self. Reach up through visualization and intent with the non-physical side and take hold of the rope, and use it to pull yourself out from your physical body until you feel yourself climbing upward and away/free from your body.
The second; The float technique.
Just like before, work on deepening your relaxation and meditative state until you can bring on and be comfortable in that wobbly state. But instead of visualizing a rope, imagine a plane or separation existing a foot or so above where you are resting. Recognize it as the division between the physical and the energetic/spiritual as if it was the surface of a lake or other body of water. All that is below that plane, like you/your body, your room, the earth, etc are all part of the physical. Denser and heavier, like water. Meanwhile all things energetic/spiritual are above that plane. Light and buoyant like the air above water. Now, one side of the vibratory state is your conscious awareness as a physical form, with weight and mass, and so rests easily within the 'water' as this is where it belongs. However the side of your spiritual/energetic awareness is like a bubble of air within the water. It is light and wants to float up to the surface (as air does). Develop the idea of allowing that level of attention and awareness to be let go and allowed to rise, and feel yourself floating upwards to cross that plane of water to air (physical to spiritual).
The third; Stepping out.
For this one you don't necessarily need to wait until you can reach that vibratory/wobbly stage, as you can end up inducing it with this method. The idea is to reach a state of deep relaxation and calm like usual, then to willfully create a separation of physical and spiritual. Once you feel deeply relaxed and like your body/limbs feel noticeably heavy, pick one particular area to focus on. Usually a hand or foot, or other place that you can normally easily flex or tighten individually/on its own. Take a moment to be aware of the area in detail. For example with the hand, feel each finger and the thumb. The skin and muscles. Then mentally (but not physically) squeese your hand into a fist and relax it. In essence imagine the process of moving and manipulating yourself without physical change or tension. Creating an idea of separation between physical condition and non-physical (energetic/spiritual) action to separate one from the other. As you find success in forming sensations of movement and separation, expand the practice to gradually more of your body until you can mentally roll/step/stand up and out of yourself.
Fourth method; Dream-intent.
This one sidesteps the vibration-stage entirely, and instead relies on a practice I learned of known as a Dream-intent. As the name implies, this is an act of declaring an intent or goal for yourself, that you wish to act on through your dreams/while asleep and at your closest to the subconscious level of your mind. I originally learned about Dream-intents as a tool for examining difficult decisions, or for trying to find insight from pieces of information (or to connect the dots between pieces of information). In regards to going astral, the process begins, like the rest, with reaching a state of meditation and relaxed focus. But you want to do this when preparing for bed/sleep, as where other meditations involve reaching a 'deeper than sleep' state while remaining conscious, this is actually intended to leave a message/intent for your subconscious to follow while you actually fall asleep from a deepened state.
When you feel yourself reaching a comfortable, deep state of relaxation and observant of your own thoughts, repeat a simple phrase or goal within your mind, directing the thoughts inward as if speaking down into the deeper levels of your consciousness. ...I guess you could think of it as if you were talking into a well. Conscious mind talking into the darkness of the subconscious to tell it something you want to achieve. For example "I will lift my conscious attention to the astral planes while my body rests." or "I will meet with my guide through the Dreamscape and be brought to the astral." ... or even "Bring me to the astral through my dreamscape."
As long as it is simple, sensible, and projected inward with a feeling of conviction, it can bring on basic levels of lucid dreaming, awareness, and of course a separation and upliftment into Astral levels of perception. Though there are both benefits and drawbacks to this method. For example, one may not need to reach nearly as deep of a meditative state as through other methods, your ability to consciously remember and process events and activity while astral can be much harder. And as you are in essence operating through an initially dream-based level, it can take some practice in learning how to differentiate regular dreams from periods of successful astral travel. But, at the same time, Dreams garnered from this state also do tend (by my experience) to be more personally significant and purposeful, and can even on occasion stimulate precognitive dreams or dreaming insights about other people you know/feel a connection to. (especially if you have been worrying about particular advice or help you are wanting to give said friend)
As a note/full disclosure, I have not successfully gone astral using any of the three first methods. I have reached various stages towards being successful, going as far as gaining full-body vibrations and having an arm lift free or gaining a floating/lifting away sensation. But I have some challenges related to a very restless body, random interruptions of tension, and wandering multi-layered thoughts as time goes on. (ADD is a surprising hurdle for this, being the antithesis to being able to be still for prolonged periods) The forth method is where I found success, and it has been my most favorable method since I developed it for myself. So, if one method does not work for you... keep trying, and keep learning new ways to try as well. There are ways to modify or tweak your own process into one that works best for you. So experiment.
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