http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_astral_projection_experiences/question_about_the_throat_chakra-t46700.0.html;msg362781#msg362781

Referencing the above post, someone asked the following about their Throat Chakra and Astral Projecting:

So I’ve been learning to astral project and I can tell that I am almost there. I have had some of the various physical sensations like vibrations and buzzing and have seen shadows of images flashing behind my eyelids. But I’m pretty sure that my throat chakra is holding me back, it’s been blocked my entire life and I think I can tell because I have man of the physical symptoms that tend to be associated with it. Recently I have been doing a lot of work to try to strengthen and open that chakra along with the other six, when I get to the point in my meditation where I’m starting to astral project I feel a huge lump in my throat that makes it almost hard to breathe and I start salivating more than normal. Any physical movement like swallowing makes it go away. I’ve been working on mentally focusing on not doing anything that would disturb that sensation because I’m thinking that it is a sign that the chakra is opening.

Has anyone else had this experience and if so can anyone help me understand what is happening and what I should do?

Thank you all.

My response:

From your post… I can tell you this:

You have no issues with your throat chakra.
You BELIEVE you have issues with your throat chakra, and that belief is all that’s holding you back.

You’re well-spoke and communicate effectively. You have no issues with your throat chakra.

With that said, stop worrying so much about stuff like needing to swallow. Just do it. Do you worry this much when you fall asleep at night? Probably not. You just lie down and fall asleep. Well, projecting isn’t any different. You lie down and “just project”. If you need to scratch an itch, do it. If you need to swallow, do it. Do it calmly and gently so you don’t break yourself too much out of your state of mind, but just do it.

I can meditate, get really deep and into it… then, UH OH! I have to go to bathroom…
It’s not a problem. You open your eyes, calmly and quietly get up, calmly and quietly go to the bathroom, do your stuff… then go and sit back down. This act of getting up shouldn’t completely break your focus.

If a simple movement such as “swallowing” is breaking your focus, then you’re worrying too much.

Just relax.

This is a great illustration of how your Perception creates your reality. And it doesn’t just happen here physically…

When experiencing the non-physical, WHAT you experience is OBJECTIVE, HOW you experience it is SUBJECTIVE.
The shape in the middle bottom of the image represents what your non-physical experience ACTUALLY is… the two shapes on the end represent how you INTERPRETED the experience.
You can have two separate consciousnesses experience the same middle image, yet their interpretation of that experience could really end up in two completely different ways.

WHAT you experience is OBJECTIVE (the middle shape), HOW you experience it is SUBJECTIVE.

A member of the Astral Pulse recently asked “Is Astral Projection just a form of lucid dreaming?”.

Well, to answer this question, we need to ask three separate questions which are all intricately linked and yet also not linked at all.

Here are the THREE very important questions that need to be asked.

1. What is “dreaming”?
2. What is “lucid dreaming”?
3. What is “astral projection”?

Now, I have been studying this stuff for a while and at one point, I focused almost exclusively on the first question in order to answer the second and third question. So began my journey to figure out what we humans (aka: science) know about “dreaming” began.

What is Dreaming? I very quickly hit a roadblock when researching this question. What did I learn? I learned that humanity, LITERALLY, has absolutely no idea what “dreaming” is. We haven’t a clue. We have scientists who have provided educated guesses, but not a single human lives today or has ever lived who has been able to answer that question.

So… that kills question #1. The answer: We humans don’t know what “dreaming” is.

Question #2 and #3 are kind of unanswerable because we don’t know the answer to question #1.

So when you ask “is astral projection just a form of lucid dreaming?”, do you realize what you’re REALLY asking here?
You’re asking “is some random label of something we have absolutely no idea about, just a form of another random label of something we have absolutely no idea about?”. Most people love to compare dreaming to lucid dreaming and to astral projection, but you can’t do this. It makes no logical sense because if you don’t know what “dreams” are, then you can’t use it as a basis of comparison to anything else.

Funny, eh?

Now, I *can* answer #1, #2, AND #3. However, I can only answer it from my own personal experience of the non-physical… I’m not saying the answer is right, but I am saying that it comes from my own personal experience. I wrote the following article a few years ago to better explain: https://www.unlimitedboundaries.ca/2012/07/22/labeling-experiences-of-the-non-physical/

Please read that article, and enjoy.

Some people, especially individuals new to Projection, upon having their first Projection proclaim that it was “more real” than their usual physical reality experience. Let me try to explain how this sensation works.

If you really think about it for a second, saying that something is “more real” is a strange comparison to make with something else. If something is “real” then how can something else be “more” real? It’s either real or not real. It’s one of those statements that has no gray area. It’s very black and white, on or off, 1 or 0. The better way to describe these experiences is that when compared to your physical reality perception they are simply “different”. Why are they different? Because while you’re physically awake you’re experiencing this reality *through* the filters (5 senses) of your physical body.

When you’re projecting, you’re not using those 5 physical senses. Now, understand, for your ENTIRE LIFE up until now, you’ve been using those 5 physical body senses and they have formed your entire reality for as long as you can remember. You’ve become entirely used to how your physical body feels when experiencing this physical reality. So what’s different about it when you’re projecting? While projecting, for the first time in your experience, you’re using “other” senses/perceptions to experience the reality through.

So, what’s going on is that you’re experiencing a reality with different filters on, perhaps even LESS filters than you’re normally (physically) used to. This is why a Projection FEELS so “different”.

Let me try to put it another way. Have you ever bought a brand new pair of shoes? The first time you slip those shoes on, they feel very strange on your feet. Don’t they? They feel completely different because they’re filtering what your feet are feeling compared to your old shoes which were very familiar to you. It doesn’t make them any more or less “real”, it just makes your perception of them “different”. This “different” perception is all that’s occurring when you’re projecting. I’ve found that the “different” perception is also directly tied to “how aware” you are compared to your waking self. The more aware you are the “more real” people tend to describe their experiences.

I hope that helps a bit with understanding your experiences.

There are these non-physical concepts floating around that there are these “areas” of consciousness which are “individual” in nature, meaning it’s only you there experiencing it and “collective” in nature, meaning that it’s you experiencing the reality with many other individuals/awarenesses/entities/beings/etc. When you look at consciousness as a whole, you realize that this kind of separation is simply illogical. Allow me to explain.

By the very nature that everything is consciousness – everything is collective. There is only “everything”. The simple fact is that the individualness you experience on a daily basis (the idea that you are separate from everyone else) is an illusion. So when people have a projection and they seem to be in a reality all by themselves, or they have what they will arbitrarily label as a lucid dream, they come to the conclusion that they were within some individual area of consciousness which is only for them and them alone.

There’s only your perception of individual and collective experiences. The difference is like standing in a crowded room with a blindfold that blocks all light from your eyes and ear plugs that block all noise from your ears and then making the, obviously plain as day assumption that you’re all alone. Your perception says that since you can’t see or hear anyone else that you were all by yourself, even though standing all around you are these other individuals. That’s how the non-physical / consciousness kind of works.

You’re never alone. You only perceive yourself to be because that how you’re currently interpreting the reality that you’re experiencing. Someone / something could be standing right in front of you and you’d never see them because you just don’t perceive them.

This is also what I mean when I say that WHAT you experience is Objective, but HOW you experience it is Subjective. So how do you experience something closer to how it’s Objectively presented? You need to keep yourself grounded and centered. This will remove as much subjectiveness as possible which is being fueled by your own awareness. Even then, if you’re able to do that, you still might not ever experience something 100% objective as it’s really presented.

I haven’t done one of these in a while so I thought I’d start them back up again! Post Focus!
There was a post made on the Astral Pulse today by Alex-Anderson, where he speaks about having many what he labels as “OBEs” during his life, but now recently, within the last couple years, that has apparently stopped. He goes on to say that he does have many, what he labels as “lucid dreams” though. Which is great! And I’ll explain!

First, this is his post:

My response:
The ONLY issue you have is that you’re stuck on labels.
To me, those two quotes above (bolded sentences) are contradictory.

Here’s what you’re saying: “I used to have lots of OBE’s, but within the last two years they’ve stopped… except now I have lots of Lucid Dreams.”
Here’s my perspective: “I used to have lots of projections, but within the last two years they’ve stopped… except now I have lots of projections.”

An OBE *IS* a projection.
A lucid dream *IS* a projection.

Your ONLY problem is that you “believe” that they’re different things… and, as I said, you’re too hung up on labels.
Forget the terms you know. They’re meaningless and worthless. If you’re consciously aware that you’re experiencing a reality which isn’t this physical reality, then you’re projecting.

What you need to do is learn to control what you’re calling a “lucid dream” and dictate where and what you do in those experiences. They’re ALL non-physical experiences.
If you want to experience something resembling this physical reality while having what you’re calling a “lucid dream”, then just do it. You’re only limiting yourself here. Place the intent. Do what you choose to do. Have control.

You have no problem here beyond what you believe you do. You haven’t lost anything except time.