The journeys I take can be described as meditations, astral projections, out of body experiences, or remote viewing. To me these are differing names for what is the same phenomenon—paying attention to or sending my awareness to some point that cannot be perceived by my body’s five physical senses.

There are countless books and websites describing methods you can use to send your awareness beyond your body. Many offer mental exercises and affirmations. Some suggest paying attention to your dreams. Others suggest using rituals, drumming, music, and/or substances to alter your consciousness. Still others employ technologies, such as the Monroe Institute’s Hemi-Sync, to help you change your brainwave frequencies. In the end they all involve shifting your attention from the outer world you normally experience to an inner world that exists alongside and beyond the physical realm.

For me, after years of practice this has become a simple and natural process that no longer requires preparation time, ritual, or any aids to shift my consciousness. In essence, my current process is less one of going somewhere else than it is one of paying attention to something else.

If you think about it you may discover that you use this very same process of shifting your attention, albeit you may do so in different contexts.

Doing Two Things at Once

Most of us are able to do more than one thing at the same time if we set our minds to it. For instance, we can listen to the radio while driving a car, or we can take a walk with a friend and carry on a conversation while doing so. In these cases, we simply split our awareness, giving each thing we are doing a certain amount of attention. And that amount of attention can fluctuate.

For example, you may be following a news story on the radio when suddenly the car in front of you brakes sharply. You hit your brakes and swerve to avoid a collision. There’s no harm done since you were paying attention. But in avoiding the accident you may have stopped paying attention to the news story on the radio. The announcer’s voice continued to come out of the car’s speakers but you were no longer following the news story. You missed what was said because you had other things to do. In other words, you tuned out one part of your experience in order to pay more attention to another part.

In that example your external world demanded so much attention that you temporarily ignored the inner world in which you were following the news story. Of course, the inverse of this experience can also happen. You can become so engrossed in your inner world that you may have no recollection of your outer world.

For instance, you might go to visit a dear friend at her new home in a distant town. Let’s say the two of you decide to take a walk and soon get so busy talking about old times that you don’t pay attention to where you’re walking. Suddenly with no familiar landmarks for reference you can’t recall how many left and right turns you’ve made. You then need her help to get back to her house. Even though you may have a memory of walking to your present destination, you didn’t pay enough attention to reverse your steps in order to get home. In this case, you paid more attention to your conversation than you did to your external surroundings. The same thing can happen when you get lost in thought while driving and you miss a turn or exit that you needed to take.

These examples point out some of the ways that you might split your attention. We all do this from time to time, and generally we can successfully divide our awareness between multiple external activities. This same skill applies when paying attention to inner states of awareness.

Shifting Awareness

The practice of meditation—or astral traveling, etc.—involves learning to still the mind of racing surface thoughts and pay attention to that which arises within the stillness that follows.

When I do my thing I (usually) close my eyes and concentrate on my breathing for a moment of two as I still my mind. Then I sit in the blackness behind my closed eyelids and pay attention. That’s all. What happens next takes on meaning as the experience unfolds.

If I have a particular task I want to do such as a soul retrieval I may think of the person’s name. If I’m looking for guidance on a particular question, I may ask the question and sit quietly waiting for an answer. When I want to feel connected with Source, I recall the sense of connection and feel it spreading through me.

My point is that I hold a particular intention, but I don’t force a particular experience to come. I don’t follow any techniques or ritualistic patterns of behavior. I merely sit calmly and observe what happens next.

More often than not I notice something. It may be a fleeting image. It may be a “voice” I hear in my mind. It could be an emotional feeling or a clear and specific thought. I don’t get excited or curious about it. Rather I simply pay attention to what happens next.

As I pay attention to that which is unfolding, the experience expands into greater detail. Fleeting images grow to become three dimensional worlds. Snippets of dialog grow into full-fledged conversations. And as I pay attention to this inner world my awareness of the outer world fades. I rarely loose touch with physical reality completely. Instead I simply choose not to pay attention to my physical surroundings. In other words, I choose to turn my awareness inwards rather than outwards.

Like a dream in which I know I’m dreaming, I turn my attention to certain things and not to others. In this way the experience unfolds in response to my intentions. Yet I remain open to whatever may come next.

I know this sounds simplistic, but it really is that simple. The difficulties lie in learning how to still your mind and in allowing the experience to unfold without choking it off through self-doubt.

To be sure I didn’t reach this point overnight. I practiced for decades before I decided to visit the Monroe Institute in

Virginia

. With their tools and guidance my process accelerated rapidly. In short order my confidence and skills increased and I was soon able to pursue these experiences at will. For several years I used their Hemi-Sync tools to aid my explorations. Later I realized that since these states of consciousness always exist, I could enter whichever state I desired with a simple thought. That breakthrough opened even more doors for exploration and discovery.

That happened to be my path. If you’re interested in pursuing these things I’m sure you’ll find the path that’s best suited for you.