So there I was, about a year and a half into my fascination and exploration of my dreams.  One day while reading one of my myriad books on the subject I came across the following:

“Among the early independent students in the field of astral projection was a self-taught pioneer worker by the name of Oliver Fox.  In the early 20s there appeared a book written by Mr. Fox called “Astral Projection”.  It is now long out of print and copies are hard to come by.  In this book Fox teaches a system of Astral Projection which he calls “The Dream Method”.   Fox says that he discovered the system himself and experimented with it himself for a period of 30 years prior to the date of the publication of the book.”

This, of course captured my attention as an interesting direction for my newly learned knowledge.  I wandered the used bookstores until I found Mr. Fox’s book and then read it with relish.

The basic idea of Fox’s dream method was that a person could, starting with a dream, learn how to “wake” in the midst of the dream and, from that point of awakening, start a train of inner events that could lead to a type of astral projection.

I wasn’t really sure of what astral projection was, but being an adventurer of the inner mind, I decided to add this to my list of explorations.  Truth is, I had no idea of what I was getting into.

I had already learned in my dream study how to recognize the ‘dream of the know’.  This is the moment that many of us have experienced while dreaming where in the dream something happens and we, while still dreaming, suddenly ‘know’ we’re dreaming.  Usually if and when it happens, we immediately are thrust forward back into the dream and lose this knowing as fast as we gain it.

Fox describes a technique where you learn to ‘watch’ in your dreams for moments that are more dreamlike than reality-like.  Say you find yourself floating upside down moving through a hallway.  Logic might say to you that that’s a bit odd and you learn to be able to look at that and say in the dream, “Oh, I’m floating upside down; I must be dreaming.”

At that point, Fox teaches, pull yourself back, while still in the dream, instead of just mindlessly going on in the dream, place the dream on an imagined TV screen in front of you and become the watcher of the dream.  Step out of the emotion of the dream and into the position of a curious, but uninvolved observer.  Above all, don’t get into the emotion of the dream.  Observe the central character, but don’t take part emotionally.

Through a series of exercises taught by Mr. Fox I struggled along with this concept for 6-8 months, watching in my dreams for ‘dreams of the know’ and then trying to apply his principles.  Not much happened.  It wasn’t easy.

The more traditional way of exploring astral projection and getting into it was through hypnosis or self-hypnosis.  Though I read about it and learned about the methods, I quickly decided for various reasons that this was not for me.

But Fox had really gotten my attention through one particular moment he describes in his book.

In astral projection, simply put, the astral body is able to separate from the physical body while in a state of hypnosis or dream and step out of the physical body and look back on it and then move away from it and travel while the body lies in its sub-conscious or unconscious state.

One early morning in his account, Fox woke and was practicing his dream method.  One way of doing the exercises was to wake in the morning and go back to sleep and watch carefully.  Keep repeating this for an hour or two over and over and you get practice.

On this particular morning, Fox got into a dream of the know, did his pull-back TV thing and stepped up out of his body, checked that all was well and left the house to take an astral walk around the block.  (Are you still with me?)

Fox had a friend who was also an astral explorer and they would confer often.

On that particular morning when Fox got down to the newsstand, there was his friend waiting in line to buy a paper.  Excitedly, Fox, wondering whether it was his astral friend or his physical friend, walked up behind his friend and tapped him on the shoulder.  However, when he tapped, his hand, or I should say his astral hand, simply passed through the shoulder of his physical friend.  His friend feeling something totally strange happening behind him actually jumped in surprise.

At that, Fox panicked, went into some kind of cosmic spin-out, flew through the air, down the street, back home, landing back in his bed and back in his physical body – upside down – head in his feet, feet in his head and completely paralyzed.

His friend later stated that while standing in line to buy the paper that morning, he had a strange sensation in his left shoulder and turned around to look what was happening, but there was nobody there.

Meanwhile Fox lay in bed in a dire predicament.  Paralyzed, within about a half hour, he was able to calm himself down, self hypnotize himself and then astrally project himself once again out of his body, turn around and re-enter his body properly.

Whew!

Driven on by great adventures of this sort and similar stories, I continued my practice each morning until twice I had baby astral experiences where I was able, through Fox’s dream method, to separate and rise up out of my body, float up on the ceiling and for several seconds look down at myself sleeping there.  I would get so excited that I would get ‘involved’ in the experience, a no-no, and immediately ruin it all.  I needed more discipline.

Once, several weeks later, I was actually able to calmly facilitate the dream method, separate, lie there in my body, calm down, stay unemotional and then stand up on the floor and look down at myself sleeping there in the bed.  I remember thinking, “ OK, that’s enough for this morning” and slipping back into my body and going through the exercise of proper return to normal consciousness.

I was very pleased with myself and naively thought, “All right, now I’m ready for some real adventures!”  Oh how young I was.  Oh how over-confident.

Tomorrow: Some “real adventures”.  Tune in.