A: As I understand it, Astral Projection is defined as the experience of being outside of the human body while conscious and alive. It is similar to an out-of-body-experience, in that a person projects his or her consciousness off of the earth plane and into the astral plane, a dimension that is vaster than the earth plane. The theory is that parts of the astral plane overlap parts of the earth plane, where the physical world resides, and an astral traveler can gain access to other planes from the astral plane, such as the mental and spirit planes. Some of the physical sensations of Astral Projection include a heightened sense of spiritual wellness and peace, and a visible glowing silver thread which attaches your out-of-body self with your physical self, and like wise to all living things. In our vast experiences with Traveling, we have never had anyone notice or become aware of a silver chord, or thread.
Q: Isn’t this just hypnosis disguised by another name? [Back to Top]
A: It is a fair question to ask and deserves more than a simple yes or no answer. In Chapter 6 of Part 1 called The Birth of ReSPITE®, I explain how my interest in hypnosis led me to study and practice the techniques that are readily available in a myriad of books on the subject, and how I came to recognize the further uses of what I eventually called the relaxed state of the mind, and how I came to create my own techniques now known as ReSPITE®. Any hypnotist or hypnotherapist will tell you that the basis of working in the altered state of mind is the use of suggestion to the subconscious, or whatever they may prefer to call that part of the mind, in order to generate the requested results. Where their experiences come from fantasy, or the imagination, the Traveling experience comes from real life; a very different and unique source.
Q: Can this Traveling phenomenon really be scientifically proven? [Back to Top]
A: To answer this question, and deal with all it implies, I have to be willing to subject my friends and associates to what has been described to me as nothing less than legalized harassment. Rather than do so, I have spent these last 20 years in studying the phenomenon, recording its results, and researching, as much as is feasibly possible, their validity. A good portion of that investigative process is the basis behind the publishing of this book—the publishers made us prove, to their satisfaction, that what we professed they could verify. You’ll have to be the final judge.
Q: What is the risk to the Traveler being able to access all the senses during a session? [Back to Top]
A: I try to explain in a section of Chapter 3 in Part 1 called Deeper Into the Mind and in Chapter 6 of Part 2 called Analysis Paralysis that the ability to Travel well depends a great deal on a person’s ability to let go of their analytical inhibitions, which took yours truly more years than I’m willing to admit. I have created over the years a categorization criterion that helps me, and our Institute, know at what level to certify a person who has been through our official training courses. An Expert Traveler meets the qualifications where he or she can accurately describe all 5 senses no matter the situation they find themselves in during a Traveling session. Even though they seem to feel the freezing temperatures of the Arctic or the burning rays of the Sahara Dessert, their natural skin does not show the signs of such exposure. The risk would be similar to someone living through a nightmare of falling off a cliff and waking up dead (tongue-in-cheek).
Q: Bonny’s experiences seem to go beyond what the mind can experience. Isn’t she having out of body experiences? [Back to Top]
A: Out-of-Body Experiences (OBEs), as defined in parapsychology literature, are brief experiences in which a person's consciousness seems to detach from his or her body, and leaves, enabling that person to view other places without the physical body by means other than the physical senses. In other words, they go to and view other places outside their physical bodies. For some who experience an OBE, they are aware that they are in some other "body" outside of their own but also their own, and can actually feel themselves traveling to another place, and often they see people in those places who are also aware of being seen by the OBE subject. Some of the physical sensations of an OBE may include feeling vibrations of energy, hearing loud and strong noises, and seeing everything with exceptional clarity, with intensely vivid visuals. OBE's are unlike dreams in that they resemble more of a waking experience. While in college, Bonny was part of a Psychology experiment where she experienced an OBE, and tells me that her Travels are a very different experience.
Q: One way to explain what’s happening is that through your interests and studies, you have filled your mind with all the information that she then picks up from; I believe the term is called telepathy. [Back to Top]
A: Telepathy, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is defined as "Action of one mind on another at a distance through emotional influence, without communication through senses." In other words, telepathy is communication between minds. Although there is some confusion about the definition of telepathy, one of the most common definitions is the ability for two people to exchange words directly from mind to mind, without using the voice or ears. A good analogy is the radio: one person being a sender, broadcasting "thought waves", and the other person being a receiver, picking up these thought waves. A variation on that definition is that The sender does not send actual words, but rather images or emotions. Although we’re not communicating through the use of telepathy, I do discuss what I call mind penetration in Chapter 19 of Part 2 called Working in Pairs.
Q: What is the difference between the ReSPITE® or relaxed state, and normal sleep with dreams? In the relaxed state there is a conscious guide to shape and direct the experience, but in dreams there is a lot of absolute fiction that is perhaps related to reality through symbolism. [Back to Top]
A: I think you've stated the obvious, and in doing so have almost answered this and the following question (below). This is also a difficult question to answer, personally, as I am one who has had to work at just remembering my dreams. For most of my life I assumed I did not dream, until someone suggested how nonsensical the idea was and told me how to begin to capture them. Even so, my dreams are not controlled by any conscious ability that I’m aware of, except for the occasional moral judgment that I recognize has a steering effect on some of my dreams. I describe in Chapter 2 of Part 1 in the book, called Couldn’t Get Enough, how I feel I have effectively worked with people’s neurosis while they are in the dream state and I interact with their subconscious mind, which I can confidently say is very different from traveling—the person is very much awake, alert, and consciously aware.
Q: What about guiding oneself through the traveling experience? Have any of your subjects done this yet? Is it even possible (a kind of self-hypnosis experience where you just sit down, tell yourself where you want to go, and do it)? [Back to Top]
A: I find the most common experience while trying to travel alone is, unfortunately, a deep and satisfying sleep. If you consider for a moment one of the old hypnosis techniques of counting backwards from 100 by threes (try this and see how long you can go before you want to give in to sleep—a great insomnia technique, by the way), you quickly realize that the idea is to get the person to concentrate to the point of overload. With this in mind, it’s easy to see how difficult the process would be to stay consciously aware of yourself and purpose, but I didn’t say impossible. It takes a great deal of patience and practice. After 20 years of falling asleep at each attempt, I have finally managed to travel on my own while very much awake.