Astral Travel Triggers

David DeHetre - Creative Commons

Yesterday I recalled a story told to me by an acquaintance through the family of my wife. He noted that when he was about 10 years old he spontaneously had an out-of-body experience while sitting in a grassy field outdoors. He said that he felt what he thought was his body floating up and hovering high over the field where he could see his physical body below. I cannot remember if he thought he had just rested for a cat nap when this occurred. But, the important point is that his astral moment was spontaneous.

Oddly, I see others that claim you cannot have an astral projection experience unless you meditate, have detoxed, practice deep breathing and use discipline of thought.  Take a look at these quote fragments from this article on Astral Travel, Telepathy and Dream Control:

"Restoring perfect health (important condition, freeing resources of the mind/consciousness from attending emergencies arising in your physical body etc..) This is best achieved by full physical detoxification and mind/thought control...Pure intentions - not harming anyone and anything, unconditional ACCEPTANCE of everyone else, full forgiveness for other people's mistakes. Note that people make mistakes and hurt others simply because their awareness and understanding are limited...Vegan diet (important condition, that seems to free resources of the mind/consciousness from unnecessary metabolism etc..)  Eating little, drinking PURE water, NO dinners. Since most of the astral travel happens at night we need every resource from our mind. Metabolising food seems to take a lot of conscious resources from the mind....Meditation (I practice @2 hours a day for several years now) . Make sure that you choose a good teacher for it..."

Really?  That's not what I've read in many of the astral books I own. If you look at this link from Above Top Secret written by someone doing it for the first time you can see that triggering by disrupting the sleep cycle is just enough. Also, like my friend's story above - if you've had the experience when you were young it may be much easier to trigger an event.  As you can see in that link:

"The young woman told Messier she had been triggering out of body experiences since she was four or five years old. She’d first done so when she was bored during 'sleep time' at preschool. 'She discovered she could elicit the experience of moving above her body and use this as a distraction during the time kids were asked to nap,' the study reports. She continued to perform out-of-body experiences — or 'extra corporeal experiences,' as the study calls them — as she grew to adulthood, typically as an aid to sleep. Where others might count sheep, she willed herself to leave her body."

Clearly, both techniques work as the author in that link points out so well in the quote below - spontaneously in a nap or sleep cycle or directed as in a meditative or edge of consciousness moment.

"One moonless dark night, I had just curled up in my sleeping bag. I had just begun to drift off into sleep when suddenly I found myself outside the tent, kind of walking/floating around in the dark. I became alarmed and felt really disoriented. I could not figure out how I had gotten outside the tent and what I was doing there. I cried out for my cousin who was in the tent sleeping. But he did not hear me. I went into the screen tent looking for help. I yelled as loud as I could and in the next instant I was back in the tent dripping in sweat."