Lehal Library

4. Complications of Consciousness Further examination of the mind-split effect leads to avery interesting concept: that the majority of people probably succeed at conscious-exit projection when they attempt it, even during very early attempts. Those who attempt OBE and feel projection-related symptoms, like the heaviness of trance, racing heartbeat, vibrations, torso rush, etc., are most probably successfully projecting out of body. They just are not aware of this at the time, and are therefore not remembering it afterward because of the mind-split effect and shadow memory recall problems. A popular theory is that everyone projects out every night to play and explore and learn and do all kinds of neat spiritual stuff, as if we were the astral otters of the universe. Then why do 99 percent of people have no memories of any kind of out-of-body existence? Where are the memories of all these lost OBEs? If the average projectors remember one projection out of a hundred, then surely during that one successful projection they would have some memory of the ninety-nine forgotten experiences? It is also quite common for projectors to become aware halfway through astral-plane projections, skipping the exit and first part of the projection entirely. Surely they would then have some recall of what they had been doing for the first half of their experience? The simple truth is that they never do. If you have been in the astral dimension for an hour, and you suddenly become aware you are in the astral, you never have any recollection of what you have been doing during the hour before you became aware. In a way, this is like waking up in the astral and taking over the astral body, which appears to have been operating independently up until that moment. The memory of what it had been doing for the previous hour is lost from that moment onward. Are these the symptoms of yet another subtle body reintegration and shadow memory recall problem, but on the astral level? The mind boggles at the potential complexities of inter-dimensional subtle body relationships and energetic conflicts. Further, consider the compatibility problems that could arise between different levels of consciousness, different levels of understanding, and memory sharing between these. And let's not forget basic reintegration problems and the fickle nature of the eventual shadow memory download into the only permanent storage medium all subtle bodies share, stretched between all aspects of the mind-split: the humble physical brain. Everything experienced out of body must eventually be downloaded into the physical brain, in base level understandability format, if it is to generate recallable memory. If you examine case histories, or have experienced this yourself, you find that every projection starts fresh, from the very beginning, just as if it were the very first OBE. Projectors never find available any continuing memories of astral-otter type of life, even if they suddenly shift into an astral projection that has been going on for some time. They remember other successful projections, sure, but absolutely nothing of their ninety-nine failures, and all the other nights when they just fell asleep. Few people state that their experience contradicts this scenario. I consider dreams and overactive imagination to account for them. So, what does happen to all these lost astral- and higher-level memories? Do they download into inaccessible levels of the subconscious mind and hide in places where even the deepest level of hypnosis cannot dig them out? Why does one successful conscious-exit projection provide vivid and lasting memories while the other ninety-nine unconscious projections do nothing? It seems possible that an intrusion by the base level of consciousness (the physical/etheric mind in its normal waking state) into the astral double causes the astral double's level of consciousness to drop sharply. This causes the astral level of consciousness to revert to its lowest form, its fully integrated or base level of consciousness. The lowest and coarsest level of a consciousness unit appears, in all cases, to be far stronger than any higher level or aspect of that same consciousness unit (consciousness unit = the whole person or being). When present, the base level thus replaces any higher levels of consciousness and overwrites any memories gained independently by those levels of consciousness on higher levels. This is what I believe happens when higher and lower levels of consciousness reintegrate on any dimensional level or level of consciousness. The stronger base level simply replaces and overwrites the higher level. The projection continues from that point at the base level of consciousness and understandability, neatly replacing higher-level experience memories. 29