Greetings from college!

After reading the advice given to me in the books section of the forum, I decided to wait until next summer to start on Bruce's guidebook and try my hand at retrievals. I simply have far too much schoolwork and other obligations right now preventing me from doing anything of the sort. As I type, I'm also working on a 3-page paper that's due by midnight tonight. :P

The request the title refers to is for a retrieval. I know there's a lot of emphasis on learning to do things for yourself here, but I'm finding that extremely difficult. One of the reasons why I saw so drawn to these books was because I'm desperate to contact certain relatives to see if they're okay. My maternal grandmother is one of them. She died about ten years ago, and ever since I started reading Bruce's books I've become obsessed with getting to the point where I can check up on her. However, that strong desire has made me become rather depressed with each failure to even become "lucid" while I'm dreaming. Phasing, going OoB, or whatever other term you wish to use seems very far from my reach, and will remain so until I have a bit less on my plate to deal with.

If anyone would be willing to find my grandmother for me, it would put my mind at ease more than you could imagine, and would decrease the hasty, desperate feeling I get every time I think about retrieving. I think I'd be better able to focus without that uneasiness dangling in front of me all the time. Please, if anyone could grant me this favor, respond. My grandmother's name is Odile Wilkinson, nee Naeger.

Many thanks,
ryuuko

I will give it a try for you, though I am certain you would have a great deal more success than you think you would. Give me a few days. My only "condition" is that you post it all when we are complete, hit or miss.

Thomas

hi Ryuuko, I'm glad Thomas will help u out. if you can stick around maybe we can help you do a retrieval in time. I know you are a busy student.

yes, I would be interested to see the results you and Thomas do. i know he is a very good retriever.

in the future perhaps you will see it's easier to do than u think. for now, I congratulate you what you are learning about. love, alysia

Thank you so much! Please believe me, I had wanted so much to try myself, but I have so little free time; and, I imagine, were I to try and focus upon learning retrievals, I might quickly become so obsessed with them that I'd neglect my other obligations.

I've read the retrieval guide in the back of Bruce's first book, but I find I even lack the mental discipline to achieve Focus 10, which is the level of consciousness he says you should aim for when doing retrievals. I've tried reaching that "mind awake, body asleep" phase many a time when attempting the more traditional OoBE (when you leave your physical body and can turn around and see it lying on the bed, as opposed to phasing, wherein Bruce says you don't really go "out of body), and I've never gotten it down. I can feel my arms and legs get very heavy, but my breathing makes it impossible for my head and chest to feel the same way. I imagine the "phasing" version of Focus 10 isn't as strenuous, since Bruce claims to have been in it while eating a meal (thus moving around), but as of yet I'm clueless as to how to get there. Maybe I'm trying too hard. :P

Maybe, it seems you try too hard Ryuuko. Try slowing your breath to the count of exhale 1-10, inhale count to 10. see if you can see into the blackness with your eyes closed. another exercise is don't try to lift out like in obe, see if there is an image in your mind then focus in on it. or imagine a doorway and walk through it.

another easy exercise to begin with, start remembering a time when you felt love for this person who you would like to contact. The feeling will promote an inner experience of perhaps some information you did not possess before.
It's important though, if you don't have time, you should do your school work first and just send loving thoughts to the others. when its vacation time, then you will feel more relaxed to try stuff. love, alysia