yes Ryan, trying too hard has always been a set back for me, it's like your energy gets all in a ball and too tight if u want something too badly. the practice of relaxation is a marvelous tool for going obe and it worked for me..once...but one good obe is worth a dozen lucid dreams which is what I work with now.
and not complaining.
for many years I just had no idea where to go once I did get out of body. that is where the imagination comes in...seems I was all dressed up and nowhere to go...hmmm. bummer.

oh, you might try this....maintain your sense of excitement and anticipation, but above all utilize the imagination..but if u try too hard, it's easy to get discouraged and quit, so don't try too hard and ask for a guide, that works especially well. to keep myself from grunting I used to watch the clock, 20 minutes of effort and then forget it, try another time.
and when u fly, remember to come back to the body and ground yourself into it; the body is our home right now. love, alysia

you have some very neat experiences under your belt Freebird and this is one of your road signs to follow also. I call such experiences road signs because they point in a direction to ponder on which will lead you to where u want to be.
the feeling within obes, the beginning types of obes is that you will die as I used to have that fear in me way back when they started. you'll get over it I think. what happened once or twice when I was in the discoincidence state which seems to be about 2 inches floating above the body, but not totally disengaged, I became aware, or my body told me, I wasn't breathing so I thought I would die.  then as it's in instinct to survive, to keep breathing on the body's part, I recoincided to intake air. I got perturbed at my body and told it next time I wanted to take a little journey, to please keep breathing for me. anyway, I got over the fear of dying and never had that sensation again. could be I reflect, the body has it's own consciousness and doesn't want you to pull away from it? it's a thought. I didn't love myself very well back then, nor appreciate having a body, so maybe the body sensed my desertion tactics?
nowdays, I have this other philosophy concerning obes; the best way out of the body is through the body.
some meditators can slow their heart beat down to where a beat cannot be detected by instrument, but I have not heard of speeding up the heart beat or for what purpose..so perhaps you were experiencing the kundalini running up and down your chakras. I have known and read about accounts where meditation produces an influx of boyount energy however; so much energy in fact, food is not needed to injest during those times...I'd say u are in the midst of raising your energy level and moving into a different vibratory rate which will level out for awhile before you step into the next growth phase. you have a guide who is working with you in this life, he was the orb you saw. you are loved very much. alysia

Hi Freebird,
this is SOO funny and interesting because what you described is very much the same what I experienced last night!
I read the posting of chris francombe "chills or sth more?" where he told about his ability to produce chills at will and what that could mean and got two answers which were related to some kind of energy work like yoga and that it could be sth important. I thought "Huh, really!?" and remembered that I did similar things over 20 years ago when I read Monroe's first book and his OoB-method-for-everyone. So,  I went to bed for sleep last night and decided to do a little chill-vibration-energy-etc. exercise just to see what will happen. I produced a little body-tension and imagined that my mind or energy body (or just sth immaterial) gets VERY tensioned and full loaded, thought of Monroes early method, of Bruces method, of my heart chakra (so I mixed all together what I've heard about energy work and OoB-generation). At first I felt it on the top of my head and on my forehead, a pressure, than came the tingle-feeling in my hands. I was  still tensioning up my mind and imagined vibrations with increasing frequency. When I relaxed after that (it was strenuous) it happend of itself: A wave of "something", hot and cold at the same moment came up from my heels, over my back, moved around my head and down again the frontside of my body, it felt like thousands of tiny needles were stuck into my skin all over my body, like to be totally inside this needle-blanket, or electric pins or a very powerful whirlpool or all together, I think you know what I mean. After a little while I decided to better cool down because I didn't know where this would be going to lead to, and this feeling went away after a few seconds. I had little headache, felt a bit like just had the flew and couldn't fall asleep for the next two hours. So, that was interesting, I think I will get some infos about energy work.

The other thing: I am a busy "mind traveler", as I call it, it's the TMI-Bruce's type of travelling, and not OoB travelling in the strong sense, what would be to see clearly your material surroundings (or a copy of it). But, of course, I am curious to have an "really" OBE. And that's another similarity with your experiences freebird: I once was laying in my bed, slowly awakening, and I was looking at a picture that was attached at the wall of my room. Just normal. But then I realized I had my eyes closed! And immediately I couldn't see it anymore and awoke fully. On a second time I was between wake and sleep and I started to vibrate, and it was becoming very strong, I began to feel cold and I "knew" I was going to have an OBE; I thought o.k., let's go. But then I became so scared, it was such a strong fear of totally being alone and I fell back into a "normal" state. The strange thing is, I never knew before that I had such strong fear. That fear must be a conservated one of my childhood, I was very anxious about being left alone at that time. In my usual projections/mind travels with the TMI/Bruce-method I never ever felt fear.

I wonder where this life is going to lead me, bye, spooky