Ok,

Hello fellow consciousness explorers.  This thread came to me looking through the conversation board, and seeing that interlaced with ideas and intellectual understanding of different states of being, there was doubt.  And then it hit me suddenly - that there is a very great difference between grasping a concept with the intellect and having personal experience so that it is known. 

Conceptually, I have read and understand Monroe's concept of C1 and the focus levels.  I have just begun my exploration with a few hemi-sync tapes, but I have not yet consciously, willfully visited these focus levels and brought back the experience.  My  brother, on the other hand had an OOBE when he was 16.  He was hit by a car while on a bicycle, and remembers watching the whole scene.  He described the top of the ambulance, looking down (including the writing on it), and the top of a neighbor's head.  He, as others who have had this happen was not particularly mystical or religious prior to this.  For him, the certainty that we exist outside of the body is there because he experienced this in waking consciousness.  For myself, and many here (I belive), the concepts make sense, but the experience has not yet come.


And so, I believe that is where the doubt comes from.  The feeling that "hey, I may just be indulging in mental masterbation."  It comes from using our intellect and reason, without feeling that we've personally experienced different states of consciousness and reality.  The mystical experience, talked about, and written about it many different ways is the key it seems.  And the use of our rational brains to say "I accept this theory or possible reality," is not enough to quench our doubts.

Matthew

Matthew,

I like what you said there.  It's true that in the search for understanding it is crucial to explore the ideas and the experiences of others, and to do so can be addictive without entirely removing doubt. 

For myself, I find I can move forward and experience doubt at the same time.  I am presently attempting my own "retrievals" and it is quite interesting. 

I find that even within the experience itself I can have a moment of doubt but can deliberately let go of the doubt, just allow myself to go deeper.  It is a conscious decision to let go of doubt.  The experience completes itself.  My doubt is unimportant to what is real in the experience, if that makes any sense.

love, blink