good post Vee. The basic premise is relax, relax, relax. If there is too much urgency to do any kind of exploration, PE, retrieval, past life, etc, the urgency itself is a block.

Sonia, perhaps Bruce's comprehensive 5th book, a how to manual, full of easy to follow exercises might be better.

Heres maybe something can help the over eager: what I figured out was you can try too hard, or want too badly. but you can use that energy of desire in another way, to your benefit. With that energy, it can feel too intense. it is a block. so it is also filled with doubts of your ability, otherwise it wouldn't be so intense. You have to put the doubts somewhere, into an imaginary satchel perhaps. You lose nothing, as you know when you're done with your experiment, the satchel is right there to pick up. But for the moments you engage your imagination, or your visualization if you wish, you relax, you put your doubts aside.

What I would do when I wanted to make contact with my foster dad for instance, on the other side, I first built the energy.
over a few days time, I would think "I want this experience." I'm going to do it. then I'd forget about it until tomorrow. then again I'd remember, yes, I want this. It will happen. I have faith.

It turns out that the deceased, whom we have a bond with especially receive your "want signal." perhaps delivered by a messenger, or perhaps it's just a random signal which hits it's target. at any rate, I sometimes would take an entire week to build the momentum of my desire before I would make contact, in dream area sometimes, other times in C1. with the phasing, it's almost like it's all imagination, and you can feel quite foolish doing it, then what makes it real is getting confirmation of hits with your partner.

You may be right on, but if your partner is disbelieving, or thinking that it's all their imagination, so they don't want to share, then you don't really validate your own experience in that case. so pick a partner, establish good communication with them first then you can work on a PE. My PE partner and I profitted by our experiences, but I think I profited much more than she did.

perhaps you don't need a friendship bond. It just worked better for me to trust this person into whose energy field I would be engaged with. and we do it right here in the PE section, no particular bonding has taken place, and it still works, but I'd say the trust is still important, and to trust, you have to place doubts aside, as doubts themselves tend to have a certain creative element.

well, it's a huge topic, I wish you the best Sonia, perhaps we can have another PE here and draw you into it. love, alysia

Hi Vee..it seems one experience builds on another, and it seems no two obes or experiences, or PE's will act the same, each experience is a new experience. such as some people will try making themselves thirsty, and go to bed expecting the astral body to get up and go get a drink.

while such an experiment might work once, I doubt it would work twice.
So I don't advocate working at it at all..it should be fun, is my idea.

I remember back in my 30's I put a lot of effort into the desire to go full blown obe. then after that one Obe where I become an orb, it was so profound and real, that I lost all desire to continue.

thus I knew. I had a known factor. Now it was time to build the conceptual and intellectual areas and the obes or experiences follow naturally from having higher ideals, in relationship to Monroe's "basic."

lets see, page 221 in Ultimate Journey mention is made of his attaining the basic from his I/there.
it was simply service ideals, in general, has to do with bringing a gift back to the I/there.

to much straining after psychic development would be counter productive. Yet Sonia has the right idea. If we all had a personal PE partner, we are in service to the partner, the motive is right for growth.

Vee, I love this Ultimate Journey! gaining so much. I will be writing about it to share. love, alysia

hi Vee, I know, they are different. I probably have the same books!

some I can't get all the way through as the author has a totally different perspective than mine. the best way I know to achieve a full blown obe is to do a retrieval with the idea of PUL behind it to give it steam.

other than obeing to be of service, many a time has passed for me when I got all dressed up and had nowhere to go.

meaning intention is everything. or more stronger than curiosity alone. I had a lot of curiosity, but little intellect or thought into these matters way back then. Higher self only would show up if I asked the right question.