hi all i am new to all of this, but some strange stuff has been happening for the past few years. a few specific experiances were. i was trying to do a obe but really didnt have any clue what i was doing. i just remember  going to bed finally falling asleep then at some point waking up so i thought. i couldnt move but i knew exactly what was going on around me. my body was very tingly and after alittle while i forced my self awake by moving my body i remeber it was very very hard. did i succeed? maybe just a dream that was very real? other times i have woken up to what felt like someone shaking me uncontrolably and whispering to me<i live alone so it was quiet odd the first few times>. and the one that pushed me to come here was last night i was sleeping and i woke up to what felt like my body was being held down with a great deal of force. when i woke up nothing was out of the ordinary. any thought on whats going on?

I agree with everything Betsi said.  I remember having those exact experiences you describe, and I'm so glad I haven't had one in a looong time.  They aren't very fun.  But be happy that you are indeed getting the hang of it.  Soon you'll be having some fun experiences. 

Try setting your intent several times a day, saying "The next time I have one of those experiences I want to remember that I'm out of body".  That's one way to get your thoughts changed during those experiences.  The one thing I found was that once I was in that paralyzed state I was so scared I couldn't think straight. 

Another intent that works is to lay in bed and as you are falling asleep, imagine that you are slowly sitting up to get out of bed.  Imagine very realisticially that you are standing beside the bed, and then walking out of your bedroom, and walking throughout your house.  Keep it up and keep it slow, steady, and smooth, and if you do this right on the verge of sleep, you can very easily pass into an OBE without realizing it.

I've done this and have heard others do it too.  Personally speaking, I can tell you that you'll probably have a little bit of amnesia and once you are out of body you won't remember that you were just in bed a few minutes ago.  With practice you will wake with memory of every detail of your experiences and that's a huge step.  And with practice you'll be able to recognize the OBE feeling without having so much of that amnesia effect.  I think getting past these initial steps is the hardest part. 

One last good intent is to tell yourself to remember that the next time you have one of these experiences, tell yourself to "feel lighter" or "go higher".  I have found that these initial OBEs can feel heavy and dark and very confusing.  A lot of "unreal" stuff in them.  But by willing yourself to a higher state, things become more clear, in a visual sense but more specifically in an enlightening sense.

Hi Rebecca,

I get that too, where you are just about to fall asleep and you shake yourself awake.  I just had that yesterday...dozed off and started to dream I was walking and tripped, and I woke up with a huge start.  I don't know what you can attribute that to. 

What do you mean "or suddenly notice I'm consciously walking around when I thought I was sleeping in bed"?  Maybe these are times you were daydreaming and not really focused in the physical.  I do believe we "go ahead of ourselves" most times in the waking state.  In other words, we have these mini, unnoticed OBEs where we are "information gathering" and bringing that information back to us for our reference and decision making.  We usually don't notice this unless we end up with a deja vu feeling.

Oh I see what you are saying.  Yes I agree, that a lucid dream is a type of OBE, definitely.  From my experience though, it can be hard to pull out of the reality of the dream and decide to explore somewhere or something else.  I tend to get caught up in the excitement of my surroundings! 

I look at dreams this way...it is like spending time focused on a thought.  While there, it is your reality and you are dealing with whatever it is about that focus that you are needing to deal with, for however long you decide to be there or until something comes along to distract you.  So dreams are just as real as thoughts.   No, they aren't real as in real life, but they are an area of consciousness, and while we are focused there, that's where our consciousness is operating at the moment. 

Some people have had lucid dreams in which a deceased loved one has visited, but they wake up and say "too bad it was just a dream".  I say, it was a real visit from their loved one and too bad they didn't realize it!

So my point is to look at your level of conscious awareness to clue you into whether or not you are "out of body", don't look at the content of what you are experiencing at the moment.  Just like being absorbed in a deep thought, if you tell yourself this thought doesn't hold any value because it's just a thought in my head and isn't real, you are limiting your awareness from exploring outside of the normal realm of what you're used to...the physical world. 

You might even consider that being absorbed deep in thought is a sort of out of body experience to some degree.  All you need is a matter of focus and concentration to turn your awareness away from one area (physical reality) and toward another (nonphysical reality).  The greater degree you can focus your awareness, the more real that focus becomes to your senses.

Hi Rockst@r,

Welcome to this site!
My first obes were uncontrollable also and I felt 'carried' on energy I didn't understand, so I'd answer, " sure it can happen."   
If you could find time to read some of the books mentionned on this site, you'd see how much alike all obes are and how they attempt to help us get beyond fear and even mystery.
It's a real balancing act to find out how much you can think while ob and how much you have to go with the flow. Thinking with our logical minds will definitely stop the energy, so your experiences are pretty typical. 
This may sound strange in such a brief discussion as this, but if you can feel kindness toward any life you meet while ob, like telling the incubus 'not now but thanks'     while thinking kindly towards it, it will probably just fade out. Then you can move on to the really satisfying aspects of this.
Exploring the phenomena of 'the afterlife' is worth getting past these first obstacles.
More people will probably write you ideas if you'll make your own post up in 'afterlife Knowledge forum' -- it pretty much gets used for everything these days.

Best wishes, Betson