The message (which may be wrong) I've got from guides is:

A. You already have all Aspects of Self within yourself. This probably means
that it's difficult to absorb anyone else's Aspect. But you may find Aspects of dead
people, and those Aspects will then go to F 27 by the help of Helpers, in my opinion.

B. I think that sometimes people may pick up Aspects of Selves, who they are not
prepared for. The Helpers most likely don't mind, I think they want us to pick up
any lost Aspect, regardless of if we are prepared for it. If we are unprepared, it
will take much longer to re-integrate the Aspect or some part of the Aspect
may get lost again, for some time, I think.

Hi David,

Your progress sounds great to me.  When you “see” things while doing the exercises it means your focus is away from the physical and into the nonphysical senses.  It means you’re already at least in some kind of altered state which is a great start.  I know that the OCD chatter, or any kind of mental chatter for anyone, is an obstacle but you just need to work around it.  Trying to ignore something that is bothersome is usually difficult if not impossible.  So instead of trying to make yourself ignore it or change it, just decide to use it to your advantage. 

What you can do is know ahead of time what your intentions and goals are for doing this kind of work, this mental and energy kind of work.  Plan your goals and then know what it means to you to do them.  This is what you want, regardless of obstacles.  Say for instance you want to visit your dead friend.  Then that’s your goal and that’ what you WILL do.  No matter what gets in the way or how long it takes, just “know” that that’s what you’re going to do.  So the next time the OCD mind chatter seems to be taking center stage, just acknowledge that you notice it, and then remind yourself of your intention and goal.  What I do is create a statement and use it like an affirmation, and I repeat it to myself mentally while I’m doing my relaxing exercises, the deep relaxing breaths, the visualization exercises, etc.  I just keep repeating it in the back of my mind.  After you get so used to repeating it, you kind of stop paying attention to it consciously word-for-word and you just begin to only feel the meaning of it.  That’s what you want.  So the next time something distracts you while you’re doing your prep work in the Guidebook, acknowledge it and move on. 

For instance, let’s say I’m doing my prep work and suddenly I think “Oh I forgot to get the kitchen all cleaned up.  Darn, I really need to get that done”.  That’s not something I need to be thinking about at the moment, so what I do is notice that it’s there, acknowledge that it’s not what I need or want right now, and then focus on my affirmation again.  So I’d think the thought about the kitchen, and then think to myself, “That can wait.  Right now I’m focusing on visiting my friend in the afterlife.”  I’d repeat my affirmation or intention, and then just observe.  Just feel.  When you’re going into the effects of that altered state, it’s natural to see images and things like a dream-like state.  So when you start noticing that, let yourself know it’s a good thing because it means you’re shifting your consciousness.  When you notice something that seems not to make sense or have anything to do with your goal, that’s when you can say something to yourself like, “I’m noticing this swirling pattern in front of me.  I’d like it to show me how I can get to my friend who I’d like to go visit now.” 

I know right now that sounds kind of dumb, but it really can work.  You see, when you’re in the shift of that altered state of consciousness, your mind is very easily suggestible.  Just getting there is a challenge, so once you’re there you’ve already gotten over an obstacle.  Once you’re there, the next trick is to notice it and utilize it.  It really doesn’t matter how you get to your goal, as long as you allow yourself to get there.  So I’ve done that dumb kind of self talk, and it does work! 

Another trick I’ve used that works is when I “see” images and pictures that are that dream-like junk that doesn’t have anything to do with my intended goal, I just consciously notice it and say, “Oh I see _________.  I want my Guidance to direct me to an experience which is most meaningful to my development right now.”  As long as you can remember what your goal is and state it, what you’re doing is shifting your attention away from the “junk” and toward your intention.  It’s a much easier, more effective way of reaching your goals than just trying to ignore the stuff that’s getting in your way. 

By the way, your OCD sounds like it’s a big deal.  I don’t know what it’s like for you.  I have mild OCD and so does my son and my brother.  We’ve all learned to deal with it in our own way and like I said, it’s mild.  Most of the time I can ignore it.  The hardest thing to ignore is nagging thoughts, worrying thoughts, and feeling insecure.  OCD seems to me to be all about that insecurity, and “controlling” things around you tricks you into feeling secure and in control.  The more stressed out or emotional issues I have to deal with, the more my OCD gives me nagging thoughts.  Most of the time I can and do just ignore it, but it takes work and it can make me feel even more insecure.  But I’ve learned enough to know that the OCD thought isn’t what’s really bugging me, it’s something else.  So I’ve learned how to focus on something else as a way of distraction.  Meditation works wonders for me on this.  Deep relaxing breaths do to.  Having something meaningful to focus on does too.  I’ve learned how to work around it.  I hope you can too, and I bet you can. 

You have asked some really great questions too.  Yes, you will have memory like you do while awake when doing retrievals because you’re not going unconscious like you do while dreaming.  During a retrieval you’re shifting your consciousness to another level, so it’s the opposite of being unconscious.  So you’ll be aware of yourself but in a more focused way.  You’ll have control during retrievals.  You may also find yourself in awe, just like any newbie.  But remember that you have a guide or guidance there to help you, and most of the time I think you’ll find the whole retrieval going smoothly and you don’t know how.  Even if you don’t see or notice a helper, they are there anyway.   

Yes, there’s a way to learn how to gain memory of what you clicked-out on during a retrieval or exploration.  Bruce talks about that in the Guidebook, so it’s possible. 

Your question about retrieving some bad aspect of yourself you wanted to leave behind is an interesting question.  I hope Bruce answers it because he’ll have some neat explanation for that.  But in my opinion, I simply don’t think that’s possible.  A broken-off aspect of self means that at some point in your life you had an experience which caused you to have to make a choice or move in a different direction in life, leaving behind this aspect of your identity.  Sometimes it’s a good thing, I think, and sometimes it’s just sad that it had to happen.  Retrieving it just means that you’re acknowledging that aspect, why it got disconnected from you, and giving it love, loving yourself for being strong enough to survive what happened in your identity.  It’s a healing thing, so I doubt that you can “pull back” some bad aspect or memory or whatever and bring it back to you.  Bruce’s exercise about aspect of self is a pretty loving, healing thing to do for one’s self.  If anything, it will make you a better person for having done the work.  It certainly won’t cause more problems or phobias. 

And it’s neat that you’re noticing your guidance working in your life and noticing that it’s there.  The things you described about the girl at the nightclub, and finding something you were looking for is showing you that you’re learning to use your Guidance in your physical life.  I love that.  This stuff doesn’t just only work for nonphysical exploration!  I’ve told Bruce that many times over the years, that the stuff he teaches has many uses for waking, physical life as well.   

Vicky

So some more updates, I have completed gathering love energy at the heart and just today for the first time tried projecting love energy for the first time towards three targets. I was initially having some difficulty gathering the love energy, much like I was with feeling and building the love, but one day a memory that didn't work before worked for the entire duration of the exercises. I don't remember which one or if it was both for this one but it involved a woman I was in love with and some loving and empathetic responses from her during phone conversations, and then somehow I envisioned a miniaturized clone of her inside of me fighting off all of the negative energies inside of me. The weird thing is that she has been out of contact from me for years now yet these memories and imagined visions helped. A number of other things were also used including my cats, close friends or other women from my past or doing things I really loved doing. After I practiced gathering love energy it was time to try projecting.

I had some experience sending PUL before in a more simplistic form to people. I did this with three targets, two following the exercise and one afterwards after the audio track finished. I sent it to two female friends who had been going through some family related difficulties and got impressions of them smiling, and I also did so to my car and its relationship with me. My car is used and has had a few minor hiccups and its engine light is still on presumably from the same causes as before. However, during this exercise, some thoughts of things i was terribly afraid of crept in such as fears of injuries or emotional disappointment showing up in certain forms which I had to quickly drown out by going back to the loving thoughts. Is there any chance that the projected love energy might be contaminated by that in any way and if that could cause any problems? I also remember as I was writing in my journal logging the experience, when I wrote about sending love to my car, I suddenly felt very anxious and was afraid that this might have the potential to backfire and have a result that causes some serious harm to me or to the car. Is there any chance of that happening and if so could even the worst of it be remedied all the way by sending more love energy to it? Is it also possible to send love energy to one's self or does that not work? I think I'm making some progress, albeit at a snail's pace, but I keep finding myself either worrying about these things or wondering things.

I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, but I've hit a snag. I've mastered establishing flows of energy both ways, building up levels both ways, and I've done pretty well with feeling, building, and probably even sending love. I've hit the imagination as a means of perception exercises and have found that with nonphysical sight, I could never see anything. I didn't even have the knowing feeling Bruce described in the book, but that may be because of my obsessive compulsive disorder and overactive mental loops, since as result of that I have had some rather depressing or terrifying thoughts, theories or fearful predictions that were very thankfully verified to be FALSE, so I don't know if I can trust this knowing feeling if I get it. With nonphysical sight, during that exercise I was sometimes also indecisive about what I wanted to see and that caused things to shift around a bit. I did a little better hearing songs with nonphysical hearing and sometimes envisioning radios, several of which I imagined but again never actually saw anything. I think my nonphysical hearing may be a bit better than my nonphysical vision. Even some of my dreams seem to have had visuals displaying at only partial intensity lately, though more often than not I can tell what I'm seeing then. I've just started the third imagination as a means of perception and although I could get to peeling, smelling and tasting an orange, the fact that I have (although I have seen and smelled them) less experience with flowers, that caused me to have a hangup so I had to on my own free will make stuff up to fill in the void, in which I was able to make up a white calla lily and a smell similar to baby powder. I have only tried that third exercise once. I may need to do it again and see if I get better results.

Sending love to my car oddly enough, if it had any effect it was a strange one. I'd put a new tire on it, then spend money on 3 more new tires when another one went out and then have the engine stall out, only for my mechanic to look at it and say it needs to go to a dealer for a computer, then spend more money than I would have liked to get a computer I didn't need only to then discover that the wiring looked like a total mess, which I've yet to get fixed but odds are it was like that since I got it and that only caused a problem recently, 2 years after its purchase. It would be interesting to see if that series of events was the result of sending it love or not, particularly given that this problem was likely there for years without being noticed. That is my progress, and recent hiccup in progress so to speak, and thoughts on it so far.