The Demo Site

The sections on Sacred Light and Sacred Sound describe these spiritual areas. These mystical states are the ultimate goal for the true spiritual traveler. 

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 States of conscioussnes 

From: Heaven and Hell 

Emanuel Swedenborg, Heaven and Hell (New York: Swedenborg Foundation Press, 1962), 

pps. 111-112 

The phrase state of consciousness has a special meaning for the spiritual traveler, and requires some added explanation. The following passage which was written by the 18th century thinker Emanuel Swedenborg attempts to define what is meant by this phrase. Swedenborg was a complex man who was part scientist, part inventor, part spiritualistmedium, and part spiritual traveler. Here he talks about how the concept of "space" (or location) in the outer world must be redefined to mean "state" in the inner spiritual world. Swedenborg uses the phrase "state of the interiors" in his somewhat difficult eighteenth century English (translated from Latin) instead of our phrase state of consciousness but the two appear to have the same meaning. The language is dense enough to require some added translation into modern English prose. My translations will appear in italics following Swedenborg's original text. 

Swedenborg writes: 

192. All changes in place in the spiritual world are effected by (are the result of) changes in state of the interiors (state of consciousness) , which means that change of place is nothing else than change in state. In this way I have been taken by the Lord into the heavens ... and it was my spirit that so journeyed while my body remained in the same place. Such are all movements by the angels; and in consequence they have no distance, and having no distances they have no spaces, but in place of spaces, they have states and their changes. 193. As changes of place are thus effected it is evident that approaches are likenesses of the state of the interiors, and separations are unlikenesses; and for this reason those are near each other who are in like states, and those are at a distance who are in unlike states; and the spaces in heaven are simply the external conditions corresponding to the internal states. For the same reason, the heavens are distant from each other, also the societies of each heaven and the individuals in each society; and furthermore, the hells are entirely separated from the heavens, because they are in a contrary state. ( 193. As changes of place that result in nearness are the result of similarities in state of consciousness and separations are the result of dissimilarities in state of consciousness, for the same reason, those near each other are in similar states, and those at a distance are in dissimilar states; and the spaces in heaven are simply the external conditions corresponding to these internal states of consciousness. For the same reason, the heavens are distant from 

each other, as are the societies of each heaven and the individuals in each society; and furthermore, the hells are entirely separated from the heavens, because they represent a contrary or dissimilar state of consciousness. ) This quote expresses the very important analogy between space and state that is usually difficult to understand by those who have not experienced spiritual travel. In the inner spaces, there is the soul or awareness, and an infinite number of directions in which the soul may travel. It is important to realize that to be oriented in the inner worlds, the individual must plot a course and follow it rather than simply drift. Moving from place to place is actually moving from state to state in this context. 

Swedenborg gives us remarkable insight into the nature of the inner world by clarifying the important relationship between places and states. 

Black Elk's Description of Crossing Over the Atlantic 

From: Black Elk Speaks 

John G. Neihardt, Black Elk Speaks (New York: Washington Square Press, 1972), pps. 192193

Black Elk fell unconscious at the breakfast table while visiting Europe, and was unconscious for three days. He returned to give the following account of what happened. Afterwards, his mother said she had sensed his presence when he saw her in his vision, and confirmed his account of what he saw. The doctor thought he was dead or very close to death, and his caretakers were making arrangements to buy his coffin when he awoke. Then I was alone in a cloud, and I was going fast. I clung to it hard, because I was afraid I might fall off. Far down below I could see houses and towns and green land and streams, and it looked flat. Then I was right over the big water. I was not afraid any more, because by now, I knew I was going home. It was dark and then it was light again, and I could see a big town below me, and I knew it was the one where we first got on the first big fireboat and that I was in my own country again. I was very happy now. The cloud and I kept on going very fast, and I could see towns and streams and towns and green land. Then I began to recognize the country below me. I saw the Missouri River. Then I saw far off the Black Hills and the center of the world where the spirits had taken me in my great vision. 

Then I was right over Pine Ridge, and the cloud stopped. I looked down and could not understand what I saw, because it seemed that nearly all of my people of the different bands were gathered together in one big camp. I saw my father and my mother's tepee. They were outside and she was cooking. I wanted to jump off the cloud and be with them, but I was afraid it would kill me. While I was looking down my mother looked up, and I felt sure she saw me. But just then the cloud started back, going very fast... Soon the cloud stopped over a big town, and a house began coming towards me, turning around and around as it came. When it touched the cloud, it caught me and began to drop down, turning around and around with me. It touched the ground, and as it touched I heard a girl's voice and then other voices of frightened people. Then I was lying on my back in bed and the girl and her father and here mother and here two sisters and a doctor were looking at me in a queer way, as though they were frightened. 

The Travel Analogy in Spiritual Travel 

While the literature of mysticism describes many different "states" of religious emotion and divine awareness,the travel analogy brings with it a whole different set of associations than the term state. State mplies something static where a particular layer of the mind or cosmological space is entered and maintained. The term travel focuses not only on states but also on stages and transitions between mental or spiritual states. The spiritual traveler moves between spaces or states sometimes in a continuous movement, and sometimes in rapid transitions in a step-like fashion. The term travel further tries to capture the feeling of movement experienced by those who travel outside the body. Many experiences have a feeling of movement and acceleration similar to the one experienced by those who travel in the physical world. Spiritual travel experiences also sometimes contain the imagery of flying over spiritual landscapes, and walking through ethereal rooms. Such experience may contain the normal sensory cues we associate with physical environments (depth perception, atmospheric perspective, vanishing points, etc.) 

Thus, the travel analogy tries to capture the dynamic richness of the inner worlds of perception. It attempts to do justice to the changing geographies and textures of these inner spaces. It is also able to do so without the limitations of the more static "state-based" terminology. 

Clearly, the travel analogy breaks down when the person enters the more extreme states of mystical awareness. However, even in these states of infinite light and cosmic nothingness, there is usually some series of different states leading to the advanced state which is beyond all qualities and descriptions. This is evident in the spiritual travel experiences presented in the Sacred Light section of this site. A classic example of spiritual travel is the story of Buddha's enlightenment from a second century CE text, the Buddhacarita by Asvaghosa. Buddha, prior to his experience of enlightenment, reexperienced his thousands of previous lives during the first watch of the night. The text says he remembered his previous lives "as if living them over again". On the second watch, he saw the workings of karma and reincarnation, and nature of causality in the world. It was not until the fourth watch that he actually achieved enlightenment. The fact that he entered fully into his past lives strongly suggests that he was out of his body, and unaware of the surrounding sensory environment during this period of remembering. He spent the entire night "traveling" through a whole complex of inner states to finally reach the state of Nirvana at dawn. 

LEAVING THE BODY, Three Kinds of Transitions 

In order to do spiritual travel, the soul or consciousness of the traveler must temporarily leave the physical body. This usually means shutting off all physical sensations and entering completely into an inner environment. There are three basic ways of doing this. Conscious Transitions Out of the Body: 

The most dramatic method of leaving the body is to go directly 

from a waking state into the inner world. This usually happens during meditation but may happen spontaneously while relaxing, such as while lying in bed. Waking Up in a Dream (Lucid Dreaming): 

By far the most common method of spiritual travel occurs when the traveler "wakes up" in a dream. The sense of waking up brings with it a kind of excitement which is accompanied by a feeling of increased awareness, self determination, and concentration. It is also usually accompanied by a wonderful sense of freedom and possibility. The traveler feels himself to be free of the limitations of the physical body. 

Bilocation or Alternating Awareness of Inner and Outer Environments: An unusual form of spiritual travel involves the ability of shift back and forth between the outer world of the senses, and a separate inner reality. Doing this at sufficient speed makes the spiritual traveler capable of being in touch with two separate realities, or seemingly in two places at once-thus the term bilocation. To control this ability requires a great deal of skill, and such control usually only occurs in advanced practitioners. 

All Additions for this Section: 

CONSCIOUS TRANSITIONS OUT OF THE BODY 

There are a wide variety of psychic and spiritual states that can result from leaving the body consciously. The traveler can find him or herself in either formed states (those containing objects) or amorphous states when leaving the body in this way. Let us first discuss the states where the traveler immediately encounters forms upon leaving the body. Entering Formed States Consciously One type of conscious transition occurs when the traveler simply disconnects the inner spiritual self from the physical body, and moves out and away from the physical body consciously. This "disconnection" happens frequently in near-death experience where the injured person moves a short distance from the physical body and observes it. 

This method of slipping out of the body has little drama associated with it except for the fear aroused in the individual who does not understand what is happening. Robert Monroe describes his experiences as follows: 

In 1958, without any apparent cause, I began to float out of my physical body. It was not voluntary; I was not attempting any mental feats. It was not during sleep, so I couldn't dismiss it as simply a dream. I had full, conscious awareness of what was happening, which of course only made it worse. I assumed it was some sort of hallucination caused by something dangerous-a brain tumor, or impending mental illness. Or imminent death. 

It occurred usually when I would lie down or relax for rest or preparatory to sleep- not every time but several times weekly. I 

would float up a few feet above my body before I became aware of 

what was happening. Terrified, I would struggle through the air and back into my physical body. Try as I might, I could not prevent it from recurring. 

Robert Monroe, Ultimate Journey, (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 

pps. 2-3 

The above experience does not meet our full criteria for spiritual travel since it was not done voluntarily, but it does illustrate a way of moving directly out of the body from a waking state with which some are familiar. In this case, the forms the traveler encounters are the objects in the immediate physical environment. Another way of entering into a physical environment more intentionally is by practicing a visualization while lying in bed. Here, one repeadedly visualizes twisting one's body around and sitting up in bed. After many tries and much effort, the experience of actually sitting up while being in an out-of-body state can occur. The surprise that results from actually leaving the body in this way is such that one is usually drawn right back into the physical body almost immediately. When one is able to stay out of the body for longer periods in similar situations there is still the sense of lightness, excitment, and concentration. However, there is also an accompanying feeling of being like a ghost wandering through darkened rooms and ajoining hallways. The experience of being out of the body in the physical world (i.e., in one's house) at night is generally not all that interesting or inspiring. Another way to move out of the body from a waking state is to practice a form of meditation where one's attention is placed on the space between the eyebrows while maintaining a strong expectation that one will leave one's body. An example of this kind of conscious transition is illustrated in the experience titled Transitioning From Physical to Psychic States. 

The traveler can also move directly into a visualized space that is very much like a dream environment maintaining continuous awareness of the transition into this space. This type of experience is illustrated by the Entering a Visualized Space description at this site. Though the experience talks about being in a light sleep when the transition took place, the author has had a very similar experience where during a waking state, a visualized image turned into a three dimensional environment. 

All these experiences are unlike spiritual travel that begins in the dream state where there is a period of unconsciousness between the waking state and the dream state, and the traveler wakes up in the dream to begin spiritual travel. Sometimes the traveler's transition to formed environments will involve dynamic movement, and the traveler will enter the environment soaring above fields and cities, taking in vast panoramas. 

In many cases, the body image of the traveler is more or less identical to his physical body but this is not always the case. A common experience is for the traveler to become a "point of consciousness" or a "unit of awareness" with no sense of a body which takes up space. Here the traveler identifies him or herself as pure observer or witness, and is like a disembodied set of ears and eyes. Sight and hearing are the two senses that usually dominate during spiritual travel. 

Entering Amorphous States Consciously 

Moving consciously into amorphous states is more difficult to describe. These states are usually areas of intense experience where the dominant reality is that of light, sound, vibration, motion or emotion. Going from a waking state or semi-waking state into an amorphous state is usually the most dramatic kind of spiritual travel experience. In one type of amorphous transition, the traveler suddenly senses a powerful vibration or sound and is caught up in that energy. This is sometimes accompanied by a feeling of being drawn or propelled by this vibration at tremendous speed through a dark space. This experience seems very similar to the descriptions of the "tunnel" associated with near-death experience. Numerous people who came very close to death (no heartbeat or respiration) have near-death experiences where they have described different types of sounds or vibrations which propelled them at seemingly great speed through a dark tunnel or corridor. 

Sometimes, there is a feeling of being catapulted out of the body. In these cases, the vibrations usually start at a low pitch and continue gaining in frequency and power until they become almost explosive in their intensity. In other cases, there is the feeling of the inner sounds or vibrations but not the experience of movement and acceleration. Sometimes such static experiences involve hearing spiritual music or sounds, and can be quite ecstatic. 

All these experiences are amorphous in the sense that there are no forms or objects to orient the traveler like there are in the physical world. He or she must use meditation techniques to steer in a desired direction. 

Amorphous States That Lead to Formed States 

The above mentioned inner sounds along with inner lights (mentioned below) can sometimes act as a means of transition between waking experience and some formed inner world. 

In the movie "The Wizard of Oz", the scene of Dorothy flying in her house toward Oz may help in understanding such a transition. Dorothy's house (ego or inner self using a Jungian interpretation) is seized by a whirlwind and carried spinning through the clouds. There is a great flurry of movement followed by the landing of the house in a strange place where all is suddenly quiet. The inner transitions the author is attempting to describe have much in common with Dorothy's experience. 

The type of experience described in section titled Meditation on Inner Lights illustrates in a general way an experience which contains an amorphous stage followed by a formed stage. In this case, the traveler is drawn out of the body consciously while meditating on an inner light. Here is a transition involving inner light which starts from a waking state, moves initially to 

an amorphous state of energy and movement, and then to a formed state of stability. This stable state is usually a quasi-physical environment. However, the ability to concentrate and direct the attention in a meditative way is sometimes required to break out of the tunnel-like experience into a stable state. 

Sounds which occur during conscious transitions out of the body are usually very powerful, and may result in the obliteration of the body image. The author has found that the nerves which inform the person of his body's weight, size and position in space seem to largely quit functioning when the sound occurs. 

Some of the sounds which occur are of a spiritual or mystical nature rather than transitional sounds that carry the traveler to a different place. These "higher" spiritual sounds are of a heavenly nature and are ecstatic beyond description. They are therefore one of the final destinations of spiritual travel rather than a means to some other place. Some sample sounds one may encounter are the sounds of a speeding train, a loud buzzing, a flute, or the sounds of nature like the roar of a waterfall. As an example, Gopi Krishna describes an experience he had that began with a powerful spiritual sound. These sounds or vibrations are of such intensity that they seem to pass right through the body, overpowering the other senses. Here we have an example of change of identity during spiritual travel where the individual literally merges with the sound. Any of the spiritual travel experiences listed on other pages in this site may result from conscious transitions out of the body, but the above mentioned kinds of transitions are the ones with which the author has some familiarity. This section illustrates conscious transitions out of the body which may occur spontaneously, due to an accident or injury, or as a result of deliberate action and intention during a meditative exercise. The key here is that there is no loss of consciousness during the transition between the waking state and the spiritual travel or out-of-body experience. 

WAKING UP IN A DREAM 

A common way of initiating spiritual travel is waking up in a dream. While this may be something that occasionally occurs to many people, it has a special value for the spiritual traveler. This is because the spiritual traveler has usually developed skill at directing inner experience through meditation or visualization exercises. He or she can therefore use the lucid dream (a dream where the dreamer wakes up and realizes he is dreaming) as point of departure for a journey into various realms of expanded freedom and awareness. 

In general, a spiritual travel experience which begins by waking up in a dream has an advantage over other methods of leaving the body because it is usually a gentle method of entering into the inner world. The powerful forces that one sometimes encounters in direct transitions out of the body from a waking state are avoided. It is also comfortable because the traveler avoids the formless side of spiritual travel which can be a shock to those not experienced in these areas. The traveler usually finds the dream environment familiar and non-threatening. 

However, there is also a disadvantage to this method. Dream environments are usually so much like physical environments that the traveler tends to assume he or she has the same limitations in the inner world that exist in the physical world. It takes discipline and effort to break out of the dream environment and find more interesting and rewarding places to explore. The Spiritual Navigation page gives some methods that can be used to break out of dream environments so that the lucid dreamer can begin spreading his or her wings and become a true spiritual traveler. Some additional examples of spiritual travel in dream environments can be found in the Psychic States section of this site. 

BILOCATION AND SPIRITUAL TRAVEL 

The way of leaving the body that I am least familiar with involves the subtle shift in attention away from the senses and concentration on some non-sensory image or state. The thing that distinguishes this from normal imagination is the uninterrupted or continuous nature of the inner experience and its clarity or three-dimensional quality. In this kind of spiritual travel, the experiencer can instantaneously shift back to the physical senses with no resistance or time required to regain normal waking sensory experience. This kind of spiritual travel is perhaps a more advanced form since it allows for integration of 

inner and outer experience. Here the line between spiritual travel and normal waking experience becomes less firm. The shift between the two can take place anywhere. This is perhaps the least dramatic form of spiritual travel, but also the most useful for the purpose of bringing the knowledge of the inner world to the outer world. This ability the shift back and forth between two completely separate existences, one in the body and one out of the body is sometimes called bilocation. I do not use bilocation to mean having two physical bodies as some authors do, but only to describe the ability to perceive two separate worlds. 

Bilocation at the end of a Spiritual Travel Experience 

This experience illustrates bilocation in the form of only partially returning to the body while mantaining an awareness of the inner world. Bilocation at the beginning of the Experience.

This experience shows the difficulty of discussing bilocation. It describes the contradictory feeling of being "in the body" while also being "not in the body". 

Now Subdivisions: 

Transitioning From Physical to Psychic States 

I will never forget one early spiritual travel experience. I had been thinking about the possibility of doing spiritual travel and reading books on the subject. I was about twenty years old. I was visiting a friend in Brooklyn, New York lying on my back in meditation staring into the blackness at the space between my eyebrows. A couch in his basement playroom was my bed for the evening. The room was completely dark. Suddenly, I was standing up vibrating in the blackness. I did not get up but was instantaneously standing and found myself in a "non-ordinary" state of heightened awareness. I wanted to see where I was to verify that I was out of my body. At that point I half walked, half swam (space seemed to be a fluid medium) to the edge of the room to try and get a glimpse outside through the patio door. When I arrived at the door I could feel the glass hard and cold upon my hands but could see almost nothing in the darkness. 

I pressed hard on the glass and to my amazement, my hands followed by the rest of my body passed right through it. I experienced a painful scraping feeling along each part of my body as it passed through the door. The strange experience of passing through this dense matter disoriented me and as I looked around, I was in a totally different environment. It was a pastoral scene of a field of golden grain but the light was somehow not like the light in a physical environment. Something about it was too intense and too bright as if the objects shown with their own internal light rather than merely reflecting the light of the sun. There were two horses peacefully grazing in the field perhaps fifty yards away. After about ten seconds gazing at the scene, I was almost instantaneously back in my body lying on my back reflecting on the experience. 

Entering a Visualized Space 

From: How I Learned Soul Travel 

Terrill Wilson, How I learned Soul Travel (Minneapolis: Eckankar Publishing, 1987), pps. 

61, 62 

Waking early one morning, I decided to try concentrating on the blackness of my inner mind screen in the vicinity of the Spiritual Eye. I gradually slipped back into sleep, and during the early stage of sleep became partially conscious of a colored picture on the inner screen. The two-dimensional stillpicture showed a young lady standing in the middle of a blacktop road in 

an outdoor, countryside landscape. The picture grew steadily larger as I concentrated, and I felt a slight suction in the vicinity of my Spiritual Eye. Instantly I found myself standing on the road. The young lady with her back towards me came alive, and started walking away from me. It was like zooming into a stop action movie; everything suddenly came to the life the moment I joined the world. 

My first impulse was to do something, anything to keep my mind 

occupied, and hopefully stay out of the body as long as possible. My surroundings included a light-blue sky and rolling, grassy hills dotted with a few shrubs and trees. The blacktop road stretched in front of me in a straight line as far as I could see. Without paying any mind to the lady walking away from me, I jubilantly raised my inner body arms and jumped off the ground, to begin flying over this earth-like terrain. However, my exhilarating flight ended abruptly when I suddenly lost control and was pulled away into the blackness, moments later, ending up back inside my physical body. 

Meditation on Inner Light: 

Contemplating inner lights can be a method of leaving the body. Those who are familiar with meditation on the energy center usually known as the spiritual eye located between the eyebrows may be familiar with the cobalt blue light that sometimes appears in the inner field of vision. It usually appears as a amorphous blob of light slowly changing shape with blue concentric circles emanating from it slowly. The circles expand hypnotically resembling something akin to broad smoke rings expanding from a central source. This kind of light (whether blue or another color) can serve as a focus of meditation either 

while sitting in disciplined meditation or while dosing off to sleep. On occasion, the light can draw the traveler out of the body and he or she will be instantaneously flying at a fantastic rate of speed through a powerful force field following the light. It seems that the light recedes as the traveler moves towards it with its center still radiating the rings. Such experience demands a tenacity to hold on to the center of concentration since the powerful forces can be distracting. If the traveler is able to maintain concentration, the scene will tend to shift to a stable environment like a dream environment. However, unlike a dream, the traveler will be fully conscious and able to direct the experience from that point. The point here is to illustrate the importance of meditation on these inner lights and to know that the appearance of imagery of this sort can be a form of "inner invitation" to do spiritual 

travel. 

A Powerful Spiritual Sound 

From: Kundalini: Path to Higher Consciousness 

Gopi Krishna, Kundalini: Path to Higher Consciousness (New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 1992), pps. 6-7 

Suddenly, with a roar like that of a waterfall, I felt a stream of liquid light entering my brain through the spinal cord. Entirely unprepared for such a development, I was completely taken by surprise; but regaining my self-control, keeping my mind on the point of concentration. The illumination grew brighter and brighter, the roaring louder, I experienced a rocking sensation and then felt myself slipping out of my body, entirely enveloped in a halo of light. It is impossible to describe the experience accurately. I felt the point of consciousness that was myself growing wider surrounded by waves of light. It grew wider and wider, spreading outward while the body, normally the immediate object of its perception, appeared to have receded into the distance until I became entirely unconscious of it. I was now all consciousness without any outline, without any idea of corporeal appendage, without any feeling or sensation coming from the senses, immersed in a sea of light simultaneously conscious and aware at every point, spread out, as it were, in all directions without any barrier or material obstruction. I was no longer myself, or to be more accurate, no longer as I knew myself to be, a small point of awareness confined to a body, but instead was a vast circle of consciousness in which the body was but a point, bathed in light and in a state of exultation and happiness impossible to describe. 

Bilocation at the end of a Spiritual Travel Experience 

My only experience with bilocation involved a complete break with normal sensory consciousness (spiritual travel) followed by reestablishing of a tentative contact with the bodily senses. I was initially out of the body in dream-like world but then became able to sense events occurring in the physical world. I was able to shift my attention back and forth between the inner and outer world quickly enough so that it was very similar to being in two places at one time- thus the term bilocation. In this experience, I was only able to perceive non-visual sensory input from my body since any physical movement on my part or visual input from the eyes would be likely to blot out the inner experience. Advanced practitioners may have the ability to do bilocation while walking down the street. I have read such claims but have not had the experience myself. 

Bilocation at the beginning of the Experience 

From: Lucid Dreams 

J. H. M. Whiteman, The Mystical Life (London: Faber and Faber, 1961), p. 60, Cited in C. E. 

Green, Lucid Dreams (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1968), pps. 39-40 

While lying in bed and apparently awake, I perceived a visual opening with a circular boundary, within which there was presented a scene in bright sunlight and vivid colours. It appeared to be a park, with many people walking peacefully about. At the same time I was aware of my physical body lying on its back in bed, but not altogether as if I were in that body. It was as if I was apart and watching the physical body watching. Again appearing to think in the physical body, I conceived a wish to transfer consciousness to a free personal form. Immediately I rose and walked forward towards the opening. The opening appeared to enlarge itself gradually, but before entering wholly within it I has to pass over a patch of sandy coloured ground, as if bared for excavation. It seemed to represent a gulf between the two spheres of existence. Passing through, however, I reach the park and mix with the people. There is difficulty in experiencing details, as if the eyes were out of focus and cannot be brough under steady control... 

SPIRITUAL TRAVEL VERSUS DREAMS 

Spiritual travel is different from dreaming in a number of important ways. 

In spiritual travel, the traveler's awareness is heightened and the traveler is able to direct the experience if desired. This is unlike dreaming, in which the dreamer's awareness is dulled, and the dreamer lacks initiative. In most dreams, the dream drama unfolds as if controlled by some outside force with little or no control exercised by the dreamer. In spiritual travel, the traveler is also aware that he or she has left the physical body and the world that is encountered is not the physical world. In normal dreaming, however, the dreamer believes the dream to be real as if he or she is acting in the physical world. This explains the great fear in nightmares where any threat is perceived as a threat to the physical body which could result in death. Since the spiritual traveler's awareness is clear and concentrated, there is usually no difficultly remembering the experience. Many people have trouble remembering their dreams because most dreamers experience a dulled form of awareness during dreams. Following a spiritual travel experience, very seldom does the traveler fall back into a dream state or unconscious state. The intensity of spiritual travel does not lend itself to immediately reentering sleep or dreams. In most cases, there is an awareness of returning to the physical body, and the person awakens immediately after a spiritual travel experience. 

Though spiritual travel may begin by "waking up in a dream" (lucid dreaming), the dream drama usually stops as soon as the dreamer awakens. The symbolic content of a dream usually stops immediately when the lucid dream begins, and the dreamer senses that he or she is now in control of the dream's events. Spiritual travel also provides a much broader range of experience than is present in dreams. The lucid dreamer with the right training can use the lucid dream as a jumping off point to 

explore a wide variety of spiritual and psychic states not available in dreams. Once one inner reality is entered consciously, it is relatively easy to enter another because the lucid dream state is much like being in an elevator in a building. The dreamer who learns how to push the correct buttons can trigger a transition to a different floor or plane of reality. 

Lucid dreaming is only one of the ways that spiritual travel can be initiated. Spiritual travel may also begin during meditation, or as a result of a traumatic shock to the body. The fact that a spiritual traveler can go directly into an inner world via meditation without the loss of consciousness that occurs when spiritual travel begins from the dream state seems to indicate that spiritual travel states are independent of and not to be identified with the dream state. The dream state is only one of a set of doorways which can be used to reach spiritual travel states. One of the difficulties of distinguishing a normal dream state from a lucid dream state is that there are degrees of lucidity. Sometimes there is increased awareness in a dream where the dreamer believes he has awakened but then goes on to act in a way that is uncharacteristic of someone who is completely awake. Awakening completely means that the dreamer reacts to dream situations in the same way he or she would react if awake in the physical world. Sometimes this semi-waking state 

manifests as an inability to act to change the dream. Here there is a strong sense of waking awareness which is accompanied by a passive attitude of acceptance and powerlessness. Another form of semi-waking consciousness occurs when the dreamer has limited access to normal memory and cannot recognize familiar persons or situations. Here, the dreamer has a subset of his normal memories and cannot react normally to the dream situation because of these missing memories. 

This semi-waking consciousness muddies the distinction between normal dreaming and lucid dreaming. True lucid dreaming has a crystal clarity that somehow feels even more powerful than the usual clarity of waking awareness, and it is this kind of lucid dream state that is easily distinguished from a normal dream state. The spiritual material page illustrates just how clear and convincing the reality of lucid dreaming is by describing how reality testing is done with the objects in the lucid dream. 

Another important point to note is that spiritual practices affect dreams. The contents of dreams often echo significant activities performed in the waking state. Therefore, spiritual practices done in waking life on a regular basis will sometimes lead to the dreamer spontaneously repeating such practices in dreams. This will likely result in waking up in the dream and can even precipitate powerful spiritual experiences. Even when the practices are not having obvious results in a waking state, the openness of the dream state can permit such practices to produce the out-of-body states that they are intended to produce while awake in dreams instead. 

Finally, it is not necessary wake up in a dream to do spiritual travel while asleep. Many of the experiences at this site occurred spontaneously while the traveler was asleep without actually beginning in a dream. Adopting a spiritual practice that emphasizes spiritual travel will tend to produce such spontaneous travel experiences where the sleeper "pops into" out-of-body states while asleep without first being in a dream. 

Having tried to describe the differences in analytic terms, it is necessary here to state that none of these distinctions really captures the qualitative differences between normal dreaming and spiritual travel or lucid dreaming. The quality of awareness is just different in ways that seem impossible to describe. One thing that can be said is that this "difference" in consciousness sometimes inspires awe and fascination. There is also many times the direct and immediate sense that one's soul is composed of spiritual energy with much potential. It only awaits thought to activate that potential energy and direct it towards some end. It is up to the traveler to train his or her mind and increase the ability to concentrate to be able to direct this energy towards some desired state of consciousness or new form of knowledge. It is important to understand the differences stated above so as not to confuse spiritual travel with dreams. However it may be difficult to convince someone who has not done spiritual travel that it is different from dreaming no matter how many distinctions are drawn.