Before anyone really begins to learn astral travel, it is best to learn everything that comes with it. The benefits of conscious astral travel are many and each time you leave your body to travel in an alternate dimension or plane, you reap their benefits. There are a lot of possibilities when it comes to out of body experiences and each of these experiences teaches you something new.

Access Alternate Dimensions and Realities

There are a lot of different dimensions and planes that exist in the world simultaneously. Accessing these planes can often be impossible. However, if you perform astral travel, the projection can take you to one of these alternate dimensions. These physical planes could be the locations where you existed before you were actually born in your present life. Often, on one of your astral projections, you will also be able to see the planes and dimensions where you may travel to after your physical body has died. During these journeys, you may also have chance encounters with other people who may have passed on from this world themselves. You may even have met some of them in your own life. You may speak with these people and get their wisdom for yourself.

Improved Understanding of Your Fears

When you are traveling away from your body, and your soul has unlatched from your physical form, you will be able to observe your shortcomings and your fears more closely. Astral travel gives you the opportunity to get the wisdom which you may not be able to experience otherwise. Most of those, who project themselves, are able to understand their fear of death and loss, finally being able to come to terms with it. If someone close to you has recently died, and you are not able to come to terms with this loss, travelling to an alternate plane and observing the alternate dimensions where they would remain ever present can help you overcome this feeling of loss.

Recalling Past Lives

The more astral projections you experience, the more control you have over them. You can learn to utilize your own energies using meditation and self-hypnosis. Recalling past lives can infuse you with therapeutic energies. Past life regression is a scientific therapy in itself, and can be achieved through hypnosis. However, if you are able to achieve astral projection, you may not have to get assistance of a hypnotherapist for past life regression. In almost all theories of reincarnation, the notion of astral projections has been discussed. When you have control over your outer body experiences you learn to draw lucid therapeutic energies from the astral planes in which you are traveling. If you have an intention of helping someone else through your travels, you can even transmit these therapeutic energies to them through your projections.

You can also improve your own psychic abilities with the help of astral projection techniques. Since these projections help you get inner peace and improve your spiritual sensibilities, you can improve your psychic powers by simply performing astral travel every now and then.

Before you can proceed to a life altering astral projection, it is imperative that you prepare your mind and body for it. While it may seem like a simple task, actually preparing for such a projection can be really difficult. The more prepared you are for a projection, the easier and more fulfilling your astral travel will be. The preparation needs to be thorough so that your body can be prepared and brought into a state which is optimal for an astral projection. Since the projection itself is not as easy to achieve, preparing for it only makes sure that when you do achieve it, it’s worth the effort.

Preparing Your Body for Astral Projection

You cannot perform astral travel with a tired and worn out body. Physically, you have to be well rested and ready to concentrate hard on the task ahead. While most people look towards meditation to achieve the state of physical relaxation required for projecting yourself, others recommend a good sleep. When you are well rested, you are more likely to achieve an astral projection. Control your body, feed it well and rest it before you even attempt to step out of it.

Though it may seem like a good idea, consuming mind altering substances such as drugs or caffeine can actually have an adverse effect on your body. You need to reach a state of controlled relaxation where your mind can easily sink into the optimal state of relaxation. However, consuming these mind altering substances alter the chemical profile of your body, putting you in a state which does not permit you to project yourself. Though it is best not to consume any such substances for a day before you plan to have an astral projection, allow at least 3-5 hours after you have consumed any such substances for planning a projection.

Ensure that you are wearing loose fitting clothing which is comfortable. Remove anything that constricts you – even if it is a tight fitting ring. Another important thing to keep in mind is a proper location. A restful place, with ambient lighting and temperature and a comfortable place to sit or lie down, is necessary.

Preparing Your Mind for Astral Projection

The more difficult of the two, preparing your mind for astral travel is like performing transcendental meditation. You have to let go of everything, even your own body. However, to achieve this typical transcendence, you may have to try for some before you can actually master the skill. Start off by slowing your breathing and maintaining it in a relaxed rhythm. The next step is to relax yourself into a lull where you are asleep, yet conscious of your self.

The easiest way to detach your astral self from your body is to perform self-hypnosis. There are a lot of ways of doing that and you may have to go through some of them before you find the one which is just right for you. Once both your mind and your body are prepared for the out of body experience, all you really have to do is enjoy the experience.

Neuro-Linguistic programming started out in the seventies as a way to find out why some people did so well in some areas while other do not. Over the last 30 years it has been and continues to be refined into techniques for making many personal improvements, business learning and training, as well as many applications. Many of these techniques are widely used today in other fields as well; theater, television, and advertisements are just a few.

Look at it in this way. Let’s say that when you were younger you encountered a spider, (doesn’t matter what kind.) Since you are a kid and may not know the possible dangers, you might want to touch it and it bites you. There are many feelings and emotions developed here, not just from the bite itself. There’s the pain, having you parents worrying over you, possibility of having a shot at the hospital, etc. So as you grow up, you are afraid of spiders for obvious reasons, but a friend may want to show you a tarantula they keep as a pet. To him it’s nice and cool, something he wants to enjoy with others, while you are disgusted and repulsed.

You both are seeing the same thing, but your responses are quite a bit different, because you each associate different things. This holds true for many different things, not only personally but in business as well. If your highly regarded employee can’t do presentations, you may loose a good business deal, or whatever. NLP tools and techniques train individuals or even groups of people who to change their way of thinking so they can perform vital services for their company.

NLP techniques are used widely in advertising. For example, until rather recently alcohol and tobacco companies used these methods to sell their products. There were advertisements showing guys doing manly things, like riding horses, white water rafting and the like. Then they would light up a cigarette and words would pop up saying something like ‘only manly men smoke brand X.’

Many people today think about scantily clad women when they see beer commercials, and sex has been used in ads for a long time. Now let’s say you are a smoker who may have started because of this programming. You can use the same methods to help yourself to quit too. There are now more anti smoking commercials, showing the truth about smoking. They may use visual or audio stimuli, or words to communicate their information, but it is all designed to reprogram your mind to look at smoking in a better light.

There are many companies out there to help you learn through Neuro-linguistic programming. Each site has their own methods and techniques, so it is a good idea to do some researching first before you decide what to do. If you are in higher management of a business and need services, there are many different offerings available. There are many self proclaimed self help gurus that also use NLP techniques in their seminars.

As with many things, NLP only works if you are truly interested, and use the methods in every day instances. It also takes time to learn properly, and practiced. You may find that it will work for you or in combination with other self help methods.

There are many different reasons why people are using hypnosis and hypnotherapy techniques today.  It might be to break old habits, such as smoking, drinking or any other vices people may have.  It can be used to bring out deep rooted problems, often suppressed, to help deal with them and get these issues resolved.  Often people with chronic illnesses and pain turn to this alternative therapy to seek relief.

What most people don’t realize is that hypnosis is not sleep, rather a state of heightened, but relaxed awareness.  It is a trance like state, where suggestions can be made that allow the subject to learn new things, change habits, and focus positive energy towards a certain area of the body to heal or reduce pain.

Unlike meditation and other relaxation techniques which focus inwardly, hypnotherapy focuses on outside sources, and that special place. When the subject is in this alternative state, whether self induced or from outside help, mind and body can be reprogrammed into a different way of thinking.  However, a person can’t expect that all it will take is once change a habit, that is not correct.  If you think you can go to a hypnotherapist for smoking cessation, unless you keep up the reinforcement in some way, there is a greater possibility that you may not succeed.

Now when many people think of hypnotism, they may think of carnival or street performers, causing people to do outrageous things, and embarrassing them in front of a live audience.  Others may relate hypnotism in an office setting, bringing up repressed memories and early childhood programming.  While these are both forms of hypnotherapy, the former is nothing more than cheap entertainment, and the latter can be quite expensive.

The good news is that you often don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on techniques you can learn and use yourself.  You actually use many hypnotherapy techniques every day without even realizing it.  When you are sitting somewhere, not really thinking about anything in particular.  What some would consider day dreaming is often unknowingly a hypnotic trance like state.

You can also do self hypnosis as you fall asleep.  You can buy tapes and CDs that have subliminal messages woven into soothing music.  As you drift off to sleep, you may be listening to this music, but a variety of different things can be programmed into you mind under the music.  Even though your conscious mind may not be able to pick up these lessons, or reprogramming impulses, your subconscious mind is actively picking up the information and integrating it in.

Again, to just to be sure, don’t expect it to work immediately.  You may find some habits and thoughts different right away, but it still takes repeated sessions to make sure that the reprogramming process is successful.  Each persons hypnotic state is different, and what may effect one person may not another.

There is a great deal of information on hypnosis and hypnotherapy to be found online, including tips on the best methods, what to look for if you need more professional help, and an abundance of self help products are offered.  As in all things that may effect you, it is a good idea to speak with your health care provider.  They may even be able to make there own recommendations about hypnotherapy.