This is my translation of the article that J. Bzoma has on his site at: https://snienieprogresywne.pl/krytycznie-o-pogoni-za-obe-i-ld/
My Criticisms of Chasing OBE and LD states
In my considerations here I will not discuss the spontaneous dreaming, that most of us experience nightly, which is a report on our conscious state that we usually fail or ignore to understand.
Freud and Fromm… they did not attempt conscious confrontation with the world of dreams controlled by Consciousness (the Jungian collective unconsciousness, the self) assuming it was secondary to consciousness.
Such an attempt would force Jung to have to look critically at his concept of archetypes and admit that it is the ultimate archetype and the seemingly autonomous from It sub-archetypes that make us dream rather than us dreaming archetypal dreams.
This article regards controlled dreaming.
OBE and LD, and to a lesser degree Real Dreaming, at first glance seems to be just an innocent trick, one that our human consciousness linked to our biological mind is able to play. In OBE/LD the traveller`s consciousness typically seen as brain waves of day-state frequency beta (28-12 Hz) becomes minimised to a small area in the brain that becomes isolated from the rest of it and the relaxed brain falls asleep moving into the state that is slightly lower than alpha but higher than theta (9-7 Hz) which is physiologically described as REM sleep. This is the level where the brain creates visuals. Having the islet of day-state consciousness active does not allow the rest of the brain fall into a sleep lower than theta (7-4 Hz). In such a state of the two frequencies present simultaneously, OBE and LD experiences are possible. That is why dream physiology describes this state as dissociative. The feeling of high reality of the events taking place in this state is not any evidence to contest this paradigm as dissociation is just that! What confirms the dissociative character of this phenomenon is the fact that the OBE state is often followed by a hypnopompic state where it is difficult to tell dream from reality and which can last up to a few minutes after waking.
To go further in sleep journeys, one must fall asleep with their whole brain and lose control over their mind and direct perception of the Consciousness completely (Jung would call it the Self/Ego, individual unconsciousness or at deeper levels collective unconsciousness). The location of this duality – the reason for the dissociation or the intrusion of the waking state into the brain in the state of REM phase – is physiologically defined. The area that causes this dichotomy is the pre-parietal part of the left (the more logical) hemisphere. This is where the temporal lobes meet the parietal lobes (approximately behind the left ear). This is a crucial area as it is responsible not only for dreams but also for the perception of the world and the spacial location of our body. I used progressive dreaming to explore the brain structure responsible for OBE and I discovered that a crucial role in inducing it is played by the left side (of the rim (?)). When this area is stimulated electrically, through hemi-sync recordings, by hallucinogens or any other individual methods used by OBE experiencers, one thing happens: the two frequencies are present in the brain simultaneously. In Tibet, the state that is achieved in this way, is called Bardo: in –between. I`ll repeat it: this locally increased frequency stops the brain from plunging into the lower wave state of delta (3 – 0.5 Hz). This is the level where we can receive information that comes through only in a very deep sleep state. This is not the REM sleep stage, but one regarding the deepest Consciousness layers. These are dreams hard to recall after waking, sometimes they are only accessible within (another) dream. Indeed, in dreams we are able to recall the deepest dreams we can have. That is why the basic prerequisite to exploration of them is falling asleep within a dream. And this is the level talked about here: the progressive dreaming.
Below 5/6 Border, in the lower (1-5) layers of Consciousness, our consciousness of being separate identifies mainly with states remembered in “reality” that are processed and correlated accordingly. It is only after we cross this Border that we gain the right identity and find out What the Source of individual Consciousness really is. What it is, is the consciousness of the Atmanic level (7). After death of the biological body, part of the Consciousness linked to lower layers (3-5) falls into disarray not being able to identify its own source as it remains in the delusion it generated during its presence in the physical world. During Its physical life it localised the Self/Ego in the physical mind. After death though, it turns out that the Self still exists! That is why the wheel of karma arises. The consciousness (1-5) needs to find its new headquarters in another body. The lower layers of Consciousness are not able to leave the vicious circle of the Causal body. In progressive dreams the 5/6 Border is clearly visible; it takes shape of a spherical zone creating 1-5 bodies. It is a kind of a mirror, a prison for the lower parts of Consciousness. Why is such anchoring of “our” higher Consciousness needed in the lower Causal body? I did not find the answer until part 6 of my double trilogy.
During dreaming, when crossing the 5/6 Border, the dream projection screen turns around by 180 degrees. However, when we are not competent enough to cross this border, what we encounter there is something that Vedic texts describe as Lords of Karma. These are mental beings which push us back. The physical struggle becomes surreal. The fight between Jacob and the Angel described in the Bible is an account of such an event.
To finish off my considerations, I`d like to introduce the topic that is my real passion and which was the real reason for me to take up dream travelling.
Meditation, or rather contemplation known in Christianity, allows to arrive at the causal level and to identify with the suffering Jesus. However, it does not allow to cross the 5/6 Border. I don’t mean individual cases of climactic experiences like mystical insight as they have nothing to do with religious narration of any religion and they only concern the mystics that stay within those realms, the dream travellers, or the deeply meditating ones.
The meditation of formlessness or selflessness/egolessness which is offered by the eastern traditions allows for crossing the 5/6 Border and for arrival at the perception at the Buddhic level; however, the bubble bursts when we ask who the witness of the selflessness is! In other words – how do we know who remembers or who is aware of the fact that this was a formless and selfless/egoless state.
It is true however, that the meditating deny the existence of the Witness – Observer, but this denial is only logical in its argumentation, and thus must take root in the mental, or even astral only level.
Progressive dreaming much more that any mystical insight offers us an opportunity to give a much fuller report on what we have experienced. Mystics usually struggle with verbalisation of their experiences. In progressive dreaming we offer a number of ways of remembering and clarification of the visions in a series of sessions. There are ways of creating a journey map with a help of a “dragged witness” method. It is a technique that helps relay a vision from one level to another until we reach the Consciousness level where it is accessible for interpretation and storage by the human mind. Many people recall being able to stay in OBE or LD state during their childhood, but in their mature bodies – having regained this ability for a short duration – they are kicked out to physical reality before too long. The reason for this is the atavism of achieving OBE states, this ability is lost once we leave the early childhood progress phase. Having this ability allows a young body for gradual adaptation to the world of physical reality into which the child immerses daily. The Aborigines call this phenomenon, in a sense of collective consciousness evolution, exit from the World of Great Dream.
There is however, a group of people who retain this ability, these are people whose “curtain” stayed intact. Often these individuals are dyslexic; this means they have some sort of mental non-synchronisation between the commonly used rules that the society imposes (e.g. grammatical rules) and their ability to use them. Often they are psychopaths of varying degrees of their symptoms because at the heart of it, both afflictions, apart from the degree and the area of manifestation of the maladjustment conditions are not dissimilar. These individuals are often immature, or maybe rather permanently unable to form typical, mature social bonds (in spite of their age); they learn to develop various adaptive forms of masking their own mental reality.
That is why those with the gift of natural tendencies to enter these states should be particularly careful not to induce them intentionally. Particularly, that the tremors phase which appears after an image under closed eyes has been spatialised, as we try to induce an OBE state, is in fact nothing more than an autogenous seizure of the temporal lobe of the brain.
This is just a short step away from interictal personality disorder, Geschwind`s syndrome, or watching God face to face and hearing his voice inspiring to great works otherwise known as temporal epilepsy with ecstatic auras.
Summing up, the most sensible solution is to apply progressive dreaming as this is a process where dreams cooperate with our current level of consciousness progress and are protected from being violated to merely satisfy the simple curiosity of interesting adventures in the astral reality.