What's the boundary between astral projection and lucid dreaming?

Last night I had an experience of being out of my body. I was half awake and felt myself "shake" a bit and leave my body. I flew out of my body and I was hovering above a shimmering city vaguely reminiscent of Washington DC. I then remembered I was in my bed and I traveled back into my body quickly. It overall felt grainy and low-fi - similar to my dreams. Later in the night, I stepped out of my body again. It was distorted and confusing at first. I asked an entity what it wanted and it said "my soul." Which was somehow a bit hilarious to me because I don't think I believe in immutable souls. I said "no" and gave it the finger. I think I was smiling the entire time. Even after that experience I was able to get back to sleep. I interpret most phenomena through a Jungian lense. Because of the immense creative power of human beings we can conjure up almost any experience based on our brain's collective unconscious. Personally, I believe I was lucid dreaming but had a lucid dream that was "as if" I had astral projected.

astral projection in theory is you being in a real place observing real actions. if its not plausible then it can't be astral projection lucid dreaming is fantasy. can be fake places, fake phsyics, just do the impossible. >shimmering city vaguely reminiscent of washington city sounds like a lucid dream, not a real place

>>7771 I believe I've had one of each, both accidental. Astral projection was very jarring, soon after getting to sleep I gained a dampened consciousness (and believed I was awake) and felt myself slowly roll over to the edge of the bed. Then my arm went over, then my leg, then my body, at which point I'm thinking 'well, fuarrrk, this is gonna hurt' since I was on a bunk bed. But I ended up floating over the ground, then started to rise really high. I tried to meditate, but when I took a deep breath in I woke up. Lucid dreaming was much less intense. I was in a dream, realised it was stupid and that I was in a dream, and tried to have sex with multiple girls at once, but the dream broke up before things could get fun. Ultimately asking 10 people will net you 10 different answers on the subject, it all depends on what framework one sees the world from. Since I've met a fellow Jungian, what do you make of Jung's statement that every person must forge his own path towards individuation? It was explicitly and repeatedly stated in the Red Book and I can't help but feel a little bit slighted. I became interested in him hoping his works would show the way to some meaningful path, but the fuarrrkin geezer sends us off on his way. His mother would talk to ghosts and he seemed predisposed to having fun silly experiences with Prophets and whatnot, which leaves the rest of us to our own devices, and I doubt most who practice active imagination can dive nearly as deep as he did. The statement itself is increadibly vague. Him saying he has nothing to teach or give us. I suppose it can be interpreted on the same wavelength as Waldo's self-reliance, where each man has to trust his intuition in order to get where he needs to be, but this is easier said than done. I've tried it, and the results are simply being stuck in the same loop of thoughts and actions. If there's anything I've learned, it's that no one man is a saviour and that the pearl of truth is unspeakably more difficult to reach than whatever effort I've put forth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJb-VZ-5jaI An interesting video. Even with Osho being a very dubious character, his statement that you cannot divide Man into East and West resonated strongly with me and its simplicity fortifies it in contrast to abstract psychological theories that even our shamanic friend was proud to set forth.

>>7775 hey, this is a bit of a jumble from my thought stream i don't think the majority of people don't forge a path towards individuation. it's not even in their lexicon. something i've learned is being a better listener the ego is really strong and tries to control experiences. schopenhauer has a powerful concept "tyranny of the will" — art and music offer us brief relief. my synthesis is i don't think you can explicitly try to "individuate" because often you need to silence your own will. it's a bit of a paradox. you're trying to confront hidden parts of yourself if that makes sense. the interface for doing this is deeply personal because my "symbols" are different than your "symbols."

>>7776 >>7776 >>7776 What are you trying to say friend? As for op, I think it might just be the difference between something induced in sleep and something induced from a waking consciousness. At the end of the day, it's probably just semantics and there isn't a hard distinction.

>>7776 It's indeed a labyrinth, and I think that ultimately we will have to venture forth into those lands which hold no speech, no discernible reason, no familiarity that we know of. What more can be said of it?