i had a lucid dream last night
lucid dreaming and astral projection are two very different things.
[Wikipedia] A lucid dream is any dream in which one is aware that one is dreaming.
lucid dreaming is not a far stretch of the imagination. if you can have a normal dream, you can have a lucid dream simply by becoming aware of the fact that you're dreaming.
[Wikipedia] Astral projection (or astral travel) is an interpretation of out-of-body experience (OBE) that assumes the existence of an "astral body" separate from the physical body and capable of traveling outside it.[1] Astral projection or travel denotes the astral body leaving the physical body to travel in the astral plane.
astral projection however, requires you to assume far more unverifiable premises, and i don't personally subscribe to most of them.
i used to intentionally try to induce lucid dreams a lot when i first found out about it. basically the best way to do it is to fuck up your sleep schedule so that your brain's not operating in the same routine it usually does, making it more likely that you'll be conscious when you normally wouldn't be.
unfortunately lucid dreaming doesn't have hardly any practical applications beyond entertainment, and screwing with your sleep schedule too often can get exhausting, so i don't bother doing it too much any more.
an interesting note is that you can actually increase the degree of control you have over your own dreams just like any other skill, just by practicing it over and over. in the beginning you'll just end up waking yourself up a few seconds after becoming aware, but gradually you'll get better and better at it, up to the point where you're doing shit like this:
