I was reading Adventures Beyond the Body (click here for my review of it) a few months ago, at a very busy time in my life.  I did not have any significantly large enough blocks of time to sit down and just read without interruption –you may know what life is like with small children in the house.  However, this didn’t stop me from reminding myself constantly that “I have to read that book!” and picturing in my mind the physical location of the book, wherever it was at the time.

In the three weeks that I was repeating this to myself, I  noticed something very interesting: twice in my dreams, I noticed that in the middle of it, whatever the environment or situation was, I’d suddenly recall that “I have to read that book!” and I’d quickly follow up by asking, “where is it?!” The first time, in my dream, I “remembered” that I had left it on the table that was located about 10 paces behind me.  I turned around, walked over to the table, and sure enough, there it was!  The second time, I was outdoors and I recall thinking very intently, “I need that book now!”, and it materialized right into my left hand.

I described these occurrences to Michael (another member of the SubtleRealm.org team) one day, and in the course of the conversation, an idea arose for a thought-experiment: for the next two weeks, instead of thinking “I need to read that book” repeatedly, I’m actually going to do some of the techniques suggested in that book; I’m going to think intently: “I am now out of my body!”, I'm going to demand “full awareness now!” and “clarity now!”.  I repeated these affirmations several times a day, as often as I could remember, with as much conviction as I could muster.

I kid you not, on the night marking exactly 2 weeks from that conversation, I had the most lucid dream I’ve ever experienced in my life.  And, even though I’m not 100% sure about this (more research and experience required), I may have even had my first out-of-body experience. I remember suddenly realizing that I was 100% present.  I called out for “full awareness now!” and so it was.  “I’m here! I’m here! I'm in the subtle world!” I called out in excitement.  “Hmm… what should I do?”

I posted a description of my experience here.

Hi there. My name is Michael. What if I were to tell you that there is something that if you knew about it, would change your life in all kinds of different ways for the better? 

We are not selling anything, so please read on without prejudice or hesitation. Weigh what you read on this site honestly, in your head and heart. 

We here at subtlerealm.org want to share an important part of the human experience with you. We want to confirm what you may have felt all your life but never knew how to put into words. Maybe you have had certain experiences you were afraid to talk about for fear of ridicule or being thought of as stupid or even crazy. We are here to point out that 'unusual experiences' are far more usual than we think for the simple fact that people seldom talk about them for the above reasons. We want you to be a wiser, happier human being than before you found this web site, we have no other motive than this. There will be no dogma, judgement, or belittlement - only an effort to educate people and help them understand a large part of their lives that most know almost nothing about. And, our approach is a scientific one, meaning that wherever we can point to scientific facts to support our claims, we will do so and cite our references.

The place where we go when we dream is a real place. It exists outside of our minds, and yet our experiences there are very much based upon our thoughts. It has been written about in countless books and has been symbolized and portrayed in many movies we are all familiar with. In fact, if one were to cognize the fact that the subtle world is a reality, then lots of historical legends would then become very logical, understandable lessons passed down to future generations (rather than seem like delusional fantasies for the masses of human kind).

It is hard for people to understand that knowledge acquired during daily life is essential to being able to function well in the subtle realm. Not only knowledge, but tolerance and perceptiveness. If you have ever had a lucid dream or an out-of-body experience, then you know the sheer joy that comes from such an experience! Few, if any, would ever forget something like that. What if you could educate yourself and thus have those kinds of experiences all the time? Most people would find their lives incredibly enriched by something such as this. 

Welcome to subtlerealm.org! We are here to help people understand all they can about the subtle world. We are motivated by a shared vision of helping people understand the reality of their surroundings, and thus making the world a better place. 

Welcome to SubtleRealm.org! My name is Edgar and with this first blog entry, I want to describe in my own words, to the best of my ability, what we’re trying to do here on this site and why I’ve chosen to join the team doing it.

I’ve always felt, even in my earliest memories, that there was more to the story of life than people were telling me. As I grew older, the suspicion grew as well.  I tried for a long time to find the answers in science –in biology, to be exact- going so far as to get a Master’s degree in computational biology.  This, however, still left too many questions unanswered.

The thing is, there have been a handful of things that have happened to me that are completely unexplainable by biology, nor any other (western) science, nor even any religion or philosophy I’ve studied.  Many of these things have happened while I’ve been asleep, while “dreaming”, but others while wide awake; things that, according to physics and conventional wisdom, simply cannot happen.  Yet they did, and in sharing with others, I’ve found that others, too, have experienced phenomena not explainable by mainstream thought.

So, first and foremost, with this site, we intend to approach some of the unexplainable things through direct knowledge and experience. We will never preach, pontificate, or proselytize, but will always be totally honest and sincere with our thinking, experimenting, and reporting of results.

We believe that many of the answers we seek to some of life’s most challenging questions lie in the “other world” theory most recognizable by the Christian term “Heaven”.  Our initial understanding of the reality of heaven (which we call the “subtle world”), however, differs from the Christian ideal of heaven in at least one extremely important way: for the average Christian, heaven is a place one might go to only after death; for us, the subtle world is something that is all around us at all hours of the day, but we are usually only aware of it when our physical senses have shut off for the night and we experience it in our sleep as dreams.

This is our starting point. This site will serve as a platform to grow and develop our understanding of the subtle world, to share what we experience, and as an open door for anyone who would like to begin their own explorations of the parallel world that is their second home by nature.

IT'S INTERESTING TO TRY TO TRANSLATE ACTIVITY WE HAVE IN THE SUBTLE WORLD INTO PHYSICAL TIME. It seems as through it takes almost no time to become absent-minded and suddenly physically start after having a brief glimpse of something unknown or unfamiliar. This is something that happens to me all the time. Earthly clocks may mark off only a few seconds during this time yet a complete impression of something else has formed in the consciousness. Although we typically associate going into this next world when we fall asleep it may very well be that such events occur more than we realize at any time of the day during normal waking hours. This is sometimes accompanied by a very brief feeling of vertigo. Though the circumstances in the impressions may be unfamiliar yet it seems the consciousness has rushed to some object or place of interest without any of the encumbrances of physically moving from point A to B. There's a certain timelessness about the whole thing. Curious!

IN REFLECTING ON THE USE OF THE WORDS "ASTRAL PLANE" IT'S IMPORTANT TO BE CLEAR WHAT USE OF THE WORD "PLANE" MEANS. It is easy to consider that a "plane" might be some layer around the earth in much the same way we see strata in layers of the earth when travelling through something like the Grand Canyon in the United States. Or we might consider it similar to diagrams of the earth's structure where we see in cutaway diagrams the earth with its inner and outer cores, the mantle, the crust, the atmosphere with its layers, the surrounding magnetic field, the Van Allen belts, and so on. It could be argued that we could observe different states of density of subtle bodies that would cause them to gravitate to different altitudes -- just as we have different states of physical matter such as solid, liquid, gas, plasma, etc. That may very well be. We might consider that there exist denser and less dense strata in the subtle world that are centered around the earth. But more important is the idea that subtle matter is another state of matter, or gradation of matter, and that it is all-pervasive throughout cosmos rather than just around the earth. In that sense then it would be a continuous state that does not end at the limit the earth's physical atmosphere.