Robert Bruce

I added a bunch of names to my list on July 10. Robert Bruce was the first name I added. Well, actually I also added Mick Molloy earlier that day. But he didn't really count, because I had added him much earlier. He wasn't part of the huge massive bunch I added at once.

Anyway, I think I was in some type of spiritual mindset. I get like that sometimes. I become extra interested in spiritual stuff. So....I added some spiritual guru Australian people and then I added other people besides that.

Am I feeling spiritual right now? I don't know.

I am so in the middle with stuff like that. I mean I'm DEFINITELY a believer. But I think I'm more skeptical than a lot of other believers. I feel stuck in the middle of two extremes. There's the people who refuse to believe in anything without scientific proof, and they're very picky about what qualifies as science. Then there's the people who see a flash in the sky, and immediately declare, It's God! It's God!

I'm of the MIGHT persuasion. I would say, that flash MIGHT be God. It might not be. Let's see if science can give us answers, and meanwhile we can have fun imagining it's what we'd like it to be.

Anyway, onto Robert Bruce. His thing is astral-travel. I've read some of his stuff online. I've never had any luck doing this astral-travel stuff. And no. That doesn't prove, it's not real. What it proves is that the powers-that-be are protecting all of you guys. Because if I could astral travel, I'd go off spying on all of you. I find it very unfair that people can read this blog and know so much about me; yet I hardly know anything about them. Yes, yes. I know I CHOSE to have this blog. And I do love it. It's just I'm finding that certain aspects of blogging are more frustrating then I expected.

So yeah. I would spy. I'm a nosy person.

But I would totally let you have privacy while using the toilet. I'm not that awful.,

Robert Bruce. I should probably start the research stuff.

Lord Wiki says baby Robert was born in England in 1955. I think I knew that already. Well, I knew the place, not the date.

At some point, he moved to Australia and became Australian.

It seems he got his position as the astral-projection expert by participating in a newsgroup online. This was in the early 1990's.

In 1999, he published a book called Astral Dynamics: A NEW Approach to Out-of-Body Experiences. The book is doing pretty well. Amazon.com lists it as the 36th most popular metaphysical book.

Lord Wiki says that what Bruce did was try to find a method of astral projection for blind people. Most of the previous methods out there used visualization. Bruce came up with one using tactile sensations. I like that because I'm horrible at visualization. I did some self-hypnosis tape, and it talked about this golden ball of light. That totally ruined things for me, because I could not imagine the damn golden ball of light.

Bruce tries to avoid Eastern terminology. Lord Wiki says he sees them as a significant barrier to Western understanding and acceptance.

So what did he do? He changed the names. For the term chakras, he instead uses energy centers. I guess the latter tern might be more comfortable. I don't know. Both work fine for me.

Bruce believes in something called The Mind Split Effect. I think I like this idea. Instead of believing that our consciousness COMPLETELY exits the body. He believes there's a duplication process. I guess it's like part of us leaves the body, and another part stays in the body. That makes sense to me. In terms of our personalities, I feel at least SOME of it has to come from biological stuff. I mean we have a brain, and we have these hormones. I believe we have a soul, but I think some of who we are comes from this brainy hormonal stuff.

I think we have a higher self...or maybe just a spiritual self. When we combine that with our brain and hormones, this spiritual self might act differently from what it might act like without a body.

Well, that's about it for Lord Wiki.

I guess I shall go and read some of Bruce's own writing. I've read some of it before. I don't know how much I remember....probably not much. I think he has some method that involves imagining yourself climbing a rope. That's about all I remember.

Here's his website. The title is Astral Dynamics: A little light from down under. And there's this image of a chair floating in the sky. You know what that means? Humans aren't the only ones capable of having out-of-body experiences. Furniture can have them as well.

It seems the website has a lot of video stuff...more than writing. I guess I'll have to watch more than read.

Well, this video has Bruce walking around pretty scenery stuff.  Eerie new age meditation music plays in the background. I don't think I like that music. Maybe that's why I prefer to consider myself Neopagan rather than New Age. I don't like the music. It annoys me. Is that what we're going to be stuck listening to when we're dead? Is that the only music the spiritual world allows?

I personally don't think so. In my lucid-spiritual feeling dreams I've heard songs that were NOT New Age.

In one dream I heard Free to be You and Me.

In another dream, I heard Iris. I still get a magical dream feeling when I hear that song.

Oh, and then there was the dream where I sang Xanadu. I can feel my dreams when I hear that song too.

Let me get back to the Bruce video.

Okay. The movie has been on for a minute already, and he hasn't said anything. Are we supposed to be just watching him walk around? Maybe this somehow has the ability to cause us to have some kind of spontaneous astral projection? Well, it's not happening to me yet.

Ah. He finally started speaking. He says the usual New Age stuff. We're all connected in one consciousness. We should observe our thoughts, actings, feelings, etc. It's about being more aware. I have no arguments with that.

He says before we say anything to anybody we should ask three things.

Is it true?

Is it kind?

Is it necessary?

That's pretty good advice....probably.

I wonder how much I follow it in this blog.

Well, everything I say is true to the best of my knowledge.

I try to be kind, but I have strong opinions. And sometimes that's going to hurt people.

The necessary thing? Oh lord. I'm sure I fail on that regards. Probably 90% of what I write is unnecessary.

I'm just going to forget the rules for my blog. But maybe I'll try harder when speaking to people individually.

Well, I think I'm going to try to avoid watching too many of these videos. I don't know if I can stomach New Age self-help right now. I'm just not in the mood. I mean I could probably tolerate reading it. I can't really tolerate the video.

Crap. It looks like it's almost all video.

Wait. Here's something. He has a blog, but a lot of it is links to other blogs, or it's videos. There are some things he has written though. Here's a post from September 30 regarding the meaning of life.

He suggests that we write down all the beliefs that we have that are based on our own personal experiences. I think he's just talking about spiritual beliefs and not other types. I might be wrong.

A lot of our beliefs come from what we've read or heard from other people. And I think this is fine, but it's easier to believe stuff that we've experienced personally.

As for my own list. I'd say.

1. I believe in lucid dreams, and that some of these feel like an astral experience.

2. I believe sometimes we can dream about things that haven't happened yet.

3. I believe in some level of mind over matter within medical situations.

4. I believe the world sometimes provides us with amazing synchronocity.

If anyone would like to share their personal beliefs (based on experiences) I'd love to hear them.

Bruce says, The meaning of life is the journey, not the destination. The ‘experience’ of life is everything, every day…, even today…

I like that, although we've all probably heard it a million of times before. But it's good to be reminded.

I like what he says here. If you let Source worry about the how and the why and the meaning of it all, and focus on living every day to the best of your ability, life becomes much simpler and happier. It also becomes more exciting.

Sometimes I obsess about the whys. I do this especially with this whole Australia thing. Why? Why? Why? Why? But then I tell myself to just be grateful and enjoy it.

There might be some deep spiritual meaning behind my whole Australia obsession. There might not be.

But it's fun for the most part. So there's really no need to worry.

Although it would really suck if this whole time I had the wrong country. What if I was supposed to be obsessed with Austria? What if this whole thing was just one big misunderstanding?

Here's another entry from September 27. It's about spiritual spam. That sounds interesting to me. Oh wait. This is the entry he mentioned in the last one....about figuring out your beliefs. It just goes more into depth. Bruce suggests that the next time someone comes knocking on our door pushing some religion, we should ask them how much of their beliefs come from personal experience.

People put faith in stuff simply because they read it in a book. I know I've done that. And I'm not talking about science. I'm not going to sit there and say Well, I have no PERSONAL proof that the earth isn't flat, and I've never personally seen DNA in a microscope.....

I am willing to put my faith in most science without personal proof. But when it comes to ideas, beliefs, and faith, I think I need to remember not to believe something simply because someone else wrote it down.

We can say Jesus is God, because the Bible told us so. But what is the Bible? It's a book. Do we have any personal proof that it's divine....outside of what our parents and Sunday school teachers told us?

If someone can believe that the Bible is divine, why can't I believe Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is divine? And you know what....I CAN believe it's divine. And honestly, I sort of do. But that comes from my own personal imagination. How could I dare to assume that other people must believe this too?

I think we can divide the ideas we read about into three categories:

A) those that fit our own personal experiences
B) those that are negated by our own personal experiences (the book and person I'm writing about tomorrow fits into this category for me)
C) those that are neutral. Our experiences neither negate nor support the ideas presented.

I've read a lot of self-help books in my life...relationships, parenting, spiritual, work-related, etc. My problem was that I read with the assumption that the book is absolutely right. I have trouble reading stuff with a grain of salt. But I've been trying to be better with this. I think recognizing the above categories will help.

An example might be the claim that TV diminishes imagination in children. That's scary, and made me feel guilty for letting Jack watch television. But then I think of my own childhood. I remember watching a lot of TV in my childhood. I don't remember ever having any TV restrictions. I think I have a VERY strong imagination. Jack watches a lot of TV. And he too has a very strong imagination.

Now I'm going to read some of his astral articles.

Here's an article I probably need to read. "Privacy, Ethics, and OBE"

Bruce says there's a belief that if a projector deliberately invades the privacy of another person for immoral purposes or unethical gain, or engages in any disreputable or sexual behavior during OBE, they will be banned or stopped from further projecting -- grounded by a higher authority. It is even believed by some that there is a kind of astral police force watching out for ethical, moral and astral rights transgressors.

According to that belief, there may be some higher power grounding me because it knows I'd turn into a nosy spy.

But Robert Bruce feels this is all a myth! He believes there is nothing out there policing naughty astral people.

He talks about people seeking sex. Who are they having sex with? Other astral people? Or are they trying to have sex with regular people still in their bodies? Are we being secretly seduced without our knowledge?

Here's another article called "Astral Beings and Wildlife".

Bruce talks about energy life forms within the astral world...creatures/people who do not have a physical form like we do. I guess angels would count in this category.

In my spiritual reading, I've come across two schools of thought. The first believes there are no evil beings. It's all light and good. Evil is just in our mind. If we encounter something scary and negative in our dream and/or astral experience, this comes from our own negativity and imagination. The second believes there truly is evil.

I've spent most of my life believing in the first because it sounded more pretty. And it's less scary. But I've decided lately, from my own personal experiences, that I believe in the latter.

This is what Robert Bruce believes. He believes there are dark evil things out there.

I've seen and felt dark evil things in my dreams. So I agree with Robert Bruce on that point.

Bruce says, Just about every astral plane and realm has some kind of local inhabitants. These life forms often live in specific areas or realms, and often seem quite unaware there is any other reality or dimensional level than their own. They are often amazed when they meet an astral traveler.

This fits in with my lucid dreams, and I'm glad to read it, because it helps me make sense of stuff. When I have my lucid dreams, I often try to talk to people. I ask them who they are, whether they're dreamers too, where are we, etc. .

They rarely give me satisfying answers. They look at me with either confusion or amusement. They look at me like I'm nuts. I think I've always assumed they're either other dreamers, they're figments of my imagination, or they're spiritual beings. Some of the people seem to LIVE in these places I visit. It seems to be their normal world. So why the hell couldn't they answer my simple questions?

Maybe the answer is they're oblivious about there being a world outside their world. So my questions might sound absolutely insane to them.

Bruce says we might meet up with other dreaming projection people. But they might not know they're dreaming. I often wonder about this. It causes me grief in my dreams. A lot of times my family is in my lucid dreams. Now since I've never had a family member say Hey, Dina. Remember when we were in the astral world together..... I think either:

A) my lucid dreams are just dreams....games my mind plays on me.

B) I'm really having astral experiences, but part of it includes hallucinations.

We hallucinate sometimes in real life....why not in the astral world?

Bruce's idea leads to another conclusion though. What if my family really IS there with me.... And it's just they don't remember it later? This makes a lot of sense because many people don't remember their dreams. And I don't think anyone remembers ALL of their dreams. I remember my dreams. I write down my dreams. But each night, there's stuff I know I've forgotten.

A few months ago, I watched these lucid dreaming videos. One of the ideas in the videos was that we need to let go of our belief that our dream characters are real. Then we can become more lucid. The guy who does these videos is VERY spiritual, and does believe that there's real beings in our dream. But I think he feels most of them are fake/hallucinations.

So with that idea in mind, I made a goal that in my next lucid dream I'd tell my family they're not real. I thought that once I did that, I'd be more free. I'd have higher levels of lucidity. I'm usually pretty okay at remembering my goals in my lucid dreams, and trying to fulfill them. With this one, I've had very little luck. I either totally forget, or I remember and can't get to my family.

But now I'm thinking I should give up on that goal. What if the family member in my dream IS real. If I'm nasty to them just to prove to myself they're fake....well, what if I'm wrong? What if I abandon Jack, because I feel he's not really Jack? It's too hard to fly when I'm holding you so I'll just drop you.
But what if that really IS Jack that I'm dropping? He rarely remembers his dreams and probably won't remember on a conscious level. But what if he remembers on some unconscious level?

For now on, I'm just going to assume that everyone in my dream is real. I'm going to try to be nice to everyone. It's better to be nice to pretend people than be mean to real people.

I think I'm actually going to stop here. I know there's SO much more I could read. The problem is this type of reading makes me go off in major tangents. I have so much I can and want to say. Bruce says one little thing, and it totally sets me off. This post could end up being novel-length.

If anyone is interested in learning how to have out-of-body experiences on demand, I suggest you read the Robert Bruce website, or his books. I've tried following various procedures, and have never had any luck with it. I've decided to just stick with the spontaneous fun things that happen to me when I'm sleeping. But other people might have more luck (and natural ability) than me.