Do opiates make your SP episodes more frequent too?
Yes, way more frequent, but I still get them from time to time.
Thats exactly what I was thinking when I read your reply involving SP. I was gonna start a thread on this but couldn't find the right forum so may as well just talk about it here as its relevant to nu-nu. You say it doesn't happen by will but do you know any triggers that might indirectly lead to it happening? I relax in SP always now. My SP used to be extremely intense, my whole body would vibrate violently and I'd be bombarded by hallucinations, now sometimes I don't even notice that I'm in SP until I go to move and realise I'm paralysed.
When it happens, is there a silver cord that attaches your etheric double to your body? I read a good few accounts of people claiming to have astral traveled and they all say theres a silver cord. Interestingly, people with NDEs often claim to have similar experiences but there is no silver cord. My father has clinically died twice (once of a heroin OD, once in an intentional car crash) and he says after the car crash, he was floating above his body watching the doctors putting his eye back into his head and resuscitating him with the defibrillators. After I started taking xanax, I no longer get sleep paralysis regularly. I'm hoping that when this withdrawal has fully subsided, I'll start getting it again.
I don't think those are hallucinations, more real than what we consider real, but that's a matter of opinion. The vibration is extremely intense and the last part to release from the physical is at the head area. The feet float up first and so on and so forth and sometimes I can't/don't break free at the head....but when I do it's time to travel and move through "solid" objects, fly miles upon miles (even into space) and all sorts of crazy shit like looking at your own body as you stand next to your bed....oh yeah it is all very possible and is a trip. A teacher told me that when one starts to master this going back and forth in time is no big deal. I think the nu-nu allows them to release from the body and travel forward in time to see the location of animals for the hunt, or even see the hunt.
There are a lot of people on the planet right now who can do this sort of stuff without any substances. I am one (but am a rookie for sure since I am just getting the awareness) and I have come into contact with several. I like how my first teacher friend put it, "there is only one consciousness, just different levels of awareness". Right on.
As for SP, I don't know how to trigger it, but there are books on it and I have heard of others who do know the methods.
I haven't seen the silver cord, only felt its pull. Check out Ecclesiastes 12:6.
Benzos don't stop my SP.
So all this is exciting, but as I learned from one very experienced in these matters it is just the tiny tip off a massive iceberg and the more effort that I put into trying to cultivate these things the more I am just pushing and struggling instead of being in the moment and enjoying the journey. I think most of the important things, e.g. spiritual awakening, happen on their own time.