First, the Basics (For Complete Beginners)

Astral projection (also called an out-of-body experience or OBE) is when your awareness leaves the sensation of your physical body and you explore non-physical environments. People report floating above their bed, flying through walls, visiting distant locations, or entering completely different worlds. It feels as real as (or more real than) waking life.

Reality shifting is the practice of intentionally moving your awareness to an entirely different reality—often a place you’ve scripted in detail. That can be a version of Earth where your life is different, or a fictional universe (Hogwarts, Marvel, an anime world, etc.). When successful, you open your eyes there, live for hours/days/years, and your body here simply sleeps or waits.

Both sound like science fiction, but millions of ordinary people—from scientists to teenagers—report doing them. The key point of this article: you already do versions of both every single night without trying.

You’re Already Visiting the Astral Every Night

When you fall asleep, your body paralyzes itself and your consciousness detaches from physical senses. At that moment you are in the exact same non-physical territory that experienced astral projectors enter on purpose. Every dream you have (weird, normal, or lucid) is you exploring or creating in the astral plane. The only difference is that most people do it unconsciously and forget most of it upon waking.

Daydreaming Is the Same Thing, Just Partial

When you zone out in class, on the bus, or in a boring meeting and suddenly “snap back” after living a vivid inner scene, your awareness has already shifted. The physical world became background noise while your inner world took center stage. That’s a low-intensity, uncontrolled astral projection/reality shift happening in broad daylight.

What the Masters Discovered

Robert Monroe (author of Journeys Out of the Body and founder of The Monroe Institute), William Buhlman (Adventures Beyond the Body), Frank Kepple, and centuries of Tibetan Dream Yoga practitioners all reached the same conclusion after decades of practice:

• The dramatic “vibrations” and “rolling out of body” are optional beginner symptoms.
• The real mechanism is simply moving your focus of awareness—like changing the channel on a TV.
• At the highest level you can do it instantly while fully awake, eyes open, no sleep required. Tibetan masters call this “samadhi with open eyes.”

In other words: astral projection and reality shifting are the same natural ability you already use in dreams and daydreams—only made conscious and directed.

How to Reality Shift Using the Classic Astral (Night) Method

1. Lie down to sleep as normal.
2. Keep your mind lightly awake while your body falls asleep (count slowly, focus on breathing, or repeat a simple phrase).
3. When you feel vibrations, buzzing, floating, or hear random noises, stay calm—this is the shift starting.
4. Visualize/feel your desired reality with all senses: the bed, the light, smells, emotions.
5. Intend clearly: “I am now waking up in my desired reality.”
6. Let yourself fall into that scene instead of regular sleep. You’ll feel a flip or drop, then open your eyes there.

How to Reality Shift Using the Daydream (Awake) Method

This is the instant method the masters prefer.

1. Sit or lie somewhere quiet—eyes open or closed.
2. Relax your body but keep your mind alert.
3. Loop a short, vivid scene of waking up in your desired reality (touch the sheets, hear sounds, smell the air, feel excitement).
4. Gently give that inner scene more attention than your physical surroundings.
5. When the inner scene feels more real, physical reality fades or morphs and you’re fully there.

Final Thought

You don’t need to learn a new superpower. You only need to bring awareness and intention to something your mind already does every night and many times a day. Monroe, Buhlman, and Tibetan yogis all proved the same thing: once you drop the training wheels, shifting is as natural as deciding where to place your attention.

Next time you catch yourself drifting into a vivid daydream or hovering on the edge of sleep, take the wheel. The ability has always been yours.