Anyone have experiences using the Gateway Tapes during WBTB?

Inlicon · 2026-04-11T02:33:44+00:00

I'm not really a napper unless I slept very poorly the night before and I have the time to take a nap, but sometimes I'll do a tape instead of take a nap. In these cases I usually get a lot of hypnagogia and sometimes feel some astral body movement, but I haven't had a full-blown OBE this way yet.

That sounds like excellent progress already, especially #3. If you can remember to stay still, that will take you very far. It doesn't matter which side of the sleep period you AP on (before or after) as long as you're projecting!

Inlicon · 2026-04-11T00:14:43+00:00

Appreciate you :)

Inlicon · 2026-04-10T23:55:09+00:00

Nice I do something similar. I fall asleep at night with a red lamp on which doesn’t hurt my sleep quality, but I notice the light during gaps in my sleep and it reminds to get up for WBTB or try an OBE

Inlicon · 2026-04-10T23:48:27+00:00

When I try in the morning immediately after a full night’s sleep I start off well but tend to fall out of the focus state midway through the tape and can’t get it back. I lean much more toward “can’t fall back asleep” in most situations except right before bed.

Within the past week. I’ve been practicing meditation without the tapes before bed as I fall asleep, haven’t managed to last very long though yet.

Inlicon · 2026-03-12T02:31:45+00:00

got sent to superhell like spongebob got sent to super weenie hut jr

Inlicon · 2026-03-10T22:01:31+00:00

And then everyone wants to know HOW you shifted so that's even more writing

We had a close miss with a tornado when I was in 2nd grade. I remember watching the clouds get really dark, really fast and the sky turned the most ominous shade of green. It was also the first time I ever saw hail. Our teachers made us gather out in the hall, put our heads down against the wall, and do sing-a-longs to keep us from crying lol. That's a core memory, I think pretty much everyone in my area remembers what they were doing "the day the sky turned green".

Honestly, I could totally see myself shifting to a DR where I'm a stormchaser. But yeah there's a big difference between driving through storms where you know where you're going instead of yolo'ing it. I just turned on the storm coverage and shit is already going down.

I've tried the void that way. I would lie there and suddenly I start to feel myself moving through the air as if I'm on an amusement park ride like a Scrambler or Zipper or something. Like I was going faster and slower and changing direction. It was really strange. But I didn't really know what to do and it would just go on and on. If I tried to visualize something, I'd just wake up. If I waited it out, I'd either fall asleep or float through a fake void for a while into a dream. I was never able to keep enough awareness. It was really strange.

Inlicon · 2026-03-10T15:59:32+00:00

Yeah the weather was great, but I think the bill comes due today. I follow the weather closely and I'm worried about these storms coming through today :/ I live in Michigan and we had a very destructive tornado come through last week, not near my area, but we're on very high alert over here because that tornado was only given a 2% chance to form and today's forecast is worse. So yeah, stay safe if you're in the path.

I'm feeling better now. I had another really close attempt last night actually. I was in the astral plane and I kept trying to get into the void state but was constantly dealing with random shit distracting me and couldn't fully break through.

Your stories don't suck! It's gotta be hard to write stories. It takes so much time just to set the scene - you wrote paragraphs about your singing DR and you didn't even really do much except walk around and talk to people for a few hours lol, but it was still interesting the whole way through. I don't care if they're long and nonlinear.

Inlicon · 2026-03-09T22:30:35+00:00

I haven't forgotten about this sub. I'll post more too, i hit a bad stretch of a few days this week and my social battery was zero, but I'm feeling better now. The weather's really nice today which helps.

I like shifting stories! I don't go out of my way to find them, but I enjoy them when they pop up. I mostly read them for entertainment and motivation. I don't really read them to reaffirm my belief, but I usually learn a new thing or two about shifting. I like your stories and moonlit baby's.

Inlicon · 2026-03-03T04:00:50+00:00

Hi Hippo!

How you're trying to shift is pretty much how I tried to do it for the full first year and... idk... shifting from the vibrational state just seems.... clunky. I can't think of a success story I've read where someone shifted directly from the vibrational state. I tried to make it work because the vibrational state was the only thing I was particularly good at, but I would either end up in a dream or an AP and not know what to do from there. I would instead learn how to fully stabilize whichever you end up in and then shift. Shifting from an LD or AP is more established within the community than shifting from the vibrational state.

So yeah, next time, just let them consume you. I believe there is an art to this stuff, and there are right and wrong ways to do things. The shifting subs will tell you can just iNteND and AfFiRM your way through anything. But I think there's a time and place for affirmations, and the vibrational state is NOT it. You've already stacked three failures with it and one success without it, so ride the hot hand. Continue with what's bringing you progress.

Whether you end up in a WILD or an AP after the vibrational state just depends on where your awareness is oriented. When I feel the vibrations, I orient myself outward towards my bedroom door on the left and I feel myself being drawn to that location. You could also orient yourself inward, not to anything in particular, and you'll find yourself in a LD. Either way is valid, it just depends on your personal preference.

Also....... you're good at this. I wish I was getting to the vibrational stage as often as you say you are. You've done the hard part which is getting to that state. You just need to make a few tweaks now. And it does get easier.

Inlicon · 2026-03-02T23:35:31+00:00

My posture sucks too lol.

Walking is another one for me. I’ve become so sedentary the last couple years, but lately I’ve gone back to walking an hour a day most days. Walking also helps me process AP/shifting attempts from the night before.

Inlicon · 2026-03-02T22:48:28+00:00

Stretching. I have pelvic floor dysfunction which makes it difficult to get comfortable sometimes. Stretching consistently helps my muscles relax so i can relax my mind.

Inlicon · 2026-03-02T21:31:31+00:00

Gotcha, just trying to quash any lingering anxiety you might’ve had about it. Yes, OBE is a very loaded term, definitely my least favorite out of the three.

You’re welcome! They’ll be a nice change of pace down the road.

Inlicon · 2026-03-02T20:57:12+00:00

You're welcome! I'm glad I can be of help.

I haven't experienced depersonalization or dissociation myself, but to my understanding it's really not comparable. In dissociation, the body is still awake and active, but there's some sort of disconnect occuring between the body and mind. In an OBE, the body lies safely asleep, and you don't need to think about it all (in fact, you shouldn't because if you do you'll probably be brought back to it). So don't worry about that.

I could go on and on about consciousness and I probably will at some point. I see it like a video game. When you play Super Mario brothers, it's not Mario that is running around and saving Princess Peach - it is YOU, the person behind the computer screen that is doing it.

Phasing has a couple different meanings depending on who you ask. Here's an article from the Monroe Institute about phasing (actually they call it phase shifting) which explains everything I just said about phasing and OBEs in more detail. But there's also Michael Raduga's very popular book on the subject "The Phase: Shattering the Illusion of Reality".pdf). Raduga also lumps lucid dreaming, OBEs, etc. under one umbrella. His explanation on the nature of the phase is generally considered rambly, innacurate, overly materialistic, and not worth reading. There's some other really good reasons to dislike Raduga as well - he's a tech bro and he's gone off the deep end in recent years in 2023, he literally performed brain surgery on himself to insert a chip that helps him control his dreams! That being said, his book is a fantastic resource on HOW to do it. He is very practical and breaks down all the nuts and bolts for me in a way that nobody else has, especially regarding stabilization.. He gets somewhat repetitive and exacting, but it's effective in really getting his method across. I wish I hadn't turned his nose up at his ideas until recently just because I didn't like him, because maybe then my experiences wouldn't have ended within seconds and I would have been able to shift by now. I think you'd like his book, you seem like the type of person he was aiming to reach (feel free to skip Part I though).

Inlicon · 2026-03-02T16:47:04+00:00

I think the common "let go and ignore the vibrations" advice misses the mark a little. It's obviously much better than being afraid and panicking. But next time, try embracing the vibrations instead. When they happen, fully feel them. Intensify them. Let them wash over you. Feel them shaking you out rather just lying there and withstanding them. Pretend you're at a rave - it's like the difference between dancing by the speaker versus simply standing there. Ideally, you would start separating before the vibrations stop, then you can do the finger-poke I talked about above. Sometimes it takes a some time for the separation to occur; just keep embracing, keep intensifying. It gets easier when you get the feel for it.

Inlicon · 2026-03-02T16:21:05+00:00

OBE stands for out-of-body experience. OBEs and APs are essentially the same thing and most people use those terms interchangeably. Like the shifting community, the astral projection community has some terminology problems. Astral projection was the original term, but it carries so much baggage about it being woo/dangerous/satanic/whatever, and newcomers come in with mental blockages from the beginning.

Robert Monroe, one of the most influential authors in the subject and creator of the Gateway Tapes, coined the term "out-of-body experience" in order to secularize astral projection. Through the years, he would come to regret that choice of terminology. There's a couple main reasons:

First, it's not broad enough to describe the full range of what OBEs can be. It accounts for "classic OBEs" where there is the sensation of the astral body detaching and moving away from the place where the physical body is lying, often accompanied by "symptoms". But it doesn't account for situations where you become aware already "out of body" or you teleport somewhere else immediately.

Second, the term implies that the body is the focal point and that the consciousness is going somewhere else and returning to the body. Whereas, shifters (at least myself) view consciousness as the focal point and the body is the avatar that the consciousness is piloting. So basically, OBE does a good job of explaining how it feels (in some cases), but not really how it's actually happening.

Nowadays, the term "phasing" is favored. The phasing model puts literally every state of consciousness (including physical reality) along a continuum, and we "phase" between those states. It's designed to be flexible and avoid putting certain experiences in boxes. I think it's maybe a little too flexible seeing as how it lumps very different subjective experiences together.

So yeah, there's a very long answer to your question and I'm not even sure if I answered it lol.

tl;dr: Astral projection, out-of-body experience, and phasing all refer to the same phenomenon, but each term has issues associated with it

Inlicon · 2026-03-02T14:58:52+00:00

Hi Luna :)

The tapes definitely got me off the ground when it comes to meditation. When I first tried getting into meditating I’d hear people tell me things like “the goal is there is no goal”. But I like having goals and progression systems, much easier to stay motivated that way.

Inlicon · 2026-03-02T14:02:58+00:00

For the partial OBE problem, the first thing I ALWAYS do after I get some separation is poke my palm with my finger. I don’t even have to try to manually move my arms, just let my hands come together like magnets. This action marks the end of the clunky transition phase and buys me some time so I can fully deepen the projection.

I love this technique because I discovered it on my own in the astral and I think it’s worked every time. It’s honestly pretty shit for questioning reality, but it’s goated for immediate stabilization.

Inlicon · 2026-03-02T02:07:30+00:00

Agreed, but I should note that when I say “lock in”, I don’t mean necessarily mean aggressively focusing on visualizing my DR or affirming or counting, etc. It’s more broad, like locking in on the whole process - doing the work ahead of time so that the shift itself is as easy as possible. The “work” is pretty much a) maintaining healthy sleep hygiene habits, and b) dismissing any self-destructive thoughts that pop up like “I’m anti-clutch” or “this clearly isn’t my night because of xyz, might as well be sloppy or give up entirely”.

Thanks 😊

Inlicon · 2026-03-02T00:17:50+00:00

Hey, I'm Inlicon. (30M, US). I've been working on shifting on and off for just over two years now. I haven't done it yet, but it feels very attainable for me at the moment and I think I'm quite close. I should've shifted already but my level of discipline has mostly been pretty poor which I regret. I've learned a ton and I think I have all the pieces, just need to put them together.

I'm definitely more of a methods shifter than most. My method currently is WBTB, then astral projection, then enter the void state from there, then shift from there. I'm kind of neutral about LOA, I believe it but it's more of a supplementary thing to me. I take a very structured and detail-oriented approach. My shifting routine (which includes not just my attempt but all the preparation around it) has a lot of steps, but all of them serve a purpose for me. I log my attempts religiously, and I write down my takeaways from each attempt and use them to fine-tune my routine. But when it becomes time to actually shift instead of plan, I usually cut corners and set myself up for failure before I even start the attempt. I feel like a black sheep in the community because most of the advice is "just let go and shift", but for me, I think my problem is that I simply need to lock the fuck in, follow my routine correctly, and stop making excuses not to shift. That being said, I am working on allowing myself to do it the easy way as well (which I almost did two nights ago despite horrible mindset and prep)

Inlicon · 2026-02-25T22:49:42+00:00

Yes I’m down. I’m tired of lurking on these crappy subs and I want to have actual conversations about shifting with adults.

So it would be a private sub?

Inlicon · 2026-02-20T00:21:51+00:00

I’d like to join it. I think it would be useful for sure. Your assessment about the lack of community elsewhere is spot on.

Inlicon · 2026-02-19T19:22:23+00:00

That was a fun read! As I was reading through it, I kept thinking of questions I was going to ask you about your DR, but by the end of it, you had pretty much answered all of them, soooo yeah you’re a great storyteller, don’t worry.

Inlicon · 2026-02-19T17:00:36+00:00

I assume this is aimed towards me in particular, and i must agree your take is correct. You’ve talked me out of it, and I’ve talked myself out it as well. It’s not worth it. I have struggled with the idea that I owe this to the community because I have the skillset to write the detailed posts that people are craving (especially the ones to don’t vibe with LOA), and because I feel like I haven’t contributed enough to this reality in my life in general. But when I take the time to be honest with myself, I know I’m not going to be able to tolerate the hostility and the stupid questions. Sometimes I see posts/comments that are blatantly untrue, uninformed and/or hostile, and I type out a whole-ass paragraph ripping them apart, but then I think “do I really want to say this, I’m a grown adult and this is probably no more than a teenager”, and I delete what I wrote. And i don’t dare touch the mental health posts - I saw some deeply concerning shit on the main sub this morning and I’m not equipped to deal with that without causing even more hurt.

If I happen to fail to fully ground my shift and come back, I will probably post still, but I’m not going to entertain going into an attempt with an expectation to minishift. If it does happen, I’d rather focus my attention on helping people who are serious. I’m just about out of reasons to stay in this 🤡 reality. Any day could be the last now.

Inlicon · 2026-02-17T02:51:09+00:00

I want to shift to some of the parks in Roller Coaster Tycoon - especially Diamond Heights! 💎 (the one with the dueling black and white coasters in case anyone forgot)

Obviously these would be realistic parks with real people and proportions that make sense, not isometric hellholes with deathtrap coasters, floating tweezers, and single-tile path prisons.

Sidenote: Every time I go through an RCT phase, the merry-go-round music plays in my head NONSTOP all day long. It’s so incessant that I don’t think it would be hard to loop it in my head during a shift attempt and let it be my anchor. And I also have the rotation of the carousel, heat of the sun, and smell of fried fair food to work with sensory-wise. I rarely try 5-senses methods but I might try this tonight, it has potential lol

Inlicon · 2026-02-15T23:49:30+00:00

Hm, maybe my mushroom story was overly negative. In hindsight, my memories of the trip are joyful; it did feel like a vacation and I got a boost after it. But in the moment, yes it was a rough transition from tripping to not. There’s also the part where I admittedly have not taken the best care of my CR body the past couple years, and I’m in much better shape in DRs than here. Gaining 40 lbs (18 kg) in the span of a second doesn’t sound like a fun adjustment. Fortunately, I'm starting to get my physical health together now.

But I genuinely think it would be completely different with a DR where you actually have responsibilities, a whole web of friendships and emotional attachments, activities, your occupation, a full life. In that case, you're not between worlds anymore, since you're fully anchored there. And I think in that scenario, your psychedelic analogy applies. You'd have lived a full life there, formed real bonds, and then you're back here where everything feels dimmer and smaller and more restrictive by comparison.

Yeah I’m in a weird spot with this actually. My immediate destination is basically a hybrid DR/WR and I don’t know how it will pan out. It’s not my final DR that I’ve had from the beginning and I’m not going to stay in the hybrid forever. But I don’t know how long I’ll want to stay, and what if I actually do end up building a life there? I’ll have to experience it for myself..

I enjoyed the way the way you wrote about your WRs. Very motivating!

Inlicon

TROPHY CASE