The following was submitted by a friend who has been a regular astral-traveller all her life. It's a cautionary tale about the darker end of the astral spectrum and advice on how to avoid it. Note that this is the last place new travellers should ever expect to end up in, but seeing that so little about the content of the astral planes is available, it is good knowledge for the would-be astral traveller to be armed with.

I�ve had experiences all my life of astral travelling in the dream state as well as in meditation and some spontaneous visionary types of experiences. Before I did any extensive spiritual development or training I sometimes would travel to parts of the lower astral plane that were quite dark and I had difficulty dealing with some of the spirits and energies that resided in such places.

I thought I�d share one difficult experience I had and then some of my general thoughts on the astral plane.

I was staying with some relatives in a part of New Zealand where there are some fairly unusual and chaotic energy currents. My family and I had all got together and had been drinking that day and when I went to sleep I had the most intense dream.

In my dream I was walking through tunnels of a jet black sticky gluey like substance. I found with some effort I could push my way through the walls of the tunnels. Each wall I pushed through would open up into an area inhabited by very scary beings. I kept trying as hard as I could to escape such a horrible place but each new area I pushed through to was just as bad as the last one and I didn�t know how to get out. It was like being trapped in some kind of horror movie that just kept getting worse.

After what seemed like hours I came to a place with hordes of dead spirits. If I didn�t know any better I would of said it was the place where guys that get their kicks from vandalism, rape and general violence go after they die judging from the types of things they were doing.

I tried to walk past the area they were congregated in but they spotted me. They were burning some sort of bonfire and were having some kind of party.

I was held by two of the guys and was told that they were going to have some fun with me before I went on the bonfire. I freaked out but was totally trapped and powerless.

The only thing I could think of doing was screaming a friends name at the top of my lungs. My friend had been involved in occultism for years and he showed up and rescued me.

When I woke up from that dream I had a splitting headache which wouldn�t go away. I called my friend who told me he had a dream where I called out to him and he rescued me from a terrible place that matched the description of what I saw in my dream. I told him about my headache and he recommended I go see a spiritual healer that he knew. So three days later (still suffering from the headache) I went to see the healer. He said that I had some thick black energy coating my head which was the reason for my headache. He did his healing work and the black energy and the headache disappeared. I guess I picked up the black energy from pushing my way through all those black sticky tunnel walls in the dream.

I have been back to similar places like that now and then in dreams. Fortunately in later times I have had some knowledge of techniques that would remove me from such zones of the astral plane. The way I understand it is that all places on the astral plane resonate to different frequencies. Some places are denser and lower in vibration, others are lighter and higher in vibration. It�s my understanding now that after a person dies they naturally go to a place that is closest to their own frequency for awhile. During this time the astral body slowly is cast off in the same way the physical body is released upon death. I think people naturally gravitate to where they are most comfortable and if you go to a dark place, chances are your earthly life was similar anyway, so there are no surprises in what you may find in the after life.

Over the years I have found that chanting sacred sounds and mantras or visualising images like the sun seem to work in removing me from the lower vibrational astral worlds and the attention of their occupants. I think if you are practising a form of meditation or chanting everyday it comes more naturally and is more powerful at times like these when you need it most. These spiritual techniques seem to work because they align your own energy with higher dimensional energies and the lower worlds just slip away from you.

The astral realms seem in many ways more complicated to me than physical realities. One of the difficulties with the astral realms is that your thoughts take form and have a life of their own. So say you are on the astral plane and for some reason think of something scary. Once the thought has been formed that fear comes to life, enlivened by your own energy and presents itself in front of you. These simulacra seem very real and difficult to deal with because they are formed from your own energies. It is useful to develop some techniques that you feel comfortable with in working with your own dark side and inner fears as you get more into exploring the astral worlds. It is also useful to develop relationships with deities, guides or totem animals that can assist you and guide you in these realms. There are many ways of doing this and many books that offer guidance on such things.