Astral projection is a category of psychotechnics, which in one way or another are associated with a person's mastery of the ability to leave his subtle bodies from the physical body. In all traditions and schools there is such a section of knowledge as the occult human anatomy, which explains the structure of human nature and the peculiarities of its functioning. Moreover, the amount of this knowledge is incommensurate with the amount of knowledge about a person that is available in academic science.
The most common astral projection techniques are astral travel and lucid dreaming. Astral travel is much easier for a person who has reached a special state of consciousness, which in yoga is called the state of samadhi. Achieving the state of samadhi is the ultimate goal of raja yoga.
Lucid dreaming is the technique most widely used in the Warrior School. This technique can only be used in a dream. Its essence boils down to the fact that when in a dream a person begins to understand that he is sleeping, then in this state he can begin to control his dream and achieve certain goals.
There is a special difference between astral travel and lucid dreaming: everything that happens during astral travel takes place in objective reality, i.e. in the physical world; everything that happens during a lucid dream occurs in subjective reality, i.e. inside the mental world of a person.
Out-of-body experience (astral projection) is a popular idea in occult literature; this concept covers travel to other worlds or places while the physical body is asleep or in a trance. But the problem in this case is that too many phenomena are fitted to this concept, while it would make sense to differentiate them. Astral projection is often understood as anything - vivid dreams, realistic fantasies, travel to other worlds, etc. We will understand by the term OBE (astral projection) such experience, which was described by R. Monroe, S. Muldon, O. Fox and others. Those. this is the perception of the world of reality from its energy counterpart. A classic example of such an experience is the experience when a person sees himself asleep on a bed, while he is, say, hovering over it or standing next to it.
Modern psychology rejects the idea of an actual out-of-body experience (in which the soul temporarily leaves the physical body). However, the idea is very old. The Tibetans have a whole system of yoga (sleep yoga) based on astral travel. There is an important assumption - that you are involved in an out-of-body experience (at least slightly) whenever you sleep. What separates you from the full out-of-body experience is hazy consciousness during it and faint memories after it ends. And the worlds we perceive in dreams are as real as that world of reality, with which we deal in the waking state. Actually, this hypothesis is the main working topic for today's research in this area.