Question: It’s happened to me several times that I wake up in bed on my back, totally paralyzed, and then I hear this high-pitched whine and feel a buzzing sensation in my body, and there’s a bad energy in the room with me just waiting for me to astral project and I don’t want to. How can I stop this from happening?

Answer: There’s a huge irony here. I get tons of emails from people who want to project and can’t, and emails from people who don’t want to but keep finding themselves accidentally doing it. If only the twain could meet.

To prevent astral projection you pretty much need to do the opposite of what you’d have to do to bring one on.

Don’t sleep on your back

The most common position where a spontaneous astral projection takes place is while on your back. Take great pains to sleep on your side, or your stomach (even better!). You can train yourself not to sleep on your back with practice, just as you can train yourself to sleep on your back or sleep upright if you wanted or needed to. Of course it is possible to astral project when you sleep on your side, but it’s more rare so you stand a better chance if you can stay on your side.

Don’t take a nap

I certainly don’t understand the science behind this one, but it’s easier to astral project during short naps than long nights of sleep. So if you want to avoid a spontaneous and unwanted projection, don’t take a midday nap.

Sleep through the night

Likewise, people trying to learn astral projection are often taught to wake themselves up at 4am, stay up for 30 minutes, then go back to sleep. This can lead to lucid dreaming and/or astral experiences. So if you’re trying to avoid an astral experience, don’t go back to sleep an hour after you wake up.

Don’t meditate before bed

Another way to increase your chances of astral projection is to meditate, raise your vibration, and ask your guides for help. So to avoid this, don’t meditate right before bed. If you love meditation, switch to the morning or the daytime. When you meditate before bed, you will raise your vibration and make it that much easier to project.

Ask your angels for help

When you want to project, you can ask your angels to help protect you when you go out. Likewise, if you want to stay in for the evening, ask your angels to keep the door closed and to stand guard. Sometimes the spontaneous astral projections happen because there is indeed an energy waiting to interact with you, so it sort of throws open the door and invites you in.

Be ready to pull back

If you are unable to prevent the astral projection from starting, at least be ready to slam the door closed when it happens. If you wake up on your back, tingling, high-pitched whine going, and something “untoward” breathing down your neck you must act fast. Normally, to project from this state you would raise your vibration (to move out of phase with the baddie), and then stretch out or pop out of your body.

If you’re trying to prevent an astral experience though, you have to pull your energy in tight. You don’t want to lower your vibration because that will just make you an easier energy snack for the low vibrational being. Ask your guides to protect you, and ask your angels to escort the baddie off the premises. Pull your chakra energy in tight instead of opening it up. Try to move your physical body. You’ll probably be paralyzed, but keep trying. Try to use your vocal cords to scream. It may come out as a whimper, but that’s enough. If you have a partner in bed with you, they might hear the whimper and wake you up.

You’ve got to stay confident and strong and bring your will to bear on the situation so you can stay in your body and not get pulled. Do not succumb to fear or you can find yourself being pulled out of your body unwillingly. Sleep paralysis can be frightening, but it usually only lasts seconds to a couple of minutes. You will break free. When you do, immediately sit up, turn on the light, and raise your vibration.

If you find yourself repeatedly having these unwanted astral experiences you might want to get on top of them and learn how to astral project safely, then go out and have some fun experiences. There might be a reason you’re having these experiences. Perhaps your guides want to show you something.

For more on astral projection:

Learn everything you need to know to successfully master astral projection. Get Erin’s new book, The Astral Projection Guidebook: Mastering the Art of Astral Travel