Stillness · “Stillness Reveals”
Conscious Deep Meditation
Through long, patient, deep meditative absorption — total bodily relaxation held together with unbroken alert awareness — let the body fall asleep while consciousness remains fully awake, opening into conscious out-of-body and expanded states.
In 5 lines: Set aside a long, undisturbed sitting. Relax the body completely and let it fall asleep. Hold one thread of alert, watching awareness unbroken as it does. When vibrations or a sense of separation come, stay calm — don’t grab, don’t drift. Let the conscious out-of-body / expanded state arise on its own.
What it is
Unlike rapid OBE “exit” tricks, Jurgen Ziewe’s approach is not a technique to trigger an experience but a discipline that ripens into one. His method is long, patient, deep meditative absorption: he relaxes the body so completely that it drifts toward sleep, while holding awareness perfectly awake and alert. Over a sustained sitting, the body crosses the threshold into sleep but consciousness does not follow it down — and from that “body asleep, mind awake” state the conscious out-of-body and expanded states arise.
He treats OBE less as a feat to be performed and more as the natural fruit of decades of contemplative practice.
The Method
Faithfully, from Ziewe’s account in Multidimensional Man:
- Set aside a long, undisturbed sitting. This is not a five-minute drill. Ziewe meditates for extended periods, often after a deep daily practice built over years; depth comes from duration and patience, not force.
- Relax the body completely. Progressively let go of every muscle until the body is utterly still and heavy, sinking toward sleep. The body is allowed to fall asleep.
- Keep awareness alert as the body lets go. The single skill is holding a thread of wakeful, watching consciousness unbroken while the body crosses into sleep. Do not chase content; simply remain aware — present, alert, not drifting into unconsciousness.
- Pass through the threshold without grabbing. As the body sleeps, sensations shift — heaviness, vibration, sound, a sense of looseness or separation. Ziewe’s posture is passive alertness: observe these without excitement (which wakes you) and without sinking into them (which loses consciousness).
- Let the expanded state arise on its own. When awareness stays lit while the body sleeps, the conscious out-of-body / expanded state opens of itself. It is received, not seized. (Sourcing note: this is a faithful paraphrase of Ziewe’s described practice; he frames the core as sustained absorption with alert awareness rather than a fixed step-list.)
Source & Lineage
Jurgen Ziewe (b. c. 1949), a German-born, UK-based digital artist and author, developed this through decades of daily meditation, documenting the resulting explorations in Multidimensional Man (2008) and Vistas of Infinity.
His lineage blends Eastern contemplative practice (deep, sustained absorption) with the modern Western OBE stream (Robert Monroe), but his distinctive contribution is positioning OBE as the outcome of meditative depth rather than an induction trick.
Common refinements
Trying to force it / treating it as a trick. Ziewe’s whole point is patience; depth and duration do the work.
- Excitement at the threshold. Vibrations or a sense of looseness spike arousal and wake you — meet them with calm.
- Sinking into unconsciousness. The opposite failure: relax too far without holding awareness and you simply fall asleep. The skill is the thread of alertness.
- Too-short sittings. This method rewards long absorption; brief sessions rarely reach the threshold.
- Grabbing at content. Reaching for imagery collapses the state; remain a passive, alert observer.