Astral Travel to Floating Cities: A Childhood to Adulthood Journey
Ishtar Howell recounts personal experiences of astral projection beginning in childhood through a specific breathing technique, progressing from mountainous dreamscapes to a floating city above Lake Geneva where he taught classes on futuristic botany—experiences later corroborated by a shaman friend who witnessed the same events.
The Childhood Breathing Technique
Spontaneous Breathing Practice and Spinal Energy
As a young child, Ishtar developed a specific breathing pattern—inhale, hold, exhale—while directing attention to the base of his spine, then following the breath up to the top of his head. This practice built a blissful charge in his lower body that would eventually lead to a sensation of shooting out the top of his head.
Two Outcomes from the Breathing Practice
When Ishtar reached the point of shooting out the top of his head, one of two things would happen: either he would fall into sleep and wake with no memory, or he would find himself leaving his body and traveling to other places.
Early Childhood Astral Experiences
The Mountainous Valley with Telepathic Gatherings
As a child, Ishtar frequently traveled to a mountainous region with snowcapped peaks and a valley platform where many people gathered. Communication occurred telepathically—people conveyed meaning without moving their mouths—and he felt deeply good in this space, though he dismissed it as a dream upon waking.
Teenage Years: The Floating City
Shift from Mountain Realm to Local Floating City
After a five-year break starting around age 11, astral experiences resumed intensely at age 16. Instead of the distant mountainous place, Ishtar began visiting a floating city in the sky above Lake Geneva, his hometown lake, which felt more formalized and structured than childhood experiences.
Formalized Learning in the Floating City
In the floating city, Ishtar found himself in lecture halls taking classes on various subjects, particularly future-oriented topics like economics of the future and alternative history accounts that differed from mainstream narratives.
Teaching Futuristic Botany
Most remarkably, Ishtar found himself teaching a class on the botany of the future—a subject combining ideas from Rudolf Steiner and Sheldrake advanced 40 years forward—despite having neither knowledge nor interest in botany at the time. He recalled mental holographs or futuristic slide projections accompanying his teaching.
Corroboration and Validation
The Shaman Friend's Confirmation
A few days after teaching the botany class in the floating city, Ishtar's walk-in shaman friend Austin mentioned the lecture without any prior discussion, referencing the botany of the future taught on a ship above the lake. This independent corroboration suggested the experiences had substance beyond imagination.
Shift in Understanding: Dreams as Real Experiences
Austin's confirmation prompted Ishtar to reconsider not only recent experiences but also childhood visits to the mountainous realm, suspecting they contained real substance rather than being purely imaginary dreams.
Shared Astral Encounters Among Friends
Ishtar notes that some of his friends have met each other in these dream or astral spaces and recognized each other upon waking, with one friend telling another, 'You're the one from the astral plane,' indicating mutual awareness of shared experiences.
Techniques and Practices for Astral Access
Meditation Parallels to Childhood Breathing
Upon learning formalized meditation practices later in life, Ishtar recognized that his spontaneous childhood breathing technique resembled many established meditation methods, suggesting either past-life knowledge or some other source of innate understanding.
Key Conditions for Astral Projection
Ishtar identifies deep relaxation before sleep and achieving a clear, relaxed yet alert state as essential conditions. The more time spent in this liminal space before sleep, the greater the likelihood of retaining awareness of nighttime astral experiences.
Dream Journaling for Recall and Awareness
Keeping a dream journal immediately upon waking significantly enhances awareness of astral experiences and helps retain memories of nighttime activities that would otherwise fade upon waking.
The Vancouver Astral Avatar Experience
Consistent Astral Form and Clothing
While living in Vancouver in a converted army barracks, Ishtar discovered he maintained a consistent astral avatar—appearing as himself at age 23 with improved hair, wearing a Greek warrior skirt and golden sandals with a Mercury aesthetic, suggesting a stable astral identity.
Chasing Ghosts and Helping Spirits
In the Vancouver building, Ishtar had repeated astral experiences of chasing one or two ghosts through the halls, attempting to guide them to the light, demonstrating interactive astral experiences beyond passive observation.
Astral-to-Physical Transition
When unable to catch a ghost, Ishtar would run through his bedroom wall and swan dive into his physical body, causing an immediate jolting awakening—a dramatic transition between astral and physical states.
Notable quotes
I would shoot out the top of my head and find myself leaving my body going out the wall of my bedroom. — Ishtar Howell
You were talking about the botany of the future. Oh, all right. That's good to know. — Ishtar Howell
The more time spent there in that space going into sleep, the more we tend to pick up what was going on in the night. — Ishtar Howell
Action items
- Practice the breathing technique: inhale while focusing on base of spine, hold, exhale while tracing attention up to crown of head
- Establish a relaxed yet alert mental state before sleep to increase astral awareness
- Start a dream journal and record experiences immediately upon waking to enhance recall and awareness
- Experiment with formalized meditation practices to deepen access to liminal states