After having profound experiences in shamanic journeying, I've been experimenting with astral projection and lucid dreaming with varying amounts of success. There have been various concepts regarding the "reality" of the dream state, the idea that the physical universe as we know it is actually a dream, and that while dreaming we enter the astral plane. Lucid dreaming concepts seem to imply that dreams are a creation of our minds so we can take conscious control to make anything we want happen in our dreams.
I must admit that my interest in dreamwork has been motivated by a desire to experience in the dream world what I feel is missing from my life in the physical universe. I'm not sure that one is more "real" than the other, but I feel that fulfilling these unfulfilled needs during dreams would lessen the feelings of lack in the non-dream world.
This is one that's interested me quite a bit, too. I've spontaneously had one or two truly lucid dreams, and I know I've had a slew of semi-lucid dreams, where part of my mind knew I was dreaming and that somehow this was important.
I experimented with astral projection quite some time ago, with some success. I always found the actual getting outside the body to be the hard part...the rest is just fun. The best book I had was by an author called Ophiel. I did some research and found him living in the Bay area, around 1969. His actual name was Edward Peach and he was a very old man when I talked with him. He was very helpful and encouraging, and we exchanged letters for some time and spoke on the phone, too. I think he passed away a year or two later.
Basically I drifted away from astral projection because I didn't really see any practical application. At the time, I was far from mature enough to think of some of the really grand vistas that open up to the awakened mind. I was working with mediums and psychics at the time - a lot of this stuff came easy for me back then, and I thought I was pretty hot stuff. My biggest problem back then was, I was too lazy to do any real work (I had no real vision, either) and eventually I sort of lost my groove for about thirty years.
Which was fine, but when it came back to me a few years ago, it rode in on a bullet. And I still haven't got it to stop bouncing around the walls.
8-D