Astral Projection

When we start to fully immerse ourselves in self-engineered virtual realities, the initial shock of having access to an entirely different set of programmable parameters may be too much for many... especially those not used to controlled projective or disassociative states, or even manipulating an avatar in an MMORPG.

Losing one's body is no easy thing to come to terms with and can certainly provoke fear, even panic. A little preparation in getting our consciousnesses ready for such experiences may go a long way.

Cory Gann:

Once you develop the ability to have frequent out-of-body experiences, you start getting accustomed to strangeness. In fact, your ability to meet and handle unworldly, weird, bizarre, inexplicable and even nonsensical situations will be a measure of how successful you will be at exploring on this frontier.

Of all the things you need to handle the nonphysical environment, flexibility of mind is the greatest. You need to accept things which your “normal” sensibilities will just not want to.

This may even apply to future deep space exploration. It seems a little outmoded to imagine that interstellar travel will be something we do on bulky ships carrying generations of emigrants over the course of several millennia. There may more feasible options, eliminating the need for 'travel' altogether.

India News Daily:

This may seem complex but actually once the technology is mastered it is really simple. Another way to understand this is to hold a piece of rectangular paper in your hand. Bring the two opposite corners of the rectangular piece of paper together and make them touch each other. Now the distance between the two opposite corner is really zero. Bending space and time is the concept where you do not travel to the destination; you bring the destination close to you.

Preparation may take the form of meditative practices, guided out of body experiences or use of entheogens. Exposure to simulated realities where possible through gaming may not be a bad thing either. And just having an account on Twitter means you already have an avatar of sorts - a virtual 'you' that you represents you even when you're not online. Total immersion in genuinely realistic environments may not be here yet; but watch and wait... staying up all night playing on the Xbox will soon seem quaint after you realise you that you went online a few months ago to explore the outer cosmos and haven't been back to the 'real world' since.