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Could the 4 hours of daily sleep have any relation to the constant headache you faced then?

Yes, very likely, however there were no other indications of sleep deprivation.

Holding your breath for several minutes at a time can't really help...

"A constant headache that lasted a few years and then promptly ended when I stopped meditating."

Might have something to do with unconscious straining of the eyes. Diagnosis based on hearsay - my friend had this problem and it vanished after he switched from a closed-eyed to open-eyed technique.

It seems like you got some really interesting results. I meditate on my own for a while and like you I found several "more or less scary reasons" to stop.

Recently I started again with a teacher and it is awesome. It makes all the good bits great and minimizes all the unpleasant stuff.

There is a dude called Alan Chapman, who has a great deal of experience with meditation and dream states. In addition to this he reads Wired and is down to earth.

What kind of meditation routine did follow?

I used two main techniques, first I just did focus exercises for a few weeks then I started with the more advanced stuff.

First you need to learn to focus your mind, you take a bright object (a firelighter works great) and you stare into the flame. Then you slowly and carefully shut down your brain and just focus on the bright light. If a tought pops up the most important thing to remember is to let it go and focus away from it, if you get mad or focusing on not focusing on it that's one more tought that popped up.

Then once you get the hang of that you can start doing more interesting things. My favourite was to attempt super-position and out of body experiences. Basically you sit in a comfortable position and focus on a memory of a place, or a made-up place. You slowly build up the image of your surroundings, starting with what's immediately before your eyes and then going from there. Once you're proficient in building a visual representation of fake surroundings you start with sounds, smells and tastes. When you get that down you can start fooling your kinestatic sense, which means you have to feel your arms/legs/body in a different position than it actually is.

Once you've done that, voila, you've just achieved lucid REM at will.

If you talk to a spirituality guru they will tell you it's an astral plane, or out of body experience. But really it's just lucid REM :)

I never managed to quite completely detach myself from reality, I got into the super-position state where I could feel myself being in two places at once ... sort of everywhere.

The main thing you have to remember when doing any of these experiments is that your mind is the only thing in the world fully under your control. It cannot do something you don't let it do.

It should be noted that this is a fairly unusual practice, quite different to the more common concentration, insight, and awareness meditation systems.

I found this (http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html) on a recent HN thread. According to that you've been on a wrong track I'm afraid.

Probably depends on what you want to achieve with meditation. My goal was to achieve things written about on this page: http://psipog.net/

Most actively I was going after clairvoyance.

And it worked to an extent, I eventually stopped because I couldn't distinguish what my mind was thinking it was doing from any sort of actual physical effect and I never managed to achieve anything that couldn't adequately be explained as lucid REM.

These kinds of energy-manipulation meditations can lead to serious imbalances, and should only be done under the guidance of a teacher.

There is a lot of material on that site. What specifically was he doing to put him on the wrong track?

I've read only first 3 chapters. So look there. I'm sorry I'm too busy to spot the exact points right now.

Can you recommend some online resources that help with this practice?

Interesting feedback. OK I will sound like a freak but this stuff is so damn interesting.

To me your method is more likely to induce WILD not OBE. And I don't think it's the same. Edit: visualization and the fact you seeked clairvoyance could be an explanation for your constant headache, I suppose your sixth chakra was very active?