it's no question about the rules wise aspect, just somthing i thought up while at work and my brain decided to take a little time-out.
How is Astral perception/travel accomplished? either by sheer willpower and determination through a good bit of concentration or by meditating and relaxing?
If it's accomplished by relaxing . . what happens if the mages go to sleep? O.o there's not many states you can be in that are as relaxed as sleeping is i would think . . so would a mage suddenly go astral sleepwalking? would an adept not really dream because he's merely astrally percieving(Spelling check? that does not look right to me somehow) while his meat body is relaxing and resting?
If it's done by concentrating . . imagine you really concentrating on something really hard because you wanna accomplish something important to you . . or going to the loo . . do you suddenly shift on the astral plane? o.O

I can't vote because I think it is a matter of both.

I see Astral Perception at least as a kind of switch. It's something that you may stumble upon unconsciously at first, but can discipline and learn how to consciously use it. Perception is kind of the same way. Some people have the unconscious ability to use it, and how they discover it is completely case to case.

Saying that sleeping is the same as meditation is also somewhat wrong. Meditation is much like self hypnosis, in that it helps reduce the conscious thought and bring out the unconscious. Sleeping is somewhat like this, except that you usually have no control over it. Projection could originally happen as a lucid dream though. I think magic is not completely set and stone, and each person comes to it a different (though similar) way.

Yep ... concentrate hard to relax ...

Hey! If you've ever tried, some forms of meditation it's exactly like that
ish

...wouldn't know, never really played a character who ever did it.

Well the answer is clearly yes.

Magic in Shadowrun is what you think it is. And if someone else thinks it's something else that logically would be mutually exclusive, well, you're both right. In the Secrets of Power trilogy the main character falls hits his head and wakes up astrally projecting, or some such. There's a description in a book of a master and an apprentice that described it in terms of meditation/concentration. Like traditions, everyone is right even when someone else who is right thinks they are wrong...

Magic is funky.

But yeah, i just looked it up and it's pretty clear that, traditionally, astral perception is a conscious action that requires some amount of focus. Stunning a mage to a drooling mage is still a good way from keeping him magically quiet.

i can't vote because i think it's a matter of c) any of the above. some characters relax, some characters concentrate, some characters concentrate to relax, some characters relax to concentrate, some characters chug cough medicine and smear themselves in honey. probably not many characters do that last one, but you never know.

ok, yes, i forgot about that third option and the magic being formed by belief thingie . . fixed that now ^^

I think it's be more of a zazen 'no mind' state, a focus on nothing. So not really a relaxation or a concentration, but rather like the blank mind you get when you're competing in athletics of some kind and you drop into 'the zone', y'know? So I voted "neither/all of the above".

Never forget the Winnie the Pooh toxic mentor spirit!

Just because I can...

10 mages

13 different answers.

'nuff said.

I recall an exchange in Shadowtech, under the pharmaceutical section, along the lines of: "Zen is how I get my mojo," and the reply, "There's some question in magical circles to whether narcotics are actually required for magic." The implication being that everyone had assumed you needed to pass a peace-pipe to hit the zone until the mid-50s or so... But I like the idea that you'd need some kind of catalyst to transition between meat and astral, some trick to pull yourself completely in. Whether sniffing salts, deep meditation, or asking your ancestors to open the gates to the ghostworld.

my first reaction was to say that it took concentration because you can only maintain it for so long. but then again, a person only sleeps for a a certain number of hours before naturally waking up.

i'd feel like the transition into perception or projection takes atleast a moment of focus. metas aren't dual natured in their sort of 'natural' state. evidence being that if you knock them out, they drop out of the astral.

If one magician can hurl a spell by quoting the ten commandments, and another polishing the shinies they've stolen, and a third by flying high on drugs - each tradition is going to be different. Sure, zazen for an Adept, but not for a chaos mage.