Joe’s OBE experiences
October 8th, 2006Thank you to Joe who sent this in….
‘Just thought I’d provide my own experience with OBE’s to aid you in your quest for the truth.
I had my first “projection” when I was younger (about 11 or 12 years old). It happened quite spontaneously after becoming lucid within a dream. I got the idea to see how high I could fly, and as I flew higher, I felt intense vibrations which only increased with altitude. I suddenly found myself lifting up off my bed. I looked around in awe and saw that I was still sleep under the covers. The experience only lasted about 20 seconds. At the time, and for years after, I believed it to be real (I can vouch that it definately felt very real, more so than a lucid dream), but was I too quick to believe it?
About 2 or 3 more similar experiences happened to me over the years. Recently, however, I had an experience that was not only much more intense than all the others, but really made me question what I was truly experiencing:
I was 21 living in my apt. and was studying lucid dreams and testing ways to induce them and prolong/maintain them. One trick which seemed to work well for me when the lucid dream was fading away, was to focus on my hands until the dream stabilized itself again. A sense of overexcitement is usually what would wake me up and that particular technique seemed to help me refocus and relax and be able to prolong my dreams quite well.
During one of these lucid dreams I managed to have another OBE. It had been a long time since I’ve experienced one and the realism was “too good not to be true”. I hovered through my livingroom and tried to remain calm knowing that getting too excited or scared would snap me back into my body. Note that this was the first time I was actually able to explore while “out of body” I had a hard time handling the intensity during my previous experiences. I went outside and started to float above the trees. I looked around trying to validate my experience. The neighbouring homes were (to the detail) as they should be but there were a few vehicles parked in front of the apartment building that I knew weren’t there normally. I started to feel myself getting pulled back to my body and instinctively began to focus on my “astral” hands. It worked! I immediately wondered why a technique designed to prolong lucid dreams was working to prolong my OBE. Or were these experiences one in the same only on different levels? Regardless I continued on with my experience, even went into a neighbour’s home, focused on my hands a few more times and eventually snapped back to my body or “woke up”.
Let me say that the experience of an OBE is without doubt real just maybe not in the sense that we think. It’s logical to think that our “soul” or “astal body” has left the physical body when this happens because it’s the only explanation that makes sense to us and the feeling is much more vivid than any dream, lucid or not. But does it make sense to think that it may only feel more real because we actually “believe” it’s really happening, forcing a heightened awareness and overall experience to take place? I really don’t know. I believe we may have jumped the gun on what’s really happening here, many (mostly those who have experienced them) are quick to belive it’s real and others (mostly those who haven’t) are just as quick to deny the possibility.
Whether it’s really is the soul leaving the body, or just some reaction occuring in the brain, there’s no denying that OBE’s are real, we’re just not quite sure in what sense, and until some hard evidence comes into play we should just sit back, relax and take them for what they are… a grand mystery!’
October 8th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
Thanks again Joe for your very sensible post. I have to agree with everything you said here. OBE’s certainly seem to be something real, but what they are are indeed a mystery.
I also like the extra information you have brought to this mystery - a common method used in Lucid dreaming also worked for you in an OBE (focus on hands).
October 20th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
I think you need to reevaluate what you mean by lucid dream. If you were having a truely lucid dream then the obvious conclusion is that you are not “leaving your body” - you are just switching dream scenes. So simply dreaming of leaving your body.
Lucid dreaming is knowing that you are dreaming whilst dreaming with the ability to recall your waking life and thus put your current dreaming state into the correct context.
After all which is more likely? you actually leave your body or DREAM that you leave your body?
Dreams can and do feel as real (sometimes more real) than waking life, because they are using the exact same brain functions as waking awareness. Do not mistake the “feeling of real” as a way to prove the validity of an experience.
I respect your search for truth but I think the logic is slightly off. The simple answer is normally the correct one.
All the best
December 1st, 2006 at 1:00 pm
ive had a similar dream were im outside my house on the road but thing look like they are part real and part my imagination. its like i see what i want to see. what if this happens at night but you saw it as being day does this mean that it wasent real or maybe the astral plane is just a shadow of our reality. that would mean some of the things would be real and other things would not. when i saw it for my own eyes i was defenitly looking from another point of view and i felt very much aware and somewere else. at the moment this happend i was shocked and i knew it was happening but i wasnt thinking logicly maybe i was half asleep but i woke myself and i regret that i did because it was something i had been training for for a while. ohh well maybe when i get my shit together i will start my rutine.
December 14th, 2006 at 8:48 am
I remember reading about a similar experience to your own and became excited about the possibility of leaving the body at will. I wanted answers to certain questions such as, Is the mind able to sustain consciousness beyond physical death? It was a long shot, but I thought that this could in one way, give me a small insight into what happens to the mind within the physiological process of dying. Could an OBE be induction process to death? Maybe we have tapped into the pre death induction process?
Thinking logically about the physical process of recording sensory information into the brain, I believe the mind to record all sensory information into the brain and arrange all visual information into the three dimensional panoramic model. To verify this I conducted a small thought experiment. I imagined a journey from my home to work place, I could visually see the buildings and cars in the minds eye and all of which were in crystal clear detail. I could, with my knowledge of the locality, take a small detour. I visited the local canal and looked at the boats drifting past; I could even see the ripples on the water as the canal boat sailed past. I am completely able to recreate an inward projection of reality. Our mind records all sensory information and then arranges this into a coherent three dimensional perspective and then adds this onto our existing inward projection of reality.
Taking this experiment one step further, instead of moving though the inward projection in a linear sense, I visualised the entire landscape simultaneously without actually travelling through it, as if I were seeing the sum of all its parts. I believe that we continuously add to this three dimensional projection of reality with actually being consciously aware. All sensory information is recorded into our minds, but our awareness of this information and ability to recall is hindered by the brains physical process of filtering of this sensory information.
We know that OBES are purely subjective in context. Could it be possible that an out of body experience is actually an “Inner Body Experience” What if we are merely examining this three dimensional inward projection of reality within our minds? We experience it as a journey as we need to place ourselves at a certain identifiable location, and as such, create the illusion of travelling outside of our own bodies.
March 2nd, 2007 at 1:38 am
The simple way of establishing whether this experience is an outer body experience or merely an inner experience is to recall a verifiable detail that can be confirmed once “back in” your body. E.g. you said you saw “a few vehicles parked in front of the apartment building that I knew weren’t there normally”. Before this you even said “I looked around trying to validate my experience”, so you were attempting to establish whether this was reality you were experiencing. But you didn’t say whether you actually went out after your experience and saw if the unfamiliar cars were there or not during your woken state.
To overcome subjectivity you can even set up an experiment whereby you travel into a room you have never been in that has been laid out by another person. Once awake you describe the contents of the room. If you have never seen, heard of, read about or visited the room physically but can still describe the contents then this would support the interpretation that you could gain the information via some other means.
In my own experience whenever I try to “tie down” an experience as either subjective or not it either disrupts my ability to have another similar experience or I get easily distracted or lose interest in the logical conclusion. Either this is because I am not meant to know logically or my logical understanding blocks the part of me that understands the experience.
I once had an inner experience that took me outside time and space to an eternal presence. The trigger for this experience was simply enjoying warming up after walking outside on a cold night. As soon as I tried to focus on my mind (which was trying to find where I had disappeared to) the experience ended (or my awareness of it ended). In the fractions of seconds before my mind started interpreting the experience I knew that that interpretation itself would dissipate my understanding. Simply put, you either know and accept or you don’t know and question (either way the mind will question anyway). This doesn’t leave any room for a successful scientific understanding but you can at least have a successful personal understanding. Only then do you know the truth but this cannot be conveyed to other people, unless they have also established their own truth. Then you are both able to refer to a common denominator and use this as a basis for communication. But by then neither of you would need to discuss the experience as you would simply know making discussion unnecessary.
E.g. its like trying to explain what colour is to someone who only sees black and white. What common denominator could you use? Interesting shades of grey? If the person can already see in colour then explanation is not needed. I guess this is just another limitation of language. We can express what we know but this knowledge is not always transferable unless the recipient already knows something about what you’re saying.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Sorry about my bad English - As mentioned elsewhere on the site, I don’t speak it, and can only write it to some extent.
As the Subject line say “Allways test and validate the experience”.
Can one have an OBE like experience while in a Lucid dream state? - Absolutely, and even more so if you are goin to bed with the hope of having an OBE.
As most lucid dreamers are aware, the scene you “wake” up in, are not allways at start the one you want, but more the scene used in the scene up to becoming lucid, or sometimes simply a scene made out of everyday elements, fx a bedroom, who might not even look like your own, but are the minds universal concept of a standart bedroom - If before sleep you have a high expetation of having an OBE in a certain location, and behaps even a specific spot to have it from, it’s then not unlikely that you will get a lucid scene, where the brain tries to fullfill this “wish”.
If you use the guidelines many makes, about trying to do an OBE from an lucid dream state, and up to it having broken the sleep pattern, so you not are fully rested, the abowe become highly likely to occur.
My experience with those OBE’s I’ve had, who I could test and validate info from, have never been attempted from a lucid dream state, nor from a lack of full rest.
What you need are to be fully rested, but at peace without too much “background noise” in you mind, as you need to be focused.
It’s recomended to try to get into a sort of trancestate, tho no drugs, as you need to be fully aware and awake - Try using sound, fx you own deep slow breathing.
Also if you can sit completly still for a hour or a half, you will find you body falls asleep, and if you use the the breath technic so you pull down alot of air and keeps you eyes open and you mind focused, you will be one step closer, as you need to be awake without being disturbed by needs or inputs from the body (don’t lie down, but sit in a chair who are a little comfy, but not so much you can sleep in it - might be an idea to elevate the chair, so your feet does not touch the ground).
Now you need to “find the key” - Push your will/self against the point some call the third eye, but don’t crawl your eyes up so you can’t see - This is the hard part, and you can’t allow the mind to focus on anything else - You need to be fully in the present, and only on this “push”.
Most will find that after a time, there are a “wall”, a sort of point where you fell it will be safest to stop and pull back, or behaps that you can’t overcome the “wall” - That’s the body trying to keep you safe, and you need to break past this point, to break free from your body.
If you break free, you’ll find this experience wastely different from the “standart” OBE’s the “gurus” try to sell people - For a start you can only get back in your own body again, if you are near it, and focusing on it for some time, with that in mind.
Best regards,
Poul Martin Jensen
Silkeborg, Denmark