Am I having OBE or lucid dreams?

I have been practicing my lucid dreaming recently, and have mostly been using WILD with wake back to bed. The strange thing is, all my lucid dreams so far have started in my bed room. I was under the impression that lucids were supposed to happen in more random places.

One of the reasons I think they start where they do is the fact that I learned about OBE's before I learned about lucid dreaming. My introduction to the topic was Nick Newport on youtube, and he mostly talked about OBEs. So when I first started, I expected to have OBEs and not LDs. However, I've never found the experiences I've had to be particularly "awe inspiring" or "amazingly clear". I also have had the ability to control thing in the dream, but not the environment, and go to places you can't go in real life. It was fun of course, but it never felt like anything I would claim "changed my life".

So, I thought, "well, I must be dreaming then, I probably wake up in my bed room because that's what my mind expects". Or so I thought, until one day I fell asleep in the library ( by accident, it wasn't a WILD), and I woke up (in a dream) in the very same library, in the very same position as I went to sleep. I thought surely this is an OBE. The thing was, however, I could still create stuff and control the environment somewhat. When I woke up from the dream, I reflected on it, and thought this still didn't feel quite "real" like I have heard OBE's are supposed to feel. "I must still be dreaming I thought".

I decided then that they are either only dreams, or that OBE's are probably just lucids that people interpret as being "out of body", that was until this one morning about a month or so back. I wasn't even trying to have a lucid or OBE, in fact, I had just given up on my last wild attempt. I got up for a few minutes and then passed out on the bed. I had not past out for five seconds when I immediately entered something like an OBE, it was extremely realistic. I got up for about five seconds out of my bed (in the OBE, or dream) when I felt a horrifying presence, I don't know what it it was, if anything, but it scared the hell out of me. I didn't see anything but I heard extremely heavy breathing, and felt something breathing on my neck, it was then that I woke up and gasped for air; my heart was racing. It was then that I thought, "wow that felt so real, maybe that was an OBE". I thought about it for a while but soon began to wonder whether or not it was just a regular dream, and the fear just made it more real. I don't know I haven't been able to duplicate the experience since.

So, what do you think? Am I having lucids or OBEs? Are OBEs obviously indistinguishable from regular dreams, or do OBE's and lucids feel basically the same? Do lucids usually start in the place that you feel asleep? How can I guarantee an OBE over a lucid dream, or vice versa. How can I turn a lucid dream into an OBE, or vice versa.

i suggest getting your hands on a book, he goes by the name of Olivia fox... a record of out of body experiences

And I suggest that you drop the both pursuit of OBEs and Nicholas Newport's advice. Visit the thread I linked to in his name to learn a little about why you shouldn't listen to this latest scam artist.

As for OBEs, a good book to learn about them would be from Dr. Stephen LaBerge's book Lucid dreaming. LaBerge is a person who is quite celebrated here on DV. He scientifically proved the existence of lucid dreaming in the lab and developed a few very popular and effective lucid induction techniques, including the highly acclaimed MILD technique. LaBerge sees OBEs as partial lucids, one step above a regular dream but one step below a lucid dream. He explains it better in his book but basically OBEs are a step below lucid dreams because when you are in an OBE you see your body as made up or what people who have them call an "astral body" but you believe that the environment that you are in is the real world. In contrast, in a regular dream you think everything is real and in a lucid dream you realize that it is all just made up in your brain.

As for your lucid dreams starting from where you fell asleep, that is a very common thing for a WILD. This also is better explained in LaBerge's book but basically, in the transition from wakefulness to lucid dreaming that happens during a WILD your brain is shutting off its connections to external stimuli and is replacing them with internal stimuli. The shift is most easily made by the brain simply copying the external stimuli that it was just processing while awake, as these images are the most readily available. Alternatively, if you were to visualize a forest scene as you were attempting a WILD, you would probably find that this visualization would become more and more real until it became where your lucid dream began.

To answer another confusion you had, there are varying levels of lucidity (awareness) and vividness or "reality" of lucid dreams. So it is perfectly normal for some to be much more vivid than others, but just because they are very vivid does not make them an OBE. OBEs are simply a type of dream that sits somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of dream lucidity.

Hope that helps answer some of your questions :) happy dreaming!

very well spoken Suscitatsio

:) Why thank you acillis.

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you drop the both pursuit of OBEs and Nicholas Newport's advice. Visit the thread I linked to in his name to learn a little about why you shouldn't listen to this latest scam artist.

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Yeah, I read that thread the other day, it opened my eyes to a lot of the things he was saying, especially that BS "roll over signal":roll:. I have been trying to use that method to fall asleep for awhile, it almost never works. I just sit there obsessing over whether I had "moved" or not.

Then I started reading that thread. I saw how silly the "roll over signal" was, and then went to sleep without worrying about whether I was "moving" or not. I rolled, tossed, turned, even twinkled my toes a little bit:). I fell right to sleep.

I wouldn't say everything he says is BS though; his method works for some people, and I did get interested in the topic because of him. I don't think I would have come here if it wasn't for his videos, most tutorials I find with the exception of him and this forum, just tell you to "ask yourself if you are dreaming during the day" and "keep a dream journal. I would never have had the patience for something like that. He offered what seemed like a quick, low opportunity cost short cut to lucid dreams.

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LaBerge sees OBEs as partial lucids, one step above a regular dream but one step below a lucid dream. He explains it better in his book but basically OBEs are a step below lucid dreams because when you are in an OBE you see your body as made up or what people who have them call an "astral body" but you believe that the environment that you are in is the real world. In contrast, in a regular dream you think everything is real and in a lucid dream you realize that it is all just made up in your brain.

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Hmm, that's interesting. I was always under the impression that OBE's represented the higher form of experience.

Your comment definitely clears a lot of tings up however, thanks!

Some would disagree that LD are OBE's. There have been many examples of people on the operating table dead and watching the doctors working on them. Some describing in detail cloths/shoes/mannerisms that can not be explained otherwise. Also OBE's can supposedly last (with a skilled traveler) several hours whereas LD dont even come close to that.

Lucid dreams can last a long time if you are skilled enough. OBEs have been tested many times in the lab, but never proven to be what those who claim to have them say that they are.

I guess it is up to all of us to find the truth for ourselves.