Thread: Why is there some controversy about OBE/AP being real ?

Originally Posted by Fool1sh

For me it seemed pretty clear that all the environment was created by my brain when walking through my building as it was totally not identical to reality.

That's what I concluded too, for years. Since then I learned that this isn't the whole story.

When you're awake, the 'environment' you seem to experience is also created by your brain, but it incorporates information from your eyes and ears in a familiar way. In the astral projection experience, it may be clear that you're not incorporating information from your eyes. However, the experience can incorporate other objectively real visual information obtained through some other mysterious means. My astral projection experiences have not been conclusive in that regard. However, other trans-sensory information is now regularly incorporated into my dreams in an equally impossible way, and I understand this to be essentially the same as what people do during astral projection.

I'm fairly sure the 7 planes stuff was made up by Theosophists. Or more precisely, similar ideas were invented by Vedic and Greek mystics, and Theosophists adapted those into their present form. Now other people repeat it because they want to believe that somebody understands what's going on.

I've never encountered or read of anyone who experiences 7 planes who also shows a willingess to examine how their beliefs shape their experiences. If someone out there does in some objective sense experience 7 planes, and not 6 or 8 or some other arrangement, I'd love to hear from you, because I have a lot of questions.

I think the failure of anybody to come up with a real explanation of what's going on during astral projection accounts for a lot of the confusion and disbelief in relation to it. But its wrong to conclude that its unreal just because the imagination is involved and we can't explain it adequately.