Out-of-Body Experience Reality

Hi,

In my family, my older brother as well as my own mom have dabbled in OBE and have been somewhat successful. My mom had given up sometime since college, but my older brother had experienced it quite a bit nearly a decade ago and have moved past the metaphysical adventures since having married and with kids to care for. However, recently my lifelong gf has passed away and I started looking into something I never seriously considered...

I have never experienced OBE, but had experienced some lucid dreams. I always believed that OBE are just a type of lucid dream like near-death experiences. However, since my gf passed away so suddenly and unexpectedly very recently I'm questioning my reality. Are OBE really type of lucid dream? Is there more to it than that after all? My gf and I believed in collective consciousness as well as that everything in reality is made of energy, we weren't religions nor atheists. So, based on our belief her consciousness "should" be able to exist without her physical body, but we were always joking that maybe our consciousness will immediately join a "collective consciousness" when our physical body dies and our "anchor" to the physical world is gone. All our talks comes back to me now and I'm starting to question my old views about OBE. Could it be possible for OBE to actually be a separate phenomenon to lucid dreams? I want to know what you guys think. I can imagine that lot of people might have asked this, but it's important to realize that I had never seriously believed in OBE before until now.

I'm sure there are people here who have experienced lucid dreams as well as OBE, how significantly different are they? If OBE is different then you couldn't go into lucid dreaming mode immediately or the other way around? right? I'm trying to gauge to what extent OBE are real. My older brother who has experienced lucid dreams and OBE at one point in his life says OBE is indeed quite real, but I guess I'm looking for a second opinion before investing time and money into lot of OBE books and research.

Thanks guys!

*college


There are many threads about this. I imagine that starting another thread will just lead to a recycling of ideas that have been discussed time and time again. Some believe they are different phenomena, some believe they are the same. I gravitate towards the former based on my own experience, but there are probably valid points on both sides. The only way to gain any insight into the question is through personal experience. Do a little browsing in the "Beyond Dreaming" section of the forum and you will find many conversations and views on this issue.

OBE is real as in you feel it as reality even if you know you are out of body, you feel sometimes your body laying in bed (or on the floor, armchair, bus seat, etc). LD is just dream with added lucidity, and you know that you are dreaming... He who has OBEs and LDs feels strong differences between the two.
Or one can say, that OBE is a dream, where you know it is not dream, but that it is not physical reality either, because you know, feel, or see your body in bed (this explanation is confusing, I know).

I'm going for first definition :)
Now to the reality as in how real is what I experience out of body- One can find proofs only if my experience somehow intersect with physical reality. I had a few visions from close to far future, as well as 2 experiences in which I found things which I couldn't find other way... It happens too seldom for my comfort, therefore I don't take those proofs as conclusive. It could be a haphazard guess of subconscious mind projected into OBE. One need to stay real, isn't it so?
Second possibility of proof is to meet someone while out of body and exchange information with him. I had to teach my brother to travel, luckily he managed to learn before he lost will to learn :) We had a few meetings while in OBE. Those meetings weren't synchronized, but because time is irrelevant while out of body(5+ dimension) the meeting is possible. Results are rather negative. I managed only one meeting where we managed to describe it to each other in not very great detail conformity, but enough to have again a little indication that something could be going on. I theorize(because I'm able to feel different levels of astral dimension while out of body) that we weren't exactly in the same level and maybe also subdimension...(again only my concept which may be wrong and will change when I will have different data).
I also tried to wake someone close to me in the astral dimension(to pull him/her to my level/place/dimension/subdimension)... to provide energy for attuning... Those experiments were not successful yet.
There was woman here in Slovakia who wanted to go out of body at every cost to meet her boyfriend who died. I provided her with my method information of my experiences, advices... I told her that she has small chance that she will be successful, but there was big plus in her case... strong connection to her boyfriend. What I know about her, she moved from her pain without managing to train herself enough to make separation... People often lack the stamina to train for years... sometime without visible progress.
When my father died I met him a few times on my travels... he was concious, not typical sleep walker as normal people look like. But I'm far about to tell this was real meeting with the soul(in astral body) of my father.

Thanks for replies guys.

VinceField , yeah I am searching to find distinction between OBE and lucid dreaming from existing topics, but I'm also adding criteria of a "departed loved one" and past "lack of belief" in OBE to see if I can fine tune the discussions. Moreover, some old topics maybe buried and new people may have insight into things older members probably weren't able to provide. I thought starting a thread a better option than hijacking old threads.

Psionik, hmm interesting points. I particularly like the part about you meeting your father. I'd love if you could elaborate the sense of reality of his soul you may have felt at the time. I'm a little sanded by that woman's lack of connection... I won't be able to move from my pain. I'm in my 20's and known my significant other since I was a baby, we grew to be housemates, childhood friends, started developing romantic feelings as we grew older, and became soulmates not long after. I wish I could move on from the pain so easily, it would have been less madding, but I also don't want to move on as well. I just want to be close to her.

Once you are really out of body and not only dreaming it of... you know. I would like to highlight one point- it could be the specific state of mind that could make false feeling of not dreaming, and being really out of body. I try to thing on this possibility every time I travel. It is worse to be in lie than not knowing something(and to know that you are not knowing).
When I was 20 I was training relaxation and concentration for about 9 years... It took me more than 4 years to find the way to induce OBE when I found up accidentally the possibility to separate from body during one of my training time.
I know it is hard to let lose the feeling... I know it, I lived through such things. But it is vain effort to stay in the same circle of thought. It is also very tiring. From time to time my consciousness may get shrouded by memories... sometimes for a few days. It is the curse of very good visual memory... and imagination. Just think about her, would she like for you to suffer? Surely not. Maybe she will wait there for you(time is irrelevant there). You could die 100 years from now, and for her it could be just moment.
You may try meditate... to let lose everything. The will, the want, the body... pure thoughtless consciousness state is really state of timeless peace.

It is really simple thing, but it needs to be trained daily. I copy my training routine quite often:
I made my exercises out of schultz autogenic training with some shortcuts and modifications. It needs some time to learn them, but not so long.
a) Relaxation of striated muscles- I concentrate on weight of my hand, I feel it and I make that feeling as strong as possible, and again stronger. I let that feeling of weight progress through whole body. When all my body feels heavy, I concentrate on deepening of that feeling... This relax skeletal striated muscles.
b) Relaxation of smooth muscles- Concentration on warmth in my hand. It feels like I have my hand in warm water, and water is warmer and warmer... liquid fire in my hand. Very pleasant and very hot. I let that liquid fire flow up my hand to other hand, and when my hands are warm, I let that warmth flow to my feet... At last I let spiral that warmth from my hands and legs into solar plexus. Now, I don't do it because of third chakra, but because warmth leads to relaxation of smooth muscle tissue of digestive tract.

For OBE:
When I reach state of body where it is very heavy, so heavy that I have feeling I can't move and very warm, I start to concentrate on rolling movement of hand. Movement without moving physical muscles. I send impulses to muscles(to roll hand from side to side), but at the same time I let hand relaxed, lying still. After some time I will start to feel second body hand(as if second, astral hand, and with that the feel of astral body permeating physical body start to be felt.)slowly rolling in physical body, and I try to make small rolling movements to be bigger. After a while I move the whole second body out of physical.
Sometimes I feel second body even during autogenic relaxation, then separation is simpler and faster.
For start it is the best to learn to be in the state of unattached observer. Observe your surrounding, walk... but don't think(thoughts are destabilizing OBE), your feelings should be balanced, mild(emotional stress is destabilizing OBE) Just look around yourself... observe, feel, and let everything go through yourself and away. Be above things you are observing. Attachment is destabilizing OBE and may also lead to unpleasant experiences with some entities you may meet.

For WILD:
With autogenic relaxation I can reach quite quickly sleep paralysis state after years of training. If I want a WILD I look for imagination. I don't need to go as far in relaxation as for OBE. It is enough to relax and concentrate enough to melt disturbances in body and mind. You don't need to leave thinking processes.
1. flash pictures- you can use them to make your dream world... Concentrate on that flashes. If they are real enough there is probability they will take you into them. You will dream in that picture.
2. imagined pictures- harder than flash imagination pictures, you prepare your picture for longer time. You make finer touches to your picture and at some point it is good enough for starting dream inside of them(picture will pull your mind inside).
3. Imagination of tunnel. That one I use most often. My tunnel starts as ring, inside ring, inside ring... I let ring grow... then second one inside first, then third... and I let them grow. It creates illusion of flight in tunnel. At some point your mind will feel the flight. And your tunnel will be more refined as time goes, till you fly at the end of it and into larger country.

It is possible to change LD into OBE. Difficult but possible. I had only a few of such experiences, but some people had more of them than myself. While in LD you must call for memory of mental state you experience during OBE. If you are concentrated enough, if you are able to let your imagination behind, then you may discard it... metaphorically :)

The fastest way to be close to your soulmate is LD. That is because you can use imagination to picture her. To picture yourself beside herself. There are arguments about shared dreaming... and I'm trying it too (without much success :( ) But it can help you to adjust faster, if you know you can meet her when you need it(wild-> imagined pictures method, maybe even flash pictures if you could see her for short time when you are thinking of her)