Thread: An OBE is NOT a Lucid Dream

I have had many experiences including what I believe to be 2 NDEs, over a dozen high-quality OBEs, and hundreds of lucid dreams. My experience leads me to believe that they are different. I think that people that have not experienced powerful OBEs are more likely to believe they are lucid dreams and be doubters. I think those that experience, believe and those that don't, don't believe.

I would also like to mention that from my experience there are different kinds of OBEs. These have been mentioned to some extent. One kind of lucid dream is experiencing astral planes, which I have done. Another type is experiencing the real world, which I have also done. Both of these experiences are more difficult to achieve than a third type of OBE. A third type of OBE is a lucid dream/OBE combination. In this type of OBE a person is lucid dreaming and decides to exit their body. I actually got into lucid dreaming because I found that this type of OBE was by far the easiest to achieve. In an OBE that has started with a lucid dream a person can exit through many ways, some of which have been mentioned here. I think that this third type of OBE is also why so much confusion is surrounding if an OBE is a lucid dream or not. The fact of the matter is that an OBE very well might start off as a lucid dream, and might have many similar characteristics with a lucid dream, but is a lucid dream plus and additional something.

Unfortunately, from my experience an OBE that has started as a lucid dream also tends to be the least in quality, but as I mentioned for me has been so much easier to achieve.

As far as faith or belief in the experience after having awaken, that is not how it works for me. For me it is direct experience. For one thing, OBEs have a completely different feel to them. As some have mentioned they can be considered much more real. Where as a lucid dream, is still just a dream, but one in which a person has consciousness. Many of my OBEs have been so powerful and so real, that they even seemed more real than real life. I would say to the extreme of experiencing a "hyper-reality". But also, a very important thing with OBEs, even ones in which I have that started out as lucid dreams, is that I actually feel myself leave my body and that is how i know that I am having an OBE. It is not decided after the fact. It is in the moment. I FEEL it happening. Likewise on the re-entry, I feel it. It is about as unmistakable as jumping in a pool. One minute you are in air, the next you are in water. It happens and you feel it. The same with OBEs. It really feels like you leave your body. Personally, I find it very hard coincidence to pass off that I have a feeling of leaving my body that is so real, and then can have such an extraordinary experience related to it, that is not like a "normal" lucid dream. If somebody wants to say that I am still just lucid dreaming then fine, maybe I am, but that is not how it feels. I gather other people are like me and that is why this label for a different type of experience has been create and called OBE.

As far as NDE goes. I have had two, and yes one was very powerful and changed my life forever. And again, it felt like I was dying (was on life support), felt like I left, felt like I had an experience with a profound revelation, and came back. If it was a normal dream, then why don't more people have normal dreams that change their life in such profound ways. I know people write off NDEs as LDs or OBEs, but again I am going to say it doesn't feel the same at all and an NDE can be or is much more powerful than an OBE, which can be or is more powerful than a LD, which can be or is more than a dream.

When a person experiences. They believe.

Originally Posted by TheDreamKing

Exactly, very well said. There's no need to even argue about all this, all they have to do is experience it themselves and they will see. Do a reality check in a lucid dream and see things change before their eyes, but during an OBE nothing changes, it is how it is. And if they everyone in here can become lucid it's easier to have an OBE because you're half way there.

But of course when you do managed to change something in a so called OBE, then wake up to find that nothing has in fact change in reality, its because the "subtle" astral realm only emulates reality.

If you have a dream which appears to be an OBE, then gets all dream weird (what some might call a false Awakening) why that simply because the further away you've wandered from your nexus the more the higher plane bleeds into your obe.

What a load of hoo haa. Answers for everything, but no answers at all.

Originally Posted by moonshine

But of course when you do managed to change something in a so called OBE, then wake up to find that nothing has in fact change in reality, its because the "subtle" astral realm only emulates reality.

If you have a dream which appears to be an OBE, then gets all dream weird (what some might call a false Awakening) why that simply because the further away you've wandered from your nexus the more the higher plane bleeds into your obe.

What a load of hoo haa. Answers for everything, but no answers at all.

Well no one can actually give you a correct answer to what you're looking for and especially if you don't agree with any of the answers on here. All I can tell you is seek to experience it yourself because all the answers lie within. That's the best and honest answer I can give you.

Originally Posted by Naiya

Well, if you believe it's a dream, then it's a lucid dream. If you believe you left your body, then it's an OBE.

Now, if you want to prove that you have really left your body, I would suggest you do something like try to read the serial number on the back of your TV and then check to see if the number was right afterwards, that type of thing.

Yeah that can't really work... I've read a lot about OBE's... I got into it since I was 16... Just barely had an OBE at age 21 (It takes a while for some of us )... I've read somewhere that astral projection or OBE or whatever, It's an projection outside your body, but not necessarily into the same Dimension that we're in... It can be the same place in which our phisycal body is but in a different dimension, So many things may vary,.. that would explain why when we OBE sometimes our bed doesn't look the same, or there's a lamp where it shouldn't be or stuff like that, things may be different in that dimension... Our mind will still have the same "power" as in a lucid dream, where you can attract diferent things to you... even evil identities when you're scared of that, they can;t hurt you but it feels real.. Its a very complicated subject and CAN NOT be compared to Lucid Dreaming... they are both very very different things.... Might be alike for some, but truth is, the experience is not the same...


I can see why people might confuse them... its very easy to confuse, but when you read deeply about each one of them in a separate manner... you see its not the same...

Originally Posted by jessie1203

Yeah that can't really work... I've read a lot about OBE's... I got into it since I was 16... Just barely had an OBE at age 21 (It takes a while for some of us )... I've read somewhere that astral projection or OBE or whatever, It's an projection outside your body, but not necessarily into the same Dimension that we're in... It can be the same place in which our phisycal body is but in a different dimension, So many things may vary,.. that would explain why when we OBE sometimes our bed doesn't look the same, or there's a lamp where it shouldn't be or stuff like that, things may be different in that dimension...

Of course the fact thats its just a dream would explain the same, wouldn't it?

Ever wonder why OBE lore is so full of such convenient cheats?

Originally Posted by Naiya

Hmm, interesting, LaBerg is actually a member of IASD. So if their FAQ were misleading, you'd think he would ask them to change it, but he hasn't.

Sorry, but he is not specifically saying that all OBEs are the same as lucid dreams. In fact, on further reading his work on OBEs, he says "Proof that some or even most OBEs are dreams is not enough to allow us to say that a genuine OBE is impossible."

And your quoted portion actually argues the same point I'm making: As one of us stated previously: “…lucid dreams and OBEs [and we will add here, astral projections] are necessarily distinguished by only one essential feature: how the person interprets the experience at the time”

In other words, a lucid dream or OBE is defined by how the person describes it. As of right now, there is no proof that an OBE is physically different than a dream, so the definition depends on the subject experience of the person having it.

I don't know if this helps but Dr. Thomas Campbell and others at the Monroe Institute have done research of how our brain acts while astral projecting. Through doing this he found that our pineal gland in the middle of our brain resonates at a frequency of 4hz when someone would astral project, more popularly known as the discovery of Binaural Beats. He found that when one astral projects, has an OBE, and when they lucid dream their pineal gland will resonate at 4hz freuency, which, if you have ever heard a Binaural Beat, has a dramatic effect of the brain & mind. This, quantum mechanics, & multiple possible realities leads me to believe that you do indeed astral project our of your body when you dream, you just go into another Reality called the Dreamscape in with our consciousness has a great deal of control. So because your body is doing the same thing when you astral project, or have an OBE, as when you dream, or lose consciousness for a period of time in which at one point you experience something staggeringly akin you living in the "Real World," you are physically doing the same thing. I wouldn't say OBE & astral projection are lucid dreams, I would say dreams are OBE's and lucid dreaming is astral projection.