The editors of Reader’s Digest’s book, Into the Unknown, describe the OBE in less dramatic terms:
“During an OBE the “I” consciousness seems to be aware that it is in another vehicle, which may or may not be visible to an onlooker. Some subjects feel the second body to be an exact, if transparent, replica of the physical body; others liken it to a mist, a vapor, a white cloud, an eye, a glowing ball, or something like a magnetic or electric field. Not uncommonly, the out-of-body form is thought to give off its own light, and some subjects report seeing a luminous cord connecting the ecsomatic self with the physical body. Movement out of the physical body is often accompanied by a clicking sound, an apparent blackout or a journey down a long tunnel, and may seem to be assisted by some other disembodied entity.
“The pattern also suggests that the projected form is immune to gravity and may walk, glide, float or fly. It may hover lazily in the vicinity of the physical body, or it may seem to travel great distances beyond the limits of time and space. It may also be able to pass through matter with ease but is very seldom capable of touching or moving objects. The subject usually feels he is traveling in the world of everyday life but sometimes enters regions of other worldly beauty or depression, and may see other apparitions during his experience. The out-of-body self may even seem to demonstrate some form of extrasensory perception.
“Skeptics, who are numerous, explain out-of-body accounts in terms of dreams, hallucinations, wishful self-delusions, ESP, gross misperception of natural events, psychotic episodes or deliberate hoax. No doubt each one of these factors might operate in a given instance, yet the mass of OBE cases is not so easily dealt with. For the sheer volume of anecdotal data does at least suggest that the OBE is a genuine phenomena; it suggests, indeed, that the consciousness apparently leaving the body may be the real self, one capable of functioning independently of the physical body’s mass of bone, tissue and brain cells.”
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