Quote Originally Posted by Radek1990 View Post
As far as I know, sleep deprivation won't prolong the REM stage. On the contrary; it will wipe it off entirely and if you stay awake for two days or so, you won't have any dreams at all the next time you go to sleep. But again, I've heard some monks would deprive themselves of sleep for several days and then go out of body (which doesn't necessarily require REM sleep, according to some sources).

Also, there's a technique called 'condensed weekend OBE in which you go about your day, stay awake through the entire night, take a two-hour-long nap around noon (to give the body some deep sleep), go through the rest of the day, go to sleep, wake up after three or four hours, stay awake for an hour or so, and then attempt an OBE. It's supposed to boost the experience and prolong it. I haven't tried it yet, but other people have and it seems to work. I don't know for sure if the technique can be extrapolated to work for regular dreams, though (unless an OBE is a regular dream, too).
and what if a regular dreams are OBE's actually