Thread: OOBE's proved wrong

Originally Posted by jsmith65

Ha! You can't prove God wrong or right. It's something called faith. It's the way God meant it to be. Humans will never know for sure if there is or isn't a God. There is no way to prove it. Now, I know there is a God, but it's not because it's been proven. It's because I have faith.

Since we want to sling religious things around over here... how about you look up Hebrews 11:1.

Originally Posted by Hebrews 11:1

"Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld"

Notice the words 'assured' and 'evident', indicating some level of evidence to lead you to believe it, not some gut feeling just because it makes you feel good or correct.
Your definition of faith is a bit flawed, even by the Bible's standards
Nice try though

lol that doesn't prove OBEs wrong, it just says that people have extremly vivid dreams at certain states.

What would prove OBEs wrong once and for all is selecting a random playing card, putting it down on a glass table, inducing one, and then looking under the table in your OBE to see what card it is. Wake up, and see what the card really was.

You only have a 1 in 52 chance of it being correct, because OBEs do not exist.

How do they explain OBEs which happen when the person isn't near death or nutrient deprived? All that does is prove that the brain is doing something while you're in that state, and that there's another way to induce a type of it. (Besides naturally being close to death, taking all kinds of drugs, sleeping, meditation, ect. )

So...if I can induce a certain state in a person one way, then any other way must not exist, right? Mkay. Well, since you can have an orgasm through masturbation, I guess intercourse doesn't exist! That's right! those people who say they can do it, they're just lying to you.


Also, I've seen a lot of these...people think that just because you zap the brain and trick it into thinking something, the real sensation doesn't exist.

Here, lemme zap your brain and make you hear voices. If I can do that, I've just proved that real sounds don't exist, amirite?!

See how the logic here is completely backwards?

Oh yeah, and...I like the show, but come on. It's not scientific. It's entertainment, like mythbusters. I've actually gone and done research papers on the subject. The best I can find is that scientists link OBE to a state of dissociation because they have similar descriptions and the same parts of the brain are active. It helps to explain things somewhat, but we're a long way from saying it's "fake" or the same as LD.

I mean in one episode, they "proved" that a hugely fat guy was more healthy than a fit guy because the fat guy could run faster. That doesn't define one's health.

The video's down

I am more than willing to believe in out-of-body experiences, but I think that the majority of the ones people refer to on here are simply dreams that they don't have a body. Not lucid dreams, because then they'd realize that that's all it was- a dream. I don't think it has a spiritual basis at all. The mind is clearly more amazing and capable of such things than we can imagine. My problem is being able to believe in something else over that relatively simple explanation. The minute that someone can induce an OBE or AP into my bedroom and tell me what is hidden under the crap on my shelf in my closet, well, I am going to convert into a huge fan of OBEs. It seems like this is a relatively simple task for APers or whatever people who induce/believe in OBEs call themselves, but if that's the case then why is there NO commonly-accepted peer-reviewed scientific evidence? (If I am incorrect please point me in the direction of these papers, I would love to read them) People would LOVE to be able to provide scientific evidence in favor of the soul, or the consciousness and concept-of-self not being a product of the brain. So I am skeptical.

It is easier for me to believe in Lucid Dreaming than OBE. Clearly the largest factor is that I've experienced it for myself. I've also experienced dreams in which I do not have a body, but I realize that these are dreams. Another reason I think Lucid Dreams are more believable than the concept of consciousness existing outside of the body (due to a soul or whatever), is that we "KNOW" that dreaming exists, nearly everyone experiences it, there is some (though not as much as I wish) science for it. Same goes for "consciousness", although people love to argue about what exactly that means. The fact is that the majority of us can say that we have a sense of self, a sense of awareness, however you define that "consciousness", during lucids that we don't experience in the majority of our dreams and that we also experience in real life. It is easy for me to believe that it is a matter of timing, that these two can coincide and that they are not mutually exclusive.

It is more of a stretch of the mind to think that your consciousness can exist without your brain, than to think that some neurons responsible for your consciousness can "wake up" while you are still in the dream state. So we know both those things are possible, it's just the timing that is unusual, that consciousness and dreaming can happen at the same time. But in the case of OBEs, well, yea... That's like debating that a car was on the railroad track when it got hit by a train (we know all these things exist, it's a matter of timing), versus a UFO flew down and levitated the car into the railroad track as the train was approaching. We don't have any proof of UFOs so that is much harder to buy into.

Meh, but I am hoping someone somewhere can prove me wrong. I would love for there to be another realm of experience for me to pursue.

It's much easier to believe LDing because it's been proven. Astral projection is something that just has to be accepted by faith.

Why don't they do the eye-movement experiments that Laberge did on people who claim they AP? If the eyes still move in a pattern, OBEs are an LD theme.

Originally Posted by mini0991

It's much easier to believe LDing because it's been proven. Astral projection is something that just has to be accepted by faith.

Why don't they do the eye-movement experiments that Laberge did on people who claim they AP? If the eyes still move in a pattern, OBEs are an LD theme.

Just have someone float next door and tell you what's in the other room. It's foolproof, it's irrefutable if it's not falsified. That's all I need. I don't believe in OBEs being more than anything but actually in your own head (a matter of perception, just like a dream) and not truly out of body, I am highly skeptical of AP. But it would be so simple!
I dunno, the LaBerge study needs to be duplicated a few times so it gains more merit. Most of the cognitive psychologists I've spoken to still don't buy into it.

Originally Posted by Mes Tarrant

Actually you can show that you can be given a task and remember to do that task once you are asleep. LaBerge did experiments where he made up some eye movement patterns for his subjects to do, and they remembered to do them once they were asleep. He was able to see their physical eyes move in those patterns while the subject was asleep.

And did you no that they did experiments with astral projection too? huh.
And yeah they can prove it :/ FLAMED

Originally Posted by Shift

Just have someone float next door and tell you what's in the other room. It's foolproof, it's irrefutable if it's not falsified. That's all I need. I don't believe in OBEs being more than anything but actually in your own head (a matter of perception, just like a dream) and not truly out of body, I am highly skeptical of AP. But it would be so simple!
I dunno, the LaBerge study needs to be duplicated a few times so it gains more merit. Most of the cognitive psychologists I've spoken to still don't buy into it.

Exactly! AP is even easier to prove than LD, as easy to prove as proving that you can see what's in front of you. Yet this hasn't ever been done in a scientific setting, I wonder why......

Originally Posted by mini0991

What would prove OBEs wrong once and for all is selecting a random playing card, putting it down on a glass table, inducing one, and then looking under the table in your OBE to see what card it is. Wake up, and see what the card really was.

You only have a 1 in 52 chance of it being correct, because OBEs do not exist.

"It was this one"
"Wow, that is correct"
"It was this one"
"Wow, that is correct"
"It was this one"
"Wow, that is correct"
"It was this one"
"Wow, that is correct"
"It was this one"
"Wow, that is correct"
"It was this one"
"Wow, that is correct"


Couincidence, right?


What about shared dreams? reality we live in is pretty much a shared dream because it's all created by our brains and we are all connected to the same one (same illusion). Dreaming wont really be any different. Sure, it's memory you are falling back to, but you are still connected to everyone else, and see what everyone else see's unless you got some issues with your brain then you see things others can't see.

I've had lucid dreams for as long as I can remember and up untill about 4 years ago I now occasionally have OBE's. The experience of waking up as your going through sleep paralysis and then slowly projecting has to be experienced first hand to understand. My thoughts on this subject change all the time but at the moment this is what I believe happens..

When we dream, we go into slee paralysis and dream and sometimes things can become triggers and you become lucid within that dream. However... if you wake up during paralysis (mentally) then you can go iether way.. if you let yourself go, you'll find youself slipping into a dream but if you consciously decided to try and project during sleep paralysis, you'll find that you'll be able to go the other way. A lot of it boils down to when you become aware and where you want to go with it.

I have never believed in true OOBE's and never will!
I do have an open mind about something like that 'maybe'
happening at the point of death or almost death, but I'll
never believe someone can actually remove themselves
from their body and just go over to someones actual
house....or whatever. lol
I don't believe in shared dreams either.
Why did they remove the video though...I didn't get to see it??

Originally Posted by llclarkyll

I've had lucid dreams for as long as I can remember and up untill about 4 years ago I now occasionally have OBE's. The experience of waking up as your going through sleep paralysis and then slowly projecting has to be experienced first hand to understand. My thoughts on this subject change all the time but at the moment this is what I believe happens..

When we dream, we go into slee paralysis and dream and sometimes things can become triggers and you become lucid within that dream. However... if you wake up during paralysis (mentally) then you can go iether way.. if you let yourself go, you'll find youself slipping into a dream but if you consciously decided to try and project during sleep paralysis, you'll find that you'll be able to go the other way. A lot of it boils down to when you become aware and where you want to go with it.

omg this is exactly how I lucid dream!! It's how I've always done it!!
It's as if your going out of body when you project, but its only the
way you initiate the LD!
You cant know how happy I am that someone else does it like me!
I was beginning to feel like a 'freak LDer'! lol
The only thing i am not clear on though, is if you think youre actually
out of body or just initiating a lucid dream this way?

Originally Posted by mini0991

What would prove OBEs wrong once and for all is selecting a random playing card, putting it down on a glass table, inducing one, and then looking under the table in your OBE to see what card it is. Wake up, and see what the card really was.

You only have a 1 in 52 chance of it being correct, because OBEs do not exist.

lol

Originally Posted by sivason

Think, you can not PROVE lucid dreams exist! I defy you to prove lucid dreams exist! If you believe in something that outlandish why doubt those who say they do have OOBE?

What's so difficult about believing in a dream?
People can believe in lucid dreaming because you are saying it is just a dream,
and that's believable. OOBE's are unbelievable and fall into the realm of the
supernatural.

OOBEs occur "in your head". Its the nature of the phenomenon. The perception of leaving your body while OOBEing is a semi-false perception based on a lifetime of depending on physical sensory input.

Does this make an OOBE unreal? On the contrary, this is what makes it more real. After all, the perception of the entire cosmos surrounding us takes place "in our heads".

The true wonder of an OOBE is the depth of mind. How deeply the sea of the mind runs beneath the turbulant surface of conscious thought. It is a deply moving experience.

"It's all in your head, but you have no idea how BIG your head is!"

Once, my mother's heart stopped on the operating table. She, at this time,
apparently had an OOBE that she believes was real to this day. I was always
skeptical about this and I know now that as long as there is medical support,
the brain can still function when the heart stops and apparently even without
medical support sometimes for a very short time. Of course it can, otherwise
anyone having their heart restarted would be vegetables or brain dead.
I don't believe you can restart the brain once it is dead. I believe my mother
had a crazy dream that meant to her that she was dead and in the afterlife for
a few seconds.
Why she thinks this dream occurred at the moment her heart stopped, I don't
know, or why she had a dream about heaven at this time I dont know either.
Anyhow I still believe it was a dream and nothing more, but I would
never tell her this though. I tell her, I believe her. Why shatter her beliefs,
it's easy enough to to that on your own.
(man you should hear what she thinks happened to her when she went to
heaven! It would freak out anyone who is religious! She's Catholic.)

Originally Posted by Torcher

if reality is all quantum anyway then we haven't existed yet and this is a dream someone else is having and they don't exist either. You are a delusion, a mere hallucination of an hallucination. Enjoy your stay!

Well I wish to hell that someone would hallucinate a hallucination of a
hallucination of me being a millionaire then!

Originally Posted by lvlindless

I've had tons of LDs where I was with someone from real life, and I actually thought it was them. I then realized we might be dream sharing, so I did a few things to see if they would remember it.

One day I woke up after a dream share with my mom, and realized she had been at work for the entire time I had been dreaming. So it was all in my head.

I'd like to think dream sharing is possible, but very very very unlikely. Anything's possible until proven right or wrong.

haha I have done a similar experiment myself...with the same results.

Originally Posted by iadr

Although some near death experiences may be nothing more than a very vivid dream or something a person is imagining, I think it would be a little hard to refute someone who actually left their body and then hovered over their body and watched what happened to their body while they were dead for a brief time, and who are later able to explain to other people what they saw happening.

I have never read any account of this that I believe. The accounts are too
fuzzy! Anyone can dream up the exact scene and people that is happening
around them at the time of death. If I were at the scene of a car crash,
and there was a dead body there, and then this person came back to life
before they even knew what actually happened besides that they saw a
car coming at them....then nothing.....and then that person said to me,
a blue ford truck hit me and in it were two women, a boy and a girl and
a baby, and one woman is dead, and the truck is backwards in the ditch
behind me to the left, and I saw you stop here in your little red car, and
you walked straight over here to me first........then I'd probably be a believer.
But if they said....I was hovering above the crash, and I saw the ambulance
come, and medics all about, and the car over there and bla bla bla. Just
not enough info for me.

Originally Posted by iadr

The first time I came tumbling back into my body after having been out of it, and the first time I woke up to find myself floating above my body and being conscious of both my spirit which was floating above my body, and at same time being conscious of my body which was laying in the bed, was all I needed to be convinced that I am more than a body, and that a spirit does indeed exist on the inside of me which is capable of leaving my body at times.

I do this every time. I leave my body into a lucid dream. I can float up
above my body and then I can then look at my body still lying there in
bed. I have done this. It's just a lucid dream. The only way you can ever
prove to me that you are actually really OOB, is by flying over to my
house, tell me what time it is on my clock at the time, turn on my tv,
turn on my stereo, and then tell me what I did when all that happened
at my house for no scientific reason. Of course though, I have to be
here as well. I know you don't know me or where i live, but its the only
way you're ever going to get me to believe you, even though you don't
care if i do or i don't.

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

Maybe it is an illusion and there really is nothing and life is really a mistake. 1 life and nothing after would obviously mean we are a mistake..there is no point to even exist especially if you die at or just after birth because the rest of the time it is nothingness from something forever.

A tree hasn't a soul. If a soulless tree dies, it doesn't have an afterlife.
Was that tree a mistake then?

(This is the last post I'll quote.....I swear!
But this thread is severely interesting to me,
I'm glad someone revived it!)

Originally Posted by supreme

omg this is exactly how I lucid dream!! It's how I've always done it!!
It's as if your going out of body when you project, but its only the
way you initiate the LD!
You cant know how happy I am that someone else does it like me!
I was beginning to feel like a 'freak LDer'! lol
The only thing i am not clear on though, is if you think youre actually
out of body or just initiating a lucid dream this way?



lol



What's so difficult about believing in a dream?
People can believe in lucid dreaming because you are saying it is just a dream,
and that's believable. OOBE's are unbelievable and fall into the realm of the
supernatural.

i wish i could stab you, your an idiot. They can prove LDing because you can learn from it. You can see things hidden just like RVing in astral projection, and guess what? the goverment has RVers to find "st0ff".And yes RVing is proven you homo.


FLAMED!

Originally Posted by scubba

i wish i could stab you, your an idiot. They can prove LDing because you can learn from it. You can see things hidden just like RVing in astral projection, and guess what? the goverment has RVers to find "st0ff".And yes RVing is proven you homo.


FLAMED!

Sources? I would like to read about that.

There are things you can neither prove nor disprove. You have to experience an OBE to understand. Can you disprove the spirit? Can you disprove the existence of a soul that can act independently from the body it occupies? Can you disprove consciousness?

No, you can't, the same as you can't prove it. But you can experience it nevertheless. Therefore it is real, even if you call it illusion.

Ugh, I've seen that joke video before.

There's a *small* problem. If OBE's are nothing more than dreamlike states, than how, praytell, do people who have no brainwave activity have OBE's?

People with no discernable brainwave activities have reported OBE's. I've yet to see any of these skeptics confront that problem and explain it.

I was watching a show where a scientist who believed that OBE's are just dreams/hallucinations, and everyone of the people on the show said their OBE's felt unique, they did not feel like dreams.

Anyone interested in paranormal or OBE experience should read up on the career of Susan Blackmoore.
She is an English scientist who at a young age experienced a convincing OBE.
She then decided to spend her career trying to find evidence to prove various paranormal experiences. In the 80s she was somewhat famous in the field.

Eventually, as a GOOD scientist and a person with a flexible, humble mind.
She finally gave up on looking for evidence. Because after a career of searching, after a long futile fight coming up again and again with the same fuzzy logic, charlatans, and deluded people. She couldn't find any evidence to support thier claims.

If find her story fascinating, because she was coming from the perspective of a BELIVER, not a skeptic. She wanted to prove these things. BUT because she was a good scientist, one who accepted the evidence, eventually she became very skeptical.

here's a short article by her explaining herself: http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/journalism/NS2000.html

I recommend reading other material on her site (there is some on lucid dreaming) she's a very intelligent genuine woman. A scientist in the true sense of the word.

oh i spelt her name wrong it's Susan Blackmore,

And here's an article of hers on lucid dreaming....

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Articles/si91ld.html

Fantastic woman.

Originally Posted by scubba

i wish i could stab you, your an idiot. They can prove LDing because you can learn from it. You can see things hidden just like RVing in astral projection, and guess what? the goverment has RVers to find "st0ff".And yes RVing is proven you homo.


FLAMED!

What the hell are you talking about?? I didnt say one damned
thing about proof!! I only said LDs are far more 'believable' for the
layman to believe, then OOBE's are, because theyre dreams....true
OOBE's are not, theyre paranormal.


Also I will read the articles from Susan Blackmore.

Originally Posted by scubba

i wish i could stab you, your an idiot. They can prove LDing because you can learn from it. You can see things hidden just like RVing in astral projection, and guess what? the goverment has RVers to find "st0ff".And yes RVing is proven you homo.


FLAMED!

Originally Posted by Shift

Sources? I would like to read about that.

Ha! unfortunatly Shift, i doubt someone who talks like that has Sources. Other than maybe, the voices in thier head and thier telly-tubby action figures.