*Out of Body Experiences: What? How? Why?*

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It suddenly occurred to me that there was something very odd about the out of body experience I had 17 years ago, which is, in fact, that it was an "out of body" experience! Till now I have tended to frame it as a "moment of grace" which led me/enabled me to transform my life, ( from near alcoholic, manic-depressed, desperate case to someone a little happier and a lot less destructive ), and have taken the "out of bodiness" of it for granted somehow!

My consciousness was, for an instant, not in my skull/brain/body. For a very brief moment "I" seemed to be hovering about two metres, maybe a little less, above my body, and I was surprised/"shocked"/amazed to see how sad, abused and beaten a creature it ( my body ) was. At this point "I"/my consciousness returned to its "usual" position, in my body, and I found myself crying with remorse and pity about the state to which my body had been reduced, etc.

How did this happen? How could my consciousness find itself outside my body?

Has anyone else here had this kind of experience, have any thoughts about it, and ideas about how it could happen, and/or the implications?

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I've had similar experiences. Most of the times where I had OBE's is while I was dreaming.
I think it is caused by temporal lobe seizures. This is not to disqualify the spiritual reality of such an intense experience, but it explains how it happens. Seizures are much more common during sleep, when we are very tired, and while fasting. I wish I could have more of these as they make me a better person in the same way which you described your OBE made you more aware and such. I used to fast a lot. I got down to 80 lbs. Yeah, that is a bit extreme, but wow I was really having a lot of hallucinations. You can cause yourself to have a psychotic break by doing this, or a breakdown.

Oh, also, I have had this sort of experience during moments of extreme suffering. I think this happens because our body goes into shock from stress in a similar way as if we were about to die. When that happens I pray/meditate and sometimes I'll hallucinate or if I'm fortunate, I go into a state of bliss. It is very easy to forget these experiences so I write them down. Otherwise, I've noticed that I might get a "what have you done for me lately" or doubting attitude. The Gnostics wrote some cool stuff about remembering grace and how it is that we easily forget and have doubts. It's almost like a dream where you remember it right after the fact, but later on you forget it. Sometimes I'll catch myself forgetting the dream within moments upon waking. When I write them down, I remember them clearly.

Out of my body (and mind) topic

I had one at 17 after someone gave me some bad acid. My only encounter with Timothy Leary Land. It was sheer terror, and if this is what death is like, I hope the experience in indefinitely postponed, even as it is inevitable.

Well, I wasn't asleep, definitely not dreaming ( I have had several such "experiences" when dreaming, but I do not think of those as OOBEs ... you think I should? ) , and I wasn't fasting, but I had just been through four or five hours of intense suffering/pain from a truly hellish headache which just wouldn't go away, and which eventually made me vomit. I was lying down recovering, fully conscious but exhausted, when my "I" found itself suddenly floating several feet above my body, looking down at it.


I can't understand how anyone could forget such an experience, if that is what you are indeed talking about, because it was/still is one of the most extraordinary and unforgettable experiences of my entire life.

The thing that I'm wondering about though is "how" could my "I"/my consciousness be out of my body. How can that happen?

Pandd's posts, ( on my thread NFW/100% GED etc, about free will ), about micronodules and Stuart Hameroff's "quantum consciousness" theories, in combination with Ted Honderich's paper on consciousness and "the actual" at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/Honderich ... l09Ok.html ( in which he refers to the uncertainty many people feel when asked "Is your consciousness inside your head?" ), have got me wondering what exactly happened.
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Last edited by ouinon on 10 Dec 2009, 1:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Why was it terrifying? What about the experience was terror?

I ask because I can't imagine it being a horrible experience, because mine was amazing, enlarging, illuminating/enlightening, surprising, distressing/painful as in very saddening, but also releasing/liberating, etc. A gift.

Did you see yourself from very far away, or fairly close to, and how did "you"/your body seem to your separated consciousness?

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I knew there was something I wanted to ask you!

In what way did your experience(s) make you a better person? How or why did they?

I definitely understand how a sudden burst of/increase in "self"-awareness, a different view/wider perspective on oneself can do that. Did you feel as if you saw yourself more clearly? Was it a shock? Or only slightly different from your usual in-the-body eye-view?

And yes, I'd like another one too, to get an "updated" view of my self. To get the totally eye-opening "feedback". There was no "judgement", it was just "seeing", ( I was able to accept it whereas feedback from other people, or in my usual state, is generally so loaded with judgements that I don't "see" anything ).

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They were all very different. I think each one changed my personality in its own unique way. What you described was very amazing. That type of hallucination creates miracles. I don't use the word hallucination in a typical sense. I think we have a lot to learn about consciousness and the imagination. I have had one hallucination in which a miracle occurred to another person. So, the whole mind/body connection thing is stretched here because it went on to heal another person. And no, this could not be dismissed as coincidental. The hallucination was too detailed to be dismissed. I'm reading that paper you linked up here about consciousness. It's very interesting.

How did the OBE change me? Well, I had one a few nights ago. I realized that everything was not the way we think it is in terms of and I and you and such. I died in my dream and became a spirit. I was absorbed in pure love and understanding, no petty emotions were here. It's beautiful and humbling. I would love to be there forever, however I wouldn't leave this world because I wanted to stay and tell people about this so that they stop suffering and cause suffering to others. When I woke up I was my old self again. Each time I change more, I'm not as judgmental. The thing is that, every part of my personality that changes from these experiences must first be amplified to the extreme and then it sort of bursts apart and disappears. It's a sort of heaven and hell type of transformation.

ouinon,

my best aspie friend, (who does not post here) had an OOBE a few years ago that sounds exactly the same as yours, he has described it in detail to me.

It set him on a path of spirituality, buddhism and mindfulness, and he has been a pretty driven, obsessive person at times so maybe he needed it, like you said yours helped you.

maybe we lose touch with "source" or "God" or just peace/grounding, something that is part of us or that we should be connected to, these things can give us a sign to get more back in touch with it.

I've been reading about OBE's, and astral projection and lucid dreaming for years. I wanted to learn how to have such experiences at-will but it is so much work it's not worth for me, at least right now. Although one time I did manage to perform an experiment to view something out of body and then verify it in real life and it worked! Turned my worldview upside down. The implications are clear: Reality is weird and really not what its all cracked up to be. We're living in The Matrix or something.

The Book "Astral Dynamics" by Robert Bruce is a good intro into the subject.

If one in ten people have an OOBE experience in their lifetimes either the population of PPR on WP is very young or else people on the spectrum have fewer of them than "normal".

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Why does this fall on deaf ears? Why isn't there more research being done in this field?

I've also noticed that autistics are much less likely to have these types of experiences. Schizophrenics, on the other hand, are much more likely to have OBE's.

This shows an interesting theory of the autistic/schizophrenic spectrum and how it relates to spiritual experiences.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/badcock ... index.html

Terror of the sheer kind topic

Imagine your worst nightmare accompanied by a feeling of being suffocated. I had flashbacks for years afterward. No thanks. I am not interested ever again to experience this, acid or no acid.

I had an OBE at the age of 13.

All it taught me is that "my body" and "myself" are two different things.

I believe that "I" will survive death.

This has nothing to do with any religion or any god.

I feel like my body and my mind are two different things too. Do not tell a shrink this.

See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 141057.htm

That is cool. They haven't reported any hallucinations though. I wonder what would happen if they test them further and ask the participant if he/she can see what is in the next room.