I'm going to keep this short.

I had my first *real* out of body experience the other night.
I have had countless lucid dreams in the past and this wasn't anything like it.

It happened right after I initially laid down to go to bed. I fell into the gap between wake and sleep (like I have done many times). Typically this is a terrifying sleep paralysis state that I try my damnedest to get out of. Well the other night I felt the sensations coming and and I knew I was about to fall into the gap, but this time I went into a vipassana like meditation and just observed the sensations in my body...this helps one deal with the thoughts in the mind as all thoughts are reflected back as sensation in the body...

When I feel into the gap the most amazing energy (I will call it kundalini) lit up my nervous system and I was able to push this energy all around my body. Once I was able to feel the sensations clearly all traces of fear vanished. The euphoria was intense.. Extreme surges of energy in my entire nervous system. Perhaps it was just extreme or hyper awareness of the sensations..who knows. I only know I was very aware of being in this state.

What happened next was reality shattering. I sat up out of my body and got out of bed and looked back down at mine and my wives sleeping bodies. I noticed my body was breathing in a highly agitated way so I set the intention to calm the breath and I watched as my physical body began to calm down. I was then able to move around my house and observe things in their location (which I confirmed a few minutes later). I was also able to move through walls and fly around much like a lucid dream. UNLIKE the lucid dreams however this reality was completely normal. Things didn't waver when I looked at them. It was my normal reality and I was in a state of non local consciousness...as best I can tell. After a few minutes of this I was so excited about what was happening I wanted to wake back up for real and tell my wife about it... I stood next to my body and wondered how I would get back in...which apparently was enough to bring my back into my body and then I sat up in bed for real. Never lost consciousness once in this entire experience.

Now obviously I can't prove this. I'm a scientist and I'll be the first to say it *could* have been nothing but a dream like state. Sure my subconscious mind could have remembered things about items in the house that I consciously forgot. However, the sensations were so overwhelmingly real that I'm forced to look past skepticism.

At this time I am moving from the skeptical corner to the believer in the making corner. I have fallen into the gap many times and I'm certain I will get the opportunity to do this many times again in the coming months. I'm going to set up a real test involving my wife placing a hidden object in a location and then see if I can verify this...this should circumvent the subconscious explanation.

Also, we have both been clean and sober (totally) for several weeks now. One side effect of this is that REM sleep has jumped significantly with us stopping cannabis. This however wasn't like a lucid dream and my substance use has never effected me falling into the gap between wake and sleep before though it has effected my dreams and dream recall. I only mention this so more 'data' is on the table.

After the event I didn't sleep the entire night because I was so excited. the euphoria continued into the next day..and could just be a side effect of the excitement of the event.

Peace

Interesting.

I have experienced similar to what you describe, in the exact same gap between waking and sleeping. It started as a typical paralysis as it always does when I get caught in the gap. But just as you I wanted to really see what happens. Calming down, letting it come (I think this is about calming down your Prefrontal Cortex, which as far as I understand is the area of the brain judging experiences and committing ourselves to consensual reality, keeping shit together if you will, so we can function socially - which is pretty equivalent with functioning in consensual reality), I started enjoying the experience. Powerful sensations and euphoria hit, and suddenly I felt my consciousness leave my body behind on the bed.

This is the point where the thought hit me that "Shit, perhaps you died in your sleep", though it didn't matter because it felt completely all right. What happened next was that, yes, I could see all over the room, myself lying there, but I didn't seem to have conscious control over where I was floating. For some reason I was heading out my window! Unfortunately, the experience must have been interrupted because suddenly I was back in bed. I hope I get to have an experience like that again.

I am very interested to see how your experiment with hidden objects in the house goes. If you get through with it, I hope you will be honest with yourself and us and report your findings.

This is great, joedirt. Let us know how the tests go. Either way, it's an impressive experience that I have not been fortunate enough to stumble upon.

More convincing than a hidden object would be something harder to guess, like a reasonably long random number written in big letters on a piece of paper, and placed face-up on a tall shelf.

that sounds freaky joe, I cant wait to see if you can verify it next time.

Absolutely fascinating! And interesting it has made such an impression on you two guys, both having skeptical, scientist mindsets.

I believe I had the start of one once. I may have been stoned at the time, but it was the gap between wake and sleep where I suddenly seemed to be rising upwards through blackness, and it felt like I was heading out of body but I can't be sure. It was so unexpected that the excitement jolted me back within a few seconds.

For anyone interested in inducing OBE's, I highly recommend checking this book out, I'm half way through and really enjoying it. I had an amazing flying dream recently I feel as linked just to having my mind pondering this stuff. The guy has a great deal of experience with OBE's, but takes a skeptical, scientific and methodological approach to the phenomenon, without projecting any religious or spiritual overtones onto it, and he gears a training schedule based on your personality, and your individual strengths and weaknesses.


Graham Nicholls - Navigating the Out-of-Body Experience: Radical New Techniques

http://www.amazon.com/Na...e+out+of+body+experience

Very very cool

I wonder how it would have been if nobody ever knew their own reflection

Congrats joedirt,

this sounds amazing. I hope to soon join the club, too.

Btw, what do you mean by sober? Sober from MJ/alcohol or have you even abstained from caffeine?
I ask because I'm not sure if I should cut my caffeine intake.

I used to get stuck in that mind awake, body asleep sleep paralysis state when I was a kid. It was sometimes really terrifying.

I later learned to "give into" it...surrender to the experience. Then came the electrical-energy vibrations shooting through my body, a POP or "rip", and I was out.

Do this enough and it won't matter how many tests you do as both realities become equally real and un-real.

I have tried it for years without success. I appears as if conscious sleep paralysis (mind awake, body asleep) is absolutely crucial to have an OBE, but i never had a conscious sleep paralysis in my life and have no idea if i'm even capable of that state. I wish there were any sleep paralysis inducing drugs.

@obliguhl:

There are some which allegedly do the trick, however they do not work for me.
Google for "Advanced Lucid Dreaming Imreallyawesome.com" and you'll find:

Advanced Lucid Dreaming
The Power of Supplements
How to Induce High Level Lucid Dreams
& Out of Body Experiences

Edit: Ibuprofen has an effect on my dreams intensity-wise, as it meddles with REM sleep:



400mg before sleep guarantees vivid dreams for me.
But I didn't become lucid from it.

There kind of are. Galantamine/choline taken before meditation or sleep can really help get you to this "launch pad" state for OOBE's and lucid dreams.

But to have some kind of smokable/injectable drug that instantly puts you into Mind Awake/Body Asleep 100% of the time...that would be handy.

just a week back something similar happened to me

i was stoned out of my mind and could'nt resist taking a nap , anyways suddenly after some time i entered the sleep paralysis state , being extremely stoned i could not fight it this time like i always do when i experience this

this time i quickly jumped up from my bed hoping to fight the sleep paralysis like usual , instead i was out of my body , somehow i had no control because of being stoned perhaps , next thing i know i am being pulled upwards towards the sky , the funny part is i was hanging upside down and being pulled with my feet towards he sky , i remember holding onto my bed as to not fly away , and then i woke up

i have been trying to quit smoking after that , do i really need to quit cannabis to achieve this ?

the first and last and only time I experienced this "sleep paralysis" thing i did this:

i laid on my back for 30 minutes, apparatus in hand, preparing myself mentally for blast off

*I was super tired from lying there for 30 minutes

without too much hustle and bustle I vaped a 30 and i was locked

freaked out cause i read about it but didnt know how to get out, was like damn should have gotten more research in,

and then the spice released its grip prematurely.

BUT i feel that if i had just "let go" it would have been OOB chop-chop lol.

Maybe try it? lie on your back for 30 minutes til you feel super tired and then vape a small dose and see, maybe its all you need like a key... 5mg.. 10mg... try try we got some time still to figure these things out

@Jin memorable quotes lol hahahaha

I will report back if/when I'm able to do it again. No worries on the honesty bit. Even if it isn't true non local conscious it's still an insanely cool state to access.. Honestly this should be pretty easy to confirm.


Of course the issue of being able to remember a 'reasonably' long random number could come into play.
Another Idea I had was if I was able to go to a remote place then I could have someone place an object on an agreed upon place like say my parents house on the other side of the country...

But honestly we are putting the cart a little in front of the horse here. I need to make sure I can actually get into this state again..


Good question and actually quite relevant. I had two cups of green tea that day and was significantly over caffeinated (I have a severely low tolerance for caffeine). I was not able to fall asleep this night until about 3 hours after my usually bed time.

All other drugs have been a no go. psychedelics have been many months. Alcohol about 3 weeks and marijauna approximately 2 weeks...


I have a feeling that could very well be the case... Kinda like people waking up in the morning and still seeing dream objects in their real room. I'm eager to test this out again and find out more.


I have found full body based vipassana practice has significantly increased this state. basically just meditating on the actual (not imaged) sensations of the body. Moving your mind from one location to the next. This is in fact what I actually did when I felt like I was about to switch over to this state..


I can't say for sure, but I have fallen into the gap numerous times while using cannabis and just so happened to have my first 'OOB' a few weeks after taking a break from it...

Joedirt, to make it easier, you could just have your wife write a random uncommon but easy-to-remember sentence in the paper and put it somewhere agreed upon in the house. Then if you get to the state again, you don`t have to lose time searching, you already know where to look and can recollect once you`re back.

I once had a similar experience quite some time ago, but I think it was more like some kind of lucid dream with OBE-theme, I was not actually moving in waking reality. I remember I entered into that state through sleep paralysis, when I had that uncomfortable feeling, instead of fight or try to wake up I simply would relax and fall back "asleep" consciously, which catapulted me into out of my body (or so it seemed at least).

So far I have had no direct evidence that true OBE happen, whether through a good scientific experiment or some personal experience with some undeniable proof. But I would never say "it`s not real" or anything of the sort because that would be speculation (lack of evidence is not necessarily evidence of lack). Either way I think it`s healthy to be skeptical of evidence-less claims, even if they sound convincing or are spread by people we trust.

Lets say you could develop this as a reliable technique whenever you wanted.. What would you do with it? Where would you go, what things would you see? What constructive beneficial things could be done with it?

Good point. I mean it's not like these initial tests are going to be verifiable scientific proof. More to convince (or not) myself that it was non local based consciousness.



This is an interesting group of question.

What would I do with it?

Well first thing of interest would be to try meditating from this state to see if I can access deeper states like the clear light of the void... Ironically this is also my interest with lucid dreaming. In Tibetan Buddhism there is a practice called dream and sleep yoga... It is said that advanced practitioners can enter enter the waking sleep state (or perhaps what some call the OOB state) in a conscious manner and then continue uninterrupted into the deep sleep state at which point it is said that one can have a direct experience of the clear light of the void. It is said that some have achieved final liberation or enlightenment from this state. What this really means is supposedly not really describable, but only experienceable. Supposedly you can only say what nirvana is not as the experience is beyond words(labels) and concepts.... Since the only thing I can relate this to is a few Godhead experiences I can certainly buy into the indescribable aspect of it. I mean who among us, that has experience the GodHead, can actually talk about it? I literally choke up sometimes trying to describe it to others and it's the most profound state of awareness I have ever experienced in this lifetime. Even as I type this my hands shake just remembering it..and I don't even really have a solid memory of it. lol

Where would I go?

Not really sure. I mean the other night I jumped out of my upstairs window and flew down the street over the trees and generally just acted like superman for a few minutes before deciding I wanted to come home and share the experience with my wife. I'd guess that if you were simply limited to this reality in a ghost like state then novelty of it would eventually wear off...but this reality is huge so I don't know maybe go check out a black hole first hand. Visit alien worlds. The deep sea trench? Surely it would take a long time, even as a ghost of sorts, to tire of non local consciousness.

What beneficial things could be done with it?

Well it's certainly easy to imagine how it could be used malevolently. But I'm certainly not interested in such things. Others that believe in the OOB experience also talk about the non locality of time and some claim to be able to foresee events before they happen. I suppose as long as time isn't fixed then this could be useful for trying to warn people, though would it really work? Probably not. If you buy into prophets and such then it's seems pretty obvious that their warnings have never really helped humanity out. Not sure I buy into prophets so I am fairly skeptical that it could be useful for such things...

Ultimately what would be the grandest use of this? Science. If I could reproduce this and confirm that I was engaged in a non local state of conscious awareness then this would be a catalyst for a radical alteration of our understanding of time, space, and consciousness. Of course the real question then becomes would I be willing to subject myself to the worlds experiments? I honestly don't know. I know as a scientist I would certainly want to, but as a relatively introverted person I damn sure wouldn't want to. Not to mention I'd be viewed as a freak and potentially kidnapped etc.. Would require a lot of consideration...

Meanwhile back to reality. I have had one such experience that very well could have been a dream state. The benefits of accessing this on a regular basis should be obvious. Why waste the 8 hours a night when you could use them to fulfill fantasies, practice things for real life, etc.

For what it's worth I am still somewhat skeptical, but there was one aspect that I did not share in the write up that added some merit to the experience.

My wife confirmed that my breathing patterns went from agitated to calm to agitated to calm just as I experienced them while watching my dream self. However, could I have not just experienced being both aware of my dream state and my physical body at the same time? Well I have done that before so I'd have to answer in the affirmative. I have no proof for others and I don't have enough for myself as of yet. But the experience was staggeringly real. No lucid dream has even come close to this level of reality.

This has been my experience. Someone recently told me that they have the ability to induce OBE's from meditation. I tried to get them to describe it, describe the sensations....idk, sounded nothing like the good old fashion SP induced OBE that I am used to, so I doubted his word on the matter. Well, he barely described anything, even when I described my OBE's in vivid detail, he could only be vague... well, maybe he knows something that I do not know?

As for the cannabis connection--this mind-awake, body-asleep state, is one that I've never once attained without being sober.

No television, no weed, no booze.

Interesting, because I find green tea to contradict the necessary relaxation. I had a sleep paralysis experience before, but I can't remember how I managed to induce it. I'm now testing lavender oil capsules, as they seem to imitate benzodiazepine behavior. If they help with lucid dreaming/OBEs, I'll report.

Hey there Joedirt <3 Congrats on your first OOBE.

I know how you feel, it is quite a joyous conundrum.

Nice to read through this thread and see other Nexians interested in this stuff. It is a truly fascinating and incredible field of exploration. I imagine most people who are interested in DMT would also be interested in Lucid Dreaming and Astral Projection, but that is often not the case. I guess this stuff takes a lot of work, while DMT is nearly effortless.

I suppose there is not a whole lot more for me to add to this. My main contribution here is that I have already done the tests that you have described, and managed to convince myself that I can gather information "non locally" and confirm it later. I have had the benefit of this confirmation (as well as the independent existence of entities) for decades. The "proofs" involved were rather similar, which is why I brought it up.

You don't need to go to too much trouble setting up experiments by having someone hide stuff for you, though. IME you can easily find something to confirm in a minute or less wherever you are. Simply go somewhere you have never had access to, but which would be easy enough to gain access. Girlfriend's purse content, neighbor's closet, glove compartment of a car outside... if you have never looked carefully at your water heater, you can read the tags on it. In practice, simply desiring to find something to confirm later will direct you to such an object... like in dreaming.

The other thing I can add to this discussion is that... it is not always easy to tell if you have left your body and stayed in this world, slipped into a parallel world very similar to this one, entered a dream that is mirroring your waking world... or even stranger things. You can learn to differentiate, but when your sample set is just 1 or 2 experiences, this is not an option. If your first attempt to prove this stuff to yourself fails, or demonstrates that you were having an "OOBE themed dream" (as Endly said), this is not an indication that what you are trying to prove is impossible. You may just need to hone your skills.

I am not so keen on manifesting the "true" AP these days, myself. I find other worlds to be more interesting. Let's face it, this world is rather boring and we spend a ton of time here anyway... when given the freedom to go anywhere in the vastness of the Dreamtime Multiverse, why stick around here? (after you have proven that it can be done anyway)

The practical uses for this ability are on the sketchy side of moral ambiguity.



If you proved that you could do this... to other people, you would certainly run the risk of becoming a guinea pig for the kinds of people who would be most interested in this ability... i.e. people you don't want to be a prisoner of. It is unlikely you would be any kind of catalyst for new understanding--not in the broad scientific community anyway--because: a) the experiments would become classified b) it takes a ton of evidence to get dogmatic people to change a worldview & c) for whatever reason, these kinds of objective proof missions inevitably fall prey to an avalanche of snafus.

I say this as someone who watched as relatives participated in the parapsychology studies of the 70's. My own mother was a star in the ESP and psychokinetic studies. These studies were all co-opted by Men In Black types, "debunked" with disinformation, and many of the participants persecuted. I am not saying that this would be the case today, but I would guess that being the subject of experiments that proved you could walk into secure facilities and steal secret information... would still increase your odds of a) becoming a member of the intelligence community or b) drooling on yourself in a mental hospital with vague and easily dismissed memories to grasp onto.

I don't mean to sound like a paranoid nutjob. ("Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you." - R.A.W.) Ignore me if I sound that way. Just run your own cost benefit analyses of "coming out" with this stuff, and factor in the reams of case studies that have gone before you.

Again though... kudos on your OOBE. I am sure you will have plenty more to come.

HF

i have been reading that apparently one who masters this skill , masters all life/death/reincarnation