"Research suggests that an OBE is a hallucination – it happens in the mind."

Its a fascinating phenomenon, especially for what it might reveal about body perception.

I had at least one dream where I was looking at my own body from a perspective outside my own body and behind it. I look at, and reach out and touch the back of my head.

This didn't feel terribly profound at the time, and, if not for the fact that I had read about OBEs, I probably would have simply forgotten the dream all together.

Was this a true OBE? And if not, why not? Does an OBE have to be accompanied by some kind of weird/profound/strange feeling, and if so, what is this feeling?

Perhaps instead of dreaming I was outside my own body, I was instead dreaming that there was an empty replica of my body before me, and I was still inside my own body in the dream, looking at this replica. Maybe what was lacking is a strong enough sense of ownership of the body before me. It certainly looked like me, and I got a sense that it was a real thing, but maybe it didn't feel like me. It felt like looking a reflection, except it was a real-life reflection that i could touch, not just light bouncing off a mirror.

I have a few colleagues who work with hypnosis. Apparently only a small percentage of people are able to be properly hypnotised, and the majority are either only mildly prone to suggestion or not at all prone. I was not very prone to being hypnotised when they tested me. I wonder if some people are more prone to the suggestion that a hallucination (or virtual reality vision) of their own body actually *is* their body, rather than a mentally generated experience of what one's body might seem like from an external perspective. I.e, without feeling ownership of the body being perceived?

ps. I think "common sense", in addition to "research" suggests that it happens in the mind, not that anyone is actually leaving their own body for reals :-)

What you are referring to I've seen as described as 'plasticity'. The way one can 'adopt' a machine or plant, or just anything you like, as some natural extension of ones body. OBE takes place in the mind as you say, and drawn to its limit everything I experience must take 'place' there. But there are some differences in that you're not 'awake' as I understands it under a 'out of body' experience. Interesting article, but don't show it to the mystics :)

Many long years ago I had an artist friend who saw auras — if he didn’t he was damned perceptive to minor mood variations in people — and he ‘astral travelled’. I had more than a passing interest in those days, until I finally decided that wherever it lead I had no desire to go.

This had noting to do with religious believes — I have none. I had also worked as an undertaker for a time prior to this event.

Mario started his day job at 4:30am. I finished at approximately 11 pm. On this night, the destruction of my marriage occurred, and rather than go home, I went to Mario’s. Studio. — I thought it safer!

Light streamed in a window, no elegant apartment, but a rough (cheap) working top floor work space — and in his bed was a ‘body’. Those familiar with working with the dead will understand the distinction.

My reaction of ‘oh christ’, or some such was instantly halted by the astral travel discussions. Looking very closely the ‘body’ had the merest trace of shallow and very spaced breathing. I sat down to await the return.

Approximately 30 minutes later ‘life’ returned and it was a living being in the bed. A few minutes later he spoke: ‘thanks for not trying to rouse me, I sensed you come in’.

I qualify as a ‘trained observer’. I did not and do not use drugs of any sort and the dead do not trouble me.

Can some people leave their bodies, and do they? My answer is without doubt.

There are reports of experiments carried out in those distant times, of people who read and remembered notes placed upon the top of wardrobes of which they had not been told, of people who described in detail the procedures of operations that were carried out upon them, and such like. If memory is reliable I believe that Duke University was involved in an extensive and long running program.

That there is a substantial realm of existence of which most have no conscience knowledge I have no doubt. Nor do I doubt that some substantially live in this realm. From my perspective it is only for the very brave.

Thanks Alexander, it is indeed a fascinating topic.

I have noticed some parallels with “American Journal of Psychotherapy: case studies and some of my own client’s experiences.

There are some interesting references to what appear to be practices designed to facilitate the experience of OBE’s in a number of tantric Buddhist texts. However your reference to body swapping does remind me of what could be considered some of the more fanciful writings of the great Indian Mahasiddha, Naropa (956–1041).

“The instruction of Grong-hjug (House Entering) is also called the instruction in the Yoga of Entering Another's Body. Grong (literally, city or house), here implies the physical organs of eye, ear, etc., (for they are like houses wherein the consciousnesses dwell). Says the Sutra of the Paramita Vehicle: "One's consciousness entering into the not-yet-decomposed corpse of another is called Grong-hjug—“(1)

It certainly seems strange that a Buddhist monk would wish to exchange bodies with a recently deceased person. Even if such a practice was not considered wholly implausible, it would be difficult to find an ethical justification for the practice. It was also stated a bit later in the text that one could inhabit the body of a person that was still living, only for purely altruistic purposes of course.

(1) Esoteric Teachings of the Tibetan Tantra edited and translated by C.A. Musés [1961] Includes Seven Initation Rituals of the Tibetan Tantra, the Six Yogas of Naropa, plus the Vow of Mahamudra.

This I intended to keep out of!
While it obvious that hypnosis, self hypnosis, meditation, out of body experiences, astral travel, clairvoyance and such are broadly speaking part of the same phenomena, or assessing a common ‘pool’, different people generally function or exhibit ‘talent’ in quite distinct areas, and the degree of ‘talent’ is as diverse as that found in, for example people who play sport. Some play reasonably good park level skills, some compete at the highest level.

My concept is that there is a massive lake, a lake that some have some varying access too, at diverse points around its shores. In many long and wide ranging discussions in attempting to further define this ‘lake’, some of us have agreed to name it the consciousness.

Because hypnosis can be readily demonstrated, it has at least some following, low level meditation likewise and to a lessor extent self hypnosis. For the rest, only experience, for some, settles the question although I have known people who having experienced various phenomena, and accepted it for a time, subsequently rationalised it away.

Hypnosis and self hypnosis can have practical uses, making it more easily acceptable to many. I had an umbilical hernia ; or a hernia perhaps to high for that to be the correct description, operated on in St Vincents Hospital, Sydney, in 1970 — 72, ‘under’ self hypnosis when my lung condition was such that they could not administer an anaesthetic.

(Yes, the story is inevitably a little more complicated than that.)

‘In the latter practice ones consciousness is pushed out through the crown of the head though complex imagery, breathing and mantras. The yogi then feels as if his consciousness has been lifted above his material body.’

This is a new concept to me. Of all, only controlled breathing resonates.

More usually it is relaxation, drawing all energy beginning at the toes into your centre, just above the navel, followed by drawing all energy down to your centre. This is basically a relaxation technique, and for many, — most? — remains so. It is also from whence the body is left. Nothing is ‘forced’, it negates the whole concept , would defeat the whole purpose.

The head is not usually considered to be the body’s centre.

I am not sure that all of these things can be collectively discussed to any purpose. The concepts are so disparate, the expectation and tools of those attempting to quantify such things in my view create blockages that hinder understanding.

An example is acupuncture: accepted by some, decried and scorned by others, including some in the medical profession. Then there are some medical doctors who believe that they can become competent acupuncturists with only a few months training.

It is also a fact that the range of competence, skills, talent, healing ability within the ranks of even those acupuncturist who have been trained in China or Japan varies immensely. Yet this is surely a much more ‘simple’ concept, much more provable, much more observable discipline than is anything pertaining to the ‘sixth senses’.

Yoron:
With the greatest respect, your comment: ‘ it is all in the mind’ could be the launching point for a whole new discussion.
How would you describe/define ‘the mind’? Where does it reside? Is it contained within the body?
Is the mind finite, as in is it a single entity, relating only to each in dividual, or does each individual have access to only a tiny portion of a collective mind?

If the latter, could it be that there are some who have greater access, a more privileged library card so to speak?

If there is a ‘greater consciousness’, is an individuals mind merely a fragment of this consciousness?

Yoron:
‘ As to the rest :) Depends on my state of mind I would say, A beer or two, or some single malt, and we could have a really cool discussion.’

In my view not the time to discuss such, though the literature on shamanism is littered with extended fasts with or without hallucinogenic substances, and I certainly have friends who disagree with me!

Or to quote Germaine Greer out of context, at the recent Dangerous Ideas where the proposition that genital cutting was normal, speaking of her experiences in Africa where she said that women told her that ‘for childbirth it is not so good, but the sex!’

As she commented: ‘who am I to tell them that my Australian orgasm is better or more valid than theirs?’

I ‘walked away from this’ near on fifty years ago. I had already learned to keep well clear o f people who thought it some game, a ouiji board and a few drinks. Accused often of being a ‘disbeliever’ my answer was always no, you misunderstand. It is because I know it is real. Except of course you can never entirely ‘walk away’.

Mary: a different, and to me previously unknown explanation but I believe, not so different from the lake, or one consciousness concept.

You are however more blase than I, it was not fear of the unknown that got the me, rather the ability to influence people without consciously or intentionally doing so that had no liking for. I understand that others develop in different ways.

I had an experience but I'm not sure whether it is OBE or SP because during SP your body doesn't move but in my case i can freely wanderer and even try to do something but few seconds later I'm back to my body and again i walk out my body but I never turn back to look my body. So, can anyone explain what is it really?