OBEs with the Body Awake?

[Korpo]

Hello, dreamosis.

I'm suffering from an information bias with this thread. That is, I'm seeking information that may not necessarily help me to act.

What is your actual intention - what do you want to accomplish?

And with what fact in your mind is it clashing or what expectations seem to be your problem?

It helps to spell it out, I'd say.

Cheers,
Oliver

PS - sometimes a concept needs to be broken down to have an experience. Worked for me before in other cases.

[dreamosis]

Well, I think this thread was mostly inspired by it hitting me that not all OBEs occur with sleep paralysis. And that's exciting to me from a skeptical point of view, because it punches a hole in the theory that OBEs are paralysis hallucinations. One of my good friends has recently become very skeptical and so I've been nudged to look at the inductive logical argument that OBEs aren't merely hallucinations. I don't really have a desire to convince him or defend myself or my experiences, but I've caught myself defending myself in my mind anyway -- it's just been weird having him change like this.

Also, though, I'm genuinely curious whether or not different types of OBEs can be had with different "postures" of awareness pre-projection, if you will. And my projections from a non-paralysis state have been limited; accidental, in fact. So I was curious what others have done to achieve OBEs from a non-paralysis state. It seems like most do it through careful, light trance phasing.

I feel like the fact that people experience projection differently as they practice more and gain familiarity with the process, is worth discussing more. Maybe it should have its own thread. On the one hand it shows that projection is a learnable skill. That's no big surprise to the forum, but in itself is incredibly noteworthy from a more material-scientific standpoint. On the other hand it shows that experiences are more variable than doubters would have you believe. Much of the argument against the reality of OBEs is built on the fact that the experiences are more or less uniform. What you deny you usually box.

I'm not hugely invested in debating the reality of OBEs with this thread -- that's been done enough -- but, again, I just find it particularly noteworthy that OBEs can happen out of the context of paralysis.

[Alienor]

One of my good friends has recently become very skeptical and so I've been nudged to look at the inductive logical argument that OBEs aren't merely hallucinations.

Now that offers the question, are hallucinations really just figments of imagination?

[dreamosis]

Now that offers the question, are hallucinations really just figments of imagination?

It does for me. I know that I've had "hallucinations" at the edge of sleep, or even in the full waking state, that have been objectively verified and others that, at least, seem highly coincidental.

For one thing, I often hear patterns in white noise, in the same way I might see an image in clouds. Hidden in the sound of a construction crew, or porch chimes, I might hear a familiar melody. Sometimes I cannot tell if I'm only imagining that I'm hearing a song or a voice, or if I'm really hearing it. A small example: one time I distinctly heard my cell phone ring right before it rang. I heard the ring, saw that there were no incoming calls or missed calls, then it started to ring. At the time I was walking on the beach and wondered if I was only imagining the sound in the white noise of the waves.

A slightly bigger example is a time I stayed in a New York motel room. I was extremely tired, after walking all day, laid down, and almost immediately began getting visual impressions of prostitutes in the room I was in. It hit me as odd even at the time because, assessing myself, I wasn't feeling sexual. I never got confirmation that the room was used for prostitution, but the fact that the images seemed random relative to my internal state sticks out to me. Occurences like that are easy to dimiss as random or subconsciously-driven, but the images were so clear and persistent, and while I often have pre-sleep impressions, these came while I was still quite awake and were especially coherent relative to the norm.

A bigger, although still ordinary, example than that would be a time I was walking with a friend as he was excitedly telling me about an opportunity to travel out of the state for an acting job. I began feeling deja vu (which is usually understood as a kind of hallucination), that I had dreamed all of it before, and when he said to me "Guess what show?" I said "Macbeth" and I was right because I'd remembered it from the dream. He was nonplussed that I knew because he hadn't talked to me about it previously.

Once I also dreamt of watching of a plane crash, woke up, wrote down the dream, turned on the TV a few minutes later and saw a news report of a plane crash in Queens (shortly after 9/11, if anyone recalls).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_A ... Flight_587

In the dream I was driving through my old suburban neighborhood (in Utah) with my brother. I noticed my dad panicked on the side of the road when we suddenly saw a plane nose dive and crash. It noticed a blue stripe on it and wrote that down when I woke up. AA 587 crashed about 9:15am EST, in a suburb, and I had the dream about 9:00am MST. The blue had a blue, red, and white stripe on it.

The dream I was having at the time was pedestrian, with nothing particularly "dream-like" happening, until the plane crash. It was sudden, violent, specific, and unexpected, and added to seeing a similar plane crash on the news minutes after I'd awakened, it was difficult to dismiss my dreams as "just" a dream (or random neural firing in my visual cortex following a process of association, i.e., an hallucination).

The dream wasn't psychic in the sense that it didn't happen before the crash but actually happened after. The crash happened while I was sleeping, but I "learned" about it before I woke up.

My now skeptic friend had an "hallucination" of our friend's mother's ghost coming to visit him while he was awake on the night she died (before he knew she was dead) and had a conversation with her...He now dismisses it, which is mind-boggling to me. I might dismiss it if I regularly saw and talked to people who weren't there and had somehow reality-checked these events and they proved to be regularly unverified; but if it only happened once or even three times over thirty years and each time I was fully awake and external events appeared to confirm what I had experienced, I'd be much less likely to wave it off.

[ButterflyWoman]

I often hear patterns in white noise, in the same way I might see an image in clouds.

Years ago, when I used to partake of a certain mildly hallucinogenic substance, I loved to sit in front of the tv on a non-broadcasting channel and watch the noise. I saw all kinds of stuff in it.

Hidden in the sound of a construction crew, or porch chimes, I might hear a familiar melody.

I get that, too, sometimes. Fans are good for that, the little squeaks and whirs and so on.

I never got confirmation that the room was used for prostitution

In a New York hotel room? I'd be surprised if there are any hotel rooms in the entire city that haven't been used for that purpose, at some point.

I don't think that's an hallucination so much as a psychic impression taken from the surroundings. I get that ALL the time. Very busy places are less likely to have specific impressions, but they do carry the "hustle and bustle" energy very strongly.

My now skeptic friend had an "hallucination" of our friend's mother's ghost coming to visit him while he was awake on the night she died (before he knew she was dead) and had a conversation with her...He now dismisses it, which is mind-boggling to me.

People tend to dismiss from their reality things that don't fit their worldview. Talking to dead people obviously doesn't fit his worldview, and he is NOT open to the possibility, so he just writes it off. Happens all the time, and not just with metaphysical things. People ignore the signs that their spouse is cheating, for example, or that their workplace is becoming hostile and they're about to be fired, or any other area you can think of. It's just a form of denial, at which human beings excel.

To me, hallucination is something that is clearly not really happening. For example, some years ago I'd been awake for many hours due to a medical event, and when it was over, I went to use the bathroom, which had floral wallpaper. While there, I looked at the wallpaper and was watching the flowers move around and change shapes. I am pretty sure that they weren't really doing that, because there's no reason for it.

It can be argued that when we're very tired (or stressed, or other conditions like extremely ill), our ability to keep our reality coherent becomes weakened, and I can buy that, but I don't think it necessarily means anything, other than when you're tired you can't keep your reality coherent.

I also don't think that the patterns I saw in the noise on the television were in any way meaningful. I can't remember any of them, none were messages of any sort. It was just weird mental entertainment, and, yes, hallucinating. Reality goes a little wobbly sometimes because we're creating it.

[dreamosis]

People tend to dismiss from their reality things that don't fit their worldview. Talking to dead people obviously doesn't fit his worldview, and he is NOT open to the possibility, so he just writes it off.

Yeah. Although, in my friend's case, it did fit this worldview and he wasn't only open to it, he lost friendships over defending his spiritual worldview (particularly his experience of talking to dead people) to others. Now he's done a 180.

Almost three years ago he stopped seeing deceased spirits. He was in a bad relationship, which involved a Neg attachment to his girlfriend, and when it ended, he got hugely depressed and tried to kill himself. About that time, his ability to see spirits or sense others' energy -- which had been with him since we were kids -- stopped more or less cold.

He had never been one to meditate or pray (or exercise or eat well, etc.) For a while he tried to do those things and hoped to be able to see spirits again. Without his spiritual senses, after a lifetime of them being naturally there, he got severe anxiety attacks. He couldn't sit through a movie in public or go to a party. He's always been somewhat antisocial, but he became severely so.

After giving up on meditating, etc., he turned to atheist material, got consumed with it, and now is a total denier of everything he experienced. He has a hard time being around me because I "believe in woo" and I'm a reminder to him of his previous life.

But bringing us back to the topic: I have found with myself a tendency to cut off OBEs-while-awake from my worldview. Lately I've noticed an unconscious bias toward believing I can only have certain experiences while I'm deeply relaxed and entranced. I've maintained this bias contrary to experience too! I've had plenty of powerful, informative, weird, and uplifting experiences while perfectly awake, but for some reason I continue to believe that I need deep relaxation and trance to really open up. Make sense?

[ButterflyWoman]

he turned to atheist material, got consumed with it, and now is a total denier of everything he experienced.

Oh, gee. There's nothing more irritating than a converted zealot.

I feel for him, though. Having some aspect of your identity taken away like that is very disturbing.

I have found with myself a tendency to cut off OBEs-while-awake from my worldview. Lately I've noticed an unconscious bias toward believing I can only have certain experiences while I'm deeply relaxed and entranced. I've maintained this bias contrary to experience too! I've had plenty of powerful, informative, weird, and uplifting experiences while perfectly awake, but for some reason I continue to believe that I need deep relaxation and trance to really open up. Make sense?

Well, it makes sense in that I believe you, but it makes no sense as to why you maintain this belief. The phenomenon of "split reality" is not terribly common, but it's common enough and perfectly well documented. In fact, I would say that for most people, the ability to experience OBE or visions or similar trancendent things while awake is a sign of spiritual growth (not crazy about that term, but I can't think of a better one at the moment).

[Korpo]

Hello, dreamosis.

Almost three years ago he stopped seeing deceased spirits. He was in a bad relationship, which involved a Neg attachment to his girlfriend, and when it ended, he got hugely depressed and tried to kill himself. About that time, his ability to see spirits or sense others' energy -- which had been with him since we were kids -- stopped more or less cold.

Maybe he just saw the negative energy inherent in the relationship, but did not want to place the responsibility in either his or her actions.

He had never been one to meditate or pray (or exercise or eat well, etc.) For a while he tried to do those things and hoped to be able to see spirits again. Without his spiritual senses, after a lifetime of them being naturally there, he got severe anxiety attacks. He couldn't sit through a movie in public or go to a party. He's always been somewhat antisocial, but he became severely so.

There are people who need to know the other side is there. It suggests meaning, going on after death, and many other things they remember within from the other side without being able to articulate it.

But getting cut off, or cutting yourself off through damaging beliefs or holding on to a hurt can show you how much you needed that was not appreciated while there. If you have a pattern of blame towards hurt, you will automatically assign blame to anything that hurts you, no matter where the real responsibility lies. This is one way people cut themselves off from the soul or God. They chose a way of blame and run from the very things they need for healing. Kind of like "existential hate." Hating existence itself. But the only one ruining his life and perpetuating the hurt in this scenario is that person himself.

After giving up on meditating, etc., he turned to atheist material, got consumed with it, and now is a total denier of everything he experienced. He has a hard time being around me because I "believe in woo" and I'm a reminder to him of his previous life.

Well, he's in pain because of what he is denying himself. He chose the thinking mind over the soul, and this resistance causes existential pain. But being invested in a certain world view can also cause pain if it is endangered. So, hurt by hurt he's painting himself into a corner. The most rewarding connection there is, the one to the soul, he's deliberately cutting off in order to maintain a world view and belief system.

At the same time there are unconscious misgivings towards his soul, which he tries to "talk out of existence." It's a bit like "If there would be a God he wouldn't allow this to happen to me." He's unconsciously blaming the hurt he lived through on his soul and now tries to go the path of mental will instead. That is in itself deeply unsatisfying, and he can possibly feel the disceprancy whenever he encounters someone who doesn't share this attitude and fares better with his or her own soul.

But bringing us back to the topic: I have found with myself a tendency to cut off OBEs-while-awake from my worldview. Lately I've noticed an unconscious bias toward believing I can only have certain experiences while I'm deeply relaxed and entranced. I've maintained this bias contrary to experience too! I've had plenty of powerful, informative, weird, and uplifting experiences while perfectly awake, but for some reason I continue to believe that I need deep relaxation and trance to really open up. Make sense?

Yes, you do. Deep trance and relaxation are actually extremely beneficial for you, regardless of anything else. But there may be some worldview investment, too. Maybe you've even read too much about OBE to trust your own judgement, even though you have valid and beneficial experiences and your own judgement to trust in.

Experience is where it's at. Expectation is the killer of experience. How many people go through their life limiting themselves with having too much expectations of what is possible. They "know" better. I don't think we know a lot, actually. Embrace your experience. It's valid and it's the real thing.

Take care,
Oliver

[Xanth]

Now that offers the question, are hallucinations really just figments of imagination?

I've come to realize that "hallucinations" are what I refer to as "Focus overlay experiences".

If you're a fan of Robert Monroe or Frank Kepple, then you'll know where the term "Focus levels" comes from.

I guess it's rather self explanatory, however: A focus overlay is when you experience one focus overlayed upon your current focus.

That's what I feel that Hallucinations are.

~Ryan

[dreamosis]

...it makes no sense as to why you maintain this belief. The phenomenon of "split reality" is not terribly common, but it's common enough and perfectly well documented. In fact, I would say that for most people, the ability to experience OBE or visions or similar trancendent things while awake is a sign of spiritual growth

It's not so much a disbelief in split reality that I've noticed, as much as a belief that there's only one way for me to experience the other side of reality: deep trance. I'm generalizing myself and my own experience in saying this, because I've experienced the "other side" of reality plenty while perfectly awake.

Why do I maintain it?

Well, there have been a couple of issues for me over the years. One, within the first couple of years of being consciously active in the astral and sensing energy, I had a slew of negative experiences. I had experiences that scared me and I lost my original enthusiasm for unfolding this awareness. Two, I think I held onto the fear from those experiences way too long -- even after a number of positive experiences. From that I think I reflexively and unconsciously developed an aversion to having higher levels of awareness in the waking state. I guess I wanted to keep it contained in order to be safe. I'm only realizing some of this lately...

I've felt "safe enough" to occasionally see auras and feel energy pretty intensely, but I have noticed twinges of fear if the visual impressions I'm getting in meditation get too realistic. While I'm lying down and in trance I'm much more comfortable with seeing clear visions.

In the OBE arena this has meant that I've tended to only try getting out-of-body in the early morning. Recently I've begun doing trancework during the afternoon and late afternoon, acclimitizing myself to the experience during that time. It's weird, it's illogical, and yet I have compartmentalized my experiences in some ways.