My husband is curious as to how you can tell the difference between a lucid dream and an OBE. He accepts that the notion of leaving your body is ancient and pretty much universal, but having done neither, he questions whether the perception of being "out of body" is actually just a particular kind of lucid dream.

I've achieved limited lucid dreaming (still working on it), and I've done the OBE but only in my sleep, never consciously, and I rarely remember it (I can tell when I've been "out and about" in my sleep, though, by the lack of dream memories and the way I feel in the morning, hard to describe, but I do recognize it). So I'm not really in a position to answer this question. All I can say at this point is that there's a wholly different "quality" between a dream - even a lucid one - and an OBE.

Anyone care to explain more to me (and him, though he doesn't read here). I'm actually intrigued now. I'm sure they're not the same, personally, but how DOES one tell the difference?

Thanks.