A. PRIOR HISTORY:

I have posted the two OBE dreams described below, but I need to repeat them to help newbies understand my conclusions about an incredible OBE simluation I had last night.  Years ago, I simulated an OBE experience through self-hypnosis.  I floated out of my body and hovered near the ceiling.  When I looked down at my body, I was struck by my messy hair and by the extent to which my blankets seemed twisted.  I then decided I would explore the astral planes.  

But there was a problem.  I had no choice but to create an erotic dream instead.  The apparent reason was this: earlier that evening, I had used self-hynosis to suggest a romantic dream that night.  Then I had changed my mind and replaced this suggestion with the goal of astral exploration.  Evidently my unconscious would not allow me to change my mind!  I was afraid to create a romantic dream because this would require me to create a dream woman.  But I thought i was out of body and was afraid I might unintentionally try to manipulate a genuine female spirit.  This seemed unethical, even dangerous, and created fear.

So I decided I'd better return to my body.  I lay across it and tried to move my physical fingers.  But only my "astral" fingers moved.  My failure to reenter my body created the fear that I might have died.  This fear prompted me to wake up.  Throughout the experience and for months thereafter, I was absolutely convinced that this was a real OBE achieved through self-hypnosis.  

But now I am absolutely convinced that I merely had a lucid dream about an OBE.  I changed my mind as a result of a new type of research.  I asked myself how I could discredit my OBE, if in fact it was bogus.  I have never been able to verify the genuineness of any contacts with discarnate spirits during my nocturnal adventures.  I learned that I could create lucid dreams in which I was aware of being asleep "back there" during the dream.  My dream of a midnight visit to Boston at high noon was especially compelling.  There I was across from the Boston Common, surrounded by heavy pedestrian traffic.  The scene seemed as vivid as actually being there. I could hear the cacophany of many voices, honks, and other traffic noise.  I could even smell the gas fumes.  All my senses were realistically engaged in the scene.  

Suddenly I had a flash of inspiration.  I grabbed the next female pedestrian who passed by and began trying to convince her that she was merely a figment of my imagination.  She reacted as if I was a lunatic, but I was initially relentless.  I reminded her that I was lying in bed at home in New York State.  I insisted that I must therefore have created this entire bright scene.  Indeed, I seemed to be god in my little dream universe.  The woman's fear now drew that attention of concerned pedestrians.  This scared me and my fear awakened me.  This powerful dream convinced me that my earlier OBE was just a dream.  This conviction has now been strengthened by another remarkable bogus OBE dream I had last night.  

B. A DREAM LEADING TO AN OBE SIMULATION:

Last night I dreamt I was visiting my parents in their new home.  I asked my Mom if she minded its more confined space.  She  said, "No."  In truth, my parents have not recently moved and this "home" is unrecognizable to me.  I tell my Mom I need to go out.  I walk down a street with heavy pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk and sense that this is Boston.  I am reminded of my earlier lucid dream trip to Boston.   So this will serve as a follow- up study.  A woman stops me to tell me I should eat at Donna's Cafe.  She oddly adds that it is more expensive to eat there for free than it is to pay!?  I don't understand this comment, but in the dream, I seem to remember Donna's Cafe.  Upon awakening, I will realize that I've never heard of it.
I then find myself wandering the MIT campus.  Its  buildings are familiar to me from other dreams.  But so far as I know, the layout does not correspond with the real MIT.  It seems odd that I'd find myself there, when in fact I had attended Harvard down the road and had only visited MIT once.  

C. THE OBE SIMULATON:

I now abruptly find myself in what I can only describe as an outdoor cafe on MIT's campus.  I am seated at a picnic table in the midst of several other tables.  Across from me is a bearded old friend who seems familiar, but whom I cannot identify.  Only when I wake up do I wiill realize it was RJ.  In the 1970s I became friends with RJ in Boston.  12 years later, he came to New York to visit me, sporting a heavy beard.  In this OBE simulation, I had forgotten about this beard.  RJ had always been clean-shaven in Boston.   Since RJ's visit, I developed the eerie feeling that he had died.  I've lost track of him and have no way of verifying this feeling.  

RJ tells me that I'll need some money "there."   He dumps the contents of his wallet on the table and invites me to take any bills I want.  They are all dollar bills, except one.  It is a 100,000 dollar bill!  I immediately recognize that this can't be real money and return the bill to RJ.  But this episode leads me to believe that I am in fact encountering RJ's spirit.  

Now comes the remarkable part of this dream.  I tell RJ about my earlier lucid dream visit to Boston, including my argument with the woman about her being a figment of my imagination.   RJ nods in amusement.  I then gleefully assure RJ that I know he is real.  I lean forward and press my finger into his chest and feel the hardness of his "flesh."  I then tell him that I'm well aware that I'm "back there" in bed in my family's home.  RJ smiles and nods approvingly.  Actually, I was wrong.  I was in fact asleep in my apartment, not in my family's home.  This is a sign that I was not completely lucid, despite the fact that my encounter with RJ seems more convincing than my encounter with that dream lady.  This time I feel no fear.

But then I suddenly wake up.  That night I had stayed up till 2:30 AM and had set my alarm for 9:15 AM, so I could watch the World Cup soccer match between England and Paraguay.  I woke up seconds before my alarm went off.  It always amazes me that I routinely wake up just prior to the ringing of my alarm clock. I immediately realize that I had just deceived myself again.  My conviction that I was at last experiencing a real OBE was false.  It was just another lucid dream.  But I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't set the alarm.  During this whole experience, I was determined to solve the question of whether I was actually being confronted with RJ's spirit and felt no inhibiting fear in this quest.

Don

Spooky,

What really gets me is this: if I hadn't set that alarm clock, I would have pressed for verifications.  If I'd suddenly recalled RJ's identify in the dream, I'd have asked him when and how he passed over and how I can contact his family to confirm all this. My intuition tells me that the contact wasn't real.  But I would overrule my intuition if I could have verified his identity through such questions. 

You're right: we probably need more helpful categories for distinguishing states of consciusness and types of dreams.  I'm clear that once I encountered RJ, my state of consciousness was at least different, perhaps a stepping stone to a genuine OBE.  Also, this experience reinforces my suspicion that Monroe's implausible astral past life  fantasies were the result of his unwittingly transitioning in and out of a dream-like state.

Don

Eoger,

As powerful as my dream encounter with RJ was, I must confess that much of this dream was semi-lucid.  When I first encountered RJ, I tried to identify him with another friend with a similar beard.  Only gradually did I sense that it was someone else, and only upon wakening did I recognize my table companion as RJ.  As i said, the key was my waking recall that RJ had the same type of beard that last time I saw him, but not before.  

Another sign of semi-lucidty was my failure to immediately pose questions to him that might lead to verification.  Actually, I have a theory that our uinconscious simply will not allow us to discredit the reality of our dream characters.  Some astral explorers seem to lack the integrity to try and discredit their own experience.  But others may simply have been denied a rigorous attempt at falsification by their unconscious, which may need to believe that the experience is real.  In all my bogus OBEs and lucid dreams, the characters all seemed very real because they would not bend to my creative will.  Only in my first Boston dream did I challenge their reality, but their shocked reaction made me second guess my assessment in the dream. In that first dream, I confidently realized it was just a dream only when I awoke.

I have since diiscovered that there is both a Donna's Restaurant and a LaDonna's Restaurant and Cafe in Boston.  This is interesting  but hardly counts as a "verification."  It would be more interesting if either was on Massachusetts Ave., the same street as MIT.  

I'd like to understand why I awake from my recent Boston dream just before my alarm went off.  I was thoroughly intrigued during the dream and did not want it to end.  I felt no fear or anziety.  Had it continued, I might have tried to recreate RJ into a beautiful woman or some other character to prove he was not real.  I'm fascinated by the potential reality checks one might employ once one realizes one is dreaming and is creating their own reality.

Don

Rondele,

In an E-mail you expressed interest in a possible hidden meaning to my dream woman's comment about Donna's cafe.  She cryptically pointed out to me that free food there is ultimately more expensive.  I dismissed this comment as a nensensical expression of my semi-lucidity.  But then I recalled a divorced playboy acquaintance who once remarked to me, "Don, free sex is more expensive."  I think I know what he meant. 

If the dream lady's wry comment is symbolically profound perhaps it means something like this.  When astral projectors and lucid dreamers visit the astral realms or alternative levels of consciousness, they often bring earthlike assumptions and expectations.  They expect to pay for restaurant food, and so, they create dream money.  But permanent astral residents know that they no longer need either food or money.  Still, they can enjoy the sensation of eating if they want to do so.  But eating in astral cafes for free is more expensive in the sense that one must die before completely overcoming one's sense that money is needed. 

Don

Quote:


Applause Alysia   I love it and it's so true.
Love, Mairlyn

Another possible reason for the woman's reaction in Don's dream is that Don created her reaction because in his mind this is how he thought she should react either consciously or subconsciously.  Of course, only Don can interpret his dream.  I wonder what Jung would have said?

Love, Kathy

Don

I keep returning to this but I'm not sure why. I think it is because at the technical level at which you are trying to differentiate OBE and lucid dream, we can't do this. I think we do not have a definite enough understanding of conciousness in the waking state, much less in the non-waking state, to say what might be happening.

A bit of gossip from the small town where I grew up caused me to check an internet map to recall the location of a particular road. This was a town where I freely walked and rode bikes and drove and thought I knew well. Looking at the map, I had the feeling of trying to recall scenes from a dream that I barely remembered. The town of my growing up did not entirely correlate with the layout of this map. I could find the street where my family lived but the names of other streets looked foreign to me. Truly, you can't go home again. At least, not to the place you remember.

Of course, we don't live on a map, we only represent the layout with a map. So probably everyone's memories are as slippery as mine. But we agreed to say the map represents the physical layout of a place, so we don't worry about the differences in memories.

We just don't have maps for non-waking conciousness. And without the maps, how can you clearly differentiate OBE and Lucid dream? Because just because it is a lucid dream doesn't mean that you couldn't pick up information and find "facts". Or maybe there are invention parts to OBE just as there are to everything else.

The student center at MIT is not named for any Donnas, but you could eat outside there. By a strange coincidence, I was over there Thursday, and many students were clustered around the available TV screens, moaning or cheering at the appropriate times, though not being a fan, I have no idea whether either Paraguay or England was playing at the moment.

Thanks Lucy,

When the dream lady made her comment about Donna's Cafe, I had the impression that it was at least a few blocks away.  I certainly did not associate it with the outdoor cafe I visited at MIT.  In my only visit to MIT years ago, I had no inkling that you could pay to eat outside.  You certainly could not do that at Havard when I was there.  So all this makes your feedback quite interesting. 

If I still lived in Boston, I would go to Donna's Restaurant and walk around the nearby streets to compare the scenery and buildings with what I vividly recall in my dream.  Also, there is a chance that one of my old friends is Boston might be able to give me RJ's last address.  If so, I would be astounded if my intuition that he had died proved to be correct.  I have had many accurate death premonitions in the past, but of course have also been mistaken.  If RJ were really dead, I think I would suspect genuine spirit contact, given your point about ourdoor dining at MIT.  If only I had not set my alarm clock!

Don