Below is an article regarding scientific research on the possibility of links between obe's and lucid dreaming. This article explores similarities between lucid dreaming and some aspects of obe's. I read the entire article, and it is the sort of information most people will likely be hearing from the scientific community.

Otherwise, one might hear the kind of "horrific" stories of hell, such as what was broadcast a few nights ago where I live. This description of "hell" from a near death survivor was given with very little context. If anything, it would do nothing but inspire fear in others who happened to listen.

How have those of you who have experienced obe's resolved your own questions about your experiences, if you have? What is it about your experiences that does or does not convince you that these are real, actual, "out of body" experiences?

This post is not meant to question individual experiences as much as to encourage continuation of efforts in these directions. I am interested in how you have resolved your own doubts, if you have had any?

All thoughts welcome.

love, blink

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www.lucidity.com/NL32.OBEandLD.html

[From NIGHTLIGHT 3(2-3), 1991, Copyright, The Lucidity Institute.]
========================================================================
OTHER WORLDS: OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCES AND LUCID DREAMS
by Lynne Levitan and Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D.
========================================================================

"Out of body" experiences (OBEs) are personal experiences
during which people feel as if they are perceiving the physical
world from a location outside of their physical bodies. At least
5 and perhaps as many as 35 of every 100 people have had an OBE
at least once in their lives (Blackmore, 1982). OBEs are highly
arousing; they can be either deeply disturbing or profoundly
moving. Understanding the nature of this widespread and potent
experience would no doubt help us better understand the
experience of being alive and human.

The simplest explanation is that OBEs are exactly what they
seem: the human consciousness separating from the human body and
traveling in a discorporate form in the physical world. Another
idea is that they are hallucinations, but this requires an
explanation of why so many people have the same delusion. Some of
our experiments have led us to consider the OBE as a natural
phenomenon arising out of normal brain processes. Thus, we
believe that the OBE is a mental event that happens to healthy
people. In support of this, psychologists Gabbard and Twemlow
(1984) have concluded from surveys and psychological tests that
the typical OBE experient is "a close approximation of the
'average healthy American.'" (p. 40)

Our conception, also proposed by the English psychologist
Susan Blackmore, is that an OBE begins when a person loses
contact with sensory input from the body while remaining
conscious (Blackmore, 1988; LaBerge - Lucidity Letter; Levitan -
Lucidity Letter). The person retains the feeling of having a
body, but that feeling is no longer derived from data provided by
the senses. The "out-of-body" person also perceives a world that
resembles the world he or she generally inhabits while awake, but
this perception does not come from the senses either. The vivid
body and world of the OBE is made possible by our brain's
marvelous ability to create fully convincing images of the world,
even in the absence of sensory information. This process is
witnessed by each of us every night in our dreams. Indeed, all
dreams could be called OBEs in that in them we experience events
and places quite apart from the real location and activity of our
bodies.
   

WHAT ARE OBES LIKE?

(continued on link provided above)

The OBEs and retrievals reported on this site are almost invariably what I would expect if these experiences were lucid dreams and nothing more.  Invariably the visualized scenes are precisely the counterintuive cartoons that one would expect from an imagination impaired by slumber or a sleepy condition.  Astral explorers like Albert have described retrievals that defy their own preconceptions.  The problem is that neither skeptical nor credulous preconceptions are a reliable gauge of genuine astral travel.  LaBerge and another lucid dream experts claim to have experienced many OBEs and that all their OBEs are merely special types of lucid dreams.  In a word, the most crucial issue of the state of the question is the deafening silence of unfulfilled expectations.  

I have had extremely vivid and emotional lucid dreams in which I knew that I was dreaming as my body lay "back there" in bed.  I also achieved an OBE through self-hypnosis in my first attempt.  Contrary to the lucid dream experts, I was absolutely convinced that I truly had left my body.  As I gazed down at it from near the ceiling, I was terrified that I might have died and frightened by my inability to remerge with my body as I draped my astral body over it.  Only months later and very reluctantly did I realize that even that OBE was just a particularly vivid lucid dream with no afterlife implications.  

Even the rare attempts at verification on this site convince me that posters here rarely have genuine OBEs or astral experiences.  Dream research at the Maimonides Dream Laboratories have proven how easy it is for a sitter in an adjacent room to project images that shape the dreams of a lucid dreamer next door.  Robert Monroe occasionally experienced interesting isolated verifications, but not enough to warrant any claim to having a genuine OBE.

But I have two sources of hope:

(1) Swedenborg's astral verifications are so detailed and comprehensive that they cannot satisfactorily be explained in terms of lucid dreams combined with typical ESP.  Some would claim that ES has simply honed his craft to a greater extent than astral projectors of lesser ability.  To me, the evidence suggests instead that ES has a gift that most other wannabe astral projectors lack and confuse with lucid dream states.

(2) Of course, Bruce Moen's method does not require subjects to be asleep.  Our best hope is that a method like Bruce's might produce the sort of comprehensive verified details that ES was able to produce. Several years of reading this site's retrievals have convinced me that even waking astral exploration achieves no genuine contact with afterlife territories.  I hope to find the time to resume my futile research with the TMI Gateway tapes to see if I can achieve states of consciousness that change my mind. I am not out to debunk but to restore an important area of research to intellectual integrity and routinely replicated verifications.  

Don    

Don, have you tried any other kinds of meditative aids? Is Gateway the only one you have used? I have been to a different online location today which offers what it considers a superior method of brainwave entrainment which supposedly uses mostly beta and theta frequencies in such a way that it is more generally successful. I was tempted, but I am also wondering what exactly is in all of these meditation aids. I am not completely sure what all these companies are doing with subliminals, although it is possible to be careful with your selections to work only with those which use words (if included) which are acceptable and heard by the experiencer.

I personally would not be inclined to continue with an aid which is not working for me, as you say you are doing. I'm just curious, would you be willing to try some different methods? I find that I would be willing to risk it, if only for the reason that I have done so before with various meditation aids in order to give me the personal results I wanted at the time.

I will, most likely, purchase a few different kinds of cds, as I have in the past. These technologies are advancing and perhaps more of us should be testing them.

love, blink :)

I bought Robert Bruce and Brian Mercer, "Mastering Astral Projection," and worked with its exercises.  With no immediate gratification these processes just became too tedious to motivate continuation from a guide book. I needed tapes or a DVD system.  I think I "try too hard" with the Gateway tapes.  And they are so time-consuming.  A few more sustained practice sessions and I'll probably use a different program.

Don

Here are a few factors to consider:

1) Often a person's spirit guidance will create experiences as a means of learning. The realm one experiences exists for no other purpose. Robert Monroe wrote in his second book Far Journeys that his guidance created such experiences for him.  I don't know if he always did an accurate job of determining if an experience was actual or educational.  One needs to consider the context of an experience in order to determine whether it is factual or a learning experience. I've found that clues are provided. For example, if I have an OBE and it ends in a bed other than the bed I'm sleeping in, I know that the experience was a learning experience. Especially, if the experience contains a lesson I need to learn. Such experiences show that beings who exist at a higher level than us, have a significant ability to create. I believe the same ability is demonstrated when they create dreams.

2) I've had experiences where it was obvious my guidance was creating it, but I'd cause the experience to change once I consciouly interacted with it.

3) Robert Monroe had out of body experiences for years, before he found out that he was being helped. I didn't intially realize that I was being helped.  The fact of how our spirit guidance gets involved even before we realize they are doing so, suggests that they tend to have a definite purpose in mind when they get involved with helping us. Because of this, they might not be as willing to help out when we mess around in a manner that doesn't match what we need, and what the divine plan needs. Therefore, when we venture on our own, we are liable to create imaginary experiences. When it comes to retrievels, I believe it it important to establish that light beings have it in mind to work with us.

4) Light beings don't see a big difference between OBEs, lucid dreams, and regular dreams. If something helps us learn, then it helps us learn.

5) We can be involved with activities while asleep, without us realizing it. Guidance will at times let us know about such activity. Sometimes through dreams that were clearly created by an intelligence other than one's own intelligence.

6) Once you establish that you are in fact communicating with spirit guidance, you know you can trust them, and that they don't tend to get involved with you without a definite purpose in mind, it becomes unnecessary to think in terms of verifications. The verifications help you intially, but eventually become superfluous.










4)

There are several assumptions being made about what is real and what is unreal here; I just want to point out that these basic assumptions are themselves not supported by hard irrefutable facts.  For example, many want to mix OOBE with physical reality, in order to obtain verifications.  The notion they are working under is that the spirit/mind freed from the body should see/interpret the physical world the same as we would with our physical senses, and be able read of a list of numbers, tell people the color of their clothes, etc.  If a person reports an OOBE and there are inconsistencies with what our physical senses show us, we are called mere dreamers - i.e., its all make believe.

Yet,if we are to postulate interpenetrating layers of existence, the various focus levels, heavens, hells, and physical reality, we are already dealing with dimensions accesible to spiritual sense but inaccessible to the physical senses (of most people).  So certain sceptics will say "aha!" you said you were in an OOBE, and came to my house, but you misidentified the people there and the appearance of couches and chairs.  So, it was all a fantasy.  However, this assumes that consciousness travels like a wisp of smoke in the physical world, and should "see" and "hear" everything we normally would see and hear with eyes and ears.  Yet there are astral layers, some which correspond precisely to the physical world, and some which are not present in the physical.  The problem with sceptics and naysayers is that they hold verification in the physical world up as the only valid proof of the existence of other nonphysical dimensions.

If consciousness exists separate from our physiology, and is somehow bound to the physical, then there may be many layers of consciousness, and therefore various realities.  Don dismisses our lucid dreams as our unreal imaginings (forgive me Don, but this is how it sounds).  Yet Lucid dreams are real while they are occurring.  And as Bruce has demonstrated, lucid dreams  and imaginings may be a springboard where communication with other realms of consciousness occur.

The problem with insisting with absolute proof in the physical world is that we are dealing with explorations into interpenetrating dimensions that are nonphysical.  So, yes, I have read instances where a person had an OOBE and was told to read numbers on a shelf above where she slept; she succeeded on one attempt but failed on two others.  

How should we proceed then?  Gathering personal evidence and experience is important.  Albert mentions guidance, and for many, experiences like his have their own verifications.  Some people may receive symbols or communications that help show days or weeks later that they were forewarned of an event - this type of personal verification is very convincing.  

However, the frustrating point is that seeking for nonfalsifiable proof only in the physical world never absolutely satisfies everyone.  If I could find another E. Swedenborg and produce five amazing verifications for Don, it would be fascinating, but the majority of people would not believe in the afterlife, or feel the epiphany of true experience.  

Matthew

Recoverer and Doc, very nice posts.  Very well stated!


I'd like to add this and say to the skeptics...it seems to me that skeptics come from the belief that physical reality is THE place.  Where it all is.  Where consciousness resides.  The place against which all else must be measured and compared.  However, try to open yourself up to this way of thinking just for a minute...that physical reality is just one place to be, but is not the only place, or the beginning, or the ultimate to which we should base our experience of reality.  Physical reality is not where consciousness resides.  It is not home base or mission control.  It is but one aspect of our total conscious experience. Within the framework of physical reality and our conscious awareness which operates here, we conduct ourselves and that which we allow ourselves to experience by the limitations and capabilities that physical reality affords us.  Our physical senses are guidelines and tools which allow us to navigate and reside in this reality.  What Matthew has said is much better stated than what I could say to complete this thought, and he sums it up well.  

Also, to look at OBEs and think that all they are is "being out of body but still functioning/seeing/navigating in physical reality" is really such a narrow and frankly illogical viewpoint.  I would say that that kind of OBE is one possibility, but I can also add that there are many types of OBEs.  Not all of them are about navigating the physical plane.  And I still maintain from personal experience and belief that we are not actually "in" our bodies to begin with.  

The article posted above suggested that once we go out of body, our minds create an illusionary world which we believe is the real world, but it is only a trick of the mind based on the brain's ability to replicate images.  However, couldn't the same thing be said of how we experience the waking world?  Our physical senses pick up information and our mind/brain interprets this and presents us with images, ideas, thoughts, etc. from which we build a framework of understanding of our world.  We create memory and a storehouse of this information and build expectations and assumptions of the world based on what we've experienced so far.  But are we truly experiencing what is "really out there" at any given point?  Does our awareness experience reality, or is reality created through experience?  Who's to say that nothing else exists "out there" just because our physical senses are incapable of experiencing more.  My awareness is only capable of "knowing" what I experience from within the framework of my own awareness.  It isn't possible for me to step outside of my own awareness and experience "what is really out there" and be able to report it back to my self and see it for what it really is.  I can only experience anything from within my own conscious awareness.  

LaBerge recounts a lucid dream in which his house was apparently replicated.  He had fallen asleep with a freshly lit tall candle on his bedstand.  During his lucid dream, he blew out the candle.  But when he awakened, the candle had completely burned down.  In my view, he rightly concluded that this was not an OBE, but rather a lucid dream simulating an OBE.  Matthew is of course correct that astral replicas need not be entirely identical with their physical counterparts.  But I know that my lucid dreams can replicate physical reality.  So the OBE hypothesis is unnecessary and the burden of proof rests with those who claim that LaBerge really did have an OBE.  The simplest hypothesis is to be preferred.  The feeling of indubitability counts for nothing; replication and verification are essential.  As I said, during my OBE in which I floated up to the ceiling and gazed down on my sleeping body, I was absolutely certain that this was a genuine OBE.  Only much later did was I absolutely certain that I was mistaken.  

When I was at Princeton, my car broke down at night on the New Jersey freeway and I was fortunate to run off the highway alive before my care was totalled.  I called my dorm and two friends came and picked me up.  The previous night, all 3 of us had experienced nightmares of impending disaster, though each nightmare was different.  I am confident that these premonitions were ESP and nothing more--not manifestations of guidance. And I have had many experience of divine guidance.

Don  

Berserk2 wrote on Feb 21^st, 2008 at 1:55am:

LaBerge recounts a lucid dream in which his house was apparently replicated.  He had fallen asleep with a freshly lit tall candle on his bedstand.  During his lucid dream, he blew out the candle.  But when he awakened, the candle had completely burned down.  In my view, he rightly concluded that this was not an OBE, but rather a lucid dream simulating an OBE.  Matthew is of course correct that astral replicas need not be entirely identical with their physical counterparts.  But I know that my lucid dreams can replicate physical reality.  So the OBE hypothesis is unnecessary and the burden of proof rests with those who claim that LaBerge really did have an OBE.  The simplest hypothesis is to be preferred.  The feeling of indubitability counts for nothing; replication and verification are essential.  As I said, during my OBE in which I floated up to the ceiling and gazed down on my sleeping body, I was absolutely certain that this was a genuine OBE.  Only much later did was I absolutely certain that I was mistaken.   When I was at Princeton, my car broke down at night on the New Jersey freeway and I was fortunate to run off the highway alive before my care was totalled.  I called my dorm and two friends came and picked me up.  The previous night, all 3 of us had experienced nightmares of impending disaster, though each nightmare was different.  I am confident that these premonitions were ESP and nothing more--not manifestations of guidance. And I have had many experience of divine guidance. Don

Don, Very Interesting your above reply....Does this mean the human mind, especially the
Sub-Consciousness, is really an advanced imagery script-writer, actor(s), director, and
teacher, etc, etc, .... Regards. Lars.

With regard to ESP as a scientific explanation that negates the existence of nonphysical dimensions or the soul - we had an interesting thread on that recently.  While research has been done and the label of ESP sounds like a bonafide process in the physical world, all the evidence shows that yes, there are some reproducible ways the mind communicates with no known physical connection between two people.  However, many phenomena are lumped in with this term.

For me, the ability of our minds to communicate nonphysically is just as spiritual as communication with other dimensions (i.e. the afterlife), unless a mechanism can be found to explain the communication in the physical world.  Thus, Don's recounting of prcognitive dreams prior to a horrific accident can not be dismissed as ESP - as a known and explained process.

Swedenborg stated in his writings that we can not move a finger without heaven's grace.  Why then is precognition not a sign of spirituality or the nonphysical existence of mind?  Why are some communications divine guidance, while others are dismissed as synchronicity or random luck?  Why do we and our minds have to exist as a lower form, outside of the divine?


M

The term OBE seems to have broad descriptions/definitions that make it difficult to understand if one was truly out of body. OBEs described in NDE the person has let go of their physical body. Two things strike me in my own experience. One is the ability to see and hear all around me simultaneously. The sights and sounds are a part of me and I’m a part of them. The other is a lack of concern for the physical reality including the physical body.

I’ll also mention here that I have had these same experiences while wide awake, clearly centered in my body. I posted about hearing celestial music that stayed with me and was a part of me most of the day one morning last December. The only way I can describe this is to say it was like the boundaries between physical and higher spiritual consciousness was somehow integrated that particular day because there was nothing I did to make it happen. The music stayed with me as I went about my daily activities and faded later that afternoon. I’ve not heard it since.

Following a line of consciousness to the higher levels of our being is another way to define OBE. This can be done while in a meditative state, or while dreaming or when you’re wide awake and fully aware of your normal physical surroundings. Many times during meditation I’ll have what I call vision flashes or mini movies. Sometimes I’ll receive information as well, especially if I have asked a question or am focused on a particular problem, but most of the time I don’t know what these visions mean if anything.

While dreaming various things can happen in the dream that prove to be accurate or even only partly accurate upon awakening. For example in a dream I will be flying over a fault line that is quaking only to hear about an earthquake that took place at the same time as my dream. Last night I dreamed of my family room and my dog peeing on the carpet. Neither of my dogs have ever had accidents in the house so this was something unexpected. The carpet in the family room is green but in my dream it was red. When I got up this morning I went into the family room. No wet spots. Went into my bathroom where there is a red throw rug. It was soaked.

Often while sleeping I will be moving through darkness toward what appears to be a star, which is actually a non-physical being. I’m not out of body like in a NDE; I’m following a line of consciousness to interact with the level/world that being exists on. I think Albert knows exactly what I’m describing. These light beings emanate the most beautiful love you can possibly imagine. I consider them to be guides helping me on a personal level. I can ask questions, but they don’t always answer me. It’s like it is on a “need to know” basis. When answers come they usually come via ESP where I just know it or suddenly understand something. Usually what I understand is ineffable, but relevant to a circumstance.

As Albert mentions you get to a point where you don’t need or even think about requiring proof. You just accept “what is” for whatever it is. There’s a trust that grows like being in a state of acceptance, but it is more than that and I can’t find the words to describe it except to say you know you are connected to the inner source that animates all of us.

Kathy

 Since they have said it so well already, just want to say that i agree with Albert, Doc/M., Vicky, and Kathy.  

  What took me a long while to understand is that "physical" and nonphysical were part of the same continuum and so in that sense really part of each other, and yet at the same time they have their differences, because they are different vibratory ranges within that One Field or Total Consciousness.  
When you really understand that, it becomes hard to make distinctions between OBE, Lucid dreaming, even physical life, etc, except in its relevance to you and if its constructive or non constructive in its affect on you.  A more pure or polarized left brain type approach has a really hard time with all this, and gets stuck on the differences and so loses sight of the whole picture, the forest.  Right brain=forest, Left brain=different trees that go into making a forest.  

Kathy:

If you don't mind me asking, how long have you been in conscious contact with spirit guidance? I've been in conscious contact for about three years. I specify "conscious," because I've found that guidance was always there, even before I realized it.

Here are some more thoughts.

Kathy spoke of an earthquake warning. The other night right as I woke up from a dream, I heard a voice say: "Get ready for an earthquake." Right then, while wide awake and looking at my bedroom window, an earthquake started. Whoever told me about this quake knew about it before it started.

Regarding moving through the darkness and seeing a being of light, a while back, on several occasions within a two week period, while being wide awake my consciousness level would suddenly shift, and far out in space I would see a gold light that had a very special feeling. I felt drawn to it.  It was very bright in a manner that would hurt my eyes, but didn't. Despite how far away it seemed to be, I was able to see it.

Perhaps the technique/technology approach to making contact with spirit beings isn't the best approach. In my case things have been presented so that I'll get to experience more, according to how I spiritually grow. Or in other words, if I want to experience the realms that higher realm beings experience while I am in the physical, then I need to make the changes that will enable me to do so. It is true that I've had some experiences such as my night in heaven experience before I made the necessary changes. I believe these experiences occurred so I could get a sense of direction.

Related to the above, as Kathy has found, being in contact with spirit guidance doesn't mean than one is in contact with a question and answer forum where you always get answers to your questions. So often they leave it up to me to figure things out. I figure we learn more with such an approach. Plus, there is the need to know factor.

Regarding seeing images that are hard to figure, even though I mostly see images that are meant to be deciphered even when I'm not able to do so, sometimes I see images that don't serve this purpose. I figure there are several possibilities as to why they occur:

1.      They provide us an opportunity to get in touch with the part of our being that is aware of them.
2.      They are what result when an inner psychological cleansing or reordering of our thought processes takes place.
3.      They are messages that are sent to us by our spirit guidance that we can't understand consciously, but they have an effect on our subconscious mind. I say this with the premise that it may be that the various aspects of mind that exist within us, respond to stimuli differently than our conscious mind responds.
4.      Related to number four, I used to be shown like these flash cards, and the pages would quickly flip and display various images that were detailed, but hard to recognize. As if some sort of code language was in play. It may be that inner knowledge we haven't become conscious of, is brought to life when we are shown such imagery.
5.      Our energy energizes our memory banks, and this causes random images to appear.
6.      Sometime we perceive events that take place in other locations, in an uncontrolled remote viewing kind of way.

Remember, I believe in an afterlife and am eager to find adequate ways of exploring it and defending it.  I just think that posters here are substituting implausible doctrine based on self-serving interpretations of experiences for valid insight.  In short, posters are constantly begging the question.  That does not mean that they should alter their experiments with altered states.  Many scientific breakthroughs happen through revealing accidents and mistakes; and states of consciousness are worth studying in their own right, regardless of their irrelevance to postmortem survival.  But psychological certainty counts for nothing; verifictiton and replication are everything!   :D  This discussion could profit from two other topics:

(1) a grasp of just how powerful and profound the unconscious truly is.  A Jungian approach strikes me as the most productive (the animus, anima, shadow, archetypes, the ego, 4 functions, etc.), especially as this demonstrates the directorial role of aspects of mind.  Such a study would reveal that guidance attributed to external agents in the New Age movement should instead by attributed to aspects of the self which have nothing to do with postmortem survival and external guides.

(2) a grasp of the significance of paranormal research on ESP: I think posters on this site underestimate how seriously the reach of the mind challenges the legitimacy of postulating contacts with discarnate minds.  This inadequacy can be demostrated by the right package of critical research and acecdotal evidence.  In my view, no threads have done justice to this problem.  Even OBE adept Ingo Swann is horrified by claims that OBE research and remote viewing demonstrates the reality of the afterlife.

Don

No one will deny that the human brain is a powerful thing. No one can deny that many dreams are  definitely connected to actual events that took place or thoughts that a person has recently been occupied with.

I also have a hard time accepting any reported NDE/OBE as a true real experience when it is possible that it is all brain related.

However!!!!!

I have read some OBE's in which the person reported an object on the roof of a building which they could not have possibly known was there because they were unconscious and lying on a bed in a hospital. For a person to be able to actually report a shoe or some object that is somewhere they have not been because they saw it when they were "out of they're body" is truly baffling.

The major issue is whether we can believe the sources of this information. I think the only way I would believe it for certain is if I or someone I knew personally to be truthful reported an object somewhere they have never been....and I can verify it.

So...next time you are OBE make sure to fly above your roof top and other roof tops and areas  you have never actually seen. Try to find verifiable evidence and report it to us so that we have scientific proof that you were in fact no longer using your brain at the time.

Albert, I consider all true guidance to come from within my own consciousness from the inner source within me that I call the Holy Spirit. If I receive information along with emotion I consider it to be tainted by the emotion I feel. On that level I’ve recognized guidance since I was a teenager.

I’ve heard voices inside my head giving directives for nearly as long but more often after the spontaneous kundalini experience about 22 years ago. It was also after that experience that I was able to see and interact with other beings and yes I can do so while wide awake, but then it’s more like they interact with me. They facilitate the interaction. Sometimes I’m drawn to the light beings, other times I want to go toward them, but can’t seem to do that for some reason.

Don I don’t have a clue about what you are talking about. Perhaps you could be more specific. If you have questions you’d like to ask me personally send me a pm. Actually I have a question for you. ES also saw beings as stars and interacted with them. How was he able to do this?

Kathy

Kathy,

I guess I need to make my points through specific examples.  As time permits, I hope to start two new threads--one on the Jungian "structure" of the unconscious and the other on scientific research on ESP and personal ESP acecdotes and the relevance of this to the reality of "astral" dimensions.  In my own paranormal experiences, I have often encountered complications arising from the elusive line between ESP and divine guidance.  I acknowledge that there are clearcut cases of divine guidance and genuine OBEs, but I'm concerned about widespread indifference to the line between giudance from discarnates and mere ESP mediated through lucid dreams.  For example, my intuition tells me that Robert Monroe experienced some genuine OBEs, but it also tells me that he confused some of his lucid dream states with genuine OBEs.  I can't accept claims I've heard of ordinary dreams within a genuine OBE state.  For example, one guy on Robert Bruce's site claims to have OBEs in which he interacts with the characters of a fictional novel.  To me, that just means he can have lucid dreams about themes in a novel.  

Don

   

HI Don,

What is ESP you are talking about?

Maks

Berserk2 wrote on Feb 21^st, 2008 at 9:42pm:

Kathy, I guess I need to make my points through specific examples.  As time permits, I hope to start two new threads--one on the Jungian "structure" of the unconscious and the other on scientific research on ESP and personal ESP acecdotes and the relevance of this to the reality of "astral" dimensions.  In my own paranormal experiences, I have often encountered complications arising from the elusive line between ESP and divine guidance.  I acknowledge that there are clearcut cases of divine guidance and genuine OBEs, but I'm concerned about widespread indifference to the line between giudance from discarnates and mere ESP mediated through lucid dreams.  For example, my intuition tells me that Robert Monroe experienced some genuine OBEs, but it also tells me that he confused some of his lucid dream states with genuine OBEs.  I can't accept claims I've heard of ordinary dreams within a genuine OBE state.  For example, one guy on Robert Bruce's site claims to have OBEs in which he interacts with the characters of a fictional novel.  To me, that just means he can have lucid dreams about themes in a novel.   Don

I have to again object to the notion that the general category of ESP somehow grounds an unknown event (mind reading, precognition) into a known process in the physical world.  There has been much research into various aspects of extra-sensory perception, but with little scientific conclusiveness about reproducible processes that underlie ESP.

In point of fact, science can not at this date adequately explain the concept of mind or consciousness.  There are models of psychology that have been applied from Freud, Jung and others.  These in general have been functional models that try to "make sense" of our behaviour without explaining the basic physiology behind human thought.  Neurotransmitters, brain physiology and Western science have never explained how we have sentience, or how an idea is generated. Does the brain generate human consciousness, or is it like a radio receiver, with consciousness existing in an interpenetrating plane of reality (my own personal model)?

In any event, it seems clear cut that while ESP phenomenon do not prove the existence of an afterlife, they do not disprove it.  A warning in a dream, the synchronicity of knowing a loved one's thoughts without speaking, may be examples of what is lumped into the catch all phrase "ESP," but that does not give us any true basis of what is happening in the physical world.

Pure biophysiologists do not believe in heaven, or even their own consciousness!  Sentience and self-awareness are seen by many pure scinetists as a freak of our evolution, with a feedback loop created in our brains, giving us a sense of individuality and what we call "mind," where nothing really exists.   Thoughts, to them are accidents, and could be easily created with electrical stimulation of the brain. And yet.......little progress has been made in understanding the pure physiology behind our simplest of musings.  These pure biophysiologists who doubt the existence of their own minds are the saddest examples of the scientific method going insane.

There is much new physiological evidence that the human brain may operate on a quantum level, not just on the basis of neurotransmitters and electrochemicl interactions.  

Unless one can tell me on what basis in the physical world telepathy or precognition work, I must come to a different conclusion than Don; that these are phenomena of consciousness, probably separate from the physical world.  As such, I see ESP as part and parcel of our very essence, which may in fact be important in exploration in both the physical plane and in the astral and afterlife realms as well.

Matthew

Matthew,

I don't blame you for repeatedly replying in this way, but I am always puzzled because I don't see how you disagree with what I've been saying.  I have never presumed that the mechanism of ESP is well understood.  All communication with discarnates who lack vocal cords is by definition a manifestation of ESP.  What is important are questions like these: (1) Is alleged channeled communication with discarnates the product of genuine contact or merely ESP gleaned from the memory banks of living acquaintances of discarnates?  (2) Is channeled communication merely retrocognition achieved to tapping the collective unconscious in a way that has nothing to do with whether the discarnate soul has survived death?  Or suppose, as I believe, that the discarnate soul HAS survived death.  In that case, might not channeled material be gleaned from their ongoing mind without their awareness of this?  The debate--ESP vs. genuine contact--is of course iffy, but I favor the non-contact perspective in most cases of channeling.  As I said, I will eventually start a new thread to explain the reasons why on the basis of studies and my personal ESP experiences.

Don

We actually do agree, Don, but I usually read your meaning quite clearly, so I am somewhat in shock.  I always assumed that you spoke of ESP as a given phenomenon of the physical world, akin to the circulatory system or any other explainable science.  

If the question now turns into "can ESP tap into a universal mind or storehouse of information," I think it is an excellent question and we are on the same page.  Those Akashic records, Jung's collective unconscious.....could a medium read information that way (akin to remote viewing) and how do we know when true contact is made in an objective sense?

Very difficult questions to answer.  It was much easier when I assumed you believed that ESP was a well explained physical phenomenon, separate from our thoughts.

Matthew

Must say I'd add two perspectives to this discussion:

(1) As Doc says science doesn't at all seem to have any sort of a meaningful handle on the nature of mind - it does quite precisely correlate certain functions with specific parts of the brain, but gets all fuzzy and confused when the question of how it works or what is actually going on (or even of where consciousness is located) arises.

(2) It's just a personal view informed by teaching and experience, but it seems likely too that while practical methods of working with mind that raise consciousness are highly desirable, that there's a very big trap that needs watching out for - specifically that getting intense about theories and 'beliefs, or getting hung up about understanding it all in conceptual linear logic theory of a few variables terms is inevitably going to block all progress.

He may not be to the taste of many here, but Robert Anton Wilson has lots to say in his book 'Cosmic Trigger' (New Falcon) that underlines why both of the above may be rather more intractable issues at the centre of a cosmic catch 22 problem than we given our hubris and fearful need for intellectual certainty might like to admit.

A few quotes:

'The need to believe seems to be a hangover of the medieval Catholic era.' (or a reflection of our grasping for security by attempting to impose predictability on a frightening and uncertain world)

'Even our language implies this', and programmes us to think that each part (of the reality that) we perceive is just some part of a single monolith. 'Reality' the noun is singular'.

'When dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases'

'Belief is the death of intelligence.'

'What we perceive is not reality but the creation of the observer.'

'Reality is always plural and mutable' - there is no solid monolithic single reality.

'The universe is a giant Rorshach ink blot.' (borrowed from Alan Watts)

'Our models are small and tidy, the universe of experience is huge and untidy, and no model can ever include all the huge untidiness perceived by uncensored consciousness'.

'Neurological model agnosticism - allows one to escape from the certain limits of mechanical emotion and robot mentation that are inescapable as long as one remains within one dogmatic model or one imprinted reality tunnel.'

Perhaps the most interesting perspective is all is the (far from original statement of the) idea that raising consciousness and expanding awareness requires 'metaprogramming of the human bio-computer'.

We can't find our way forward by adopting rigid views on the nature of things, because forward by definition entails the continuous dropping of 'views', and the evolving of new ones. (we can't inch forward leaving a trail of bits of 'certainty' behind us so we can retreat if the going gets tough, there's no such thing)

Whatever it is that drives this 'meta-programming (and the very idea that there is a 'thing' may be a delusion, it's possible just an aspect of mind) seems to communicate by all sorts of disjointed allegorical, symbolic and other non-intellectually linkable means which when put together can only be tentatively explained if we're prepared to strike our ideological camp and head out into some metaphysical wilderness.

RAW describes the 'whhooooooaaah' groundless space this finds us in when we move (are led?) beyond our belief systems as 'chapel perilous'.

This is not to say that we shouldn't attempt to make sense of our perceptions, the essential point is that we shouldn't become attached to any particular view, or to the process of developing theories.

Lest anybody conclude that this is just the ranting of yet another new age loon, its just another statement of the ancient Buddhist teaching of 'non-attachment' or the 'dropping of  attachment' or 'dropping the need for grounding' (in certainty) to 'live with groundlessness' as a prerequisite for spiritual progress.

RAW talks of receiving poison pen letters from the fundamentalist Christians, and the fundamentalist Materialists of purist Newtonian science, and points out that the 'letters (from both of these arch-proponents of dogma) are astoundingly similar'. I guess the anger begs a few questions too.

To borrow the old Zen saying. Perhaps it's about 'caring but not caring',  about lightly, openly and courageously approaching our experience......

While most people are aware of the "classic" OBE, there is more to OBE than just that.  You can think of it in terms of the classic OBE being a "full consciousness" OBE.  It seems to be the thing that a lot of folks are out to get, thinking that if they could have such an experience it would just be the ultimate in proof, especially if they were to bring back verified facts that they witnessed while out of body.  It only sounds impressive to you if you haven't had some of the other various forms of OBE as well.  There is more to be had than just the classic version.  

There's a kind of experience that may not be as commonly associated to OBE and that is deja vu.  Everyone pretty much knows what deja vu is and has had many experiences with it throughout their lifetime.  Deja vu is one form of OBE, let's call it a mild one.  In deja vu, some part of your consciousness "went out" and gathered up some little bit of info and has brought it back to you.  You have no conscious memory of it, but you get that feeling that what you are experiencing has happened before.  What you see and hear seems very familiar and you just barely feel like you know what will happen next.  Deja vu can last quite a while at times but usually only lasts a few moments.  You may wonder what's the point of deja vu?  Well, maybe there is no point other than the acknowledgement that our conscious minds aren't just always sitting around in the tight little package called our head.  

When you have an experience of feeling someone's energy suddenly right next to you, or you know a specific person is about to call and the phone rings and it is them, or you suddenly get the feeling that so-and-so is sick, etc. most people have had some kind of experience like that.  That's another form of OBE in the sense that you are experiencing that person's consciousness reaching out to you.  That other person usually doesn't have conscious memory of an OBE, but they can usually verify that they were thinking strongly of you at that same moment.  The thing everyone calls "coincidence" is actually the proof and verification that skeptics are always on the prawl for.  Yet these kinds of experiences get brushed aside as "nothing but a coincidence".  

Now, when it comes to ESP in all its various forms, sometimes it is yet another lesser known example of OBE.  For instance, those of you who have clairvoyance know what I'm talking about, and this may even touch on the subject of remote viewing as well.  Some people think of remote viewing as being able to tap into the information of the target through ESP.  And that's a fine enough way to explain it, however the part of the RVer's mental capacity to seek out that info is using conscious ability, in part, to "go" and grab that info and bring it back to full conscious awareness.  This may be hard for people to understand.  However, when you think of consciousness as not being "in" the body and certainly not being in the body at all times, then it makes it a little bit easier to see what I'm talking about.  When it comes to clairvoyance, I think of clairyoyance as just a little step up from RV.  It is the same concept but different application.  RVing has it's intended purpose whereas (at least for me) clairvoyance is a more spontaneous event, not something I was trying to do.  I think of clairvoyance as yet another minor form of OBE, where some part of my consciousness went and gathered information and is presenting it back to me, this time in the form of a clairvoyant vision.  When the info I saw turns out to be precisely to a T the same thing I saw in my mind, then that is more proof that consciousness can operate outside of the physical body and outside of time as well.  

Yet skeptics say that that is just a coincidence, or that since there's no way to "prove" that what I saw was precisely exactly what actually happened then it cannot possibly be considered proof, or they say that that it only proves ESP yet it doesn't prove OBE.  However, when you've had these kinds of experiences as much as I have, you begin to realize there is more to how the conscious mind works than just what is commonly thought.  

This thread was started asking people how they've come to believe what they believe about OBE through their own experiences, and these are just my own personal beliefs.  

Thank you for the response Kathy.


Lights of Love wrote on Feb 21^st, 2008 at 6:46pm:

Albert, I consider all true guidance to come from within my own consciousness from the inner source within me that I call the Holy Spirit. If I receive information along with emotion I consider it to be tainted by the emotion I feel. On that level I’ve recognized guidance since I was a teenager. I’ve heard voices inside my head giving directives for nearly as long but more often after the spontaneous kundalini experience about 22 years ago. It was also after that experience that I was able to see and interact with other beings and yes I can do so while wide awake, but then it’s more like they interact with me. They facilitate the interaction. Sometimes I’m drawn to the light beings, other times I want to go toward them, but can’t seem to do that for some reason. Don I don’t have a clue about what you are talking about. Perhaps you could be more specific. If you have questions you’d like to ask me personally send me a pm. Actually I have a question for you. ES also saw beings as stars and interacted with them. How was he able to do this? Kathy