Hi, I'm new here but I have had a few experiences and wondered if they are anything to do with the starting stages of an OOBE or not.

- About a decade ago, I was reading up about OOBE's and trying to relax in bed and when I got to a really relaxed stage, it would feel as though I was sinking deep in to the bed.

- Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and feel like my body is positioned differently to what it is eg my hands would feel like they are facing the opposite way to what they are eg for instance palms of my hands facing up rather than down etc. I have tried meditation a few times and have had the same feeling when relaxed during that.

- Sometimes when I am laying on my side and trying to get to sleep, it will feel as though I am moving very fast even though my body isn't moving at all. The feeling seems to originate from my head.

- This has only happened a handful of times but it is very weird. I'll be laying in bed trying to sleep and in the next moment it feels like my body is spinning, sometimes really fast. I used to get scared but now I just let it happen. I usually just see blackness but once I could see a dark sky full of stars although I did read that the spinning is due to some ear problem but I'm not sure!

Has anyone else ever had any of the above sensations? I think I may have had some OOBE experiences but will share them on a different thread.

mystical1707 wrote on Oct 31^st, 2019 at 10:24am:

Hi, I'm new here but I have had a few experiences and wondered if they are anything to do with the starting stages of an OOBE or not.

Hi Mystical, and welcome to Bruce’s conversation board.  Thank you so much for joining and for sharing your experiences and questions. 

From my own personal experience as well as what I’ve read from well-experienced authors on the subject of OBEs, I see in your experiences that you are definitely on the verge of having full out-of-body experiences. 



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- About a decade ago, I was reading up about OOBE's and trying to relax in bed and when I got to a really relaxed stage, it would feel as though I was sinking deep in to the bed.

Reading and poring over books about OBEs is one of the simplest ways to help yourself achieve one because the more excited and interested you are in the subject, the more it will become the focus of your desire.  Compared to how excited your mind is about a subject while awake, you’re even more focused on it subconsciously.  So reading and studying OBEs before bed is a great practice. 

That sinking feeling probably has more to do with the initial light stages of sleep, which goes hand in hand with initializing an OBE.  My advice is that whenever you can achieve that deep state of relaxation again, remember to keep your mind consciously aware.  I always use an affirmation such as, “Tonight I will dream with conscious awareness” or “Tonight I will have an OBE”.  Keeping yourself consciously aware while falling asleep is your next step for inducing an OBE because you can forget about your body but keep your mind awake.



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- Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and feel like my body is positioned differently to what it is eg my hands would feel like they are facing the opposite way to what they are eg for instance palms of my hands facing up rather than down etc. I have tried meditation a few times and have had the same feeling when relaxed during that.

This sounds like Focus 10, what Robert Monroe described as “mind awake – body asleep state.  When you wake up feeling this way don’t move, and give yourself a suggestion to go out of body, or imagine yourself getting out of bed, or feel the desire to be somewhere else, for instance simply wanting to appear in another room of your house.  This is a perfect state for inducing an OBE.


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- Sometimes when I am laying on my side and trying to get to sleep, it will feel as though I am moving very fast even though my body isn't moving at all. The feeling seems to originate from my head.

This sounds like you are becoming very physically relaxed while your energy body is wanting to move and go out of body.  It’s another great opportunity to suggest to yourself to have an OBE.  Some suggestions are to imagine yourself moving very fast in transportation (a car, train, etc) or imagine that you’re flying like a bird.  Imagining yourself spinning is another good one. 


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- This has only happened a handful of times but it is very weird. I'll be laying in bed trying to sleep and in the next moment it feels like my body is spinning, sometimes really fast. I used to get scared but now I just let it happen. I usually just see blackness but once I could see a dark sky full of stars although I did read that the spinning is due to some ear problem but I'm not sure! Has anyone else ever had any of the above sensations? I think I may have had some OOBE experiences but will share them on a different thread.

I know what you mean about the spinning sensation, as I’ve had that many times.  I usually get it when I wake up in the middle of the night but haven’t moved yet and I’m trying to fall asleep again. 

In my opinion, if you truly had an ear problem (like vertigo) then you’d definitely have symptoms while awake. 

The dark sky full of stars is something I’ve experienced before.  Did you feel it seemed very 3D to you?  This is another great opportunity that you can use as a gateway to go anywhere and explore.  You can use this visual state in that way. 

It’s best for any of your practices and techniques if you have desires and goals in mind prior to attempting.  You can make a list of things that would interest you during an OBE, or of people you’d like to go visit.  That way, when you find yourself in one of these states you can choose one.  I often forget to prep myself in that way, and so when I have a spontaneous OBE I often just feel at a loss for what to do.  I’ll just be there thinking, “Wow, this is really neat” but I won’t propel myself to actually DO something, and it usually results in my waking up too quickly.

Looking forward to hearing more of your experiences!   :)

Vicky

Thank you for explaining everything to me. It's good to know what I really am experiencing. Unfortunately I haven't had that sinking in the bed sensation for about a decade now but it's something I would love to feel again so I'm going to have to keep practising. I am on the 3rd book by Robert Monroe and also bought a book called The Astral Projection Guidebook by Erin Pavlina but only read the first chapter so far.

The last time I felt like I was laying in bed in a different position than what I was was a few years ago so if I experience that again, I will try to get out of bed and see what happens.

Good to hear you have experienced the spinning also. I have never woken up to it, I've only experienced it before sleep. I think the dark sky full of stars did feel 3D. I felt like I was up in space I think but at the same time I felt I was laying in bed. It was strange but it's not the only time I've looked up in bed and seen a dark sky full of stars (although on these other occasions I didn't have the spinning). It was only about a week or 2 ago that I looked up and saw a dark sky full of stars but there were red or silver lines linking up each star, showing me loads of different star constellations. it was amazing!

Ooh, that sounds neat about seeing the constellations. 

You talking about the dark sky and feeling like you’re up in space reminds me of a very powerful OBE I had once.  I didn’t realize that I was in an altered state.  I felt perfectly natural and normal.  Then I felt someone take ahold of my hand and I was pulled up and out of my body.  Of course I then quickly realized I was having an OBE.  I was instantly traveling through what looked like outer space, the darkness, the stars and galaxies, etc.  And then we arrived at the scene of where a woman was murdered. 

So that’s why I attribute that “place” of feeling like you’re in space to being a kind of gateway.  I think Bruce Moen referred to it that way too.  It’s been experienced by some just before they are led to a person in need of retrieval.

Another good OBE book that I can recommend is one that Robert Peterson just came out with called, Hacking the Out Of Body Experience.

Wow at your powerful OBE.  Did you manage to confirm what you had seen from the news or anything?

I have had a couple of 'very real' dreams, well I've always had vivid dreams but these 2 dreams were even more real in that I 'felt' things. One of them, a man was following me along the pavement and when he caught up to me, he was beating me up, very violently. Although it was a vivid dream, I could actually feel the pain and I was begging him to stop but he continued. That happened sometime in the last few years. The 2nd one (again very vivid but felt very real) was only a few months ago. I was being held hostage in a room with a small group of other people. I needed the toilet so he led me up the stairs to the bathroom and as we were walking up, I could physically feel him poking me in the back. Not sure if it was his finger or his gun but wow at how I physically felt it.

I was told from someone who has had similar experiences that my 2 above experiences were someone who had crossed over who wanted to show me how they had died or something. So I wonder if it was the same for you when you went to the scene of where a woman had been murdered.

Thanks for the book suggestion.

No I wasn’t able to verify anything.  I didn’t have a name, date, location, or anything like that.  But there’s no doubt in my mind it was real.  I just need to get better at getting verifiable information because I think it’s important for development of perception and abilities.  I’d also love it if I could do work like on the TV show Medium, where she is a psychic who helps solve murders. 

I was thinking the same thing, that those experiences you describe could very possibly be instances where you were picking up psychically on actual events that other people went through. 

The experience where I was experiencing how a woman was murdered was a real OBE, it wasn’t a dream.  I was purposely trying to have an OBE when it happened.  I was sitting in a chair and didn’t even notice the transition.  I was still sitting there waiting for the OBE state not knowing I was already in an altered state. 

In my experience I was pulled by hand.  I couldn’t see her but only felt her holding my hand.  When we “arrived at the scene” I was in an office building and I realized that everything I experienced was what she had gone through just before she was murdered, but it was as if I were literally experiencing it physically myself.  She was running and trying to hide from a man, but he ended up finding her and strangling her to death.  I felt as if I were the one being strangled, and I felt myself dying. 

So I know what you mean by saying you felt things.  It’s not like normal dreaming where you’re just given information magically in the dream. 

By the way, I like to point this out about how we are able to psychically pick up information while sleeping or in an altered state…In your experiences that you described as “very real dreams”, it’s common to have even normal, ordinary dreams but still be picking up information psychically about real events, or to even really be visiting with a deceased loved one, even if we don’t consciously feel like it’s real.  It has to do with how fully consciously aware we are or not.  If we are not, then the experience doesn’t feel real and feels like a dream or “just the imagination”.  The more consciously aware we are, the more real it feels. 

You can test and validate for yourself what I mean by this.  In your normal waking physical day, you know there are times when you aren’t really paying attention, right?  It could be during a meeting at work, or while driving, or while watching TV.  Sometimes your mind is just elsewhere, and even though you have vague memory of something, you also know that you were not very consciously aware during it.  So compare that to other instances where you definitely are paying a lot of attention.  The memory will feel much more real to you, right?  You remember all the nuances and sensations and feelings.  It’s burned into your memory and you can easily relive the experience just by thinking and remember it. 

So how we experience something has to do with how consciously aware we are.  But that doesn’t always mean that every vivid, intense dream is real.  I know I’ve had dreams that are not real, but were very vivid and intense due to the state of sleep I was in while having it and for some reason I was able to remember it vividly.  I do have some sleep anomalies like sleep walking, talking in my sleep, sleep paralysis, nightmares, and night terrors.  They are all rare for me now (happened more often when I was a kid) but I know how real dreams can feel even when they aren’t real at all.

However, there’s always something in the real experiences that make me know they are real without a doubt.  It too is having to do with being consciously aware, but it’s also I guess a knowing feeling.  Maybe it comes with experience and knowing how to trust what I know about how my perception works.  For instance, a couple nights ago I dreamed (long story short) that I was drowning.  What I was feeling felt very real, but I know it wasn’t a real experience.  It’s not something that’s going to happen, nor do I think I was dreaming about something that happened to somebody else.  I think the meaning of it was a spiritual meaning of something I need to deal with and work on in my life. 

My point is, I think you can find the element in your above two experiences which make you know without a doubt that they were not just dreams, but were you picking up information about someone else.  I’m interested to know if you feel that you can identify with that.  I think it’s critical to know oneself’s own inner knowing. 

Now of course, the best thing we can do is to get some verifiable information, such as a name or something.  Bruce Moen always taught that it’s crucial in helping open your own perception.  The more you learn to believe and trust your perception, the more it can open up for you. 

So I knew Bruce well.  If he read your above two experiences, he would tell you why not just believe you were perceiving real experiences that happened to someone else?  What would it hurt for you to believe that even though you have no proof?  The good it will do is give you confidence in your perceptive abilities.  That combined with practice and intention will give you even more experiences, and soon you’ll find something that does give you some kind of validation.  That is, if that’s what you’re wanting to do. 

Of course, there are many things you can do with conscious awareness and OBEs.  Bruce taught that it’s important to explore and follow your own interest and to just learn whatever you find out. 

Thank you for your detailed reply.

wow that you had a similar experience to me so that proves it must be real and it really does happen! Personally I don't really want any more experiences like that because it was quite distressing, being there and feeling the pain.

I've had dreams where I've encountered people who have passed over and they have told me things. I saw my Nan in her house and was shocked she was there but she told me she was just in a different form. That was quite comforting! I also saw another couple of relatives, maybe I should post these in the dream section.

I must say that in all my experiences, I think I am more in the moment than what I am in real life and I think that's why things feel so real. But at the same time I think I must be hallucinating because other people tell me it's not real.

No one else can know if your experience is real or not, just like you can't know if their experience is real or not.  As we grow and experience we also learn how to better define our experiences, and we often find that the words we use change as we learn more specific definitions for things.  So when you describe an experience to someone else, it will be easy for them to tell you it's not real.  But only you can judge your own experiences, as long as you know you're being truthful with yourself about how you feel and perceive.

Aw, that's sweet of your Nan to visit you and give you comfort.  I still get those experiences from time to time from my dad and it always helps to have the reminder.

I understand what you are saying. I should just look at it that if they feel real to me then they must be real. I think after the variety of different spiritual/paranormal experiences I have had through my lifetime that there is definitely something going on in the background.  :)

Hello Mystical1707:

Years ago I had OBEs with the effects, but now I never do so. I instead have lucid dreams. I eventually found that a lot of my dreams, both regular and lucid, are created by my higher self, and perhaps another form of guidance. I've found that most of my dreams, whether regular or lucid, serve a purpose. I stopped having OBEs with the effects, because it is no longer necessary to experience in such a way. Initially the effect OBEs served the purpose of letting me know that something is happening. Once I found out that other dreams can be more than the random meanderings of my subconscious mind, it became unnecessary for me to have OBEs with the effects.

When I first started to have OBEs, years ago, I imagined that I would have all kinds of OBEs that served no purpose other than having fun. Eventually I found that the progression of my experiences happened according to what I needed spiritually, rather than for the sake of simply having fun. Quite often progress requires patience.

Regarding the unpleasant experiences you've had, it seems to me that my higher self has created some challenging experiences that served the purpose of prompting me to gain more control of my consciousness. For the experience where somebody beat you, a goal would be to become conscious enough to stand up to whatever, or whoever beat you. You might tell such dream character to stop it, or send it love, or just simply will yourself into another state of consciousness.

Something I and other people have experienced while in the inbetween state, is the inability to turn on a light switch. Such an experience comes with the feeling of the presence of an unfriendly being. When this sort of thing happens, become conscious of what is going on, and then will yourself out of the state.

Thanks for your reply recoverer 2. That makes sense. I will need to find out how to make myself more consciously aware to stand up and get out of there if this happens again.

I hope that when someone first starts out having OOBE's that they can still have fun though. I would love to travel around America and perhaps even validate things for myself when I come back eg a shop in a certain place or something.

You're welcome.

I found that verifications came in the beginning, but eventually they were no longer needed.

That's good to know :)