I keep starting my reply, Alan, and erasing it, and then my computer shut down as soon as I finished a reply I felt was adequate -- it needed more power.

Perhaps I should just listen first. What are your thoughts, my friend?

Begun later (my mind is quite curious now): Also, what do you mean when you say "outer" body travel? Are you talking about the out of body experiences or are you talking about something else? I believe that here on this board we talk about more than one kind of traveling, more than two kinds of traveling. Perhaps there are many more.

??

It seems to me that the perception of 'self' is stronger in an OBE than in other forms of traveling, and that the exploration begins from a focus which is very interested in exploring variations of physical sensation and movement.

Kind of like a baby learning how to crawl and walk. I think that is the most obvious difference that I can see there.

If someone can master such a different state of being, like Bruce Moen has, they must have developed a fine-tuned instrument to be able to do so.

When people simply move into a meditative state of being to travel, I think that there is much less emphasis on the physical body. The sensation of time passing seems different, from the descriptions. It seems much much faster, although time doesn't exist the same way in either states, in my opinion.

I am just making a guess here, but I suspect the near-death experience is much more comprehensive than short 'hops' here and there. Not all of it may be remembered upon return.

If so, how do we know what our memories actually are until we have them?

Okay, I'll be quiet now. You have really got me thinking, Alan!

love, blink

One difference between an NDE and an obe, is that an NDE generally only happens once in a lifetime, (excluding Ms.Atwater) who had several.

and an obe generally provides impetus for further obes throughout the life. A lucid dream is a matter of a degree of an obe, in that a lucid dream can provide a leaping off place into a full blown obe.

we each have an emotional body, which is considered or labeled the astral body while it navigates the astral realms.
an emotional body is conscious of itself while it is exploring the astral counterpart of physical area.
In phasing, which is not full blown obe, the mental body is employed, and this will often produce dual consciousness..awareness of the physical body sitting in a chair, and awareness also of viewing, or partaking in a conversation with another, for example. There may be subtle emotions involved, but not as explicit as the astral body when it has it's journeys, nor even the NDE, where both the mental and emotions are active and receptive, and in some cases memories of former lives are in the NDE if that belief is entertained within the individual.

The importance of the value of PUL was shown to me personally within an obe where I believed I had died.
As a budding retriever I had asked myself what is the mindset of those whom I would be entrusted to retrieve?
And what would be their feelings as well?

In the obe I found myself as a wanderer who had a willingness to seek, certain I would find what I sought. Yet I still wandered about attempting to speak with physical beings, most of whom were not aware of my presence, because I was not physical, nor could I be seen with their retina. I could be sensed by some. In a psychic manner on their part.

Finally, tired of wandering about unable to find others who could interact with me, I thought of my daughter and was instantly with her. She was still physical, but I was certain I could communicate with her. I perceived myself as floating near her body, slightly above her. I perceived myself in a light weight body form.
I was watching her do dishes, thinking, oh god, I'm so glad I don't have to do dishes anymore because I somehow knew I was in another dimension where dishes and like chores were not important.

I asked her where I was. and why couldn't others see me or hear me?
She was crying and said I had died.

That explained everything! For this is what retrievers do; they inform others that their transition has occurred as the number one rule.
Not everyone gets stuck with not knowing they have died, just a small percentage of the population may go thru this confusion where they feel cast out of the body identification and don't know where to go.
So retrievers assist awareness that transition has taken place.

My daughter knows nothing about the dynamics of retrieving; yet she loved me. Love itself is very important to awakening to the awareness that death of the body has taken place. I was shown in that instance my accomplishment in life circumstance was this Love between us. and thus it is Love which does the retrieval.

also upon death, many NDE'ers report the gravitation to family members is automatic. I assume those who do linger in the astral lower planes for what to us is a long period, is because they have not developed sufficient love with their family, nor a belief system which would propel them into that level to find the like-minded.
as well, linear time is belong to the surface of the planet, so that what is years to us, is perhaps only weeks to the perception of the deceased. That is why we sometimes say consciousness is frozen in time while we are physical. it's slowed down here. It's quite quick on the other levels of nonphysicality.

Upon learning I was dead, I wondered why I, of all persons had not been prepared for death?
I chided myself but briefly and knew what to do then. Certainly, I would go see God. God was simply symbolized in the obe as the vastness of the skies and I shot up like a bullet, in effect dying a 2nd death to all ties to the Mother earth, including family, knowing we would meet again.
The emotional body was caught up in bliss of being released from body and the chores of the earth, the perpetual struggle of staying alive.

The bliss was all around me though. In the sky. In the air. In the very atmosphere, in the flight upwards as symbolized. I knew if I kept going higher I would meet God. I wasn't quite ready for that, as I blinked out during the 2nd death. When I came back to consciousness, I entered a roomful of retrievers and was welcomed back as if I had been on a journey to do a job and now had returned.
all of the folks there had only one purpose, to be assisting the shift in consciousness at this time in history.

 Similar along Matthew's lines, an NDE tends to be much more "instructive" and deeply affecting in nature.  I've had an OBE, but not an NDE, and the former yeah helped to show that we're more than our physical body, but other than that it was pretty mundane.  

 Many people who have NDE's say that there experiences were so spiritually powerful, that it changes their lives permanently and usually for the positive.  

 It seems that when NDE's take place, they are usually experienced in rather fast vibratory dimensions.   OBE's on the other hand, while they can be, often the "classic ones" just don't tend to go that "high" so to speak.   But they are similar in that  we are just shifting our focus of attention into different dimensions/focus levels different than "physical".  

 I suspect the reason that Bruce, i, and some others here haven't experienced that many "classic" OBE's is because our inner vibratory states are on a faster vibration than what classic OBE's entail.   This concept is also talked about in Rosiland McKnight's book by her guidance.  
 The OBE i had had, was during a time of unusually slow vibrating energies in my life and self.   I was being more negative, unloving, and unentered around that time.  I was also a hell of a lot hornier than normal around that time.   Essentially i was concentrating my energies and focus a lot more in my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Centers than usual.

 Which again corroborates Rosiland's guides info, because they say that sexual energy is usually strongly involved with the classic OBE's which happen with the 2nd, Etheric body, which is more "dense" and slower vibrating in nature than the Emotional, Mental, and Spiritual bodies.  

 I suspect that when one has a classic OBE, the 2nd Chakra/Center is very active at the time.  Rosiland's guidance also says that fear is a common experience involved with nonphysical exploration/experiences involving the etheric body and such classic OBE's.  
 But, it also seems common experience (like it was later with Monroe) for experienced explorers to initially "leave the body" (a misnomer) via the 2nd body, and then during their journey to phase into their faster vibrating levels of being.   At that point, their experiences start to feel "less real" in general, because they are more removed from physical energies which to most seem to be the "real reality".  

 In my OBE experience, at first it felt very real and physical in nature, but started to become less so.  

 NDE's seem to usually take place at levels connected to the Heart Center, up to the Brow and Crown Centers in the very expanded,  very God aware, and loving experiences (at least the positive ones that i've mostly read about).  

I will share two stories of NDE and one OBE.
When my mother was only 24 years old, she had an operation called a suspension. This is what she told me: The nurses brought her back to the hospital room and attached her to tubes to drain and her IV.  When the nurse turned to leave the room, my mother died. My mother remembers "being in the color blue". It was the most beautiful blue that she had ever "felt".  A lady's face appeared in the blue and my mother preceived this to be Mary, the Blessed Mother.  The Lady spoke to her. "Dolores, it's time to come with me now." My mother said she felt a peace that she still hasn't felt again to this day. Mama answered back, "I can't go now. My husband would be left alone with our two children. Who will help him?  He can't take care of two babies by himself."  The lady answered back, Because you have asked for your husband and children (on their behalf), you may return."
The next thing my mother remembers is a great pressure on her chest, opening her eyes to feel and see a team of doctors and nurses fighting to revive her. She is now 78 years old.

When I worked on a switchboard when I was in my 30's , one of the operators was Ruby.  She was a tall stout woman with red hair, then in her 60's. She relayed this story: she had a heart attack the year before. She remember's suddenly seeing an arch shaped bridge. On the other side of the bridge were all the relitives and friends who had predeceased her. She walked to the middle of the bridge, then stopped. One of her deceased relitives walked over from the other side with a huge, beautiful  bouquet of red roses. The relative handed her the bouquet. She said the scent was overwhelming and the color the most vivid red. She knew that all she had to do was walk to the opposit side of the bridge with her relative to be "home". 
Suddenly she felt like her whole chest was being crushed. Her eyes popped open to see the medics working on her. She told them to stop, she wanted to go back. 

Those are two of the NDE's that have been relayed to me. Now my own OBE.  I was under great stress at the time. I was 27 years old and going through a divorce. I was very fatigued that day. While my sons were in school, I went and layed down becaused I was so exhaused.  Suddenly, I was back in  my kitchen. But, the colors where acceptionally brilliant and acute. I decided to walk over to the kitchen table and move it. However, I was able to lift the table off the floor with one hand. There was no weight to the table. I started to logicalize the situation, as everything about the incident "felt" and looked real. I deduced, if I am astral traveling I can then put my arm through the wall.  I went over to the opposit side of the kitchen and placed finger tips against the wall. I gently pushed my hand forward and saw my hand disappear into and through the wall up to my forearm.  I suddenly "woke up" in my bed.

Carol Ann