To All,

It should come as no surprize that the experience of an OBE cannot be "scientifically proven."  And it should be noted that a lack of "scientific proof" has no bearing upon whether OBEs are real or not.

Ask a scientist to prove that the experience of the  feelings of love, or hate, etc are real.  An honest scientist would have to say . .

There is no scientific proof that the experience of such feelings exists.  There is no scientific, physical world instrumentation that can directly measure the experience of these feelings.  There is only anecdotal evidence reported by those who claim to have experienced such feelings.  And, such anecdotal evidence is NOT and can never be scientific proof.

So, does the fact that the experience of such feelings cannot be scientifically proven to exist mean that the experience of such feelings doesn't exist?   Are you as the one reading this going to claim that such feelings are only a trick of the brain and therefore do not actually exist? 

Nonsense.

In my opinion, all the lack of scientific evidence proves, regarding the experience of such feelings, is that the method used to gather "scientific proof" in cases like this is sorely lacking.  Almost all of us would say that we experience such feelings, and that the lack of scientific proof in cases like this is meaningless.

For those of us who have experienced the feeling of love, or hate, or an OBE the Great Randi's "scientific proof" argument is a meaningless, diversionary, complete waste of time.

In my opinion there are some things within the realm of human experience that we can only prove to ourselves through our own direct experience.  The only way to proof the existence of such things to others is to teach them how to have their own direct experience and then come to their own conclusions.

Bruce

I would'nt consider James Randi a scientist  - more like a self-publicising showman !

I think science does have a (limited) value in that it can help unlock belief systems. For example consider a hard-core materialist, who is impervious to personal testimony but each positive double-blind study (or whatever) slightly opens the door of his awareness to receive more personal experiences. Imagine the knock-on effect of a Richard Dawkins or a Ray Hyman going public and declaring 'yes there is good,reliable evidence that Psi, telepathy,obes, psychokinesis etc. are real phenomena. ' Paradigm shifting !

I understand your dilemma. Belief is not an acceptable option. I found myself in the same situation when I was starting out, even when staring at my sleeping body from the other side of the room. I considered the possibility that I was simply nuts. In the end I had to accept it and trust my experience, simply because I was as conscious as I was in normal waking life and didn't need proof that I was real there. The fact that I visited "strange new worlds" didn't help, though over the years I was able to make sense of it and marveled at the incredible richness of our multidimensional universe and the human mind. Reading other peoples experiences at least reassured me that this was a natural state of consciousness, at least for some us.

Bruce made a good point, can you prove emotion? No, because in the end we are dealing with subjective experiences.

Scientific proof is sadly limited as we have established, but nobody has given up yet. The most intense and serious work done by scientists is into Near Death Experiences. That is a start. The main problem is that we are dealing with non-physical phenomena. Science is limited by its physics and it's outdated methods which are only applicable to the physical world. All this is beginning to crumble, quantum physics, now scientists are questioning the Big Bang theory and very soon there will be a general acceptance that everything boils down to consciousness.

My suggestion to your dilemma? Practice OBE until you succeed and find your own proof. Until then you will probably find the best support from NDE. Sadly, your dilemma won't go away. Telling yourself that it is all imaginary may just be as valid as an answer as you can hope for on this forum.

Good luck.

A true scientist or anyone who wishes to discover something they previously don't know, should be willing to open themselves up to having their own experiences, specifically experiencing something they have not yet experienced.  And going about that in the wrong way won't give you real proof that something does or does not exist.

There are even those folks who are so bent on finding THE perfect proof to the point that even when they have experiences that are beginning to challenge their closed-minded beliefs they still choose to talk themselves out of it.  They stop and get off the road that was leading them to not only what they were looking for, but for more of that bigger picture...things they hadn't even considered. 

I agree with Bruce that if you want any kind of experience and proof, you need to have your own experiences.  But I will take it further and add that you need to ALLOW yourself to have them.  Close-minded thinking won't do that. 

I'm finding out the hard way that in order to open the door,  you have to let go of all those left-brain-type thinking patterns that are anchoring you solidly inside your closed-minded belief reality.  Those thinking patterns will shut down every possibility and opportunity to experience reality through your "other" senses.  You will shut off any connection to seeing what else is out there, locking you inside your own beliefs.  The problem there is...it's not that you're not able to prove that those other things exist.  All you're able to prove, though, is that your own beliefs exist. 

I say "close-minded" not as an insult, but as a fact that if you want to open yourself up to these other possibilities you have to, obviously, be willing to open yourself up to them.  To not do so is the same as sitting in your car in the your driveway and saying over and over "I want to experience driving my car".  Well guess what?  If you never do the necessary things that actually get the car in motion, you'll just be sitting there not going anywhere. 

"It is" possible to understand through experience that the after life exists without obtaining the kind of evidence a person like James Randi would look for.

When I had what I refer to as my night in heaven experience it was very clear that what I was experiencing is true and is what reality is about. I understood this in a manner that is beyond what our rational mind can come up with. I very clearly understood how it was possible for the afterlife to exist without having to think about it. It was very clear that our life in this world isn't what our existence is about.

Also, if you communicate with spirits on a regular basis, after a while you realize that you are communicating with beings who don't rely on physical bodies in order to exist, and that something other than your mind is responsible for what you experience.

It is possible to experience yourself in a way where you are more, or should I say something other than, a physical body.

When I read how some near death experiencers are certain of the spiritual reality they experienced, I am able to relate to their certainty because of what my night in heaven and other experiences have shown me.

Certainty isn't an unobtainable myth for people who have obtained it.

I believe that rather than trying to receive scientific evidence, a person would be better off growing spiritually so eventually he (or she) reaches the point where he can experience in a way that is certain. If you open up to divine dove, you open up to what comes with it.

And in addition, there are the freshly emerging problems encountered by dumbfounded quantum physicists who have been forced by undeniable clear evidence to accept that impossible things are really happening all the time in quantum level reality. These things are not accessible by using the old Newtonian statistics methods. When I took statistics at university, I was struck even then by the way our professors and scientists mindlessly accept what appeared to me to be very dubious....the rules of how statistics work, and how proof works...especially now that we know beyond a doubt that, unfortunately, we get what we expect when we conduct an experiment. Just another example of creating our own reality by our expectations and intentions. Just underlines the power of intention. The entire statistical proof method of Newtonian science seems to me to be highly questionable and always struck me that way. Still, I passed the course anyway! You have to do that or you get nowhere. My doubt remain nevertheless. And it makes me mad and it made me mad then and still does. This mindless parroting of some rules someone made up when we didn't know a fraction of what we know now. Vee

Yeah, It's a hologram.