I use a grade from 0 - 10 (10 being the best/highest)


Explorations in Consciousness, 2012, Frederick Aardema

Grade: 10.0


F Aardema is a Ph D in psychology (?). I just assume that any scientist
takes a scientific risk by writing a book on the subject of OBEs.

Aardema's book is the closest thing I've read to anything with a more
controlled scientific approach to OBEs, which doesn't rely on technical
machinery or research measurement equipment. And the steps taken by Aardema,
his data collections, examinations and conclusions are by far the most
scientific I've read, when a researcher has to abandon his equipment
because it can't measure the observed OBE phenomena any longer.

Maybe that's the reason I feel that Aardema sometimes leaves the door open
for more than one interpretation at a time? To me, he does often seem to have
interpretations (of his OBE experiences) which goes in two directions
simultaneously. Or perhaps that just is Aardema's scientific approach; his
choice to keep things open until it one day finally becomes possible to nail
down the issues?


Aardema starts his book with mentioning some historical views related to
OBEs. He also readily explains why some explanations don't hold water in
today's scientific world.

Aardema then proceeds with discoveries by Ph D Stephen LaBerge and Robert
Monroe. Aardema seems to mostly make his references based on the book
writings of LaBerge and Monroe, which to my knowledge leaves a few
small details out. I think that LaBerge in his later years, after
his books, has taken a more open interpretation on OBEs and LDs;
they may be similar but not exactly the same. Further, Monroe has
mentioned some interesting things about sleep stages, in radio
interviews.

As the Monroe radio interviews are so important and add details not
mentioned in Monroe's books, the reader could be interested in looking up
this link -> here, to see how Monroe related some of his Focuses to
sleep. (At times the radio interviews seem to appear on youtube.)

Maybe Aardema knows of these other statements, but avoids referencing such
sources as those radio interviews are more volatile? Anyway, Aardema
provides several book references to support his reflections.

Regarding the question if OBEs are LDs, similar to LDs or completely
different, Aardema provides a lot of info, but I'm not sure that his
own conclusions close all doors. To make up your own mind about what
Aardema thinks, you can read the middle section of page 27 (and some
of the text preceding that page). Aardema still has me puzzled with
thoughts. Also read his statement at the bottom of page 220.

---

Lots of experiences.

Next, Aardema continues his book with his own experiences. Experiences, which
will follow throughout his book. Lots of detailed and specifically picked
experiences. He somehow manages to produce unique content in almost all
of his experiences, so even for the reader who doesn't like to read about
other peoples' experiences, I still think those text sections will be
interesting all the way through.

Piece by piece Aardema builds his ideas of OBE reality by using his own OBE
experiences, often trying a new experiment each time. If I compare Aardema's
construction to Campbell's TOE, the amount of specific data Aardema has
collected and put effort into drawing conclusions from, is so staggering
that I really have to say that Aardema gives me something hard to chew on
for quite some time. And worst of all, a few of my own experiences have been
similar to Aardemas, with the difference that I haven't been able to put
any sane ideas to them, more than leaning on the background of Monroe/Moen.

Aardema raises the question; is the surrounding, encountered in an OBE, related
to the real world? By this question, Aardema indirectly examines claims by both
Monroe, Buhlman and RB (on the RTZ), as Aardema scrutinizes his observations.

(An interesting note, R Peterson is open to the idea that the OBE surrounding
is a world completely different from the real world.)

---


OBE Examination.

Aardema makes as much as possible of figuring out the nature of the separation
process during OBE, by moving back and forth, moving nonphysical arms and legs
and inspecting body positions during OBE and after re-entry into the physical
body. I haven't read anything close to such a meticulous examination. Not even
Sylvan Muldoon's detailed descriptions come near in scientific detail. This
examination and data collection on the OBE exit and entry process alone, gives
Aardema's book a grade of 10. I can't understand why no one before has done
anything like this in such detail and asked the right questions, OBE by OBE.

Aardema steps out of bed, goes back into bed, makes partial separations and
in various ways studies the OBE separation process. Aardema has a lot of
experiences with nonphysical vibrations, hypnagogic sound and noise,
the hitchhiker-on-the-back phenomena, sleep paralysis and other related
things.

I really like how carefully Aardema examines the basics of the OBE reality in
relation to the physical world. Aardema has put some effort into figuring
out how the fundamentals of OBE works. I would like to read any similar
writing by some official person from TMI to have something to compare
to Aardema's personal data collection and conclusions.

When I began reading Aardema's book and soon realized that it would be
scientific oriented, I hadn't expected it to be particular entertaining,
but Aardema has avoided going into a heavy writing style.

I would say that Aardema has managed to utilize the more easy-going style
of for example J Ziewe, when Aardema describes his experiences. Aardema
has managed to pick specific OBE experiences and categorize them into
appropriate book chapters.

Aardema also keeps his experiences focused on each specific area he writes
about, only picking the parts of his experiences which are interesting to
the subject of the chapter.

If I should make an analogy, it's well known that Alfred Russel Wallace
(origin of species) and Keith Hearne (proof of existence of LDs) were
the first discoverers of their fields. But Charles Darwin and
Stephen LaBerge were the ones who filled in their fields with data
and popularized the fields of their expertise to a wider audience.

While Monroe still is the person I think has popularized the phenomena of
OBE in more modern time (I leave Muldoon out for the moment), I would say
that there has been a lack of explicit data collection and examination
to OBEs themselves. There are others, like Buhlman and RB, but still
not organized enough.

Muldoon made an attempt to collect data late in his life, as one of his books
prove, but that data is anecdotal and based on random events by a wide range
of people. Aardema has made as much more focused work on the OBE field.

Aardema examines the void, the 3D-darkness as much as he can, stating his
ideas about how the void works in the OBE state. Aardema names and mentions
several OBE phenomena, many mentioned by other authors. Aardema then puts
his own interpretation and sometimes namings to these phenomena like zooming
or environmental collapse.

Labels, categorization, groupings and concepts are treated very well by
Aardema.

Aardema inspects the environments in the OBE state and gives his best try
to put them into psychological context. He has noted that there is a
difference between various environments and groups them as personal, collective
or physical. He also states that the physical surrounding in an OBE is not
the physical, but it can at times perhaps be a copy or a mind construction
of the physical original.

To establish if the OBE environment is real, Aardema performs several types
of hidden-card-experiments. At times I can feel that Aardema shares a lot
with other OBEers like Oliver Fox, Ziewe and Monroe. At other times it seems
to me that Aardema gives his best try to find psychological explanations.

Aardema also sends Healing while OBE, with a result which points in
a positive direction. Aardema experiences something which resembles
Moen's PUL (page 186).

It would be interesting if Aardema had managed to find some people to do
shared OBEs with, to establish how much information can be transferred in
the OBE state, if anything at all.

---


Gold nuggets.

There are so many gold nuggets in Aardema's book, that even if you remove
half of them, I still would give the book the highest grade.

For example on page 72, you find an OBE experience by Aardema which is
uncanningly similar to the well-known reality-fluctuation experienced by
Monroe, an experiences where Monroe finds a family being dealt big
"playing cards" by the wife of the family, just to later find out
that she was in fact handing out the daily mail to the family members.
The playing cards were actually regular post/mail cards, see Monroe's
first book, pages 49-50.

What Aardema does with these nuggets, is that he places them into
proper categories. He put names to the various events and gathers
those experiences into specific unique groups.

Aardema briefly touches on the subject of previous lives as he has an OBE
related to that subject. While OBE he also gets attacked by "creatures"
and speaks with Robert Monroe somewhere at or before F 27.

---


Are there any cracks in Aardema's construction?

Well, there are some discrepancy between Aardema's OBEs and the type of
OBEs experienced by Monroe. I'm not going into detail on this matter, but
the interested reader could for example re-read Monroe's first book;
Journeys out of the Body. I think one has to examine both Monroe's
and Aardema's writings to realize that some new questions have been
produced in relation to OBEs. Comparing Aardema's book to Monroe's
first book suddenly make things not that clear-cut any longer.

Monroe never mentioned LDs in his book, but clearly he has felt that his
OBE state was something different than physical reality, as he in one
youtube interview said about his first OBE: "That's a strange dream..."

So, we come to the issue; is there something Aardema doesn't examine
quite properly?

I think there is.

Aardema mentions dreams and LDs at several places throughout his book. And
here comes a problem for me. Does Aardema know when he is in an LD and when
he is in an OBE?

I would have wanted him to better describe when he goes lucid in a dream and
compare that to when he gets the OBE exit sensations with vibrations and the
lift out of body in his perceived bed room. He's not that clear on this matter
of OBEs and LDs at times as he mentions a false awakenings together with an
OBE. He also several times mentions going in and out of lucidity while OBE,
and that makes me wonder exactly what he has experienced.

I have had only a few short OBEs and they have been completely different
from any LDs. I've had the phenomena which Aardema describes; OBE going
into a LD - then semi-lucid dream and ending in a regular dream.

If my LDs should count as OBEs, my OBE rate will raise by quite an amount.
I would have liked Aardema being a little more clear on this matter and
not keeping both doors open at all times, because that makes things more
unclear.

While Waggoner moves closer to OBE in regards of some sort of intelligence
behind dreams and LDs, Aardema is not as clear to me in that sense.


So to me, some questions still remain. For example, I would have wanted to
know if Aardema had tried the Buhlman quote of "Clarity Now!", to improve
lucidity. As Aardema even has put a kind of measurement at the end of his
book on stability of the OBE environment, I would want to know if that
could improve stability? Also the "Light Now!" command.

Aardema also uses a method to alter or stabilize his environment which kind
of resembles the spin-your-body-to-keep-the-LD; Aardema waves his hand(s)
or arms in front of his visual area to improve lucidity. He also claps
his hands for the same purpose.

I would have wanted his thoughts on various levels of lucidity and if those
could be improved or how to deal with things. For example, he mentions
becoming lucid but not remembering specifics (!), what his house looks like.

A few more thoughts on SP would also have been interesting to me, as that
has been the only way I've OBEd so far. For example if there is any
research on that area? I guess there is and that something of
interest could be found in relation to SPs?

Aardema mentions that he often can open doors in OBEs, but that exact
action was used by Muldoon to determine if he was in a dream or OBE,
so I would like Aardema to expand a little more on that. For example
if he is super-lucid in the physical environment, does he more often
become unable to open doors and instead pass through matter?

Aardema mentions that he sometimes feels heavy initially in his OBEs. I
would have liked if he had any ideas if that's related to being close
to his physical body, similar to the Muldoon cord-range-activity zone.

There also are some minor things where I think Aardema is wrong or he
at least has interpreted some issues completely different than me. I
wont go into details here as these issues are very minor, except for one,
where Aardema on page 168 states that "no Focus 27 Hemi-Sync tapes exist".
I think there do and those "tapes"/CDs are called Going Home, by TMI.

On two other interesting issues I have to speculate.

Aardema in one OBE meets a "guide" and is given the word Lectitude, which
is related to information. Lectitude could be a mixture of Lecture and
Attitude (just guessing). At another occasion he is given an indirect
hint to improve his "world view", which could mean something related
to his beliefs (?).

It would be interesting to read if Aardema makes any success in contacting
guides or a "higher self" in this aspect (well, he does in the book, but
not for very long).



The book contains a lot of information, but it's not complete in any sense
and some areas are left with open questions. Still I would say it's one
of the best books on OBEs in the last 10 years (Moen's books are not OBE
books and more focused on retrievals and Focus 34/35).

Are there any more issues? Well, the front cover may be a little too ego
centered to a Buddistic oriented person, as Aardema has placed his name in
larger font than the book title. Perhaps the cover could also be made a
little more interesting in a future release, as the (mostly black) cover
isn't that good.

On page 74 there is a "hypnanogic" state and at page 109 Aardema sees a
"foosball" table, so some spelling could be removed from the checker.
Just joking. :)