Lucid Dreaming and dream OBE's, and real OBE's

Sorry about the extra "and" in the title :).

I just experienced something pretty cool. Not mind blowing, but I think pretty cool for those interested in NDE's and OBE's like myself.

For starters though, I just wanna preface it by explaining my opinion on intentional OBE's (the ones that a person claims to be able to enter at will). I believe that in those cases, those are a form of lucid dreaming, and not really the mind/spirit floating around.

I just woke up from a mid after noon nap, but before I did I was able to lucid dream. I'm not someone that claims to be able to lucid dream regularly, or on command. For me it's more a matter of luck.

On some very random and unpredictable days (maybe once or twice a year) I'll be in the middle of a dream and I'll realize that I'm dreaming. At this point I'll either panic and try and wake up, or like today, accept it and actively try control myself in it knowing that I will be waking up shortly.

Well since I've been thinking a lot over the past few weeks about what it is that NDE'rs experience when they claim to have an OBE, I decided to test a few things in my lucid dream. In particular the whole being able to float through physical objects.

So I will describe my lucid dream for you, and you can take from it what you will. For me, it's kinda made it harder to believe that NDE OBE's are merely dreams.

I was sleeping on my living room couch, when I suddenly caught myself waking up and walking towards the dining room table. It was at this point that I realized that I was dreaming. I wanted to make sure I was in fact dreaming, so I jumped and proceeded to float. This confirmed for me that I was dreaming, since you know... the whole floating thing. [ I'd like to point out here that for those of you who have never had a lucid dream before, the floating/flying part is the coolest experience. It always makes me feel like a bad ass.]

So at this point while I'm floating in the middle of my dining room I become aware that I'll be waking up very shortly so I want to test something out as soon as I can. I wanted to see if I could float into my neighbors apartment and observe what he was doing, since some NDE'rs have claimed they've been able to float into the hallway etc. I tried floating through it but I couldn't, as soon as I got to the wall, it felt like an actual physical barrier. I even started trying to come up with a mental model of their apartment, but still couldn't get through the wall. This really surprised me, as I really was expecting to float through the wall.

I very briefly woke up into that hazy disoriented sort of awake state, for significantly less than a second, and I fell back asleep. I was determined to try again. This time I somehow managed to will myself into a lucid dream (this is the first time I ever have, I really hope it doesn't become a habit because lucid dreaming has always sorta freaked me out).

Anyways I heard one of my neighbors outside saying something about "it's nice [laughter] smile" or something, I can't even remember clearly anymore even though it happened less than 10 minutes ago ( I started writing this as soon as I woke up for real.... or did I? dun dun dun).

So as soon as I heard my neighbor I ran from my couch to the door and tried again to float through it. I did this because I've heard the case of Jerry Baldwin where he is able to witness his neighbor puking outside while having an NDE induced OBE. I've always dismissed this as perhaps being a case where he heard his neighbor puking, and imagined the rest.

So I tried floating through the door, but again I was unable to. I tried seeing through the small window at the top of the door, so I floated up to that vantage point, but couldn't see anything distinct other than muddled images of sky, a tree, green, and light poking through. A very hazy nature image.

So I opened the door physically, and poked my head outside. I caught my neighbor walking down the walkway towards her car as she was leaving. She was talking to our neighbor, while doing so. There were a few things wrong with the scene though.
1. This neighbor lives on my left, in my dream she was on the right.
2. Her door was maybe less than 2 feet next to mine. In reality it is over 2 feet away. In fact the whole spacing was very messed up, even though she was walking away she was right next to me. It's a dream, doesn't have to make sense.
3. She was wearing a light grey sweat suit. A few minutes ago while I was typing this I heard her car pull into the parking lot, and looked out the window to see her. She was not only arriving, as opposed to leaving, but was wearing some sort of white shirt with black stripes running across it, and carrying a black jacket.

I also want to point out that at one point during my lucid dream I felt scared because I "felt" a dark figure standing behind me. As soon as I felt scared, I turned around and said to myself "I don't care, I'll confront it, my christ will protect me". This is strange because I am not Christian or religious.

This experience made it hard for me personally to believe that NDE induced OBE's are merely very vivid lucid dreams, or any type of dream at all. From the way they are described they are detailed, and described as "more real than real".

For me everything was hazy and choppy. The images were muddled, as if the peripherals were covered by frost glass. I wasn't even experience the whole thing as some sort of continual experience, it was chopped as if someone took a film and cut out random sections of it.

Although during the portion were I was looking out my door towards my neighbor, I was a little worried that maybe I really did wake up and was very disoriented and groggy, or sleep walking, and was about to embarrass myself in front of my neighbor. Although my vision wasn't anything like an actual awake state.
 
Hello, I have never had lucid dreams or out of body experiences of which was aware, but according to the literature I have read, there is one thing that can allow us to distinguish lucid dreams and OBEs: the lucid dreamer can interact with the environment, he / she can pick up objects, he / she can throw them, etc. Instead OBErs can not interact with the environment, he / she tries to pick up objects but through them, he / she tries to talk to other people but no one responds. This suggests that OBEs are not mere constructions of the mind of the experimenter.
 
Hello, I have never had lucid dreams or out of body experiences of which was aware, but according to the literature I have read, there is one thing that can allow us to distinguish lucid dreams and OBEs: the lucid dreamer can interact with the environment, he / she can pick up objects, he / she can throw them, etc. Instead OBErs can not interact with the environment, he / she tries to pick up objects but through them, he / she tries to talk to other people but no one responds. This suggests that OBEs are not mere constructions of the mind of the experimenter.

That's not really on target, I don't think. It seems you have read a relatively narrow selection of the literature available on the OBE and lucid dreaming. There are no clear definitions that would allow us to differentiate between lucid dreams, OBEs and phasing for many practitioners. Suffice it to say that all these experiences allow one to experience the nonphysical with some degree of conscious awareness. In talking with some long time experiencers of the OBE, there is still much uncertainty about whether the nonphysical spaces encountered during these experiences are common (or shared areas) or personal areas related to the imagination. And though the literature gives some examples of differing levels of veridical information transfer, it may be possible that this veridical information is captured within a personal nonphysical space, say through clairvoyance.
 
That's not really on target, I don't think. It seems you have read a relatively narrow selection of the literature available on the OBE and lucid dreaming. There are no clear definitions that would allow us to differentiate between lucid dreams, OBEs and phasing for many practitioners. Suffice it to say that all these experiences allow one to experience the nonphysical with some degree of conscious awareness. In talking with some long time experiencers of the OBE, there is still much uncertainty about whether the nonphysical spaces encountered during these experiences are common (or shared areas) or personal areas related to the imagination. And though the literature gives some examples of differing levels of veridical information transfer, it may be possible that this veridical information is captured within a personal nonphysical space, say through clairvoyance.

Lucid dreams are dreams in which the dreamer is aware that he / she is dreaming and can have full control over their dreams. According to the literature I've read, the OBEs are not, because OBErs are severely limited when in a replica of the everyday environment, they can not move or throw objects, etc.
 
Lucid dreams are dreams in which the dreamer is aware that he / she is dreaming and can have full control over their dreams. According to the literature I've read, the OBEs are not, because OBErs are severely limited when in a replica of the everyday environment, they can not move or throw objects, etc.

I would just suggest that you keep reading then. Read the user OBE diaries on the forums dedicated to OBE, astral projection or lucid dreaming. You will begin to see a lot more similarities than differences. Read everything you can find on the OBE, astral projecting, phasing and lucid dreaming. You are only reading a fraction of the literature that is out there.

Many writers on the OBE write as if their experiences are the "true" experience of the nonphysical. Then you read someone else who entirely contradicts the first writer and they know the "true" experience of the nonphysical. You need to read widely and with an open mind free of mystical or historical ideas of the OBE in order to get a larger picture of the phenomena. For the best objective contemporary view read Fred Aardema's book--Explorations in Consciousness.
 
Back
Top