Yes it's quite normal to hear all sorts of noises, especially when first learning.  It's almost as if something mischievous is trying to stop you from projecting, or as if this is a kind of "test" we have to go through.  I often hear noises in my house as if someone were trying to break in or has gotten into the house.  The noises are extremely real, indistinguishable from real physical noises in fact, and I just have to tell myself "I've heard this so many times I KNOW there is no one in the house!" and ignore it.  Once you "get out" the noises go away, and as you get more proficient they go away or simply become more subtle.  Don't worry, as far as I am aware this one of the most common aspects of OBE.  Just ignore them!  If anything you should be encouraged - it's a good sign!  Nothing to be worried about.  You won't be harmed!

Hi IceCold

I understand everything you are saying. Yes it's now an industry. Originally there were only a few authors (Oliver Fox, Sylvan Muldoon, "Yram", Monroe) and their books seemed pretty genuine.  But now it has grown into a huge industry, with authors selling their wares everywhere.  But these days we all have mortgages to pay and everyone has to earn a living.

Having said that, FOR YEARS Robert Peterson and Robert Bruce have published their early works on the internet for FREE, and they still do.  I always admired them for doing this, and this gives them great kudos.

Here we go:

http://www.robertpeterson.org/obebook.html
http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/rbastral.html

I think you can take the works of Fox, Muldoon, Monroe, Buhlman, and in particular Bruce and Peterson as fairly authoritative.

SkepticBoy asked a fair question.  The validation thread has some interesting stuff in, but NDEs provide the best evidence. For some reason NDEs bring in more accurate RTZ validations. All this stuff is anecdotal though (which is why members of this board keep saying "try it yourself") but there is a new "scientific" multi-centre hospital study which is taking this subject seriously:

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_obe_discussions/scientists_prove_life_after_death-t28496.0.html

I shall also be getting a copy of the following PhD thesis from my local library when I get a chance. This PhD was the pre-cursor to the above clinical study.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Near-death-Experiences-Hospitalized-Intensive-Patients/dp/077345103X/ref=sr_1_1

I could personally list my own validations, but would take a bit of time.... and I need to get to bed... I have provided some in the validation thread.  The problem with OBE is that it does tend to be clouded by fantasy elements which makes validations a bit harder. But there are many excellent validations out there....

Nice post Tayesin as always.

I'll just answer quickly a couple of questions.

Best position: For me it is on my back. That's because I can go through an exit procedure of floating up etc. This is harder on my side, although I still have techniques for "side exit".

Dizzy, spinning feeling: I used to get this a lot as a teenager before I managed to control my OBEs. It was as if I was flying and spinning around all over the place, but without any vision.  I actually sometimes induce this sensation now as part of an exit technique.  The sensation of spinning is very good to get you out of your body.  But once out and with vision stabilized, the spinning sensation is gone.

Supposedly yes.  Robert Monroe was spreading it around quite a bit....  The experience is a union, ie a merging of two individuals, it's not like physical sex, much superior apparently.  It's a kind of cosmic/religious bonding thing....

Basically, anything we can do down "here" is a poor man's version of something we can do up "there"... so yes sex is possible in the astral.  "As above so below" as they used to say.

Congratulations! The reversal of your bedroom (wall being on the wrong side) is described by Robert Bruce in his book.  His explanation is that when OBE it's possible to see out of the back of your head (so to speak), in which case everything seems reversed, if you think about it.  You can flick from forward to backward vision, with accompanying reversal of the room's appearance.  Confused?!

Thanks DH for the insight.  NDE accounts are anecdotal to those of us who haven't experienced them at first hand or spoken to someone who has witnessed it.  It's good to hear from someone who has witnessed this type of thing first hand.  I like your acronym ADE which I assume means After Death Experience; it's much more accurate than NDE especially for people who are actually declared clinically dead and show no EEG etc.  For these cases NDE is actually the wrong term.

Wow, book costs £85:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Near-death-Experiences-Hospitalized-Intensive-Patients/dp/077345103X/ref=sr_1_1

And with a title like that it sounds like it may well be her academic thesis.  Not having £85 spare at the moment I'm off to my local library to get a copy...... 

Thanks 007 for the extra link  Yes that looks like it refers to exactly the same new study. 

It seems from your link though that a similar smaller study has already been undertaken by Dr Penny Sartori - and results published in her book.  Looks like I'll have to buy her book now because she didn't indicate what the results were other than:

"Current reductionist explanations for these experiences such as side effects of drugs, low levels of oxygen or that they are simply hallucinations are not supported by the clinical research so far."

So i guess they had some positive results.  The new study looks like it is designed along very similar lines to Dr Sartori's so I guess she is having a significant input to the new study.  Credit to her for sticking at it and taking 8 years to get her PhD.  Her PhD treatise will be available from the University of Wales, for academic purposes.  The book will be much easier to read though.

I too first thought of posting in News and Media  but it's a very quiet forum and I thought this was of sufficient general interest to merit the main forum, at least for a while!

At last....

A large scale multi-center scientific study of NDE's is now underway (apparently) with the active collaboration of hospitals investigating NDE experiences, which occur in the operating theatre during cardiac arrest.

It's called the "Human Consciousness Project", and some people claim it could either "prove or disprove life after death"... (although what is "proof"?)

The study is expected to encompass about 15000 cardiac arrest incidents and is expected to last about 3 years.

The webcasts are quite interesting:

http://www.mindbodysymposium.com/
http://www.mindbodysymposium.com/human-consciousness-project.html

An interesting result, very close.  Keep at it.  There is a problem with reading things as you say, in the astral in that each time you look at a sign etc it seems to change.  But keep at it, you might be able to develop the ability to keep things stable...

The vast majority of my experiences are traditional "exit technique" OBEs. I occasionally phase, and it IS different from remote viewing.

With remote viewing you feel as if you are still in your physical body, but are watching a scene from a distance without being actually "in" the scene.  With phasing you actually transition into the scene.

So with phasing, one moment you are watching the scene, ie one moment you are "outside" the scene. The next moment you are actually "in" the scene and can move around just exactly as if you had done a traditional OBE.

I have spent hours lying in bed (whilst ill) watching scenes, moving images etc, without actually stepping into these scenes.  phasing is the act of actualy stepping into the scene.  It takes a "knack" which is hard to describe, but when you do it you know you have done it.

Colden & Synergy you seem to be "remote viewing", not phasing I guess. You need to "step into" the scene.  I know exactly what you are referring to, because I have done what you describe, being able to move around in bed and maintain the image. But this is not phasing.  With phasing you actually move int o the scene and there is a transition from being "outside" the scene to being completely "inside" it.

The results of phasing are exactly the same as the results of a traditional "exit technique" RTZ OBE, except that the location you find yourself in is different.  With phasing you move directly into an "astral" environment. With OBEs you move into the RTZ and then often quickly into the astral.

The term "external" is confusing.  But by "external" I mean "concensus reality". In other words all parties involved share the same experience.  This definitely does happen, I have done it my self, I have had "concensus reality" experiences, where i shared dreams or brought back info about the physical world which I wouldn't have known.

But as atraveller said, this doesn't prove life after death it just proves ESP.

But in my experience, phasing and OBE are very similar and both are different from RV.

"The Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot - yes it's a good book.

Hello jub jub.  I'm sorry to hear about your loss.  Thanks for the insight.  Yes you're quite right, all the philosophizing in the world doesn't alter the fact that we think and breathe and have lives which come and smack us hard in the face, real, imaginary or whatever.  In the end it doesn't matter two cents, we're here for sure, and we dunno why!

Hi Aquarious.

What Synergy said. (!)  By and large NDEs which occur in hospital theatres, typically contain detailed verifiable information of what took place during the surgery.  So these memories are entirely consistent with the memories of everyone else in the operating theatre, and therefore should have the same status as my memories of what happened yesterday.

NDE memories include details of the surgical equipment used, the people present, what they were wearing, what was said and even details about people in adjoining corridors.  In this respect NDE evidence is superior in general to OBE evidence which tends to contain more fantasy constructs. NDE evidence, when it's present, is usually spot on.  This is a matter of some interest to me, because I think that people who OBE are not fully "out of the body" whereas people who NDE are, and that is why their observations are more accurate.

Why we should therefore treat NDE memories as somehow "fake" or created suddenly at the moment of waking up, when they actually contain all of those elements of consistency and continuity with other living individuals, which we associate with "real" memories, I do not know. Well yes I do, as I said it's a sad cop out by those who are unwilling to consider the unconsiderable.

btw - sorry if this feels a bit like a "pincer" movement by myself and Synergy... but... well..  tough!!!!