Hello David,
I taught myself how to have OBEs about 25 years or so ago, without any previous history with OBEs. It took me about 2 years of off-and-on effort and when I finally had my first OBE it was - like Patty's - seemingly spontaneous. All of my OBEs for the next 20 years also had a spontaneous quality, in that they occurred when I wasn't expecting them. It was only after I got on the internet (about 3 yrs ago) and read up about the 'vibes' and SP, that I was able to have an OBE when I wanted to. It still doesn't happen very often, but that's mostly due to lack of diligence and being involved with the "real world" of raising kids, etc.
The methods I used were a combination of meditation (quieting the mind throughout the waking day), and lucid dreaming - specifically Carlos Casteneda's look-for-your-hands trick. It was actually a few years before I realized that looking-for-your-hands was in fact a lucid dreaming exercise! (Well, there *was* a dearth of literature in those days...) Anyway, I rarely used LDs as a springboard for OBEs because those always seemed more like 'dreams of OBEs', rather than "real" OBEs. Better to initiate them from a waking state, IMO, if you want an experience with more cognitive faculties intact.
Anyway, with all of the "how to" manuals out there you should have a shorter learning curve than I had. I do think, however, that regular meditation and otherwise "keeping your excrement together" probably helps to avoid some of the nastier SP experiences that some people relate.
I taught myself how to have OBEs about 25 years or so ago, without any previous history with OBEs. It took me about 2 years of off-and-on effort and when I finally had my first OBE it was - like Patty's - seemingly spontaneous. All of my OBEs for the next 20 years also had a spontaneous quality, in that they occurred when I wasn't expecting them. It was only after I got on the internet (about 3 yrs ago) and read up about the 'vibes' and SP, that I was able to have an OBE when I wanted to. It still doesn't happen very often, but that's mostly due to lack of diligence and being involved with the "real world" of raising kids, etc.
The methods I used were a combination of meditation (quieting the mind throughout the waking day), and lucid dreaming - specifically Carlos Casteneda's look-for-your-hands trick. It was actually a few years before I realized that looking-for-your-hands was in fact a lucid dreaming exercise! (Well, there *was* a dearth of literature in those days...) Anyway, I rarely used LDs as a springboard for OBEs because those always seemed more like 'dreams of OBEs', rather than "real" OBEs. Better to initiate them from a waking state, IMO, if you want an experience with more cognitive faculties intact.
Anyway, with all of the "how to" manuals out there you should have a shorter learning curve than I had. I do think, however, that regular meditation and otherwise "keeping your excrement together" probably helps to avoid some of the nastier SP experiences that some people relate.