Messages

Well I think LD's and OOB's are different.  

I think that in LD, consciousness resides in the physical body and is of low-quality, with impaired mental function, limited recall of daily activities, a lot of fantasy constructs and basically an internal experience.  The environment, if located in a known physical loaction does not accurately reflect the actual physical conditions, weather etc at the time.

In OOB on the other hand, consciousness resides external to the physical body, is heightened, with expanded senses, greater sense of reality, 360 deg vision sometimes, communication by telepathy rather than spoken etc etc.  The OOB environment, if located in the physical world can be an accurate reflection of the physical at the time.

There may be a sliding scale between the two, based on the mind-split between physical and OOB consciousness, ie if most of your consciousness is in the physical you will have more fantasy, lower awareness, etc.  If most consciousness is OOB then expanded consciousness, heightened awareness, clearer senses etc.

I think they did some EEG research on several OOBers and found that EEG patterns when OOB were quite different from REM sleep and LD patterns.  LD/OOB... they're quite different.

That's what I think anyway...

catmeow

I think it's a great idea... "a lower dimension".  So we shed our sub-physical body and move onto the next dimension - the physical.  Sadly, in all philosophies I've ever encountered no-one ever mentioned a dimension lower than the physical!

catmeow

Hi yellowsubmarine.

No judgment, we all like to get a bit of software free from time to time.  But I think you should just pay the $40.  It's a good program and worth the money.

catmeow

Hi MajorTom

Just a few comments to add to your stuff...!

"Several dreams after that where I found myself flying own the stairs clarified to me why it would be not be a good idea to jump down in real life"

I too have an obsession with flying/jumping down stairs in my dreams.  In my dreams, I often find myself at the top of a stairwell and find myself leaping/flying down each flight of stairs in one bound.  I do this really quickly and whizz down the stairs.  This invariably is a precursor to lucidity.  I enjoy this leaping/flying tremendously...

"I would often find myself dreaming at night that I was having an OBE. Quite often, in those dreams I would find myself in unknown bedrooms where I would feel the vibrations and leave my dream body! The difference between my OBE's and those dreams became hard to tell especially because such dreams were often fully lucid. "

Me too, I often "dream" that I am OOBing (or dream that I am LD'ing) confusing eh???!!  Much the same as you, I dream that I have woken up and then I go through the whole beaming out technique etc.  In fact since I'm already dreaming i could skip the beaming out stuff and just get up out of my (dream) bed and get on with it!  This causes me an issue too, because I don't know how to categorize the experience... is it a dream an LD or an OOB?

"I came to the conclusion that the hot issue burning under the dispute about the distinction between OBE's and Lucid Dreams goes beyond just simple terminology even though the underlying topics of the debate are often not explicitly addressed"

I actually believe/suspect that LD's and OOB's are two quite distinct experiences.  Since I've been studying this topic for the past 25 years or so, I can remember the old theosophical theory of multiple bodies... physical, etheric, astral, mental, causal etc etc.  Each body corresponding to a different dimension/plane/level of existance, with the "physical" being the most "dense".  All planes of existence basically obey the rule that matter is moulded by thought, it's just that the physical world is so dense that it doesn't react that much!  The etheric/ astral and higher dimensions are much more responsive to thought.  LD's would then be the consciousness operating in the physical/etheric body, whilst OOBs would be consciousness operating in the astral.  Quite different things.  

The distinction then is that in an LD your consciousness is still basically bound to your physical body... and all the meanderings are "fantasy".  Levels of awareness are dream-like and the mind doesn't function that well.

An OOB on the other hand is your consciousness operating in the astral body, truly removed from your physical body, operating in a different dimension with expanded consciousness and awareness, sometimes a massively increased "sense of reality", 360 deg vision perhaps, enhanced senses, new colours and sounds, communication by telepathy rather than voice etc etc....

This is an old traditional view, but it is supported by several modern authors....

Buhlman speaks of multiple dimensions separated by "energy membranes", with the physical dimension being the first or "outermost" dimension.

Robert Bruce gives the clearest and best description of multiple dimensions and multiple consciousnesses I have seen.  His assertion is that we are conscious in all dimensions at the same time, and calls this "the incredible mind split" (chapter 3 in his book - read it - it's the best account any researcher has ever given)  Bruce asserts that the difference between a successful OOB and an unsuccessful one is whether we are able to transfer the memory of our OOB from our astral "consciousness" body back to the physical "consciousness" when we return to the physical.

Essentially, I think/suspect that an LD is just the consciousness operating in the physical body.  The LD itself may well reflect the activities and adventures of the astral body... but it is only a mirror, so to speak of what actually happened.

Sylvan Muldoon said something similar... but he actually said that the astral body reflected the actions of the LD... so he had it the other way round.

In all of the above I've mentioned words like physical, astral, body, dimension, consciousness etc etc...   In actual fact these are just words used to create a "model" of what is actually happening.  There may actually be no "astral body" in any objective sense, but the idea of an "astral body" is a useful construct to help us model what is happening.   The truth is that the entire universe might be (and in my opinion probably is) just one big consensus environment, occupying no space or time, and that the many consciousnesses and life energies sharing the concensus experience have agreed a set of rules by which the universe will seem to operate.  This defines our reality experience.

Mathematical physicists have in fact worked out a lot of the rules for the physical universe...  It may well be that there are similar complex rules for each of the many dimensions of existance.

"However, the concept of objectivity is not always a straightforward one. If objectivity means that the OBE state or Lucid Dreams would involve the existence of a non-physical reality that can be perceived and shared simultaneously among different people, matching in every detail, and having some kind of permanency to it in that sense, then I highly doubt it"

Actually, I think I disagree... I think that the "astral" world is (or should be) some kind of consensus world which we can all share.  Otherwise it all seems a bit pointless.....!!!

My definition of "reality" I think would have to contain an element of shared experience between consciousnesses.  Otherwise "my reality" has no overlap with "your reality" and therefore "you" don't actually exist in my world and "I" don't exist in yours.

"But before even beginning to use terms such as objectivity and subjectivity, there must be some sort of agreement first on its meaning, and they may not be the most useful concepts to either approach physical reality or non-physical reality to begin with."

Absolutely.  I would suggest that "objective" is synonymous with "shared/collective experience"  and "subjective" is synonymous with "individual experience".  This is a better definition than "something which exists external to ourselves".

"As noted by Donald DeGracia in his 'Plane Talks' there is no such thing as an objective reality that can clearly be separated from ourselves"

I must read his book, he sounds switched on....

"In those terms, that which we call physical reality is not at all what it seems. In the words of DeGracia, our brains create the world that we perceive, whether in the presence or absence of sensory information"

True.  Hence we can never actually prove that the physical world has any existence, beyond our (mutually agreed) interaction within it.

"Therefore there is no such thing as an objective world that exists outside of our heads and neither does such a world exist during OBE's and Lucid Dreams"

True, but we have agreed a concensus physical world within which we all operate, and this is apparently permanent and collective.  I think this defines what we normally agree to be "reality".  I say apparently, because it's quite possible that the whole physical universe was created a couple of seconds ago and we have all been planted in it with a fake set of memories and experiences.  It's also possible that this world could then just be switched off again!

"I am presented with experiences that have a feeling of reality in no way different from how I experience physical reality, which should put the reality value of physical reality as much in question as that of non-physical reality. This may seem trivial, but scientific rigor, if applied to one end of the spectrum, should work in both directions. If I question the feeling of reality of experiences in the OBE or Lucid Dreaming realm, then it only makes sense to do the same thing concerning our feeling of reality towards physical reality"

True.  I do question it.  But it's a damned good and persistant illusion of reality!  It p%&&%s me off that my bashed knee hurts a lot today and it will hurt again tomorrow!!!

"And, as far as I can tell, the feeling of reality we assign to experience in physical reality has little to do with 'physicality', but appears to rely solely on rhetoric and persuasion and our attitude towards it."

Well yes i agree, but in actual fact I have a suspicion that "reality" is in fact one of the universes absolutes.  There are many accounts of those who OOB'd and experienced a massively heightened "sense of reality".  So when they returned to the physical, the physical world seemed like a dream, by comparison.  Personally, I can just about tell the difference between a "dream" and reality".  Most of my LD's are "dream-like".  Some, a few, are extremely "real", and then it's harder to tell.  But I suspect that we can all recognise "reality" when we experience it.  It may be one of the few universal yardsticks, and as you say has nothing to do with "physicality".

"Does it end with the imagination, expectations, beliefs (conscious or unconscious) experienced as if existing outside of oneself, or is there something beneath these known layers of the conscious and unconsious mind that has purpose and intelligence. And if we find it, can we just brush it aside as 'the amazing workings of the imagination, but nothing more than that'?."

Good question!  Wish I knew the answer...

In truth, mathematical physicists have now worked out most of the rules that govern the "physical universe model".  Apparently there are 11 dimensions, and matter is made up of "strings".  There are many, possibly an infinite number of parallel universes, all separated by a whisker and they could collide at any moment.  Gravity waves wash right through the whole lot of them.  Because the mathematics fits perfectly the observed behaviour of the universe it is therefore by definition correct.  But it's well weird... and if we can believe all that 11 dimension infinite parrallel universe stuff... we can believe anything!  Seriously...!

catmeow

Good post MajorTom

I'm at work right now... so don't expect a reply for some time!!  But i will try to later...

How much concensus did you and your future wife have while meeting OOB?

catmeow

Matthew..

Thanks for the tip... I like the idea of falling I'm sure i can get something out of that.

btw - erm what do you mean by the "real-time double"??!

catmeow

ok... i'll check out the island...!
catmeow

hey

I'm a bit like the two of you!  I'm an old-timer now and been pursuing OOBs for probably 28 years!  As you know I'm not convinced that my experiences are "real" in the conventional sense, but I've had many of them now...

A number of incontrevertible non-OOB psychic experiences too which help to keep the interest up...  no I don't mean results slightly above what would be expected by chance... but absolutely 100% accuracy... but that's another story..

I'm afraid I don't know Don Degracia, David Warnwer or Stephen Moon.. perhaps they are American (I'm in the UK)

But I do remember Dr Douglas Baker's books and the great illustrations which I loved!  Did you ever read Sylvan Muldoon's book?  (The Projection of the Astral Body) Sylvan Muldoon predates Monroe/Peterson/Bruce/Moen/Buhlman etc by miles.  Also Oliver Fox?? (Astral Projection)

Myself.... I got really interested in AP as a teenager after reading Muldoon's book.  I determined that I would definitely project, the night I finished the book!  So after an uneventful night's sleeping, I woke at about 10am on a saturday morning.  I could hear other people moving round the house and my mother messing around in the kitchen.  I relaxed and concentrated with all my will power to float up.  Well blow me if I didn't do it!!  I just felt myself floating right up towards the ceiling. When I got there I examined the polystyrene ceiling tiles from about 2 inches away.  I think I kind of drifted into a dream then and woke up a little later. After that i was hooked.

I actually wrote a thesis on AP for my General Studies A level and my tutor gave me an "A"!

But life gets in the way and I lost interest/time.  Just now I seem to have had a bit of a resurge of interest tho....  think this is due to the fact that i smashed my knee up skiing and can't do much right now except hover round the 'puta....  I'm sure life will get in the way again soon tho!

catmeow

btw MajorTom... your idea about eye movements...

I actually think that there is or was a research program using this technique.  It was mentioned in a documentary here in the uk a couple of months ago.  Can't remember the exact details, but eye movements were being used to allow LD'ers to communicate with the researchers in some way.  Ah! I remember now... An eye signal was agreed beforehand which the LD'er would use to alert the research team that he was now lucid.  They would then monitor his EEG patterns to see if it changed.  I'll have to look it up on the web...  This could be extended as you say perhaps, to get the LD'er to communicate perhaps a number that the team had set up for him to read...  seems like could have some intersting possibilities

catmeow

Hi MajorTom

Yes I think it would be good to construct an experiment in consensus reality.  I think possibly the best would be to get a friend with the same LD/OOB ability and agree to meet up!  Compare notes afterwards.  It would also be interesting also to get, say, a deck of playing cards, pick one card out at random and place it on top of the wardrobe and then try to see it while projected?  Has anybody tried this?

Regarding false awakenings in a bedroom you used to sleep in... well yes I do this too!  In fact a good many of my LD's start from a false awakening like this...  Usually I realise the bedroom is wrong and it annoys me.. but it doesn't matter really...  as long as I get "out".

Re the "not seeing your own body"... this actually makes total sense if you think about it...  when in the astral we don't actually see the physical world but the astral reflection of it.  Since you are actually using your astral body at the time you would no more see your astral body on the bed than you would if you got up physically and expected to see your physical body on the bed!

Nevertheless... I would like to see it!

Right.. another question.

When I was a young kid... maybe 9 or 10, I used to have a spooky dream in which I was walking round my house at night.  Everything was dim and grey... and it was a bit like wading through a thick mist.  This was a bit unnerving... and I would reach for the wall-light switch to turn the light on.  But when I pressed the switch the light wouldn't come on!  Or else it would just glow really dimly....

A few years later when I had my first LD... walking round the house I wanted some light so I reached for the light switch and flicked it.  You guessed it!  The light didn't come on!  I flicked the switch a few times and kind of "forced" the light to come on but it would only glow dimly...  When this happened in my LD I realised the significance (in my LD)...  whatever state I was in during this LD... it was the exact same state I had been in during the misty dream a few years ago.

The exact interpretation is that this was in fact an OOB, but my level of consciousness was basically dream-like.  Because I couldn't actually interact with the physical light switch, my dream-like mind interpreted this as if I could flick the switch but the light wouldn't come on.

This is now an indelible part of all my LD's - I can flick light switches but the light doesn't come on!  Once again, has anyone else noticed the same thing?

catmeow

Hi all

Thanks for the extra advice!  I did try this morning but didn't get into the right state.. but will keep on trying.. it will happen soon.  I'll try the falling inward thing next time.... (thnx MajorTom)

I agree that these days the trend is to treat all altered states, whether LD, OBE or whatever as having a reality in their own right... and I think this is basically correct.  But the more "useful" realities are "concensus realities" in which two or more consciousnesses share the same environment and experiences.  I think this is more true of OOB's than LD's.

Not to say this doesn't happen with LD's to some extent - I have had LD's which others have shared (They saw me in their dream and confirmed my LD actions... erm and were a bit panicked by it).  Which is kind of interesting...

Coral1 - I was v interested to hear you say that you often find yourself in the house you grew up in... same as me!  I wonder if anybody else has this experience?

The other thing about my LD's is I never ever see my own body in bed!  I do look for it... but either it's a lump under the sheets or else the bed is empty!  Anybody else?

MajorTom is basically correct - what I am trying to achieve is a more classical OOB experience - heightened awareness, see own body, clearer senses etc....  I'll keep trying

catmeow aka joe

Hello MajorTom

Thanks for the advice.  I've read your post carefully and what I think your saying is to concentrate on body sensations, such as getting the "vibrations" going and then doing a traditional sort of "lift off", rather than a "beam out".  I'll give this a try.

In actual fact, I've tried to get the vibrations going in the past, and have actually succeeded in doing this.... but I always seem to get too excited once the vibes start and this seems to prevent the experience going any further.

I do believe that LD's are different from OOB's.  I kind of suspect that we have a type of dream consciousness, which is basically taking place in or around the physical body and perhaps at the same time have a more expanded OOB consciousness which is taking place in the astral "body".  The trick is, at the time of separation, to actually make the jump into the OOB state/astral body, rather than simply staying in the LD state/physical body???

Joe