My first adult OBE (within episodic dream)

[Astral316]

Hey what's good? I'll start off by saying that I was very prone to astral projecting as a kid. I didn't understand concepts of sleep paralysis or anything like that which led to a lot of sleeping problems and frustration. Anyway it ended up disappearing in my teens (though I've had post-sleep paralysis since) and I forgot about that part of my childhood until recently when I came across astral projection. I became interested in solving that mystery so I took up meditating. Right now I've only been able to achieve lower trance stages, but the pre-sleep paralysis that triggered my childhood projecting has returned. I've been working through the childhood fear associated with the pre-sleep paralysis, and have been able to intensify the vibrations that come with it. However I have never reached OBE, always seeming to wake up after the vibrations.

At the same time I've been getting these "episodic" dreams for at least a year, definitely since I did a report on them in a college psych class two semesters ago; on average every other day if not more. The setting can change, the characters can change (often I don't know them), but the feeling (what I refer to as "atmospheric identity") is unchanged. The settings are earthly but strange. I'm usually carrying out some normal human/social action in these dreams which is why I think I very rarely recall them. More often than not I wake up with the "feeling" of the episodic dream, and a notion that things happened in its' context.

It is when something exciting or abnormal happens when I pick up on it easier after waking. In one of these "episodes" I was walking with my dad down a street and point to a couple strange beings (aliens in the dream, though they had a stuffed animal-element to them) in a tree. Another time I saw a vast row of huts along an elevated lawn-like roadside and recieved the information that they were wigwams in Chicago. I had an idea what wigwams were, but I didn't think it was strong enough to be correctly represented in my subconsious mind.

Since I've been meditating, these episodic dreams have been getting more strange, even more lucid. I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with pro wrestling but you should know these guys... a couple weeks ago I had one of these episodes when I recieved the information that Steve Austin killed himself. I'm assuming it was a shot to the head because I remember knowing distinctly his head couldn't be shown during his funeral. Soon after I learn Hulk Hogan also passed by his own fault (though in his case calling it suicide would be an assumption on my part as it wasn't specified.) After learning this I remember being with my dad looking at Hogan's dead body mangled on a dirt covered ground in a setting I don't even remember. His body had a cartoony element to it, and the primary emotion wasn't shock or fear, but awkwardness. I remember saying distinctly, "At least his head is still intact" verbatim. I woke up with that sentence echoing in my head, surprised I said it. I don't remembering saying anything so distinguished in these dreams previously.

The other night I believe was another step closer to my dreams gaining lucidity. This time I was in the ocean at night. I remember I was around people I may or may not have known, but my cat (which was put down maybe a year ago) and my dog were swimming in the water having a grand old time. This may or may not be considered part of the episodic dreams because it had a more magical, joyful atmospheric identity. I was carefree, and remember tilting my head up to look at the night sky. It was covered with a layer of low, hazy clouds but the stars were in abundance. They were visible and bright, shining through the clouds in a way I don't think is possible in reality. I thought about calling this an OBE because my field of vision corresponded to my action (looking up.) On the other hand I didn't know I was dreaming, and didn't have any empirical feeling beyond sight. I settled on classifying it as a lucid dream.

This brings me to this morning. I took a nap around 8 pm last night, woke at 11 pm, and went back to sleep around 1 am. At one point I vaguely remember going through the motions with my episodic dream when suddenly I'm out of body heading down the road just outside my house. It is daytime, and unlike reality there isn't any snow on the ground. Immediately I think, "Wow they aren't kidding when they say this feels more real than reality!" The part I remember distinctly had to last for no more than a few seconds, but it was incredible. Everything just seemed to be so perfect looking and more 3D-like. I remember willing myself to move on my own accord but I guess I lossed control because that's all I remember. I vaguely recall being inside another house and in different areas of my neighborhood, whether real or belief system, OBE or not.

Following the OBE I had a false awakening. I'm pretty sure I didn't awake in my bed, but where ever I was it didn't stop me from assuming I actually woke up. I began trying to recall what happened in the OBE. I remember recalling the last place I ended up in the OBE was an airport (I vaguely remember being in an airport in passed episodic dreams.) However I'm not sure if my OBE recall in the dream corresponded to the actual OBE or was just "mental garbage" because I don't remember an airport in the OBE-portion of the dream. I awoke around 3 am, blown away by what happened and too excited to sleep for a good part of the night.

I've been on this forum, read up, and wondered how it was possible for some of you to differentiate the boundary transference between dreams, lucid dreams, and OBE. My conclusion is there is a fine line between what makes a dream lucid, but the distinction between dreams and OBEs is definite. Sorry if this was a bit long, but I hope to share and document future OBEs here in the future as I improve my ability to explore the astral world. I'd appreciate any questions, comments, or insight. Thanks.

[Greytraveller]

The basic criteria in discerning the different dream and OBE states of consciousness is simply having those experiences again and again. This might sound over simplistic but it actually makes a lot of sense. The only way that you can really be sure of what is going on is to have had that experience before and to be familiar with it. IMO that is why many first time OBE-ers think that they are only dreaming - they have never been out of the their physical body before and are unfamiliar with the sensations and perceptions of the experience.

Most experienced OBE-ers usually know when they are out of body. At least that is what I can infer by reading their OBE accounts. And that is why many new 'projectors' ask questions such as "Was this an OBE or a Lucid Dream? or "Could this have been an OBE?


Grey

[blackcat]

There are certain level of intensity and lucidity and sensation that make no doubt that it was an OBE.  Then I think there is a continuum of lesser levels of intensity that make it  harder to draw a line between OBE and nonOBE.  I think the important thing to remember is that interesting and important stuff goes on every night.  Our job is to become more conscious of that part of us and not to just discount it as society has taught us.  The exploration of that part of us will lead to many interesting experiences including, but limited to, intense OBE experiences.  Every experience has something to offer and teach us, but some are just WAY more fun and exciting than others!  Maybe the exciting ones are the 'carrot' that helps encourage us to work harder.

I would also like to add that many people say that we  have OBEs every night but the trick is only to remember them afterwards.  Such as it your case, it seems that it can be easy to lose track of part or all of the experience such that you don't remember when you wake up.  From my personal experience, there is something about the mind set that makes waking style logical verbal thought and mental processing very difficult.  I watched a show on TV the other day about how when sleeping, most of our brain actually becomes more active but the frontal cortex where logical thought occurs is mostly shut down.  I am thinking maybe that is a big part of it.  The logical brain shuts down and maybe that part of the brain is what normally limits us to a constrained experience most of the time, but when the frontal cortex is turned off, then we can experience other types of things. 
-Eva

My blog of weird journeys:
http://www.realmcrawler.blogspot.com

[Astral316]

Thanks Greytraveller and Blackcat for your thoughts. I think someone on this forum said it best with the line "When you lucid dream, you know (or don't realize) you're dreaming... when you OBE, you know you're awake." It was like a on/off switch that made the difference between a "passive" consciousness and an "in the moment" one.

Question, would a false awakening recalling the OBE be a sort of verification of the OBE experience? I think it is a good indicator since the impact the OBE would have on one's awake mind would then carry over into the dream state... sort of like having a nightmare after falling asleep to a scary movie.