A different view on OBE/AP: an article.

[upstream]

Interesting thread. Makes me really hungry for some definitions. As far as I remember I've always tried to emphasize their role on these forums. Yes, I have done some weird experiments here but every time I saw some holy efforts to reach a consensus I was there.

However this conversation seems to reach its natural climax and I'm afraid there is no hope for fulfilling its true purpose. So far I see neither practical nor theoretical achievements and my hope for getting some solid definitions has been gradually diminished by time. (BTW, what the hell is that "BE-link"??)

I like definitions but not verbiage. Most of us know for sure that beliefs create our reality and this simple fact is either true in respect to the person and our society. However our individual thoughts are fairly powerless and they don't seem to be capable for more than mirroring our personal beliefs. Repetition of the current human knowledge is the only way I know through we can consciously and collectively mold the world around us. And this knowledge is based on solid definitions.

Now I'll show you one of my nightmare about consensus reality.

When a group of people reach consensus about something preferably within a field that previously was only a playground of hazy ideas then surely some brand new ways of further exploration will open up - seemingly by mere coincidence. For instance, there is an enormous number of instruments from detectors to CRT displays that seem to build on one simply principle, that is, using two perpendicular EM-fields in order to accelerate and deflect ions in vacuum. This principle may be laughably silly yet the number of instruments that have been constructed on it are astonishingly great. If it is not magic then at least suspicious. Is it really about one of the fundamental principle of nature or a collectively accepted belief of humankind?

I vote for the latter and my screenplay goes like this: when mankind as a whole has decided to substitute the old crystal balls with monitors a group of independent scientists somehow came up with this idea. It was not far for them because they have dealt with ions which they never seen. It was easy to convince each other by doing some math tricks within a system that define itself to build the first prototypes. Thought they were lame at first, at least they were worked and our new beliefs about the nature around us was further established. At the end of the day they assured some politicians to built more universities in order to teach us how to explain all this to our mothers.

At present times the more fluid playgrounds of humankind are simply out of our scope. They have sank into the mist of some coexisting past and future, or placed outside of the range of our instrumentally extended senses into the unknown of astral territories. Now we are at the verge of a new science, astral exploration and such things. But don't forget that astral projection as possibly the most direct shortcuts for our individual evolution is one of the oldest spiritual practice of humankind. However, this time will be the first in the known history of humankind when we are going to do it together without hue and cry.

We simply need a firm consensus on the basics to define our farest reaches we dare to believe in. Then we will gain enough coherence to rip those brand new ways around into the formless chaos - "unconsciously" and without "efforts." So just go on and do those definitions as generating a new belief system could be our most important job here at the Astral Pulse Forums.

[Tombo]

Hi Tombodenmann,

I shall just shortly reply here, but in reality there's actually a very elaborate theory behind al these things you mention (could probably write a book on it... hehe). RB's Astral is exactly the same as my mental space. In my viewpoint a project like the astral pulse island could very well be realizable, remember i explained that remote sensing (what i called AP before) makes use of subconscious connections to places, but this can also be to other people/spirits. In that sense it would resemble shared dreaming, where mental space is (partly) shared through a subconscious link. Your experience with colors and linked emotions is very interesting, it shows that we are able to make (more) use of emotional sensing etc while we are not awake. I would for example categorize heightened musical abilities, which i often experience in LD's, in the same group of experiences.

By the way i just thought of something, RB seems to imply that you have to develop your astral senses, in a sense that if you don't, you will be astrally blind, deaf etc. So how does that relate to people, born blind, experiencing an NDE-OBE and being able to see (yes there are examples of this phenomenon)? Just a thought...

Xetrov.

Well I certainly find it fascinating that blind people can see within OBE's, could you give me any hint were I could read reports or more info on that matter?
As far as the astral senses are concerned I do not know about RB's viewpoint, but probably you missunderstood him. I suggest I go to the Question-Answer board and ask him directly.
Basically I must say I do not see any major differences between I and RB.
Ahhh.. One Question: How do you explain the following?

People having a OBE usually experience vibrations before the separtion, but People that induce LD from the waking state "WILD" Don't have this vibrations!

[Xetrov]

Hello upstream.

However this conversation seems to reach its natural climax and I'm afraid there is no hope for fulfilling its true purpose. So far I see neither practical nor theoretical achievements and my hope for getting some solid definitions has been gradually diminished by time. (BTW, what the hell is that "BE-link"??)

I do see a personal achievement in this conversation, i found (and find) it relay interesting and educative. For one i have been pointed out that my definitions were totally different from the ones used here so i will have to consider that in future discussions. I do agree on your point that solid definitions are basic requirements for achieving knowledge (else we cannot share our ideas). Who knows where this exploration which is currently under way will lead? Perhaps as you say, to a new belief system (part of which is already under heavy construction)...
By the way, this BE-link we talked about is what was called here Bio-Energetic link, or the connection between physical body (most likely brain) and spirit.

...could you give me any hint were I could read reports or more info on that matter?

For one, research by Ring and Cooper have shown this to be true in many cases. They invested the phenomenon and wrote a book on it (Mindsight: Near-Death and Out-Of-Body Experiences in the Blind). Also, if you are interested read this page which is dedicated to their research: http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence03.html

I do not think i misunderstood RB's ideas on astral senses, but to be sure i will read up more on the topic and see what i can come up with.

People having a OBE usually experience vibrations before the separation, but People that induce LD from the waking state "WILD" Don't have this vibrations!

I don't really see why you raised this point, perhaps to show that LD and OBE are 2 different things? Anyway your claim is just not true. It depends on the method which is used to induce a LD or 'OBE' (which is almost the same phenomenon anyway, according to me and to RB who says they are very closely related, i just explain them differently). I'm also active on a forum on lucid dreaming, and according to the experiences of many people there, one of the experiences that is considered closely linked to WILD and to induction of OBE are these vibrations. These vibrations happen a lot when you go into a trance state and keep yourself conscious.

[catmeow]

Hello Xetrov

I liked your article.

I was interested in your link (http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence03.html) about blind-from-birth people experiencing sight during NDE/OBE.

It's interesting to note that Robert Bruce actually disagrees with the idea that someone who is congenitally blind will be able to see during OBE.  His theory is that perception during OBE is dependent on the "learned sensory reception capabilities of the physical brain" (sic).

Here is the quote from p101 of Astral Dynamics:

However, if the physical eyes had nothing to do with OBE perception, then people who have been blind since birth (never experiencing sight) should also be able to see clearly during dreams and projections - which unfortunately is also not the case.  Therefore OBE sensory perception must also be dependent on the learned sensory reception capabilities of the physical brain, not the current functioning or nonfunctioning abilities of the sense organs.  These principles also apply to profound deafness.

He expands on this and says that blind projectors are able to perceive their environment very clearly, but the sense used is not vision.  It is more akin to putting out "feelers" and feeling the whole environment as if running fingers over it.  Thus, a blind projector would be unable to discern the image depicted in a painting, but the texture of its surface would be clear.

This part of Bruce's book has always caused me problems.  He says that OBE perception depends on the "learned sensory reception capabilities of the physical brain".  So a blind person perceives his OBE environment in terms of the sense of touch, because he has learnt this method of sensing whilst using his physical body.  A sighted person perceives his OBE environment using the sense of sight, which he has similarly learnt using his physical body.  The logical conclusion must be that astral beings are "senseless" until they have incarnated at least once in a physical body, and thereby acquired a sensory framework.

This simply doesn't seem to "fit" with the idea of an objective "real" astral world.  Why would we be astrally blind until we learn to see using physical eyes?  Surely astral beings would be able to perceive using a suitable set of "astral senses", regardless of whether or not they have incarnated in a physical body?

So that's why the link you gave is very interesting.  It appears to contradict Robert Bruce.  It is also supportive of the objective OBE hypothesis, whereas Bruce appears to weaken the hypothesis.

catmeow

[Telos]

Interesting thread. Makes me really hungry for some definitions. ...

Using mathematical terminology (like "plane" and "dimension") to describe psychic phenomena is inherently confusing. Many people who subscribe to the externality of the astral also tend to believe that our consciousness is actually part of a "God" consciousness which has divided itself in order to experience life.

Then why not use the word "division?" Saying, "I went to the astral division," makes sense to either interpreter. The spiritualist recognizes a division of the God consciousness, and the materialist recognizes a division of the self-consciousness.

"Division" may sound boring, but it's a soberingly apt word for the nature of the experience. Does anyone agree?

[Xetrov]

Hello catmeow,

I can tell you exactly how I and several others think about the fact that Bruce has claimed no visual sight for people in 'OBE' while NDE experiences show otherwise. This is because RB's OBE's from sleep/trance are experiences, like (lucid)dreams, that  take place only within our so called mental (construction of the) body. This experience thus takes place within the confines of our physical body, by which i mean that our astra-mental body (as Clark describes it) or spirit (as I would call it) does not separate from the physical body. So the Bio Energetic link between spirit and physical body is not severed, and as such we do not really find ourselves in the astral but in our mental constructions, or dreams. This is different from an NDE-OBE where our astra-mental body (or spirit) is temporally released from the physical body (which is logical since if you believe we do have a spirit, it leaves the body at death).

Whetter we are awake or asleep, we always experience consciousness from within our mental construction of the world (including a mental body). Part of this mental body is the 'blueprint' of our physical body, and with this i mean all the mental information we have about our physical body. How it feels, where it extends physically, what sight is, etc. Obviously, people blind from birth lack the mental construction of sight. As said, this mental blueprint of our body is taken with us when we go to sleep and dream. This can be proved easily, since in most of all our dreams we also seem to have a normal body, normal sight, etc etc. This is exactly what happens in RB's OBE's. Blind people have a mental construction of their bodies that does not include visual sight, so during (lucid)dreams and OBE's as described by Bruce (which are the same), they have no visual sight. However, when people really go into the astral, by separating their astra-mental body, or spirit, during an NDE-OBE, the mental construction of our bodies is (partly) negated by the real astral senses! At least, the mental constructs of physical sensory disabilities like being blind are negated, since those perceptions are taken over by our astral senses. As Ring and Cooper have shown, for blind people this is a pretty much confusing experience since they have never had visual sight before.

To me and really quite some others, this is a logical explanation of the discrepancy in Bruce's theories. This does not mean that OBE's from trance and dreams are less valuable in any way, just that they do not really take place in the astral, which really is a place that is not prone to the influence of the mind. Influence of the mind on shaping objects is something mental, which happens within our mental picture of the world (especially and mostly exclusively in our dreams). Bruce idea is very likely caused by the very real feeling that during an OBE from trance/sleep, one is really 'out of their physical body', like what happens in an NDE-OBE. I cant blame him though since it feels so extremely real. I also want to stress that perceiving different astral dimensions etc is still a possibility from within such an trance/sleep 'OBE', by means of what Bardon called 'mental wandering' and what i described as remote sensing. So what i tell you doesnt need to underminde any of the astral experiences people might have had (especially those of the more advanced 'OBE' people, who can discern between mental images and astral information). The difference is just in the fact that one goes not realy into the astral by means of their astra-mental body or spirit. I can also imagine that if someone comes around and tells that things are different (like me), he will probably not be believed at all and frowned upon as having no experience of himself. As some people have said (and with which i agree), hands-on experience is everything, so i must admit i have not yet experienced an NDE-OBE (if you read Bardon you see this is very hard, unless you get into an accident or so). However, some people I'm close with have, and their experiences coincide with what i wrote here. Perhaps i might talk some of them into adding their experiences to this forum. I wonder however, if there are any people on this forum that have actually succeeded in inducing an NDE-OBE as described by Bardon, and what their ideas on the topic are.

[catmeow]

Hi Xetrov

What you are saying, to me at least makes a lot of sense.  

I believe there is a genuine OBE experience (what you call an NDE-OBE and I call an OBE) and there is a dream-like experience (what you call a Fake-OBE and I call a LD).

In my opinion, during LD, the mind operates at a low-level, has poor memory, impaired critical faculty, is prone to drift back into an unquestioning dream-consciousness etc.  The LD world is an internal fantasy construct, and as you suggest, the senses we use reflect the normal physical senses we use during normal physical life, hence non-sighted people do not experience sight during LD.

On the other hand an OBE is an external non-fantasy experience, in which individuals participate in a shared non-physical world.  The level of consciousness is high, often HIGHER than normal physical consciousnes.  It is sometimes described as feeling "utterly real" etc.  There is continuity of memory, critical faculties operate, there is no tendency to slip back into a dream-consciousness etc.  Also occasionally,  the senses are enhanced, for example 360 degree vision, new colours never seen in the physical world, new sounds never before heard.  There may even be new senses, for instance the sense of simply "knowing" pieces of information.

This distinction, between LD and OBE is classical.  I have been studying the subject for 30 years and have read most books on the subject.  The above distinction (between LD and OBE) has been made by several authors, eg Celia Green, Robert Crookall etc.  Even Sylvan Muldoon, one of the early pioneers, accepted that a person could be dreaming (for instance dreaming about flying) and then suddenly "wake" out of the flying dream to find that he is actually floating above his physical body.  If the dream state and the OBE state were one and the same thing, there could be no such awakening.

In fact Muldoon recommends this as a technique for actually inducing OBE.  The idea is to induce a dream about say, going up in an elevator.  This then actually induces the astral body to follow the dream and move "up", "out", to a different "focus", to a different "level" (whatever you wish to call it).  If you then have the presence of mind to "wake up" you will find yourself projected.

In recent years the perceived wisdom has been to blur the distinction between LD and OBE.  When I joined this board back in April I was surprise to find that so many people did not see a distinction between OBE and LD, whereas traditionally, in the past the distinction was clear.

I think this is part wish-fullfilment.  It is very easy to have a LD but hard to have an OBE, and to the many millions of people who regularly have LD's it is a very attractive idea to believe that these are real and magical experiences, when in fact they are really just fantasy.

In actual fact I do believe there is an entire sliding scale between LD and OBE.   At one end of the scale we have a purely internal fantasy experience and at the other end we have a vivid, real, non-fantasy  experience.

I think the sliding-scale is perhaps a function of your "level of awarenes", ie the level of critical consciousness which is operating.  An LD can be almost indistinguishable from a true OBE, because the dreaming mind is in a very receptive state and is privvy to information gathered by ESP.  Hence we could have a convincing LD in which we seem to travel to someone's house, observe what is going on there, and find when we wake up that the details collected are largely accurate.  I have done this, but considered the experience to be a dream.  The reason is as follows:

Personally I have had many thousands of LD's (OBE's?).  But I am still waiting to have one in which I can "see" in 3 dimensions.  Let me explain.  I was born with a congenital lazy left eye, ie I had a squint.  It's been corrected surgically now, but I have never learned to combine the images from my left and right eyes into a single 3D image.  Hence my world is "flat".  I do not know what it is like to see in 3 dimensions.  I have a tendency to double-vision.

When I first became interested in OBE's I knew that I would recognise the experience because during OBE I would SEE IN 3 DIMENSIONS.  Why wouldn't I?  The astral senses are not hampered by the disabilities of the physical body.  I really looked forward to discovering what this feels like - to see in 3 dimensions!  To date I have never experienced 3D vision during LD.  ALSO, I have a tendency to double-vision in my LD's, just as in the physical.  So, do I have the same lazy eye disability in the astral as I do in the physical?  I think not.

So it is hard to reconcile my non 3D vision experience with the idea that I am operating in a non-impaired astral body with its own set of perfect visual senses.  Because this isn't my experience.

I have had many LD's which appeared to be pure fantasy.

At the same time I have had a number of LD's with psychic content, in which I gathered information I could not have known.  I have had shared LD's in which I met another person and afterwards when we compared notes we had EXACTLY the same dream.  These however are the exception rather than the rule.  I can easily explain this by assuming that ESP is operating, and my dream-consciousness maps this ESP-gained information into my internal dream world.

When I experience 3D vision during an LD I will accept that it is a real experience of myself functioning in an alternate reality.  Until then the jury is out....!

I would say, in passing however, that this was in fact Monroe's position, expressed towards the end of Journeys Out Of The Body.  He couldn't say for certain that the whole thing was just a series of vivid dreams...

catmeow

[Xetrov]

Hey catmeow.

It is interesting to hear your story. Your 3d-disability in LD's seems indeed to support our viewpoint! You spoke of genuine and false OBE's, I would however not prefer such vocabulary since every experience is 'genuine' in my opinion. Besides that, people do really experience being out of their body (it looks real) so i would suggest we could call it RB type-OBE or LD. Anyway i know what you mean, and these definitions are a bit beside the point. I will react now to some of the things you wrote in your post.

In my opinion, during LD, the mind operates at a low-level, has poor memory, impaired critical faculty, is prone to drift back into an unquestioning dream-consciousness etc.

This is generally true, however, most really experienced lucid dreamers do have the ability to restore a lot, if not all, of their daily faculties and awareness into their LD's. All this takes is (depending on your talent) a sufficiently long time of experimenting and exploring. I count myself among those people who have at least come quite some way into being fully aware in their LD's (not in every LD yet, but still). When you do come this far (and a lot of people on this forum probably know and experience this), the things you can do in a LD increase tremendously compared to the time where you became lucid, and just went with the flow of it. This includes remotely sensing/viewing astral phenomena.

In recent years the perceived wisdom has been to blur the distinction between LD and OBE.  When I joined this board back in April I was surprise to find that so many people did not see a distinction between OBE and LD, whereas traditionally, in the past the distinction was clear.

Indeed, this was exactly the reason why i decided to write and post my article here. I cannot count the amount of times i had to explain to beginning LDers that their dream about floating out of their body isn't really  the same as actually your spirit leaving your body perceiving the astral.

In actual fact I do believe there is an entire sliding scale between LD and OBE. At one end of the scale we have a purely internal fantasy experience and at the other end we have a vivid, real, non-fantasy experience.... An LD can be almost indistinguishable from a true OBE, because the dreaming mind is in a very receptive state and is privvy to information gathered by ESP.

Yeah i see / experience it the same. To me the scale is actually as follows: There are at least 5 (and probably 2 more) stages of sleep/awareness, correlating to brainwave length. 1 being Betha, 2 Alpha, 3 Theta, 4 Delta, and 5 beyond delta. LD's and RB-style OBE's all happen above level 4, during REM sleep (REM sleep consists of a mixture of Betha Alpha and Theta). This is why they are so visual, they are actually dreams. In deep sleep, which is level 4 or Delta waves (this is scientifically prooved), if people dream here at all, those dreams are of much less visual quality (some say, black and white). So during a typical RB type-OBE or LD, no one actually normally goes this deep. You can know you are in deep sleep (if you are lucid) because of 2 factors, 1) The dreams if you have any as i said are extremely less visual in nature, and 2) waking up instantly from deep sleep is nearly impossible. I have traveled a few times myself lucidly into Delta sleep and my experiences are exactly as i described here. Remote sensing of astral phenomena also seems to become increasingly more easy at lower levels of brainwaves (as people in deep trance can relate too!). However, if you still go deeper than delta stage, you get into level 5 of sleep which is where you can be able to induce a NDE-OBE. Note that if you want to achieve this, you have to be extremely proficient in LDing and in keeping your 100% awareness during all stages of sleep. The Bio-Energetic link connecting spirit and body is so low here it is possible to (temporally) sever it and go totally beyond the physical body. A friend of mine has done this experiment by which he also measured his brain activity. He went into an NDE-OBE and when he returned later awake, his brain activity was virtually 0 at that time. This in itself doesn't 100% prove anything but all facts taken together does point in a certain direction. It also does have a certain logic to it, since when the body dies the brainwaves go to 0, so the closer you get in life (sleep stage 5 or deeper) the closer you get to death and to a possible NDE.

[Tombo]

Xetrov and catmeow

Your ideas seem pretty inconsistent to me. I'll try to show why:

First of all you seem to agree but actually support conflicting ideas:

catmeow writes:

This distinction, between LD and OBE is classical. I have been studying the subject for 30 years and have read most books on the subject. The above distinction (between LD and OBE) has been made by several authors, eg Celia Green, Robert Crookall etc. Even Sylvan Muldoon, one of the early pioneers, accepted that a person could be dreaming (for instance dreaming about flying) and then suddenly "wake" out of the flying dream to find that he is actually floating above his physical body. If the dream state and the OBE state were one and the same thing, there could be no such awakening.

Xetrov writes:

don't really see why you raised this point, perhaps to show that LD and OBE are 2 different things? Anyway your claim is just not true. It depends on the method which is used to induce a LD or 'OBE' (which is almost the same phenomenon anyway, according to me and to RB who says they are very closely related, i just explain them differently). I'm also active on a forum on lucid dreaming, and according to the experiences of many people there, one of the experiences that is considered closely linked to WILD and to induction of OBE are these vibrations. These vibrations happen a lot when you go into a trance state and keep yourself conscious.

I could go on, but the point is you two do NOT agree! But,  you think you do ,which makes it quite confusing to follow the discussion...

Anyways....

The following points seem problematic to me:

-Do you have any studies that show that people born blind can't see during OBE but can during NDE? Are there really no born blinds that can see during OBE? (what would that prove anyway?)

Xetrov: You write:

"Whetter we are awake or asleep, we always experience consciousness from within our mental construction of the world (including a mental body)."

and

"However, when people really go into the astral, by separating their astra-mental body, or spirit, during an NDE-OBE, the mental construction of our bodies is (partly) negated by the real astral senses"

You assume that there is a "real" (Astral)world and I mental construct (Which in it self already is a assumption which one can not verify) then you go on  state that our waking life is inside this mental construct but the NDE's takes place in the "real" Astral outside the mental construct.  There is absolutely no logical reason to assume this! what criterion would you use to decide whether an experience is taking place in the mental construct or not. That I would really like to know!!!

then you go on...

"There are at least 5 (and probably 2 more) stages of sleep/awareness, correlating to brainwave length. 1 being Betha, 2 Alpha, 3 Theta, 4 Delta, and 5 beyond delta. LD's and RB-style OBE's all happen above level 4, during REM sleep (REM sleep consists of a mixture of Betha Alpha and Theta)"

and

"However, if you still go deeper than delta stage, you get into level 5 of sleep which is where you can be able to induce a NDE-OBE. "

Ermmmm

To assume what other people are capable of doing is not a smart thing to do, to say the least.
You actually believe that people could have a real OBE during sleep, but simply assume that most of them just fantasize a real OBE cause there brain still works but you have the know how to "really" do it.
You fail to support this thesis with any real facts.

your only arguments seems to be:

In NED's the environment is not prone to thoughts but in common OBE's it is. Well, this is just not true.
It is a well known facts that NED's seem to comply the expectations of the Person having the NED's (Christs have different NED's then Buddhists) No Evidence supports a solid, stable, objective World after dead, also people claim to have OBE's that are not very prone to thoughts.

and...Most OBE's are close to Dreams...

Well what are dreams anyway? Just Fantasy? It is well know that you can experience things in LD's that you never dreamed of being able to do. things beyond our imagination "split yourself into multiple persons" "be a flower" "experience unconditional love" "Know everything"  "experience unknown colors" etc..
Isn't it a bit easy to just say, thats all just a mental construct A simulation of reality by the brain?

Since when is a simulation more extensive then the thing simulated?

Cheers Tom

[Tombo]

Xetrov and catmeow

Your ideas seem pretty inconsistent to me. I'll try to show why:

First of all you seem to agree but actually support conflicting ideas:

catmeow writes:

This distinction, between LD and OBE is classical. I have been studying the subject for 30 years and have read most books on the subject. The above distinction (between LD and OBE) has been made by several authors, eg Celia Green, Robert Crookall etc. Even Sylvan Muldoon, one of the early pioneers, accepted that a person could be dreaming (for instance dreaming about flying) and then suddenly "wake" out of the flying dream to find that he is actually floating above his physical body. If the dream state and the OBE state were one and the same thing, there could be no such awakening.

Xetrov writes:

don't really see why you raised this point, perhaps to show that LD and OBE are 2 different things? Anyway your claim is just not true. It depends on the method which is used to induce a LD or 'OBE' (which is almost the same phenomenon anyway, according to me and to RB who says they are very closely related, i just explain them differently). I'm also active on a forum on lucid dreaming, and according to the experiences of many people there, one of the experiences that is considered closely linked to WILD and to induction of OBE are these vibrations. These vibrations happen a lot when you go into a trance state and keep yourself conscious.

I could go on, but the point is you two do NOT agree! But,  you think you do ,which makes it quite confusing to follow the discussion...

Anyways....

The following points seem problematic to me:

-Do you have any studies that show that people born blind can't see during OBE but can during NDE? Are there really no born blinds that can see during OBE? (what would that prove anyway?)

Xetrov: You write:

"Whetter we are awake or asleep, we always experience consciousness from within our mental construction of the world (including a mental body)."

and

"However, when people really go into the astral, by separating their astra-mental body, or spirit, during an NDE-OBE, the mental construction of our bodies is (partly) negated by the real astral senses"

You assume that there is a "real" (Astral)world and I mental construct (Which in it self already is a assumption which one can not verify) then you go on  state that our waking life is inside this mental construct but the NDE's takes place in the "real" Astral outside the mental construct.  There is absolutely no logical reason to assume this! what criterion would you use to decide whether an experience is taking place in the mental construct or not. That I would really like to know!!!

then you go on...

"There are at least 5 (and probably 2 more) stages of sleep/awareness, correlating to brainwave length. 1 being Betha, 2 Alpha, 3 Theta, 4 Delta, and 5 beyond delta. LD's and RB-style OBE's all happen above level 4, during REM sleep (REM sleep consists of a mixture of Betha Alpha and Theta)"

and

"However, if you still go deeper than delta stage, you get into level 5 of sleep which is where you can be able to induce a NDE-OBE. "

Ermmmm

To assume what other people are capable of doing is not a smart thing to do, to say the least.
You actually believe that people could have a real OBE during sleep, but simply assume that most of them just fantasize a real OBE cause there brain still works but you have the know how to "really" do it.
You fail to support this thesis with any real facts.

your only arguments seems to be:

1) In NED's the environment is not prone to thoughts but in common OBE's it is. Well, this is just not true.
It is a well known facts that NED's seem to comply the expectations of the Person having the NED's (Christs have different NED's then Buddhists) No Evidence supports a solid, stable, objective World after dead, also people claim to have OBE's that are not very prone to thoughts as well.

and...2)Most OBE's are close to Dreams...

Well what are dreams anyway? Just Fantasy? It is well know that you can experience things in LD's that you never dreamed of being able to do. things beyond our imagination "split yourself into multiple persons" "be a flower" "experience unconditional love" "Know everything"  "experience unknown colors" etc..
Isn't it a bit easy to just say, thats all just a mental construct A simulation of reality by the brain?

Since when is a simulation more extensive then the thing simulated?

Cheers Tom

[Xetrov]

hello Tombodenmann,

Your ideas seem pretty inconsistent to me.

Sorry if that looked so, this is because when i replied to you (the piece you quoted) i meant RB-type of OBE, which is the same as LD to me (and mr catmeow). Catmeow however, in the quote you gave of him, speaks of the 'real' OBE (which i prefer to call NDE-OBE). So you see, we actually agree but because of the different terms and definitions we are using it becomes all a bit confusing. However i knew exactly what Catmeow meant in his last post and i can tell you it is the same as i see it.

I could go on.....

Please do. I don't think you can find them. I do however again apologize for the inconvenience the use of different terms has seemingly caused you (and probably others).

-Do you have any studies that show that people born blind can't see during OBE but can during NDE? Are there really no born blinds that can see during OBE? (what would that prove anyway?)

First of all I showed you a study that shows most blind people (in that study, 15 out of 23 people were able to)  CAN see in NDE-OBE. This fact alone is NOT explainable by Bruce, since he claims it would not be possible. There certainly are blind people that cannot see during a NDE-OBE, but that was beside the point of the argument. However, i agree it would be interesting to check out more studies in this area and see what they can tell us.

For a view on Bruce idea's on astral vision: http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14813.

Bruce writes here:

Note that OBE visual abilities like clairvoyance and etc will not work for all projectors. The abilities of the physical body/mind seem to control whether or not higher levels of OBE vision are possible. This relates to how a blind since birth projector will not gain optical sight during dreams and OBE's, etc. But if a person has sight ability and then becomes blind, then they will dream and OBE with full sight, because that person's mind has learned sight ability.

By and large, examples of people born blind might show us that during an RB type – OBE, they cannot see. This is probably why Bruce writes the above in the first place. I am not aware of people born blind that perhaps have visual abilities in their dreams and RB-type OBE's. If such people do not exist, Bruce and me are both right since I say that these RB-type OBE's are dreams, and in dreams our mental blueprint considdering the senses isn't negated  by our astral senses (i will come back to this in a moment). Bruce in his idea is also right because for him it proves his point (people born blind cannot see). But what if people born blind could see in RB-type OBE? This would disprove Bruce's theory in the first place. For me it would be new information too, and i should think carefully to incorporate this in my view on these things. (On)fortunately there are no researches that i  know of  that show us any people born blind can see in their dreams or RB-type OBE's.

You assume that there is a "real" (Astral)world and I mental construct (Which in it self already is a assumption which one can not verify) then you go on  state that our waking life is inside this mental construct but the NDE's takes place in the "real" Astral outside the mental construct.  There is absolutely no logical reason to assume this! what criterion would you use to decide whether an experience is taking place in the mental construct or not. That I would really like to know!!!

Ok, i shall elaborate a bit more on what i meant here, since my ideas didn't get through to you as i meant them. First of all what proof is there we perceive the world through a mental construct? Well, i would say, we  have a mind! Do you think that we perceive the world as it really is? (Or, if you are versed in philosophy, that we can see the "ding an sich", that which is the objective truth?). Of course not, awareness by definition is being subjective, and being subjective is seeing things "your way", as it were, which is a mental construction. But enough about this. I did not say that an NDE takes place outside the mental construction. Not at all. I said the following

...the mental constructs of physical sensory disabilities like being blind are negated, since those perceptions are taken over by our astral senses

So a partial negation of the mental construct means, that this part is being replaced by a new piece of mental construct, namely the ability to see (astrally). Upon entering NDE-OBE, a person born blind can all of a sudden see and this new vision ability is then incorporated into his or her mental construction, thereby negating the previous construction of being totally blind. That's what i mean. Of course not that the whole mental construction falls away (although i would not know to which degree this mental construction stays put after death, since obviously I'm not death). To make an easy comparison, if you thought that the Chinese people's skin color was pink, but you see a Chinese guy and his skin is not pink but yellowish, your old mental construction of the Chinese will have been negated. That is what i meant, not that the mental construct is gone.

To assume what other people are capable of doing is not a smart thing to do, to say the least.
You actually believe that people could have a real OBE during sleep, but simply assume that most of them just fantasize a real OBE cause there brain still works but you have the know how to "really" do it.
You fail to support this thesis with any real facts.

your only arguments seems to be:

In NED's the environment is not prone to thoughts but in common OBE's it is. Well, this is just not true.
It is a well known facts that NED's seem to comply the expectations of the Person having the NED's (Christs have different NED's then Buddhists) No Evidence supports a solid, stable, objective World after dead, also people claim to have OBE's that are not very prone to thoughts.

I do not assume anything about anyone, at least no less then any of you people do. There are so many examples of RB-style OBE's other people have had, but which you have never experienced yourself (perhaps this includes your following comment: "people claim to have OBE's that are not very prone to thoughts.") Still you assume they are truthful. That's the same I do, I just happen to know people with other experiences (NDE) then you do. But i can tell you something from within my own experience too, which i will come back to in a second.  Also do I not say  that people fantasize everything, it comes all down to an experience that looks so real that by most people it is taken for granted to be what it looks like.Your reaction also shows that you might think that i think these RB style-OBE's to be of less value or in some other way demeaning, but that is not the case. I am just arguing that it is not what it looks.

Do you think it is coincidence that when people's visual center in the brain is active, during RB-type OBE, they can influence the astral by thought? Like, just as in dreams, which are the same or very close, not  only to me but also to RB? Do you say that, it is coincidence that when you go to deep sleep and beyond where this visual center is not active (if you want proof ill search it for you), this is no longer possible? Go and try this experiment: In your next LD or RB style-OBE, go and meditate. Try to sink deeper into yourself, into deep sleep. Try to wake yourself up quickly, if that doesn't work, and there are also NO visuals whatsoever, then you know you are in deep sleep stage. Now when you are here, induce your kind of RB type-OBE, and tell me what happens. I have tried this as well (as have several people I closely know, some even while monitoring brain waves so they were 100% sure in deep sleep) and i can tell you, no OBE whatsoever can take place here. Would it be coincidence that the visual brain center is not active here? To me, not, yet I agree it doesn't prove anything beyond doubt, it just shows in which way we should seek the answers.

Besides this, I also strongly believe indeed that inducing a 'real' NDE-OBE from beyond deep sleep is possible, although i have not yet experienced this yet (i am working on it though). But the fact that REM sleep is so completely different from deep sleep and certainly from stages even deeper shows that there must be differences between RB type OBE's and NDE-OBE's. Also take note that reaching this level to get into NDE is very hard and might take years to learn. I can further underscore this by taking Clark into my argument (some nice articles i lately read, his comments on Bardon's work). His ideas are very similar to mine and his astral wandering is what i call NDE-OBE. If you read carefully you will see that free astral wandering can only be reached after many years of intensive training. Yet the RB type OBE can be done by almost anyone, in any case many people do not even need to practice it at all. This is logical since to go lucid beyond deep sleep (or like Bardon, in very deep trance), takes ages of practicing, unlike RB type OBE's.

Lastly your point about expectation and NDE experiences which you claim can not point us in a direction of an astral dimension that would be solid. 1st of all there are a lot of striking similarities between NDE's all over the world, not depending on what religion anyone has. These experiences are all different from an average RB type of OBE. This in itself shows us only that we might be on to something which is actually not the same at all! So well  now on to the astral, when people die. I cannot really tell you what all the stuff is what is going on there, but people frequently report at NDE that they are welcomed by all kinds of astral beings, be it their lost families or friends, etc. Who says that any of the astral beings can't take the shape of Jesus? This might sound hilarious, but before you laugh at this, let me make my argument here. I meant to say, the astral is not prone to the CURRENT thoughts of the person experiencing NDE. As far as i know people in NDE have never been able to THINK jesus away, or to change his appearance, etc. So although the astral might in some sense confirm to the mental image someone has of it, it is not prone to change by thought whenever this person experiences NDE, which is what the argument was about. Namely, to show that during an RB type OBE you can shape  the world mostly as you wish (depending on skills though), and during an NDE you cant.

It is well know that you can experience things in LD's that you never dreamed of being able to do. things beyond our imagination "split yourself into multiple persons" "be a flower" "experience unconditional love" "Know everything"  "experience unknown colors" etc..
Isn't it a bit easy to just say, thats all just a mental construct A simulation of reality by the brain?

Its indeed easy to say but that doesn't mean its not true. I'm not sure why you would give these examples anyway? To show that a mental construct doesn't exist? I can give you some idea however in what direction you should seek the answer. During sleep and dreams you are in a closer connection to your subconscious self, which allows you to give significance to dreams in the first place. Creativity is extremely increased for example, many people including myself have reported being able to make the most wonderful music in their (lucid)dreams. Would it be so hard to imagine that your dreams can take form according to a mental model you have of how it should approximately feel to be a flower, or to be multiple persons? Also i have never said that in a dream you cannot experience things alien to your mental model. First of all your subconscious can bring on such experiences, second of all contact or a connection with others (astral beings perhaps) can bring you sensations like  unconditional love.

Well sofar my thoughts on your critique on my thoughts, have a nice day anyone who dared to read this far, and to the rest of you also ...

[catmeow]

Hello tombodenmann

First of all, in your critique, could you please address myself and Xetrov separately.  In this way I can answer questions directed to me and Xetrov can answer questions directed to him.  The following observation:

First of all you seem to agree but actually support conflicting ideas:

is utterly meaningless.  Xetrov has his opinions and I present mine independently.  To attempt to negate our opinions by combining them and then saying that we disagree with each other is meaningless.

I have not researched NDE-OBE's so I am not in a position to align or mis-align myself with Xetrov on this particular aspect of his discussion, and it does constitute a major part of his analysis.

At the same time, I would say that I have a lot of respect for Xetrov's opinions and I think he has a very valid viewpoint.  He is entitled to express his ideas without, as I see it ungracious, and frankly, rude (I don't direct this at you tombodenmann) critique.  I think his ideas are interesting and certainly worthy of attention.

Personally, I think I have presented a consistent and valid analysis, ie that of a "sliding scale" from LD to OBE.  To me it is self-evident that when I am LD'ing I am dreaming and this is a subjective reality, shared only by myself .   On the other hand OBE is an objective (ie concensus) reality, shared by other consciousnesses.  

I do not say that OBE doesn't happen.  It does.  I just happen to believe that LD is NOT a collective reality.  In my opinion LD is a personal experience.  This is not to say it isn't a marvellous experience.  It is, I know I've had thousands.  They can be extraordinarily detailed and quite frankly, beautiful.  I had several this morning (as usual).  These were brought on by going through an "exit procedure" involving vibrations, floating (apparently out of my body) etc.  But I am pretty sure these were just personal dreams.  So to me - LD seems very similar to OBE but is really just a personal reality.

I can't see why this should be such an emotive concept to some members of this board.  As I said, this is the traditional viewpoint, and has only recently been superceded by the notion that LD and OBE are one and the same thing.

Now, changing tack slightly. tombodenmann, I will comment on one remark which I think you directed at Xetrov:

Xetrov: You write:

"Whetter we are awake or asleep, we always experience consciousness from within our mental construction of the world (including a mental body)."

I can't speak for Xetrov, but my own opinion is that our entire world is clearly a "mental construct".  This probably applies to all lower states of being - eg physical waking consiousnes (PWC), LD and OBE.  Our subconscious minds actually construct a representation of the world, and our conscious minds then experience this construct.  This construct is based on the information we gather from our senses.  During PWC we use the physical senses.  During OBE we use astral senses.  During LD there is not much sensory input and the experience is largely fantasy (IMHO).  But basically the world we experience is a mental construct.

The situation may be different in higher states of existence.  I couldn't possibly know.  But this is my interpretation of what Xetrov meant.

Changing subject slightly again, the following is an interesting article on EEG and OBE, using subjects such as Monroe and Ingo Swann:

Good article -> http://www.psywww.com/asc/obe/faq/obe17.html

And this is a quote from the article:

During the penultimate session Monroe managed to have an OBE. Tart concluded that Monroe's OBEs occurred in the dreaming state; but this idea presented him with a problem. Monroe claims that for him, dreaming and OBEs are entirely different. Tart finally concluded that perhaps the OBEs were a mixture of dreams and 'something else.' This 'something else' might, he thought, be ESP.

Xetrov, your reply was intelligent and interesting as always.  You said:

However, if you still go deeper than delta stage, you get into level 5 of sleep which is where you can be able to induce a NDE-OBE.

Do you have any research you can recommend on this deeper stage?

Finally, a question to anyone who has actually read this far!  Several months ago I started a thread about 360 degree vision, and nobody was able to confirm that they had experienced 360 degree vision during LD/OBE.  360 degree (or "spherical") vision is reported occasionally by spontaneous OBE'ers, ie people who suddenly find themselves "out-of-body".  RB describes this on page 460 of (the excellent) Astral Dynamics.  This is a visual affect which you might experience whilst OBE'ing.  Please refer to RB's book for a discussion of this.

Has anyone on this board ever experienced spherical vision (ie seeing in ALL directions at the same time) whilst LD/OBE'ing?

catmeow

[MisterJingo]

Having not read the thread in full yet... I'm curious if you have heard of the work carried out by Rick Strassman MD concerning diemethyltryptamine (DMT) release during traumatic experiences - focusing on the NDE experience? DMT is a natural neurotransmitter (which has a much greater affinity than serotonin to certain receptor sites if I remember correctly) and is one of the most potent psychedelics known to science (also being Schedule I in the US!)
In his experiments Strassman administered varying doses of DMT to subjects whose consequent experiences bared striking resemblance to OBEs. Lower doses also produced 'body-loads' which from description, sounded exactly like the classic 'vibrations.'
Perhaps a factor which can differentiate NDEs from normal OBEs is this (potential) release of DMT during such a traumatic event which then progresses/evolves the experience?
To clarify a point: the body is very efficient at cleaning up DMT from the blood stream/brain and has natural enzymes which destroy it. Traumatic experiences seem to override the bodies natural 'clean up' system - which is why people don't constantly feel the effects of this chemical.

I'm also curious as to how other people who are familiar with the OBE state (and with Strassmans and similar work) integrate the effects of DMT (and their seeming instant OBE experience generation) into their perception of the OBE state?
I'd be very curious to see results of blood/DMT levels before and immediately after an OBE and NDE. The fact that DMT is a drug means its effects have a certain duration, which seems contradictory to the OBE state which can be terminated at will. A possible explanation could be the deep relaxation/trance state would make the body more perceptive to very low levels of DMT in the blood stream, which would easily be overridden by the full force of baseline (C1) sensory input.

Strassmans research was recounted in the book "DMT: The spirit molecule," if anyone is interested.

[Telos]

Since when is a simulation more extensive then the thing simulated?

Quite often, actually.

Postmodernist philosophers have labelled this phenomenon "hyperreality." Some philosophers, like Jean Baudrillard, go so far as to claim that our original reality is gone and has been replaced with the hyperreality of modern commercialism, where everything has a sign-exchange value to something that isn't real.

Some examples of hyperreality from Wikipedia:

• a sports drink of a flavour that doesn't exist ("wild ice zest berry")
• a plastic Christmas tree that looks better than a real Christmas tree ever could
• a magazine photo of a model that has been touched up with a computer
• almost all video games
• a well manicured garden (nature as hyperreal)
• Disney World and Las Vegas
• pornography ("sexier than sex itself")
• The stock market

All that's left, according to Baudrillard, are simulations and simulacra. Actually, this was the book that Neo used to store his data disks in the opening scene of The Matrix. (That was the joke -> it was a book being used to simulate a container for data. In doing so it was no longer a real book that contained data on its pages, but a hyperreal book that housed more varieties of data on optical disks.)

Edit: I'm convinced AP et al has something to do with humanity's tendency towards hyperreality. Lucid Dreamers often comment that their dreams are "more real than real," regardless of whether they believe it's the product of their imagination. I don't know quite how to describe this relationship, however - other than lucid dreaming can be skillfully used to simulate something you want to do in real life (giving a speech, etc.).

Interestingly, however, there is a group of posthumanists who believe that technological advancement is heading towards a "singularity," where artificial intelligence achieves our level of sentience and becomes, as Badrilliard would say, hyperreal human. We ourselves would also become hyperreal as our brains and biological systems are augmented with nanotechnology. Aided with nanotech, we would be able to communicate wirelessly in a virtual reality. The way these posthumanists describe virtual reality, you'd think they were talking about the astral plane. Ray Kurzweil seems to gather the most press about this prediction and has a very extensive website kurzweilai.net, along with a few books. My username in the forums over there is "Cyprian."

More Edit: If you want to get really gee-whiz on simulation being more extensive than the object simulated, check this out. That's a NASA gallery of carbon nanotube models. Scroll down to where they simulate proteins and neurons. They're intended to perform better than the object they're simulating.

[Xetrov]

Hello all,

He is entitled to express his ideas without, as I see it ungracious, and frankly, rude (I don't direct this at you tombodenmann) critique. I think his ideas are interesting and certainly worthy of attention.
.....
I can't see why this should be such an emotive concept to some members of this board. As I said, this is the traditional viewpoint, and has only recently been superceded by the notion that LD and OBE are one and the same thing.

First of all Catmeow thanks for your effort in this discussion. I would like to make a small comment to your observations. I have to agree with you when you state that some of the critique I received here tended look somewhat ungracious and rude, at least in my personal opinion. I will however never return this to anyone since my respect for others leaves no room for that, and also since my interpretation of someone's intend might be wrong (perhaps they really did not mean it that way). But enough about that. You also said you can't see why my ideas invoke such emotions. I think i know why. If my ideas were to be true, the whole concept of the RB type-OBE (i will keep this term to differentiate between it and NDE-OBE) would have to be changed somewhat, at least to a degree that it does not take place in the astral dimension but in mental space, although through ESP there is still a sense of exploring the astral. This, i think, is for many people here (those who have been supporters of Bruce's ideas the longest) utterly unacceptable. People will claim my arguments make no sense and that I lack experience. They are right in so far that I clearly had to get used to using the right terms and definitions to make myself clear among this particular public. Also, more experience is never a bad thing, but let me be the judge on my own experiences. I can however imagine why people would say such things, and I dont hold it against anyone. I am just here to show that there is an alternative congruent viewpoint on RB type-OBE's, and as long as the discussion continues I will put my effort in it to be as clear as possible to explain this viewpoint, and answer any questions or points of critique.

That said I have also read the article you linked. I have to say it was very informative and does show a few interesting facts. For example that all the RB type-OBE's happen during non-delta sleep, something I pointed to in an earlier posting. To me this shows it has large parallels to (lucid)dreams, which happen in the same way. The difference seems to be the lack of REM during some of the reported RB type-OBE's. I think the fact that we stay lucid (aware of ourselves), plays at least partly a role in this. From my experience and others, it shows that in this stage one can most of the time control breath and eye movement, when focusing on the physical body. I once actually tested this and concluded during a LD that I was having no REM. Also Laberge tested several people in his dream lab and he found that those people have full control over their eye movements (they even used it to signal information to the researchers). REM seem more to coincide with (subconscious, normal) dreaming, when the dreamer is non-lucid. However, this does not mean dreams can only happen during REM, since they are reported to happen during non-REM too (but not during deep delta sleep). These facts show me that the RB type OBE can most likely best be described as a special kind of LD, from which ESP is possible, and from where probably deeper exploration for more advanced people is possible too.

Do you have any research you can recommend on this deeper stage?

Unfortunately most research into NDE has either NDE caused by accidents or RB type of OBE as their subject. Trying to locate research on this topic is extremely hard, a google search on this subject showed me that there had been some research into yogi's when they stop their heartbeat (Margnelli, M. and Gagliardi, G), however no further information is given. I have been once ridiculed on this forum for adhering to certain ancient yogi wisdoms and techniques, but these do show us in which direction we should look. I can also add that the 'astral wandering' as described by Clark in his notes on Bardon resembles very closely this type of NDE, albeit from a 'magician' perspective. You an find a very thorough and extensive read on that here:

http://www.abardoncompanion.com/IIH-Step1.html

Be warned though that on that page a lot of different terms and definitions are used, but after careful reading I think you can understand most of it. Besides describing similar processes, what both Bardon and the Yogi's show us is that to induce this type of NDE-OBE in ourselves takes an extreme amount  of practice and time, and I must admit I have (not yet) experienced such an NDE myself. However a close friend of mine has done this multiple times (he even measured his brainwaves with EEG, which showed it to be flat, which means it occurred deeply beyond delta sleep, the same which Yogi's and probably also people performing Bardon's astral wandering experience, since that all happens in deep trance beyond delta waves). His experiences are in line with what I describe. Argue what you want and say that this is no first hand experience, I still adhere great value to my friend's experiences which he has build up during the past 20 years. I might ask him to explain his own experiences on this forum. Another thing, this all shows that inducing NDE-OBE is very hard and unless you go into several long years of training yourself it will be nearly impossible. So I dont think its weird that most of us western people have never experienced this yet (exept as caused by accidents, and yes, I count myself extremely lucky to have a friend who has done this from beyond deep sleep). Concluding I would say that it would indeed be a very wise thing to try and seek more information, research etc on this subject (if anyone can point to it I would be pleased) as it is of vital importance to keep an open mind and include all possible experiences in a model that explains NDE type of OBE.

MisterJingo, I have not read that book, but i did a fast search on its contents. I think DMT or other drug experiences can show some valueable insights into the whole OBE phenomenon, although I dont know what the conclusions of Rick Strassman exactly are. Did he manage to create exact NDE-OBE's in his subjects after giving them DMT? Or did they more so look like RB type OBE's? Perhaps that is hard to say anyway since the exact difference between those 2 probably eludes anyone who hasnt experienced them both.

Telos, thanks for your philosophical insights on these matters. I found your link on the significance of hyperreality quite interesting. I think you can even argue that nothing has an inherent meaning, even things without an exchange value, since being aware is by definition being subjective. Does this perhaps mean we have to give meaning to everything we think and talk about? I would even wonder, is it even possible for us to perceive beyond the veil of hyperreality?

A nice day to you all!

[EDIT: some part of this post somehow mysteriously disappeared (my reaction to MisterJingo), so i edited it and put it back again. probably a forum glitch]

[catmeow]

Hello Xetrov

I'll make this brief because this is my night off!

Yes I did complain about the "graciousness" of some of the replies to your posts.  I didn't originally mean to say anything and I won't mention it again, but I felt I needed to say something.

Regarding the threat to people's personal "mindsets" about OBE.  I don't think your ideas about NDE or my ideas about LD are a threat (or should be a threat) really.  We all agree that something interesting is going on.

Please take a look at the works of Susan Blackmore to see a really tough critique about OBE and NDE...!

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/
http://www.psywww.com/asc/obe/whois_bl.html
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/experts09.html

btw, Bardon's work does look very interesting.


catmeow

[Tombo]

Don't you work o.k. I'm a student too (Physics), so I'll take some time to reply.
First of all, I do not wanna sound rude! If I do it is cause my English isn't good enough and cause I'll try to come straight to the point.


"Sorry if that looked so, this is because when i replied to you (the piece you quoted) i meant RB-type of OBE, which is the same as LD to me (and mr catmeow). Catmeow however, in the quote you gave of him, speaks of the 'real' OBE (which i prefer to call NDE-OBE). So you see, we actually agree but because of the different terms and definitions we are using it becomes all a bit confusing. However i knew exactly what Catmeow meant in his last post and i can tell you it is the same as i see it."

O.k. I'll consider you two to agree then.

"First of all I showed you a study that shows most blind people (in that study, 15 out of 23 people were able to)  CAN see in NDE-OBE. This fact alone is NOT explainable by Bruce, since he claims it would not be possible. There certainly are blind people that cannot see during a NDE-OBE, but that was beside the point of the argument. However, i agree it would be interesting to check out more studies in this area and see what they can tell us. "

That is true the studies indicate some problems with RB view. However That doesn't mean that Roberts comments about OBE and LD are all wrong.  It would be very interesting to see what Robert replies to this. I would suggest you sum up some key points and post the questions direct at the Q/A- Board. Robert usually comes up with some very good explanations.


"By and large, examples of people born blind might show us that during an RB type – OBE, they cannot see. This is probably why Bruce writes the above in the first place. I am not aware of people born blind that perhaps have visual abilities in their dreams and RB-type OBE's. If such people do not exist, Bruce and me are both right since I say that these RB-type OBE's are dreams, and in dreams our mental blueprint considering the senses isn't negated  by our astral senses (i will come back to this in a moment). Bruce in his idea is also right because for him it proves his point (people born blind cannot see). But what if people born blind could see in RB-type OBE? This would disprove Bruce's theory in the first place. For me it would be new information too, and i should think carefully to incorporate this in my view on these things. (On)fortunately there are no researches that i  know of  that show us any people born blind can see in their dreams or RB-type OBE's."

I really wonder if there are born blinds that can see in dreams, that would be quite important. After all there still would be a possible explanation if they can't. This could be that as long as the physical Body is alive the Experiences in the Astral are somehow limited but once it is dead that limitation is gone. Robert has some good explanations on that as well but I can't exactly remember.
For some more interesting imputes see

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2320/is_2_64/ai_67718675

"So a partial negation of the mental construct means, that this part is being replaced by a new piece of mental construct, namely the ability to see (astrally). Upon entering NDE-OBE, a person born blind can all of a sudden see and this new vision ability is then incorporated into his or her mental construction, thereby negating the previous construction of being totally blind. That's what i mean. Of course not that the whole mental construction falls away (although i would not know to which degree this mental construction stays put after death, since obviously I'm not death). To make an easy comparison, if you thought that the Chinese people's skin color was pink, but you see a Chinese guy and his skin is not pink but yellowish, your old mental construction of the Chinese will have been negated. That is what i meant, not that the mental construct is gone."

I see. So what is generating the mental construct in the NDE's then? the Brain is out of the game. So I would then consider possibility that the same thing that generates the mental construct in the NDE's also generates the mental construct in waking life. Which I believe is not the brain but the mind itself.



"I do not assume anything about anyone, at least no less then any of you people do."
There are so many examples of RB-style OBE's other people have had, but which you have never experienced yourself (perhaps this includes your following comment: "people claim to have OBE's that are not very prone to thoughts.") Still you assume they are truthful."

Yeah but I wrote "claim" to indicate that.

".Your reaction also shows that you might think that i think these RB style-OBE's to be of less value or in some other way demeaning, but that is not the case. I am just arguing that it is not what it looks."

Yeah but it feels demeaning cause it would mean that they are generated by our brain which would limit their scope somehow. It would mean that we should strive for the real Astral and all our efforts so far were "in vain"
At least it kind of fells so and that's one of the mean reasons people don't like your ideas, to me they just don't feel right, but this is of course no argument (or is it?)

"Do you think it is coincidence that when people's visual center in the brain is active, during RB-type OBE, they can influence the astral by thought? Like, just as in dreams, which are the same or very close, not  only to me but also to RB? Do you say that, it is coincidence that when you go to deep sleep and beyond where this visual center is not active (if you want proof ill search it for you), this is no longer possible?"

That would actually mean that OBE's are indeed Dreams and that Dreams are indeed produced by the brain (and spirit). But is that really so? I would need to know the exact experiments that have been done the results and the numbers of people involved to draw such conclusions, So please could you give me the link.


"Go and try this experiment: In your next LD or RB style-OBE, go and meditate. Try to sink deeper into yourself, into deep sleep. Try to wake yourself up quickly, if that doesn't work, and there are also NO visuals whatsoever, then you know you are in deep sleep stage. Now when you are here, induce your kind of RB type-OBE, and tell me what happens. I have tried this as well (as have several people I closely know, some even while monitoring brain waves so they were 100% sure in deep sleep) and i can tell you, no OBE whatsoever can take place here. Would it be coincidence that the visual brain center is not active here? To me, not, yet I agree it doesn't prove anything beyond doubt, it just shows in which way we should seek the answers."

Yes in RB view it should in fact be possible to have OBE's  in deep sleep if that is not the case your viewpoint seems more logical, but remember. In RB's viewpoint  LD and OBE are not the same, there are multiple copies of conscious possible, there is a dream mind and a copie of conscious having the OBE, So he probably would say that your experiments are done with your dream mind which can not operate in deep sleep but that OBE's are possible in deep sleep. Now one would need to do alot of experiments with brain wave monitoring and people that say they can differentiate between OBE and LD to see which viewpoint is true.

"Besides this, I also strongly believe indeed that inducing a 'real' NDE-OBE from beyond deep sleep is possible, although i have not yet experienced this yet (i am working on it though). But the fact that REM sleep is so completely different from deep sleep and certainly from stages even deeper shows that there must be differences between RB type OBE's and NDE-OBE's. Also take note that reaching this level to get into NDE is very hard and might take years to learn. I can further underscore this by taking Clark into my argument (some nice articles i lately read, his comments on Bardon's work). His ideas are very similar to mine and his astral wandering is what i call NDE-OBE. If you read carefully you will see that free astral wandering can only be reached after many years of intensive training. Yet the RB type OBE can be done by almost anyone, in any case many people do not even need to practice it at all. This is logical since to go lucid beyond deep sleep (or like Bardon, in very deep trance), takes ages of practicing, unlike RB type OBE's.

See above, RB says LD and OBE are not the same LD are easys and OBE's hard to achieve cause they need deep trance

"Lastly your point about expectation and NDE experiences which you claim can not point us in a direction of an astral dimension that would be solid. 1st of all there are a lot of striking similarities between NDE's all over the world, not depending on what religion anyone has. These experiences are all different from an average RB type of OBE. This in itself shows us only that we might be on to something which is actually not the same at all!"

Well there certainly isn't! the Body is dead, which in RB view (well probably I should say as I understand it since I'm not RB and I don't want to misrepresent him here) it means that the dream mind is gone and that alot of subtle energy is transfered from the physical body to the Astral body which gives him a lot more stability.

"So well  now on to the astral, when people die. I cannot really tell you what all the stuff is what is going on there, but people frequently report at NDE that they are welcomed by all kinds of astral beings, be it their lost families or friends, etc. Who says that any of the astral beings can't take the shape of Jesus? This might sound hilarious, but before you laugh at this, let me make my argument here. I meant to say, the astral is not prone to the CURRENT thoughts of the person experiencing NDE."


As far as i know people in NDE have never been able to THINK jesus away, or to change his appearance, etc. So although the astral might in some sense confirm to the mental image someone has of it, it is not prone to change by thought whenever this person experiences NDE, which is what the argument was about. Namely, to show that during an RB type OBE you can shape  the world mostly as you wish (depending on skills though), and during an NDE you cant.

O.k. good point which actually makes me think something completely different, sorry for changing subject but: What thinks anyway?! I always thought that the brain thinks and that one can measure this with brain waves now if people with no brain activity can think.........well I'm confused. What does the brain do anyway? it is not needs for mental constructs it is not needed for thoughts hmmmm is it only needed to transfer info's from the physical to the mind in vica versa?

"Its indeed easy to say but that doesn't mean its not true. I'm not sure why you would give these examples anyway? To show that a mental construct doesn't exist? I can give you some idea however in what direction you should seek the answer. During sleep and dreams you are in a closer connection to your subconscious self, which allows you to give significance to dreams in the first place. Creativity is extremely increased for example, many people including myself have reported being able to make the most wonderful music in their (lucid)dreams. Would it be so hard to imagine that your dreams can take form according to a mental model you have of how it should approximately feel to be a flower, or to be multiple persons?2

No is not but it is somehow strange for me to assume that the brain can do all this, the mind yes but the brain?

"Also i have never said that in a dream you cannot experience things alien to your mental model. First of all your subconscious can bring on such experiences, second of all contact or a connection with others (astral beings perhaps) can bring you sensations like  unconditional love.

Well so far my thoughts on your critique on my thoughts, have a nice day anyone who dared to read this far, and to the rest of you also ... "

are you always this polite
Just one last thought. People knowing nothing about OBE's and dreaming for years , suddenly report that they wake up floating above their bodys which lay in the bed. they get very scared and don not understand this at all, never the less it happens from time to time (I know alot of this people) No if We assume that OBe's are Dreams , we would this experiences all be so alike why should the brain suddenly simulate this which is really not like a dream were events happen usually like you expect them to happen (in a way, you are afraid and voila there is the monster...) but this experiences are completely against their expectations and alike, why does this happen i wonder.

Cheers Tom

PS your viewpoint is after all very good and I respect it.

[Tombo]

Don't you work o.k. I'm a student too (Physics), so I'll take some time to reply.
First of all, I do not wanna sound rude! If I do it is cause my English isn't good enough and cause I'll try to come straight to the point.


"Sorry if that looked so, this is because when i replied to you (the piece you quoted) i meant RB-type of OBE, which is the same as LD to me (and mr catmeow). Catmeow however, in the quote you gave of him, speaks of the 'real' OBE (which i prefer to call NDE-OBE). So you see, we actually agree but because of the different terms and definitions we are using it becomes all a bit confusing. However i knew exactly what Catmeow meant in his last post and i can tell you it is the same as i see it."

O.k. I'll consider you two to agree then.

"First of all I showed you a study that shows most blind people (in that study, 15 out of 23 people were able to)  CAN see in NDE-OBE. This fact alone is NOT explainable by Bruce, since he claims it would not be possible. There certainly are blind people that cannot see during a NDE-OBE, but that was beside the point of the argument. However, i agree it would be interesting to check out more studies in this area and see what they can tell us. "

That is true the studies indicate some problems with RB view. However That doesn't mean that Roberts comments about OBE and LD are all wrong.  It would be very interesting to see what Robert replies to this. I would suggest you sum up some key points and post the questions direct at the Q/A- Board. Robert usually comes up with some very good explanations.


"By and large, examples of people born blind might show us that during an RB type – OBE, they cannot see. This is probably why Bruce writes the above in the first place. I am not aware of people born blind that perhaps have visual abilities in their dreams and RB-type OBE's. If such people do not exist, Bruce and me are both right since I say that these RB-type OBE's are dreams, and in dreams our mental blueprint considering the senses isn't negated  by our astral senses (i will come back to this in a moment). Bruce in his idea is also right because for him it proves his point (people born blind cannot see). But what if people born blind could see in RB-type OBE? This would disprove Bruce's theory in the first place. For me it would be new information too, and i should think carefully to incorporate this in my view on these things. (On)fortunately there are no researches that i  know of  that show us any people born blind can see in their dreams or RB-type OBE's."

I really wonder if there are born blinds that can see in dreams, that would be quite important. After all there still would be a possible explanation if they can't. This could be that as long as the physical Body is alive the Experiences in the Astral are somehow limited but once it is dead that limitation is gone. Robert has some good explanations on that as well but I can't exactly remember.
For some more interesting imputes see

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2320/is_2_64/ai_67718675

"So a partial negation of the mental construct means, that this part is being replaced by a new piece of mental construct, namely the ability to see (astrally). Upon entering NDE-OBE, a person born blind can all of a sudden see and this new vision ability is then incorporated into his or her mental construction, thereby negating the previous construction of being totally blind. That's what i mean. Of course not that the whole mental construction falls away (although i would not know to which degree this mental construction stays put after death, since obviously I'm not death). To make an easy comparison, if you thought that the Chinese people's skin color was pink, but you see a Chinese guy and his skin is not pink but yellowish, your old mental construction of the Chinese will have been negated. That is what i meant, not that the mental construct is gone."

I see. So what is generating the mental construct in the NDE's then? the Brain is out of the game. So I would then consider possibility that the same thing that generates the mental construct in the NDE's also generates the mental construct in waking life. Which I believe is not the brain but the mind itself.



"I do not assume anything about anyone, at least no less then any of you people do."
There are so many examples of RB-style OBE's other people have had, but which you have never experienced yourself (perhaps this includes your following comment: "people claim to have OBE's that are not very prone to thoughts.") Still you assume they are truthful."

Yeah but I wrote "claim" to indicate that.

".Your reaction also shows that you might think that i think these RB style-OBE's to be of less value or in some other way demeaning, but that is not the case. I am just arguing that it is not what it looks."

Yeah but it feels demeaning cause it would mean that they are generated by our brain which would limit their scope somehow. It would mean that we should strive for the real Astral and all our efforts so far were "in vain"
At least it kind of fells so and that's one of the mean reasons people don't like your ideas, to me they just don't feel right, but this is of course no argument (or is it?)

"Do you think it is coincidence that when people's visual center in the brain is active, during RB-type OBE, they can influence the astral by thought? Like, just as in dreams, which are the same or very close, not  only to me but also to RB? Do you say that, it is coincidence that when you go to deep sleep and beyond where this visual center is not active (if you want proof ill search it for you), this is no longer possible?"

That would actually mean that OBE's are indeed Dreams and that Dreams are indeed produced by the brain (and spirit). But is that really so? I would need to know the exact experiments that have been done the results and the numbers of people involved to draw such conclusions, So please could you give me the link.


"Go and try this experiment: In your next LD or RB style-OBE, go and meditate. Try to sink deeper into yourself, into deep sleep. Try to wake yourself up quickly, if that doesn't work, and there are also NO visuals whatsoever, then you know you are in deep sleep stage. Now when you are here, induce your kind of RB type-OBE, and tell me what happens. I have tried this as well (as have several people I closely know, some even while monitoring brain waves so they were 100% sure in deep sleep) and i can tell you, no OBE whatsoever can take place here. Would it be coincidence that the visual brain center is not active here? To me, not, yet I agree it doesn't prove anything beyond doubt, it just shows in which way we should seek the answers."

Yes in RB view it should in fact be possible to have OBE's  in deep sleep if that is not the case your viewpoint seems more logical, but remember. In RB's viewpoint  LD and OBE are not the same, there are multiple copies of conscious possible, there is a dream mind and a copie of conscious having the OBE, So he probably would say that your experiments are done with your dream mind which can not operate in deep sleep but that OBE's are possible in deep sleep. Now one would need to do alot of experiments with brain wave monitoring and people that say they can differentiate between OBE and LD to see which viewpoint is true.

"Besides this, I also strongly believe indeed that inducing a 'real' NDE-OBE from beyond deep sleep is possible, although i have not yet experienced this yet (i am working on it though). But the fact that REM sleep is so completely different from deep sleep and certainly from stages even deeper shows that there must be differences between RB type OBE's and NDE-OBE's. Also take note that reaching this level to get into NDE is very hard and might take years to learn. I can further underscore this by taking Clark into my argument (some nice articles i lately read, his comments on Bardon's work). His ideas are very similar to mine and his astral wandering is what i call NDE-OBE. If you read carefully you will see that free astral wandering can only be reached after many years of intensive training. Yet the RB type OBE can be done by almost anyone, in any case many people do not even need to practice it at all. This is logical since to go lucid beyond deep sleep (or like Bardon, in very deep trance), takes ages of practicing, unlike RB type OBE's.

See above, RB says LD and OBE are not the same LD are easys and OBE's hard to achieve cause they need deep trance

"Lastly your point about expectation and NDE experiences which you claim can not point us in a direction of an astral dimension that would be solid. 1st of all there are a lot of striking similarities between NDE's all over the world, not depending on what religion anyone has. These experiences are all different from an average RB type of OBE. This in itself shows us only that we might be on to something which is actually not the same at all!"

Well there certainly isn't! the Body is dead, which in RB view (well probably I should say as I understand it since I'm not RB and I don't want to misrepresent him here) it means that the dream mind is gone and that alot of subtle energy is transfered from the physical body to the Astral body which gives him a lot more stability.

"So well  now on to the astral, when people die. I cannot really tell you what all the stuff is what is going on there, but people frequently report at NDE that they are welcomed by all kinds of astral beings, be it their lost families or friends, etc. Who says that any of the astral beings can't take the shape of Jesus? This might sound hilarious, but before you laugh at this, let me make my argument here. I meant to say, the astral is not prone to the CURRENT thoughts of the person experiencing NDE."


As far as i know people in NDE have never been able to THINK jesus away, or to change his appearance, etc. So although the astral might in some sense confirm to the mental image someone has of it, it is not prone to change by thought whenever this person experiences NDE, which is what the argument was about. Namely, to show that during an RB type OBE you can shape  the world mostly as you wish (depending on skills though), and during an NDE you cant.

O.k. good point which actually makes me think something completely different, sorry for changing subject but: What thinks anyway?! I always thought that the brain thinks and that one can measure this with brain waves now if people with no brain activity can think.........well I'm confused. What does the brain do anyway? it is not needs for mental constructs it is not needed for thoughts hmmmm is it only needed to transfer info's from the physical to the mind in vica versa?

"Its indeed easy to say but that doesn't mean its not true. I'm not sure why you would give these examples anyway? To show that a mental construct doesn't exist? I can give you some idea however in what direction you should seek the answer. During sleep and dreams you are in a closer connection to your subconscious self, which allows you to give significance to dreams in the first place. Creativity is extremely increased for example, many people including myself have reported being able to make the most wonderful music in their (lucid)dreams. Would it be so hard to imagine that your dreams can take form according to a mental model you have of how it should approximately feel to be a flower, or to be multiple persons?2

No is not but it is somehow strange for me to assume that the brain can do all this, the mind yes but the brain?

"Also i have never said that in a dream you cannot experience things alien to your mental model. First of all your subconscious can bring on such experiences, second of all contact or a connection with others (astral beings perhaps) can bring you sensations like  unconditional love.

Well so far my thoughts on your critique on my thoughts, have a nice day anyone who dared to read this far, and to the rest of you also ... "

are you always this polite
Just one last thought. People knowing nothing about OBE's and dreaming for years , suddenly report that they wake up floating above their bodys which lay in the bed. they get very scared and don not understand this at all, never the less it happens from time to time (I know alot of this people) No if We assume that OBe's are Dreams , we would this experiences all be so alike why should the brain suddenly simulate this which is really not like a dream were events happen usually like you expect them to happen (in a way, you are afraid and voila there is the monster...) but this experiences are completely against their expectations and alike, why does this happen i wonder.

Cheers Tom

PS your viewpoint is after all very good and I respect it.

[Tombo]

@Xetrov

Don't you work o.k. I'm a student too (Physics), so I'll take some time to reply.
First of all, I do not wanna sound rude! If I do it is cause my English isn't good enough and cause I'll try to come straight to the point.


"Sorry if that looked so, this is because when i replied to you (the piece you quoted) i meant RB-type of OBE, which is the same as LD to me (and mr catmeow). Catmeow however, in the quote you gave of him, speaks of the 'real' OBE (which i prefer to call NDE-OBE). So you see, we actually agree but because of the different terms and definitions we are using it becomes all a bit confusing. However i knew exactly what Catmeow meant in his last post and i can tell you it is the same as i see it."

O.k. I'll consider you two to agree then.

"First of all I showed you a study that shows most blind people (in that study, 15 out of 23 people were able to)  CAN see in NDE-OBE. This fact alone is NOT explainable by Bruce, since he claims it would not be possible. There certainly are blind people that cannot see during a NDE-OBE, but that was beside the point of the argument. However, i agree it would be interesting to check out more studies in this area and see what they can tell us. "

That is true the studies indicate some problems with RB view. However That doesn't mean that Roberts comments about OBE and LD are all wrong.  It would be very interesting to see what Robert replies to this. I would suggest you sum up some key points and post the questions direct at the Q/A- Board. Robert usually comes up with some very good explanations.


"By and large, examples of people born blind might show us that during an RB type – OBE, they cannot see. This is probably why Bruce writes the above in the first place. I am not aware of people born blind that perhaps have visual abilities in their dreams and RB-type OBE's. If such people do not exist, Bruce and me are both right since I say that these RB-type OBE's are dreams, and in dreams our mental blueprint considering the senses isn't negated  by our astral senses (i will come back to this in a moment). Bruce in his idea is also right because for him it proves his point (people born blind cannot see). But what if people born blind could see in RB-type OBE? This would disprove Bruce's theory in the first place. For me it would be new information too, and i should think carefully to incorporate this in my view on these things. (On)fortunately there are no researches that i  know of  that show us any people born blind can see in their dreams or RB-type OBE's."

I really wonder if there are born blinds that can see in dreams, that would be quite important. After all there still would be a possible explanation if they can't. This could be that as long as the physical Body is alive the Experiences in the Astral are somehow limited but once it is dead that limitation is gone. Robert has some good explanations on that as well but I can't exactly remember.
For some more interesting imputes see

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2320/is_2_64/ai_67718675

"So a partial negation of the mental construct means, that this part is being replaced by a new piece of mental construct, namely the ability to see (astrally). Upon entering NDE-OBE, a person born blind can all of a sudden see and this new vision ability is then incorporated into his or her mental construction, thereby negating the previous construction of being totally blind. That's what i mean. Of course not that the whole mental construction falls away (although i would not know to which degree this mental construction stays put after death, since obviously I'm not death). To make an easy comparison, if you thought that the Chinese people's skin color was pink, but you see a Chinese guy and his skin is not pink but yellowish, your old mental construction of the Chinese will have been negated. That is what i meant, not that the mental construct is gone."

I see. So what is generating the mental construct in the NDE's then? the Brain is out of the game. So I would then consider possibility that the same thing that generates the mental construct in the NDE's also generates the mental construct in waking life. Which I believe is not the brain but the mind itself.



"I do not assume anything about anyone, at least no less then any of you people do."
There are so many examples of RB-style OBE's other people have had, but which you have never experienced yourself (perhaps this includes your following comment: "people claim to have OBE's that are not very prone to thoughts.") Still you assume they are truthful."

Yeah but I wrote "claim" to indicate that.

".Your reaction also shows that you might think that i think these RB style-OBE's to be of less value or in some other way demeaning, but that is not the case. I am just arguing that it is not what it looks."

Yeah but it feels demeaning cause it would mean that they are generated by our brain which would limit their scope somehow. It would mean that we should strive for the real Astral and all our efforts so far were "in vain"
At least it kind of fells so and that's one of the mean reasons people don't like your ideas, to me they just don't feel right, but this is of course no argument (or is it?)

"Do you think it is coincidence that when people's visual center in the brain is active, during RB-type OBE, they can influence the astral by thought? Like, just as in dreams, which are the same or very close, not  only to me but also to RB? Do you say that, it is coincidence that when you go to deep sleep and beyond where this visual center is not active (if you want proof ill search it for you), this is no longer possible?"

That would actually mean that OBE's are indeed Dreams and that Dreams are indeed produced by the brain (and spirit). But is that really so? I would need to know the exact experiments that have been done the results and the numbers of people involved to draw such conclusions, So please could you give me the link.


"Go and try this experiment: In your next LD or RB style-OBE, go and meditate. Try to sink deeper into yourself, into deep sleep. Try to wake yourself up quickly, if that doesn't work, and there are also NO visuals whatsoever, then you know you are in deep sleep stage. Now when you are here, induce your kind of RB type-OBE, and tell me what happens. I have tried this as well (as have several people I closely know, some even while monitoring brain waves so they were 100% sure in deep sleep) and i can tell you, no OBE whatsoever can take place here. Would it be coincidence that the visual brain center is not active here? To me, not, yet I agree it doesn't prove anything beyond doubt, it just shows in which way we should seek the answers."

Yes in RB view it should in fact be possible to have OBE's  in deep sleep if that is not the case your viewpoint seems more logical, but remember. In RB's viewpoint  LD and OBE are not the same, there are multiple copies of conscious possible, there is a dream mind and a copie of conscious having the OBE, So he probably would say that your experiments are done with your dream mind which can not operate in deep sleep but that OBE's are possible in deep sleep. Now one would need to do alot of experiments with brain wave monitoring and people that say they can differentiate between OBE and LD to see which viewpoint is true.

"Besides this, I also strongly believe indeed that inducing a 'real' NDE-OBE from beyond deep sleep is possible, although i have not yet experienced this yet (i am working on it though). But the fact that REM sleep is so completely different from deep sleep and certainly from stages even deeper shows that there must be differences between RB type OBE's and NDE-OBE's. Also take note that reaching this level to get into NDE is very hard and might take years to learn. I can further underscore this by taking Clark into my argument (some nice articles i lately read, his comments on Bardon's work). His ideas are very similar to mine and his astral wandering is what i call NDE-OBE. If you read carefully you will see that free astral wandering can only be reached after many years of intensive training. Yet the RB type OBE can be done by almost anyone, in any case many people do not even need to practice it at all. This is logical since to go lucid beyond deep sleep (or like Bardon, in very deep trance), takes ages of practicing, unlike RB type OBE's.

See above, RB says LD and OBE are not the same LD are easys and OBE's hard to achieve cause they need deep trance

"Lastly your point about expectation and NDE experiences which you claim can not point us in a direction of an astral dimension that would be solid. 1st of all there are a lot of striking similarities between NDE's all over the world, not depending on what religion anyone has. These experiences are all different from an average RB type of OBE. This in itself shows us only that we might be on to something which is actually not the same at all!"

Well there certainly isn't! the Body is dead, which in RB view (well probably I should say as I understand it since I'm not RB and I don't want to misrepresent him here) it means that the dream mind is gone and that alot of subtle energy is transfered from the physical body to the Astral body which gives him a lot more stability.

"So well  now on to the astral, when people die. I cannot really tell you what all the stuff is what is going on there, but people frequently report at NDE that they are welcomed by all kinds of astral beings, be it their lost families or friends, etc. Who says that any of the astral beings can't take the shape of Jesus? This might sound hilarious, but before you laugh at this, let me make my argument here. I meant to say, the astral is not prone to the CURRENT thoughts of the person experiencing NDE."


As far as i know people in NDE have never been able to THINK jesus away, or to change his appearance, etc. So although the astral might in some sense confirm to the mental image someone has of it, it is not prone to change by thought whenever this person experiences NDE, which is what the argument was about. Namely, to show that during an RB type OBE you can shape  the world mostly as you wish (depending on skills though), and during an NDE you cant.

O.k. good point which actually makes me think something completely different, sorry for changing subject but: What thinks anyway?! I always thought that the brain thinks and that one can measure this with brain waves now if people with no brain activity can think.........well I'm confused. What does the brain do anyway? it is not needed for mental constructs it is not needed for thoughts hmmmm is it only needed to transfer info's from the physical to the mind and vica versa?

"Its indeed easy to say but that doesn't mean its not true. I'm not sure why you would give these examples anyway? To show that a mental construct doesn't exist? I can give you some idea however in what direction you should seek the answer. During sleep and dreams you are in a closer connection to your subconscious self, which allows you to give significance to dreams in the first place. Creativity is extremely increased for example, many people including myself have reported being able to make the most wonderful music in their (lucid)dreams. Would it be so hard to imagine that your dreams can take form according to a mental model you have of how it should approximately feel to be a flower, or to be multiple persons?2

No is not but it is somehow strange for me to assume that the brain can do all this, the mind yes but the brain?

"Also i have never said that in a dream you cannot experience things alien to your mental model. First of all your subconscious can bring on such experiences, second of all contact or a connection with others (astral beings perhaps) can bring you sensations like  unconditional love.

Well so far my thoughts on your critique on my thoughts, have a nice day anyone who dared to read this far, and to the rest of you also ... "

are you always this polite
Just one last thought. People knowing nothing about OBE's and dreaming for years , suddenly report that they wake up floating above their bodys which lay in the bed. they get very scared and don not understand this at all, never the less it happens from time to time (I know alot of this people) No if We assume that OBe's are Dreams , we would this experiences all be so alike why should the brain suddenly simulate this which is really not like a dream were events happen usually like you expect them to happen (in a way, you are afraid and voila there is the monster...) but this experiences are completely against their expectations and alike, why does this happen i wonder.

Cheers Tom

PS your viewpoint is after all very good and I respect it.

[Tombo]

@catmeow

"Hello tombodenmann

First of all, in your critique, could you please address myself and Xetrov separately.  In this way I can answer questions directed to me and Xetrov can answer questions directed to him."

Please call me Tom. Yes, I will reply separately

 "The following observation:

First of all you seem to agree but actually support conflicting ideas:

is utterly meaningless.  Xetrov has his opinions and I present mine independently.  To attempt to negate our opinions by combining them and then saying that we disagree with each other is meaningless."

Indeed That wasn't to smart to do, I'll stop that.


"At the same time, I would say that I have a lot of respect for Xetrov's opinions and I think he has a very valid viewpoint.  He is entitled to express his ideas without, as I see it ungracious, and frankly, rude (I don't direct this at you tombodenmann) critique.  I think his ideas are interesting and certainly worthy of attention."

If I sound rude it is cause my English is not good enough. I apologize.

"Personally, I think I have presented a consistent and valid analysis, ie that of a "sliding scale" from LD to OBE.  To me it is self-evident that when I am LD'ing I am dreaming and this is a subjective reality, shared only by myself .   On the other hand OBE is an objective (ie concensus) reality, shared by other consciousnesses.  "

No I don't understand that. Do mean you have both LD and OBE and that they are not the same thing? If you say NDE's you don't mean NDE right?

"I do not say that OBE doesn't happen.  It does.  "

So you believe that OBE can happen without NDE then?

"I just happen to believe that LD is NOT a collective reality.  In my opinion LD is a personal experience."

Have you ever heard of shared dreaming. there are actually people on this board that say they can enter other peoples dreams. It also seems to be possible to perceive real world things . For example native Americans searched for Prey during LD.


 "This is not to say it isn't a marvellous experience.  It is, I know I've had thousands.  They can be extraordinarily detailed and quite frankly, beautiful.  I had several this morning (as usual).  These were brought on by going through an "exit procedure" involving vibrations, floating (apparently out of my body) etc.  But I am pretty sure these were just personal dreams.  So to me - LD seems very similar to OBE but is really just a personal reality."

See above, it also possible that you drift into dreamworlds after exiting the body.

"I can't see why this should be such an emotive concept to some members of this board.  As I said, this is the traditional viewpoint, and has only recently been superceded by the notion that LD and OBE are one and the same thing."

Now you are aware that Xetrov believes LD =OBE are you?

"I can't speak for Xetrov, but my own opinion is that our entire world is clearly a "mental construct".  This probably applies to all lower states of being - eg physical waking consiousnes (PWC), LD and OBE.  Our subconscious minds actually construct a representation of the world, and our conscious minds then experience this construct.  This construct is based on the information we gather from our senses.  During PWC we use the physical senses.  During OBE we use astral senses.  During LD there is not much sensory input and the experience is largely fantasy (IMHO).  But basically the world we experience is a mental construct."

I agree



I would like your inability to see 3D while out of body. As from all I read I would conclude that it is very well possible for you to see 3D when out of body but as long as you believe you can't and search for a way to do it it won't happen. This is just my theorie though, maybe I'm completely wrong.
How do you manage to get all this LD anyway?

Cheers Tom

[Tombo]

Since when is a simulation more extensive then the thing simulated?

Quite often, actually.

Postmodernist philosophers have labelled this phenomenon "hyperreality." Some philosophers, like Jean Baudrillard, go so far as to claim that our original reality is gone and has been replaced with the hyperreality of modern commercialism, where everything has a sign-exchange value to something that isn't real.

Some examples of hyperreality from Wikipedia:

• a sports drink of a flavour that doesn't exist ("wild ice zest berry")
• a plastic Christmas tree that looks better than a real Christmas tree ever could
• a magazine photo of a model that has been touched up with a computer
• almost all video games
• a well manicured garden (nature as hyperreal)
• Disney World and Las Vegas
• pornography ("sexier than sex itself")
• The stock market

All that's left, according to Baudrillard, are simulations and simulacra. Actually, this was the book that Neo used to store his data disks in the opening scene of The Matrix. (That was the joke -> it was a book being used to simulate a container for data. In doing so it was no longer a real book that contained data on its pages, but a hyperreal book that housed more varieties of data on optical disks.)

Edit: I'm convinced AP et al has something to do with humanity's tendency towards hyperreality. Lucid Dreamers often comment that their dreams are "more real than real," regardless of whether they believe it's the product of their imagination. I don't know quite how to describe this relationship, however - other than lucid dreaming can be skillfully used to simulate something you want to do in real life (giving a speech, etc.).

Interestingly, however, there is a group of posthumanists who believe that technological advancement is heading towards a "singularity," where artificial intelligence achieves our level of sentience and becomes, as Badrilliard would say, hyperreal human. We ourselves would also become hyperreal as our brains and biological systems are augmented with nanotechnology. Aided with nanotech, we would be able to communicate wirelessly in a virtual reality. The way these posthumanists describe virtual reality, you'd think they were talking about the astral plane. Ray Kurzweil seems to gather the most press about this prediction and has a very extensive website kurzweilai.net, along with a few books. My username in the forums over there is "Cyprian."

More Edit: If you want to get really gee-whiz on simulation being more extensive than the object simulated, check this out. That's a NASA gallery of carbon nanotube models. Scroll down to where they simulate proteins and neurons. They're intended to perform better than the object they're simulating.

ok. I'll see what you mean. My claim was indeed false, I would say.
What I acually meant is that If the simulation delievers experiences Impossible in the real thing I then no longer would consider it a simulation but a new thing. I don't know if that makes sense to you.
Well Dreams beeing a least partly a Simulation of reality I would not deny but the simulation beiing done by the brain I found strange

[Xetrov]

Well again some lengthy replies, so i guess i'll write one of myself too

That doesn't mean that Roberts comments about OBE and LD are all wrong. It would be very interesting to see what Robert replies to this. I would suggest you sum up some key points and post the questions direct at the Q/A- Board.  

You put words  into my mouth i didn't use. Of course not all of Bruce's ideas are wrong! Anyway, good idea, i might ask this question to him on the QA section. By the way, interesting article you linked, i'd like to comment briefly on some parts of it

Is their [deaf people with a Gochlear Ear Implant] being able to "gain hearing" pertinent to conceptualizing how a blind person can "gain sight" during an OBE/NDE?

.. in dealing with the physical forces of light radiation and sound vibration, human sense has to be adequately trained to sort out the range of sensory input.

I would argue that the physical senses are not at all working according to the same principles of the senses of the spirit (astral body), and certainly not when the link between physial body and spirit is severed. When at NDE-OBE, one is totally dependent on astral sight, signals do not pass the physical eyes, the brain, etc.

You made an interesting comment on this:

...as long as the physical Body is alive the Experiences in the Astral are somehow limited but once it is dead that limitation is gone

I agree totally. Since the experiences in the astral while the body is alive are processed by the active physical brain too (Clark has some interesting idea on this by the way), physical limitations should have some influence on our astral perception while we are alive. I say this is because, while our spirit is connected to a physical body, our perception and awareness is both influenced by the physical body (sensory input, for one, processed by the brain before it enters our awareness) and by our spirit. So we see that there is a difference between perception in a NDE-OBE and in a RB type-OBE, differences caused by the fact that during the first we are really out of our bodies and perceiving the astral through our astral senses entirely, while during the latter we are not out of body and perceiving any astrally related information through ESP, thereby also processing the information through our physical brain. That is why I say we are not really 'placed' in the astral in the first place during a RB type OBE, since if we were we would be in a NDE (spirit leaving physical body), which is clearly not the case since brain activity stays normal and the heart keeps beating regularly.

Clearly it looks as if NDE-OBE and RB type OBE are two totally different phenomena? You said yourself that as long as the physical body is alive the Astral experiences are limited, and yet you claim that your spirit has left the body at RB type OBE. How can these experiences be limited, if we are totally free? Being totally free clearly negates the limitations, which happens in NDE-OBE. Why are these limitations then still in place with a RB style OBE?

So what is generating the mental construct in the NDE's then? the Brain is out of the game. So I would then consider possibility that the same thing that generates the mental construct in the NDE's also generates the mental construct in waking life. Which I believe is not the brain but the mind itself.

Yeah but what is the mind? Isn't the mind our consciousness itself? During our physical life, our consciousness is clearly in interaction with our physical body/brain, and also with our spirit. I would argue it is a combination, yet at death it is no longer so, since it then is purely generated by our spirit. Set free from the physical body it is clearly totally dependent on its own.

Yeah but it feels demeaning cause it would mean that they are generated by our brain which would limit their scope somehow. It would mean that we should strive for the real Astral and all our efforts so far were "in vain"
At least it kind of fells so and that's one of the mean reasons people don't like your ideas, to me they just don't feel right, but this is of course no argument (or is it?)

Here you touch upon a very delicate point. I know it could be interpreted as demeaning when i say, no we arent really free out of our body. I would most likely feel exactly the same way as all of you when i was in your position. But so what if the experience would be "limited" because of the fact that its partly generated by the physical brain? So what if that does limit the scope of it? Really, there is still so much interesting stuff to explore and experience before you in the end will be able to go into an NDE-OBE. All the experiences posted on this forum,all the experiences of all the members here show this to be true. Also I have not said  that no "true" astral exploring can take place, since you can still perceive it through different ways, for one by ESP and by feeling the astral around you (energy, entities, whatever). To really grow spiritually and to expand your consciousness and your love from within yourself, you have to be patient. It isnt for nothing that Bardon's followers and Yogi's train themselves for ages and ages before they can really at last leave their physical bodies. Yet it seems  to be a characteristic of most contemporary western spiritual movements to get the most results as fast as possible, which is understandable because we are curious to explore!  But spirituality isnt fast food (no insult intended at anyone here). We should not lean on our desires (to advance as fast as possible) when explaining our experiences, doing so will only hold us back. You know, I do not say that I have to be right per se in my ideas, but at least it provides a congruent alternative viewpoint which all of you should consider carefully, and not dismiss right away because it would not at once meet with your current desires.

I would need to know the exact experiments that have been done the results and the numbers of people involved to draw such conclusions, So please could you give me the link.

I will show you the logic behind the argument I gave, why the visual cortex is inactive during deep sleep so no RB style OBE's take place. Besides from experience this argument goes as follows: dreams are initiated during normal / REM sleep by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. This is common knowledge but I will link you to one random site that mentions it (there are many more) :

(http://www.todaysparent.com/toddler/sleep/article.jsp?content=20040210_105446_3120)

Here it states that "The release of acetylcholine in the brain switches on the furnace that fires dreaming". What happens with this neurotransmitter in deep sleep (also called low wave sleep)? Levels are significantly decreased. For example see:

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/101/7/1795

Which mentions deep sleep and "the accompanying low levels of acetylcholine". I could give a more extensive amount of links that go into the matter, but the point is clear this far i hope. The deeper we go into deep sleep the less active this acetylcholine becomes. So when we are fully in delta wave deep sleep (brainwaves << 4Hz), there is no dreaming and no visuals, thus the visual cortex is not giving signals to our consciousness anymore. I and many others who can sustain lucidity during deep sleep have verified this. It is true that in the initial phase of deep sleep still some dreaming occurs. This is because brainwave activity overlaps, during the first stages of deep sleep there are still theta brainwaves (besides the delta waves), so dreaming is still possible although already diminished. When only delta waves remain, no dreaming whatsoever is possible and it is not possible to go into a RB style OBE.  
You can also not force yourself into a dream from pure delta sleep unless brainwave frequency goes back up again to theta and higher (this can go quite fast).

Also i have read an article that explicitly states that the visual cortex is deactivated but i havent found it back yet, but if I do I will most certainly post the link here.

Yes in RB view it should in fact be possible to have OBE's in deep sleep if that is not the case your viewpoint seems more logical, but remember. In RB's viewpoint LD and OBE are not the same, there are multiple copies of conscious possible, there is a dream mind and a copie of conscious having the OBE, So he probably would say that your experiments are done with your dream mind which can not operate in deep sleep but that OBE's are possible in deep sleep. Now one would need to do alot of experiments with brain wave monitoring and people that say they can differentiate between OBE and LD to see which viewpoint is true.

First of all this argument to me seems an elaborate invention to circumvent the logical and proved arguments I gave on dreaming in deep sleep. Perhaps your argument goes as follows: we are in normal sleep, we initiate RB type-OBE and thus a copy consciousness is released, and our original copy goes to deep sleep, thus proving that RB type-OBE during deep sleep is possible. Perhaps this is true, but my original argument is that according to RB it should be possible to initiate a RB type-OBE from within deep sleep, which it is not. Once in deep sleep, there is no way to go RB style OBE without going to higher brainwave levels (theta and higher). This fact does seem to point into the direction of my ideas.

OBE's hard to achieve cause they need deep trance

You dismiss my entire argument in that section by saying the above. Feel free to think so, but RB type-OBE's are extremely easy to initiate compared to NDE-OBE and astral wandering. And yes it does take a deep trance to get there, but getting into a deep trance is not so hard since we all do that each night when we sleep. Sleep and (lucid)dreams, from which a lot of RB type OBE's are initiated by many people including those on this forum.

...the Body is dead, which in RB view it means that the dream mind is gone and that alot of subtle energy is transfered from the physical body to the Astral body which gives him a lot more stability.

Looks to me as though he says here that his OBE's are initiated by the dream mind (thus the OBE's are dreams) and that at death indeed the whole spirit (all the subtle energy) leaves the body. I would agree with this.

well I'm confused. What does the brain do anyway? ....
... it is somehow strange for me to assume that the brain can do all this, the mind yes but the brain?

In my view, our consciousness (our mind) is the thinker, and is maintained, sustained and created by two things: our physical body and our spirit. Part of the spirit is the subconscious, which is largely responsible for creating dreams. To me it is not surprising at all that this combination can make us experience all kinds of stuff that we would not even consider possible before trying (being a flower or whatever).

People knowing nothing about OBE's and dreaming for years , suddenly report that they wake up floating above their bodys which lay in the bed. they get very scared and don not understand this at all, never the less it happens from time to time (I know alot of this people) No if We assume that OBe's are Dreams , we would this experiences all be so alike why should the brain suddenly simulate this which is really not like a dream were events happen usually like you expect them to happen (in a way, you are afraid and voila there is the monster...) but this experiences are completely against their expectations and alike, why does this happen i wonder.

First of all in our dreams a lot of unexpected stuff happens all the time, but it depends ofcourse also on what you would call "unexpected". I for one would certainly say that some things that happen in my dreams are quite unexpected by me. Also, we dream about many things during our lives. What if we would ever unexpectedly dream of seeing ourselves in our bed? This would be a shock to anyone, and could probably explain why it would happen again to these persons. Given the huge amount of people on earth and the huge amount of stuff they dream of, it would not be impossible that these natural "OBE's" occur randomly once in a while by accident.

Oh and Catmeow, i will look into these articles as soon as i have more time and see what i can come up with.

Still being nice, I salute you all.

[catmeow]

Hi Tom

Don't you work  o.k. I'm a student too (Physics), so I'll take some time to reply.

Tee hee.....   Yes Tom, I do work and am very busy, and this is eating into my free time!!

If I sound rude it is cause my English is not good enough. I apologize.

No need to apologize, when I was talking about being rude I actually wasn't referring to you.  And btw your English is much better than my Swiss (and Xetrov's English is much better than my Dutch!)

No I don't understand that. Do mean you have both LD and OBE and that they are not the same thing? If you say NDE's you don't mean NDE right?

I have had many thousands of LD's.  Of those thousands only a few have seemed, perhaps real enough to classify as OBE's.  I believe that LD and OBE are different.  You have actually prompted me to look up LD in RB's book, and I think my position on this in fact is very close to RB's, I'll explain this a little later.  But I DO think it is important to distinguish between LD and OOB and this is what many people on this board don't appear to do.

I consider NDE to be a type of OBE.  From what I've read and heard about NDE, it does appear to be a "real" experience, as opposed to LD which (IMO) is a subjective fantasy experience.

So I distinguish three experiences:

LD = subjective, fantasy, "dream" experience
OBE = objective, real experience
NDE = objective, real experience (?)

So you believe that OBE can happen without NDE then?

Absolutely.  This is where I suspect I disagree with Xetrov.

Have you ever heard of shared dreaming. there are actually people on this board that say they can enter other peoples dreams. It also seems to be possible to perceive real world things . For example native Americans searched for Prey during LD.

Yes, I have experienced this myself.  The best was a dream I shared with my mother.  This was an LD which I initiated via my normal "exit" procedure.  I travelled to my mother's home and met her there.  I did a few tricks like walking through walls and floating around.  Later when I woke up I phoned her to discover she was in a state of shock.  She had had EXACTLY the same dream as me (at the same time) and was sure I must have died, since the dream was so strange.  

But to me, this experience felt like a dream.  It did not feel real.  I explain it as LD with ESP.  It was an internal subjective experience, but shared with my mother via ESP.

Now you are aware that Xetrov believes LD =OBE are you?

Well, I'm not clear on Xetrov's position here.  But it does sound like he argues that LD=OBE?

I would like your inability to see 3D while out of body. As from all I read I would conclude that it is very well possible for you to see 3D when out of body but as long as you believe you can't and search for a way to do it it won't happen. This is just my theorie though, maybe I'm completely wrong.

To be honest I haven't actively sought 3D vision whilst LD'ing.  I've just noticed (each time) that when I LD I have exactly the same vision impairment that I have physically.  It's possible that my preconceptions are limiting my 3D ability, but I honestly don't feel that's the limiting factor.

Regarding LD, RB talks in great detail about this in chapter 23, and in fact his position is identical to mine.  On p323:

As the physical body and mind fall asleep, a copy of consciousness is reflected into the etheric body, and from there into the projectable double as it is generated, and later into the astral and higher subtle bodies.  While this is happening, the physical/etheric copy of the mind begins sliding toward another type of projection, an internal projection into the dream environment

This is exactly my position.  Whilst we LD, we are using a type of consciousness which is still bound to ("residing in" if you like) the physical body.  RB actually mentions the term "physical/etheric" body.  This is an old Theosophical (Eastern tradition) concept.  The "etheric" double is supposed to be a type of ultra-gaseous physical double.  It's the physical "aura" if you like.  But I digress.

So we have a copy of physical/etheric consciousness which is "dreaming" in an "internal" (fantasy) world, and at the same time we have a copy of astral consciousness which is having an "external" (real) experience in the astral world.   When the OBE finishes, the memory of the OBE is lost because this memory fails to re-integrate back into the physical consciousness.  So all we remember is the "dream" experience, rather than the real astral experience.   In my case this is an LD, because I am conscious during my dreams.

I believe that this is the rule, rather than the exception.  Most people remember their LD rather than the accompanying OBE, because their "memory download" fails.  It's VERY difficult to achieve a complete "memory download".  That's why it's very difficult to achieve a real, perfectly remembered OBE.  Instead we remember the LD and mistake it for the OBE.

So all I'm saying is to be more critical of your experience.  If it seems like a dream, it probably is.  As I said in an earlier post, there is plenty of research into LD and OBE and the differences are:

LD:  Low level of consciousness, poor memory, low critical faculty, many fantasy elements, tendency to slip back into a normal dream, low sense of "reality", impaired senses, etc

OBE: Heightened level of consciousness, often described as "expanded consciousness", no or few fantasy elements, sensation of "utter reality", heightened perception, sometimes 360 degree vision, additional senses, communication via telepathy etc

How do you manage to get all this LD anyway?

Ever since the age of about 15 I started to practice LD.  I can now do it just about at will, but only really in the morning when I wake up.  I go through an "exit" procedure, pretty much identical to an OBE "exit" procedure, but I end up with (IMO) an LD not an OBE.   It's very difficult to do this at night, going to sleep because I just fall asleep.

I'm fairly certain that I'm active "astrally" pretty much every night, because my astral experiences reflect into my dreams which are usually of flying, swimming, running effortlessly great distances, leaping effortlessly, skiing, spinning, moving at high speed in various different ways.  These dreams all have a very special quality which distinguishes them from ordinary dreams.  Quite often I just float around in my dreams, and then I realise I'm dreaming (because I'm floating).  But as I say, these are all "physical/etheric" memories.  The actual astral memory is lost when I wake up.

Xetrov: likewise, I'll read your links in greater detail when I get time!


catmeow

[Tombo]

@Xetrov

Hi again

I must say, as your viewpoint becomes more clear to me I see that I agree with you on must parts, definitions seem to be the main Problem.

You put words  into my mouth i didn't use. Of course not all of Bruce's ideas are wrong! Anyway, good idea, i might ask this question to him on the QA section By

I didn't mean to say you said that. I would enjoy reading your questions on the QA-section, I have been active there too.

agree totally. Since the experiences in the astral while the body is alive are processed by the active physical brain too (Clark has some interesting idea on this by the way), physical limitations should have some influence on our astral perception while we are alive. I say this is because, while our spirit is connected to a physical body, our perception and awareness is both influenced by the physical body (sensory input, for one, processed by the brain before it enters our awareness) and by our spirit. So we see that there is a difference between perception in a NDE-OBE and in a RB type-OBE, differences caused by the fact that during the first we are really out of our bodies and perceiving the astral through our astral senses entirely, while during the latter we are not out of body and perceiving any astrally related information through ESP, thereby also processing the information through our physical brain. That is why I say we are not really 'placed' in the astral in the first place during a RB type OBE, since if we were we would be in a NDE (spirit leaving physical body), which is clearly not the case since brain activity stays normal and the heart keeps beating regularly.

From me personal experience I would conclude that the experience itself is not so much limited but the ability to remember after waking up is in fact limited by our physical body.

Clearly it looks as if NDE-OBE and RB type OBE are two totally different phenomena? You said yourself that as long as the physical body is alive the Astral experiences are limited, and yet you claim that your spirit has left the body at RB type OBE. How can these experiences be limited, if we are totally free? Being totally free clearly negates the limitations, which happens in NDE-OBE. Why are these limitations then still in place with a RB style OBE?

Well in this area I think we still have some misunderstandings. Being really out of body and being totally free, why should they belong together? I mean you now really sit in front of your computer, does that mean you are completely free? I don't associate Out of body with being totally free.

I think we neglected the most important factor of our discussion which is:
What is "You" what is "Self" what is "Spirit"? the question whether we really leave our body is dependent on this definitions. If we do not understand the same thing as "Self" we never will be able to reach common ground. In my view "Self" is conscious, awayness, there for I actually would say: when I sit on a bench daydreaming of my girlfriend I'm out of my body. This may sound odd, but it is a matter of viewpoint.

Now, how do you define "Self" or "spirit" ? Do you believe in a solid entity which could be labeled "soul" or maybe you say "self" is "all your memory, your awayness, your physical body and your current conscious"  then of course you can only really leave your body when dead. You see this question is I believe the most important. If we discuss whether or not one leaves his body we have to know exactly what we mean by "YOU", What are "YOU"?
If I had realized that point earlier I would have brought it up and saved us some time, sorry about that.

Here you touch upon a very delicate point. I know it could be interpreted as demeaning when i say, no we aren't really free out of our body. I would most likely feel exactly the same way as all of you when i was in your position. But so what if the experience would be "limited" because of the fact that its partly generated by the physical brain? So what if that does limit the scope of it? Really, there is still so much interesting stuff to explore and experience before you in the end will be able to go into an NDE-OBE. All the experiences posted on this forum,all the experiences of all the members here show this to be true. Also I have not said  that no "true" astral exploring can take place, since you can still perceive it through different ways, for one by ESP and by feeling the astral around you (energy, entities, whatever). To really grow spiritually and to expand your consciousness and your love from within yourself, you have to be patient.

I'm glad to see that we agree here.

It isnt for nothing that Bardon's followers and Yogi's train themselves for ages and ages before they can really at last leave their physical bodies.

this comes back to the defition of "leave body" I guess

Yet it seems  to be a characteristic of most contemporary western spiritual movements to get the most results as fast as possible, which is understandable because we are curious to explore!  But spirituality isnt fast food (no insult intended at anyone here). We should not lean on our desires (to advance as fast as possible) when explaining our experiences, doing so will only hold us back. You know, I do not say that I have to be right per se in my ideas, but at least it provides a congruent alternative viewpoint which all of you should consider carefully, and not dismiss right away because it would not at once meet with your current desires.

This is indeed true I'll think about it.

I will show you the logic behind the argument I gave, why the visual cortex is inactive during deep sleep so no RB style OBE's take place. Besides from experience this argument goes as follows: dreams are initiated during normal / REM sleep by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. This is common knowledge but I will link you to one random site that mentions it (there are many more) :

(http://www.todaysparent.com/toddler/sleep/article.jsp?content=20040210_105446_3120)

Here it states that "The release of acetylcholine in the brain switches on the furnace that fires dreaming". What happens with this neurotransmitter in deep sleep (also called low wave sleep)? Levels are significantly decreased. For example see:

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/101/7/1795

Which mentions deep sleep and "the accompanying low levels of acetylcholine". I could give a more extensive amount of links that go into the matter, but the point is clear this far i hope. The deeper we go into deep sleep the less active this acetylcholine becomes. So when we are fully in delta wave deep sleep (brainwaves << 4Hz), there is no dreaming and no visuals, thus the visual cortex is not giving signals to our consciousness anymore. I and many others who can sustain lucidity during deep sleep have verified this. It is true that in the initial phase of deep sleep still some dreaming occurs. This is because brainwave activity overlaps, during the first stages of deep sleep there are still theta brainwaves (besides the delta waves), so dreaming is still possible although already diminished. When only delta waves remain, no dreaming whatsoever is possible and it is not possible to go into a RB style OBE.  
You can also not force yourself into a dream from pure delta sleep unless brainwave frequency goes back up again to theta and higher (this can go quite fast).

This whole argument is based on the (possible false) premiss that the dream state must be present in the brain in order to experience OBE's. Thats why I said one had to do tests to explore this.
For example somebody that is very good in OBE staying outside the body until Brainwaves indicate "No dreams" then a Physical sign is revealed and then the person must describe this after he woke up. But this kind of experiments are way too hard to do.

First of all this argument to me seems an elaborate invention to circumvent the logical and proved arguments I gave on dreaming in deep sleep. Perhaps your argument goes as follows: we are in normal sleep, we initiate RB type-OBE and thus a copy consciousness is released, and our original copy goes to deep sleep, thus proving that RB type-OBE during deep sleep is possible. Perhaps this is true, but my original argument is that according to RB it should be possible to initiate a RB type-OBE from within deep sleep, which it is not. Once in deep sleep, there is no way to go RB style OBE without going to higher brainwave levels (theta and higher). This fact does seem to point into the direction of my ideas.

Were did RB state it is possible to induce a OBE during deep sleep? I wouldn't be surprised if your viewpoint is true, but don't see the relevance for our argument whether we can leave our body our not. You yourself say:
"we are in normal sleep, we initiate RB type-OBE and thus a copy consciousness is released, and our original copy goes to deep sleep, thus proving that RB type-OBE during deep sleep is possible. Perhaps this is true"
Thats all I'm saying.

OBE's hard to achieve cause they need deep trance

You dismiss my entire argument in that section by saying the above. Feel free to think so, but RB type-OBE's are extremely easy to initiate compared to NDE-OBE and astral wandering. And yes it does take a deep trance to get there, but getting into a deep trance is not so hard since we all do that each night when we sleep. Sleep and (lucid)dreams, from which a lot of RB type OBE's are initiated by many people including those on this forum.

Well what I meant is that OBE's (from "waking" via vibrations are harder to achieve then LD's during night) which is true for the majority of people.

."..the Body is dead, which in RB view it means that the dream mind is gone and that alot of subtle energy is transfered from the physical body to the Astral body which gives him a lot more stability."

Looks to me as though he says here that his OBE's are initiated by the dream mind (thus the OBE's are dreams) and that at death indeed the whole spirit (all the subtle energy) leaves the body. I would agree with this.

No not exactly. The dream mind is gone therefore it no longer affects the OBe-mind, which it usually does, when active, meaning that the memory's of the copies get mixed up, which sounds a bit odd to me as well, I must say.By the way I realized that catmeow basically shares my viewpoint so maybe He/She can explain better.
The dream-mind and the Obe-mind are however two separate things the OBe-mind is not sustained by the dream mind (In RB-view as I understand it). At death  a lot of subtle energy transfers to the Astralbody, giving him a lot of stability and clarity. However this can also be done while still alive if one trains this.

First of all in our dreams a lot of unexpected stuff happens all the time, but it depends of course also on what you would call "unexpected". I for one would certainly say that some things that happen in my dreams are quite unexpected by me. Also, we dream about many things during our lives. What if we would ever unexpectedly dream of seeing ourselves in our bed? This would be a shock to anyone, and could probably explain why it would happen again to these persons. Given the huge amount of people on earth and the huge amount of stuff they dream of, it would not be impossible that these natural "OBE's" occur randomly once in a while by accident.

This is possible but I don't think it is true.

[Tombo]

@catmoew

Tee hee.....   Yes Tom, I do work and am very busy, and this is eating into my free time!!

Yes indeed! So I'll try to write short.

And btw your English is much better than my Swiss (and Xetrov's English is much better than my Dutch!)

Hehe, don't hesistate to try though...

I consider NDE to be a type of OBE.  From what I've read and heard about NDE, it does appear to be a "real" experience, as opposed to LD which (IMO) is a subjective fantasy experience.

So I distinguish three experiences:

LD = subjective, fantasy, "dream" experience
OBE = objective, real experience
NDE = objective, real experience (?)

Well your viewpoint with the merging states is close to mine, how would you define the line between LD abd OBE, How do you recognize it yourself when having the experience?

So you believe that OBE can happen without NDE then?

Absolutely.  This is where I suspect I disagree with Xetrov.

Yes indeed, thats what I meant when I said you have conflicting viewpoints, but enough of that.

Yes, I have experienced this myself.  The best was a dream I shared with my mother.  This was an LD which I initiated via my normal "exit" procedure.  I travelled to my mother's home and met her there.  I did a few tricks like walking through walls and floating around.  Later when I woke up I phoned her to discover she was in a state of shock.  She had had EXACTLY the same dream as me (at the same time) and was sure I must have died, since the dream was so strange.  

But to me, this experience felt like a dream.  It did not feel real.  I explain it as LD with ESP.  It was an internal subjective experience, but shared with my mother via ESP.

Interesting I gave some comments on the problems of definitions in the reply to Xetrov. What do you mean by subjective and objective?

Regarding LD, RB talks in great detail about this in chapter 23, and in fact his position is identical to mine.  On p323:

As the physical body and mind fall asleep, a copy of consciousness is reflected into the etheric body, and from there into the projectable double as it is generated, and later into the astral and higher subtle bodies.  While this is happening, the physical/etheric copy of the mind begins sliding toward another type of projection, an internal projection into the dream environment

This is exactly my position.  Whilst we LD, we are using a type of consciousness which is still bound to ("residing in" if you like) the physical body.  RB actually mentions the term "physical/etheric" body.  This is an old Theosophical (Eastern tradition) concept.  The "etheric" double is supposed to be a type of ultra-gaseous physical double.  It's the physical "aura" if you like.  But I digress.

Well fine I have not enoughexperience to say much on this

So we have a copy of physical/etheric consciousness which is "dreaming" in an "internal" (fantasy) world, and at the same time we have a copy of astral consciousness which is having an "external" (real) experience in the astral world.   When the OBE finishes, the memory of the OBE is lost because this memory fails to re-integrate back into the physical consciousness.  So all we remember is the "dream" experience, rather than the real astral experience.   In my case this is an LD, because I am conscious during my dreams.

Hmmm I sense that you demean alittle the LD-experience itself, There are very good books on this for example "Dreamgates" by Robert Moss

So all I'm saying is to be more critical of your experience.  If it seems like a dream, it probably is.  As I said in an earlier post, there is plenty of research into LD and OBE and the differences are:

LD:  Low level of consciousness, poor memory, low critical faculty, many fantasy elements, tendency to slip back into a normal dream, low sense of "reality", impaired senses, etc

OBE: Heightened level of consciousness, often described as "expanded consciousness", no or few fantasy elements, sensation of "utter reality", heightened perception, sometimes 360 degree vision, additional senses, communication via telepathy etc

But there seems to be a very thin red line between them, which nobody can really gasp.

Ever since the age of about 15 I started to practice LD.

How?

I'm fairly certain that I'm active "astrally" pretty much every night, because my astral experiences reflect into my dreams which are usually of flying, swimming, running effortlessly great distances, leaping effortlessly, skiing, spinning, moving at high speed in various different ways.  These dreams all have a very special quality which distinguishes them from ordinary dreams.  Quite often I just float around in my dreams, and then I realize I'm dreaming (because I'm floating).  But as I say, these are all "physical/etheric" memories.  The actual astral memory is lost when I wake up.

other LD-dreamers said to me that if I would Try to remember my OBE's during LD's the memory would easily come, maybe You should try this, I haven't so far.

Cheers Tom