Different theory for obes & dreams

[fURIX]

I think you might be right. I've had OBE's where I would end up in places wich looked very real but could not have been a real environment. Based on the fact that eighter the place was simply to wierd or/and I could change the environment with my mind as I was interacting with it. But it would like all OBE's start of with the vibrations and the sensation of floating or falling out of my body. Its hard to say what's realy going on about this whole AP, OBE & LD thing, since we dont realy know the physics(if there is any) or the scientific nature of it. But I think that maybe all those 3 states have some relation to each other.

[amed_h]

I agree.  It is very hard to look at things objectively.  As humans, we tend to mold and cup things to our liking, and this ideology seems to be carried over into our non-physical states (dreaming, oobe, etc).  In my opinion, dreaming, lucid dreaming, and astral projection are very close in nature.  The only difference lies in perspective and realization of one's self to a certain degree... in my opinion.  I still have not obtained that objective view of things when in these states, but I am young, and through years of meditation I expect and hope to attain this perspective in the next 10 years.

Cheers,
Amed

[wendi]

These places spoken of above are certainly real.

I can speak from experience: anomalies in the real time zone are no anomalies: there are weird critters like you would not believe.


supremely submitted, all posters in this thread.above[B)][)]

[mactombs]

First I think you would need some clear definitions. What is a dream? What is an OBE? What is a hallucination? What is imagination? Then you have to take memory into account as well. How did you remember your dream/OBE/hallucination? How well did your memory perserve accurately the experience? Considering the foibles of the human brain, it's impossible to rely on it for pure objectivity.

Perhaps when you understand the inherent inaccuracy of the variables above, I think you'll have a foot in the door of the mentality of those who regard this whole topic fantasy.

But then what is reality? Ask yourself that after you ask yourself what dreams, OBEs, hallucinations are. It's not easy to find an answer, and even if you do, it'll probably only make pure sense to you.

I don't mean to be twisted-brained without any solid input, though. But a good question I'd like to know, is what do you consider a dream to be?

[Do]

My criteria for personally identifying my own non-ordinary states of consciousness as OBE's is admittedly pretty stringent:  waking induced, conscious exit projections.  I'm usually awake during projections or unsuccessful projections (by which I mean experiencing exit sensations with no ultimate OBE), so those are the events I can most confidently call an OBE or attempted OBE.  I have also experienced projection attempts while sleeping (i.e., as I become lucid in a dream I usually attempt to project and may in fact feel that I've floated out of my body, without, however, leaving the dream).  There have been other, more nebulous experiences in which I vividly dream that I am projecting.  While these may be unsuccessful projections, I tend to think of them simply as dreams.

I view all of these experiences as falling on a continuum of consciousness.  There may, in fact, be no really clear dividing line between them.  Other states of consciousness (aside from waking!) that I like to explore include dreams, hypnagogic states (including what I call lucid hypnagogia and directed lucid hypnagogia), light trance states, and active imagination techniques.

All of this is just by way of background.  I've become increasingly aware lately that in my occasional OBE's I seem to be dreaming while I'm out of body.  Or at least there is a powerful overlay of dream imagery when I am out of body.  Anomalies (like people who shouldn't be there!) in the RTZ seem to me to be projections of unconscious content.  I think Robert Bruce says the same thing, but I know some other writers think that they are observers or helpers.  There is, or course, the possibility that anomalies in the RTZ are due to my mind's attempts to make sense of nonphysical realities ~ in other words, that I'm interpreting nonphysical dimensions in physical terms and making mistakes along the way.  But I wonder if it might not be due to the fact that while we are out of body, we may in fact be dreaming.  Why shouldn't our nonphysical counterpart dream if the busy consciousness that "resides" in our physical body is capable of dreaming?  I know this may be a controversial theory to those who are sure that everything they experience in the astral realms and so forth is objectively "real" (that is, a nonphysical experience on an objective par with a physical body/material world experience).  Certainly, many out-of-body experiences have that kind of objective reality.  But I can't help but think that many others may be subjective experiences of dream states while out of body.  Please understand that I'm not saying, "I dreamt I went out of body" but instead "I went out of body and then I dreamt ..."

This is just an idea I'm exploring and it is not intended to dismiss or demean out-of-body experiences.  Sorry for the length of this post, but I wanted to set the stage for what might be a controversial theory.

So ~ what do you think?