First Conscious OOBE at 19

[Nameless]

I remember my first conscious OOBE, I was 19 and if I had ever heard of such I had surely paid no attention. To me everything we talk about on this forum was woowoo. But the day before this event I had overheard someone talking about OOBEs. I can't remember if it was on television or where.

I had work that night and did my shift getting home around 8AM. I changed into shorts and tee and running shoes and headed out the door. I usually ran but sometimes walked a 5 mile stretch then jumped in the river to swim back to my side of the river. I lived temporarily with my parents at the time. I swam back across the river and walked the short stretch home, shoes hung around my neck and clothes and hair drying in the wind.

I changed and went to my room. As I stretched out on my bed what I had overheard the day before came back to me. I remembered all the strange events I had been through ever my entire life and wondered about this OOBE stuff. I thought it was pretty silly to think you needed a body of any kind to go exploring in the other places. I had done so since I was a kid and didn't need a body but maybe...

So I turned over and said okay, let's do this and out I went. And this is what transpired that day.

I looked up at myself floating near the ceiling. I was wide awake. I was also looking down at myself lying on the bed fully conscious of both perspectives at the same time. I thought okay let's go outside and out I went. I left my body lying on the bed and turned to the window floating out easy as pie. I looked around and everything was exactly as I would expect it to be. The sun was out shining brightly, everything was in place so I floated up and began cruising around and just seeing everything from a different perspective.

I thought, well this is fun so where do I go from here. I know I'll go to England. No particular reason it was just the first thing that popped into my head. I flew over land and lot of water and found myself in England. There was a beautiful bridge there so I went closer. I saw a man beneath the bridge smoking a cigarette. I wondered if he could see me like I had seen myself back home.

I think he did sense my presence but am not sure that he actually saw me. I watched him a bit. He was wearing light colored clothing. I remember thinking underneath bridges might not be the best place to hang out and that he might should leave. I studied the water which was somewhat muddy and the stonework of the bridge. Then decided I should probably get back home and get some sleep. I returned home and found myself lying just as I was when I left.

I was impressed at seeing myself return through the window and impressed at seeing myself lying there casually waiting. I rejoined my physical body and lay there for a while thinking "how amazing".

After this experience I tried repeating it a couple times but honestly didn't know how it happened in the first place. Of course life happened after that and I soon moved on from even thinking about it. I was not to have another experience quite like it until after I joined this forum some 30+ years later.

[T-Man]

Nameless,

This sounds very familar to me.  I was similar as I experienced my first conscious OBE when I was around the age of 22.  Mine was very uneventful as I popped out the head.  I took a walk around my condo and than crawled back into my body.  This felt very natural and I really didn't think too much about it at the time.  This was before the internet so I couldn't easily do research!  (Yes, I said before the internet...to those young ones here)!  Here I am over 30 years later and just starting to make some progress! 

[EscapeVelocity]

If I must pinpoint my first conscious OBE, it was at the age of 23. I had experienced NP events since the age of 4, but not understood them nor placed them in relative context to one another; the jigsaw puzzle was just too large at the time. By 23, I had read some books and gotten some perspective but the 'natural ability' had apparently left me by that time. For some reason, at this time, I had a similar experience to both Nameless and T-Man; not much beyond just being aware of my 'etheric' exit and going 'out', chasing a lucid dream element.
My experience wasn't as thorough as either of theirs, but it was a confirmation of all I had read of the theory leading up to that point.
And yes, a mind-blowing event!

But like Nameless mentions...it seems that the early twenties and PR Life intervenes and we forget about all this for awhile...

[Lumaza]

 My first conscious OBE had occurred at the age of 12 years old. It was terrifying! 

I had spent the day working with my Father at his company. A tractor trailer came in loaded with boxes for the company and he and I set out to unload it. He got a phone call, so I continued to unload it myself. The boxes weighed an average of about 25-30 lbs each. There was well over 100 of them in the truck. My Father's phone call went on for awhile so I continued the work myself. He was shocked to see that I had almost unloaded the whole thing myself. That was a lot of work for a thin 12 year old to do.

That night we got home, ate and about 6;00pm I went to bed. I was so exhausted I just fell onto the bed and was out cold. The next thing I remember is I am paralyzed but aware. My body feels extremely heavy. I managed to slither from the bed to the ground and now I was nose deep in my the shag carpeting of my room. I started to scream, but no body came to help. I was terrified. The next thing I know, it is morning and I am waking up. I asked the people in the house why didn't they come to help me. They looked at me puzzled and said they never heard a thing. So, I never pursued it any further. I remembered it though. It was one of those things that you never forget.

The next time I had a full completely conscious OBE was my 3 night OBEathon that I had was back in 2011 and that led me to this Forum here. I do have very vivid memories of being "touched" in my sleep. It was always my feet and legs. That was terrifying too. But I figured it was normal because no one else really talked about it. Many times when I was very young, I remember going up the stairs in my home to my bedroom while being chased by a a car. It was the same way constantly. For some reason I felt like I was going to die in a car crash and for that reason I have avoided being in cars for most of my life. I was always a Van person. I travelled for years across this beautiful country here in a Van. The Van was equipped with a bed, table, all kinds of goodies.

[LightBeam]

Yes, these are remembered forever. It's interesting that some people observe their sleeping bodies like you did, but I have never observed that. I have never seen my body sleeping. I guess maybe because I never asked to see it. I also have never experienced the lifting up during exits. I always find myself already in the NP or during vibes, I imagine myself standing up and I find myself standing up on the other side and most times not in my physical room, but already in another location, most often in my childhood home. Maybe our thoughts on how the process works, leads the experience including the technicality of refocusing.
My first conscious OBE was at the age of 27 after applying the visualization technique of William Buhlman for 3 weeks. I almost could not believe it, as I had been trying for a decade to separate during the day just by laying for a long time, and imagining I am lifting up, quieting my mind, completely taking my attention away from my body, etc as Robert Monroe's books suggested, but never succeeded. Finally William Buhlman's visualization technique done as falling asleep worked for me and one night I was awaken during sleep paralyzed and my head buzzing like crazy. I imagined flying and instantly I found myself going through the ceiling. I ended up on the roof, just standing there and feeling ecstatic realizing what'd just happened. I flew around the neighborhood, it was unbelievable. I remember all of my OBEs just like I remember vacations in the physical world. Pretty amazing.

[GrumpyRabbit]

These are such cool stories! The first time I know this happened to me was when I was either 17 or 18. This was the late 90s, and the wild west of everyday folks having personal computers and the internet in their homes. There was some sort of "esoteric" type website that I became pretty obsessed with. I can't remember the name of it, but it was all about psychic and paranormal stuff, energy work, astral projection, etc. I read all sorts of things about using your "energy arms" to pull energy into your body. On this one occasion I was doing whatever "energy work/meditation" I had learned on the website, and essentially --and somewhat accidentally-- lurched myself up out of my body. I basically threw my arms out, trying to hug someone I really missed, and next thing I know, I turn my head to the side and notice I'm floating slowly upwards. I was very calm and everything felt so peaceful. I was like, "Oh, I'm out of my body right now", like, ho hum, very mundane observation. I hadn't been technically *trying* to leave my body at that point, but in retrospect I had obviously achieved The State, unbeknownst to me, and wound up throwing my energy arms out (again, unbeknownst to me!) and that's what did it. I floated slowly up and looked back up to the ceiling - now it was like my nose was up against the ceiling of my room. Then it looked as if there were words carved into my ceiling - the message read, "love is death". Well, that was a little scary, and I started thinking, Oh no, what if I float up forever and go into outerspace and I can't breathe and I get lost and never make it back to my body! So I did what I had remembered reading on the website to get back to my body: I thought of my body and thought the word "home!" over and over. Then just like that, i was back. It felt just like waking up from sleep. I dismissed the entire experience as having all been just a dream. Too bad, if I had been keeping up the practice since then I'd be a total expert by now!!

[tides2dust]

awesome, y'all.

nameless i really like the fact that you could run home and take a swim in the river after work.
sounds so nice.

my first conscious oobe i was to young to know what was happening. i had to be somewhere between 8-10 and i was laying on my back in my dads car. he was driving us home from some mini-excursion and i was in the back seat stretched out with my gaze reached out towards the clouds. suddenly i felt my self getting closer to the clouds- leaving my body. i still remember the sensations of slowly exiting, the clouds coming closer and all of this while i was awake.

i've had some very unique in-between moments since then but a real 'awakening' in 2008 which started with strange sleep paralysis like episodes and extremely vivid dreams which i would later use as a way to experiment with the hopes to recreate the oobe. i'm 32 now... so 19-20 for the strong and concentrated batch of occurrences.

[Nameless]

These are all great stories and sure do appreciate all of you for pitching in and sharing.
I love seeing the similarities and the differences. Brings back interesting moments we can all relate to.

Hugs!!!

[SCHMUSTIN]

WOW... That sounds like one heck of an experience.

I don't know how you let it go, and just move on with life for another 30+ years.

I had a very minor experience (compared to this one), and I was so fascinated by it, that to this day, I am still trying to do more than remember my dreams and have a full blown NPE.

Thank you for sharing.

[Nameless]

Hey Schmustin, welcome back.

[Lumaza]

 Just perusing some old threads and I feel that this one here needs a "bump". I'm sure that some of the newer members here could share a story or two themselves as well!

[Volgerle]

Just perusing some old threads and I feel that this one here needs a "bump". I'm sure that some of the newer members here could share a story or two themselves as well!

Not really "new" round here as you know but had not posted this here yet although it is 'old' and was posted elsewhere. So to fill the gap until new members post something, here we go (again): It's with a link and quotation from my (now rather sleepy) Astral Blog and even the 'original' post at Robert Bruce's forum back in 2011 (wonder why it is still there after his passing):

https://astral-blog.weebly.com/blog/first-induced-obe-with-kundalini-symptoms

https://www.astraldynamics.com.au/showthread.php?11852-Sinera-s-Lucidiary&p=96617#post96617

First Induced OBE With Kundalini-Symptoms

2/14/2018

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Note: This is a copy and in most cases edited/updated version of the original post on my Astraldynamics Journal. The original link is to be found here.

21/Nov/2009

Mid-November, two months on, what had happened in the meantime? Well, not much. But I read a book.

Only a week after the surgery, I browsed Amazon and probably by some (divine? / higher self?) intuition instead of searching for books on NDE, which would only have been understandable and which I also did at later points in time, I typed 'out-of-body' into the search field. (Btw, Astral Projection was not a term I knew a lot about then, I heard it but did not even relate it to OBE, but rather to sth like dreams, a kind of clairvoyance or even meditation (all of which is not even entirely wrong, of course).)
Almost naturally, Buhlman's book "Adventures Beyond The Body" (in German it is even "Out Of Body") came first. I bought it and read it. I was absolutely astounded how "simple" it seemed to be and that you could really "walk" through your living room as a non-physical being, and all that not just when you were "near death".

I did the induction exercises (combined visualisation/tactile practice and affirmation). Only after a few days of finishing the book and starting the practice, very early I had those talked about "energy sensations" during the night: I heard strange sounds, remember a lifted stiff arm (I think Buhlman also mentions it in a list of possible 'events') and had inner 'energetic' jumps and movements - all while in bed sleeping or in hypnagogia or when waking up from it. I knew now I was in for more.

This lucadventure might be categorised as a very classic RTZ-OBE. However, and that makes it interesting, it is 'framed' by a lucid dream conversion and a postlude False Awakening (semi-lucid) dream. So we have 3 'classics' in one pack. (After an NDE-type experience 2 months prior to this, I now already had received a huge bag of non-physical experience ... not so bad for a first-timer, huh? )

1) Dream Conversion

I dream that I am flying a familiar street of my old hometown uphill, approx. 3 metres above the ground, which leads to the street of my parent's home. In physical life, I have went and cycled (as child and schoolboy) and later driven it up with my car countless times.
However, suddenly one thing really strikes me then. Not the fact that I am flying. It is rather the fact of HOW I am flying. I am making swimming movements (breaststroke). I notice that this is so utterly stupid and funny alike. Why am I SWIMMING through the air instead of 'normally' flying? At this very instant, this observation literally TRIGGERS my exit sensations, and something starts that I will never in my life forget.

2) Out-Of-Body exit / RTZ-projection

The view changes drastically. I am lucid. And I see the ceiling of my bedroom. Strange thing is that the room appears to be with the light on. I see everything clearly. I am lying on the back (unusual for me) and I also see one arm lifted (again!). It is stiff, I cannot move it, it is fixed up in the air. I also don't really feel it, it is like an alien part or an artificial limb attached to my (otherwise also paralysed but still 'felt') body. But I also don't want to change anything about it.. I want out and I know it has started now. "It" is, besides my new view, the 'energy sensations' I feel.

However they are NOT the famous 'vibrations' at all. I did not know these vibrations then. Only later I did. Today, I know them well, of course, and I can say that this was VERY VERY different! Those WERE NO VIBRATIONS at all!

Sorry if this bores you now a bit, but I need to try to give a description as detailed as possibly, becausee I have a suspicion now of what it could have been, which I could not have known either then or during the following days and events, due to a lack of knowledge about these matters. I will enlarge upon my question later in the Comments section, but now first my attempt to render a detailed description of what I felt and then mistook as 'common vibrations' (what a joke from today's POV). I have, so far for me, not read ANY account on exit sensations here or elsewhere that has stated anything similar to this, which makes my inquiry even more urgent now as it was then.

As said, those 'energy sensations' were nothing like vibrations. Those were BALL-LIKE WAVES along the SPINE. Heavy, violent and almost disruptive as it seemed. Not from head to toe but only through my torso (neck to lower intestines / genital area). I cannot conclusively remember anymore if they went up-down (from neck area on downwards) or vice versa. It could have gone either way or even with a changing of directions.
I did NOT feel any pain. Just movement. Possibly I heard roaring, crackling, sizzling, rustling sounds which more or less correlated with the intensity of the wave-balls' movements. One wave going through my body lasted possibly 1 - 1.5 seconds. The 'low-tide' intervals probably 1 to 2 seconds on average. Sometimes the intensities varied. I tried to give it a graphic expression here, you see it is not absolutely regular, intervals for the pauses (-) as well as for down- or upward moving wave 'blobs' (O, o, 0) vary:

--O--O---o----O---0--o---O--O--o--> (time direction)

There are two words I would like to use to describe the whole movement: Orgasmic/Ejaculative and Peristaltic. But all that without the respective body feelings (unfortunately in the first case ).
So it was as if my torso would have been a great GIANT PENIS at the very moment of ejaculation or a part of the digestive system while it's transporting and processing its content in peristaltic muscle movements.
Another good way to compare it to would be strong electric jolts, but again and - in this case fortunately - without any feelings, just the "movement".

Again just to give an impression on what is meant by 'peristaltic' (mostly used in connection with pumps or the human digestive system), consider it like shown on the graph or the video, but only much much faster (1 wave-interval per 1-2 second or so):
Picture
   
So I hope you get the idea of what I went through - or better: what went through me - then!

And I was and still am sure it was 'not physical' at all. (How could it be ??! This is not the nervous system. I also should have felt pain then, I should have been bursting into parts! Any scoffers should explain it to me or better try experience this for themselves, and then they will admit: "this stuff is f***** real!")

What is even more strange, and it makes me marvel about myself (and I am not a warrior-type of guy!): I stayed completely calm. I let it happen. Maybe there was a kind of attitude involved telling me sth like "hey, you begged for it, so here we go, now don't complain and grit your teeth and get to it!". Maybe it was still due to my hypnagogic / trance-like state. But why did I not get out of it?
And that is not the entire story. I also endured it (knowing that it would ease off soon) because it was somehow FAMILIAR. It is a "I've-been-there-before"-feeling. But why and how? Discussion see below.

After it waned (or even when it was gone completely, not sure anymore) I started to lift. Possibly the subconscious reason for my lifted arm then was that I wanted to use it as a kind of 'launch ramp' all the time. That's another hint to a strange familiarity .. as said, this was my first conscious and deliberate projection, I had not done this before.

So I went out and the first thing to note is: The room was dark again as I slowly soared to my room's ceiling. I looked ahead then for the short time I looked at the wall and ahead again, the ceiling (immersed in darkness now again) before me.

It should be noted, I also had a strange voice when talking to myself shortly (or "thinking aloud"), it was somehow vibrating, sounding high and modulated (not the human-like female voice, that's a different story again). I don't remember anymore what I said to myself then, possiby some "oh"s or "ah"s only. That, however, again, was not orgasmic either.

Now the next funny thing: I stopped at the ceiling. And I did not know what to do. Then the idea to just "turn around". Turning around of what? Of me. But what is me? I have no idea if I had a "body" then because I had not paid attention to it/myself. I was just a cloud or point of consciousness during the whole exit.

Then I just "turned around" (no, it seemed I did not have the purported 360 degrees vision, I really shifted somehow). Looking down where me in the bed should have been I first only saw darkness. Then I concentrated (thinking also about BUhlman's short commands such as 'clarity now' or 'vision now'). After a while I could see a figure lying there on the side (not on the back). After a while I also could make out the face clearly. It was me. I looked pale in the darkness, almost a bit like a moon face.

But you know what striked me most about this, even today when I remember it (and which is possibly also responsible for the moon face appearance)? The kind of picture that really clings to my memory now that first comes to my mind when I remember this event, making this an almost iconic representation of this whole lucidventure:
The very weirdness of SEEING YOUR OWN FACE WITH CLOSED EYELIDS. I looked so 'strange' (in a double sense) that I even did not clearly recognise myself for a second because of this 'alienating' view. When do we see ourselves with closed eyelids? Logically, we don't in mirrors. On photo snapshots when we were blinded by flashlights or on surprise snapshots possibly. But "live" at the same instant? This picture sticks with me, probably for the rest of this life! I will never forget the picture of that guy that is me down there in the bed 'asleep' with closed eyelids. Even today, I count this experience among the top-ten of strange sensations and experiences of my adventures.

After I had 'identified' myself without the slightest doubt, which was otherwise not so difficult since all was 'realistic' and there were no dream imagery or reality fluctuations involved, I decided (wisely and as recommended for newbies) to cut it short and 'go back' immediately. I just went down, which was then much faster than going up.
However, before I re-integrated, another remarkable observation. First, for a split-second I saw my face 'close-up'. Secondly, I heard my breathing (exhale) - but different, as if still somehow from the outside.

3) False Awakening

I got up and went into the bathroom. I passed some time there, also looking at myself into the mirror. All looked normal. I reflected on the things passed now. I was happy at my success of 'astral projecting'. Then, only after quite a while, I thought to myself 'hey, why not go to my parent's bedroom now, and wake them and tell them what happened?'. Then I realised what a strange idea this was. (Possibly it was caused by the dream I had before about flying to my parent's home). Why did I say that? I was an adult now and I had not live with my parents in their home for many many years now. Then I realised that I was still dreaming and woke up.

Analysis / Afterthoughts

First of all, sorry, I will keep further posts on lucidventures much much shorter. I just felt the need to enlarge upon this, since it was my first 'projection', and due to all those circumstances and detailed memory. Therefore I restrict this section (although much more would be to say for me here) only to the issues of FAMILIARITY and KUNDALINI.

The issue of FAMILIARITY with those waves amazes me even today. Perhaps, in our super/sub-conscious memories and as reincarnating beings, we all "know" this already since it is similar to what happens when we die. Or perhaps I had/did this as a child in this life and just don't remember. Or I was a keen projector in a previous life. Or Perhaps I really only thought that THIS were the famous vibrations I read about (what a joke!). But today I know there were NO VIBRATIONS. Those were different. I had only one further experience like this a few days later. After the again-violent exit it failed due to exit blindness and fear issues.
Fear issues also kept me from going on then. I read more books on the topic. Monroe's first book actually increased my fears, it was so different from Buhlman's optimitic take on the issue. Then I read Bruce's Astraldynamics and while I did so, I sometimes had the feeling that I was falling out of my body in waking state! That was enough for me! I actually decided to have a break of a few months, not trying anything. I needed a rest (who should blame me after all that, I had my proper dosage, after all)? So I slammed the door shut again at the end of the year and I did not have any experiences (Sometimes I even affirmed "I stay inside my body" before sleeping!).

Maybe someone more experienced in this matter can answer this. Recently I came to suspect that it might actually have been a KUNDALINI-like experience (note the added "-like", please!). Here, people also report on spine-related 'snake'-like heavy energy sensations. If you look at the video I linked, you see that 'peristalctic' movement is indeed pretty 'snaky' if seen from a specific angle. But they also tell of body cramps and even danger of life. I did not feel this way although the waves also had a 'crampy' aspect to them. Of course, since mainly the torso was affected, it is highly likely for me that the energy was using a 'channel' that leads up/down the physical spine through which the 'awakened' energy was streaming in brutal thrusts of different intensity.
I could so far not really bother to dig deeper into the topic of Kundalini. If someone can tell me it is NOT Kundalini-related, I am fine. I wasn't keen on any Kundalini-experience so far. And if it was Kundalini, well, so be it, but I am even less keen to live through this again for understandable reasons. Two times is enough and I am happy in the end that later (according to logfile starting Feb 2010) I discovered that 'vibrations' are something very very different from that!