Is OOBE an INTERNAL experience?

[embrace]

We are so used to the terminology like "OUT of the body experience" that we don't even question things anymore. To be honest, I'm really doubting that OOBE happens OUT there. It makes more sense for me to believe that it happens inside of our heads, just as anything else. A few thoughts:

• The world as we know it (so called reality) consists of space, time, colors, shapes, sounds, etc. All those elements do not exist independently from our 5 senses. The fact that we see the world as 3-dimensional full-color surround-sound video is because we have eyes, ears, nose, tongue, tactile sense, and a brain that puts it all together and transform into a believable picture of reality. Hence, if we were to truly travel OUT of the body, we would probably see the world in a completely different way. There would be no shapes, no colors, no space, no sounds, no tactile sensations, etc. The fact, that during an OOBE we perceive the world as we normally would suggests that our experience has to do with a regular brain activity and brain memory. Given this is true, OOBE is really no proof for live after death, because traveling out of the body would not be possible without physical brain and all the memories contained in it.
• The fact that in OOBE we can perceive things from the real world and later verify our observations does not prove traveling OUT of the body. Remote viewing allows for the same results, just as regular dreams - both happen without leaving the body. This means, that OOBE might be just a dream - a special state of consciousness - in which we can successfully perceive the elements of the real world.

Just sharing my thoughts. Let me know what you think

[Bedeekin]

"regular brain activity and brain memory"

If it is brain memory... and it is as real if not more real than real life.. .what does that tell you about real life?

Anyway.. I lost the 'out' theory a long while ago so I completely agree... 'Out of Body' is just a terminology and I suppose sums up the experience in an easy to say sound-bite.

I have had far too many validated experiences to say it's just materialistic (meat based) in nature. I just simply can't deny or ignore it as anything but 'real'... and that has nothing to do with belief. I would have to erase 2 thirds of my life.

[Zagadka]

I would suggest you read "Seth speaks: the eternal validity of the soul" by Jane Roberts, I think your question is covered in multiple ways through the book. I won't go into details, but I think the physical world and our senses are our creations. The same applies to the out-of-body experience, it's another mental space made of symbols. It doesn't mean it is not real, what you see while awake is a perfectly acceptable way to see things, but it is one possible way to see the world which is multidmensional. For example, in another system of reality, time is not perceived the same way, it is said to be perceived as a sort of matter. What is fascinating is that Monroe describe experiencing time in a similar way in Journeys #1, chapter 5, Infinity, Eternity. And why wouldn't the physical senses be an extent of some internal processing, what has been called internal senses? And from there, senses that goes beyond visual, auditive, tactile, etc. input? The same applies to thoughts and matter; why wouldn't it be thoughts who creates chemical changes in the brain and not the contrary?  Imagine for a second your present consciousness is merely a ramification of a much more profound you which project himself to acquire experience by making up different realities in order to evolve always the more and the more. If those kind of topics interest you, read Seth, it's fascinating and easy to understand. For me it was a revelation that validates many personal experiences.

[eskimoswim]

i'm undecided on this topic, but i lean more toward the idea that we do leave our bodies. i haven't heard of many people dreaming the same exact dream, yet those who do "retrievals" are supposedly helping those who have recently died and escorting them to the same park described by Monroe in his book Ultimate Reality. Sure, one could mentally create this situation in their head alongside the makeup of the park. But what about those who experience this exact same thing and have not even read the book?

i'm not arguing, i'm literally looking for answers to those questions from those here who have more experience and knowledge

• The world as we know it (so called reality) consists of space, time, colors, shapes, sounds, etc. All those elements do not exist independently from our 5 senses. The fact that we see the world as 3-dimensional full-color surround-sound video is because we have eyes, ears, nose, tongue, tactile sense, and a brain that puts it all together and transform into a believable picture of reality. Hence, if we were to truly travel OUT of the body, we would probably see the world in a completely different way. There would be no shapes, no colors, no space, no sounds, no tactile sensations, etc. The fact, that during an OOBE we perceive the world as we normally would suggests that our experience has to do with a regular brain activity and brain memory. Given this is true, OOBE is really no proof for live after death, because traveling out of the body would not be possible without physical brain and all the memories contained in it.

I feel that William Buhlman approached this well in Adventures Beyond the Body. The human eye can only see between .00007cm. and .00004cm. of the electromagnetic wave spectrum. Because of this, our so-called "reality" is limited to what our five senses enable us to perceive. When out of body, we are gradually experiencing senses we are not capable of having in our physical vehicles. I'd imagine we don't see the world in an entirely different way because we still possess those five senses alongside the ones we do not normally have, which give (some of) us 360 degree vision and the ability to see and move through dimensions and different astral realms not perceivable by the human eye.

these are just my current understandings...or misunderstandings[/list]

[Kelly87]

If OOBEs are.. all internal. Why is the method to induce them that we leave our bodies?

So many OBEs begin that way. Sometimes people do this on purpose, or it happens to them unconciously and then they wake up.
Why don't they begin in a different manner if they are not in some way or another occurring externally?

[Bedeekin]

Tell me how you would interpret your conscious mind occupying another reality that isn't strictly OUTSIDE the body nor INSIDE the body. What would you call it?

An Away From Physical Reality Experience?

It's natural for the physical mind to experience some sort of locomotive sensation when doing something active. This is our physical reality the moment we are born. We perceive the 'externalisation' of ourselves when we negotiate non-physical-reality because it is the only possible metaphor we have for not perceiving that we are in the body.

Look at a dream. We don't call them out of body because we aren't perceiving that we are actually anywhere but the dream. It isn't until we transgress consciously from this reality to the next whilst maintaining an awareness of full perception that we call it Out of Body.

[Xanth]

If OOBEs are.. all internal. Why is the method to induce them that we leave our bodies?

So many OBEs begin that way. Sometimes people do this on purpose, or it happens to them unconciously and then they wake up.
Why don't they begin in a different manner if they are not in some way or another occurring externally?

You're so used to the concept of requiring a body in order to interact with anything.  This is a belief thrust upon you simply by being here in this physical reality and being human.

I don't have non-physical experiences where I "leave" my body.  I don't need them anymore.  I don't believe I'm a spirit *IN* a body...
I'm just consciousness.  Nothing more, nothing less.

[eskimoswim]

if we don't leave our bodies, doesn't that debunk most things that people find appealing about AP to begin with? Exploring the universe and different dimensions, traveling through time, speaking to those who have died, etc.

if this is the case, it's kind of a bummer to know people like Robert Monroe put all that effort into researching "the truth" when it is all just in our minds

[newmethod]

Not sure but i have had experiences which although they COULD be happening internally I believe it is more likely that they are happening outside of the physical body and brain.

Such as experiences i have had where i am aware of my physical body, have had full vision of my room behind closed eyelids, yet i can also feel me outside my body in a vehicle that is larger than my body. Maybe it's what some call the etheric body. I have had experiences where i (my consciousness) was totally linked into this etheric body and i could move it (etheric body) and all information/memory experienced at that point in time came from the etheric body experience. At least this is how i interpret it, i was not in my physical body but in another less dense but just as real larger body and able to view my physical body beside me.

So not sure.

But my feeling is that consciousness will exist after the death of the physical body and that the physical body is partly a point of reference for the time being. I think we may actually travel to other places OUTSIDE of the body both in dreams and in OBE's/AP's.

I also remember vividly a lucid dream i was having once where i was trying to prolong it but it wasn't working, in the end i felt the sensation of falling upwards then bam! back in my body and awake in the physical. It gave me the feeling that i came back from elsewhere. but who knows maybe i was just falling upwards from inside my minds eye?

From your own experiences you will make your own conclusions.
Peace.

[Kelly87]

You're so used to the concept of requiring a body in order to interact with anything.  This is a belief thrust upon you simply by being here in this physical reality and being human.

I don't have non-physical experiences where I "leave" my body.  I don't need them anymore.  I don't believe I'm a spirit *IN* a body...
I'm just consciousness.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Maybe so

My goal is to see that for myself.. To know for certain whether Im a concept of my body and physiology or consciousness that utilizes this body..

[Szaxx]

Lets not forger the impression set for centuries that the Earth is flat and the centre of the universe. It APPEARED so. Ome day along came the return of ships from over the horizon into view and retrograde motion of the planets.
A couple of facts that changed the worlds ACCEPTED view.

[Volgerle]

YOU are only IN your body? WRONG.

YOU are only OUT of your body? WRONG.

YOU are neither IN nor OUT of your body? Sorry guys, that's probably still wrong.

So what is it then? What remains of all alternatives? Right, you guess it:

YOU are IN AND OUT of your body.

Problem solved.  

You are infinite consciusness, what some open-minded researchers such as Sheldrake or Radin also call the 'irreducible mind'. You just limit your"self" and put a focus on a body for this experience we call physical. The body itself (including its sense organs!) is a virtual computer that adheres to the physics of this reality including its biological, energetic and chemical rulesets.

Of course within this reality game, it also interacts as an avatar with the wider reality - and the higher consciousness (soul) who is the player of the game. This can be seen by energy effects you feel or produce when you do energy/chakra work or kundalini. This might be measured by the neuroscientists when they do their research MRTs and EEGs on the brain. This can be measured by energy fields around the human body.

But that's all. It's interaction, in the brain, out of the brain, around the body in fields or (astral/etheric etc) bodies. It is not the mind itself. The radio or tv program you 'receive / perceive' is not the program itself. The radio also interacts inside with the program received. It has to, it's a machine that processes incoming signals and data, same for the brain. It is also a computer (like the whole body), not the user.

Moreover, the button or dial you use to change the frequency isn't the program, just the changing of a program, the tool, the device, the mechanism. So is your brain when it's interacting. It's maybe comparable to a RAM (rather than a ROM). It accesses fields and realities. It accesses information and data streams.

But it's not about mind, just interaction of an avatar inside the game. So "WHERE" is mind?

We could answer this question (or determine we actually cannot answer it...) maybe by help of another concept we know from quantum physics: NON-LOCALITY.

The name says it already: It's abut the negation ("non") of space / locality, which is an essential part of our physicality (next to time and all the "natural laws" / rulesets of this reality).

It is reasonable to assume that the MIND is NON-LOCAL. Consciousness is NOT part of this reality, which it just co-constructs/creates and experiences (together with other minds or subdivided minds of the same "ONE" mind).

So how can we then answer where "mind / consciousness" is ? We can't, because this concept of locality does not apply in the first place!!! The best approach thus still is my solution above: You are EVERYWHERE in potential, while everyWHERE is not necessarily related to a space/location as we understand it.

Of one thing I am certain: you are NOT in your brain/body only. Leave this backward folly to the materialists, please.  

[catmeow]

You are infinite consciusness, what some open-minded researchers such as Sheldrake or Radin also call the 'irreducible mind'. You just limit your"self" and put a focus on a body for this experience we call physical. The body itself (including its sense organs!) is a virtual computer that adheres to the physics of this reality including its biological, energetic and chemical rulesets.

This is very well put. I may well steal it and pass it off as my own wording some time in the future!

[Xanth]

This is very well put. I may well steal it and pass it off as my own wording some time in the future!

I agree completely with catmeow.  Very well put Volgerle!

And might I add that other non-physical realities, such as this current physical reality we're all sharing right this instant, each have their own set of "rules" that govern them.  Some are more closely related to our own rule set... some are much more loosely defined, in such that you can fly with a thought!

See what I'm getting at?

I'm saying that it's possible that the malleability of a non-physical environment MIGHT not be up to the experiencer... it might just be the rules of the reality frame which you've chosen to experience at the time.