Never been able to prove its more than a mind game

[thedubdude]

I've been having OBE's and lucid dreams for about 30 years now. I have them frequently about once a week on average. Since the time of my first OBE I've studied and read many books on the subject and many many books on spirtuality. My view of the world has changed dramatically since my first OBE and I do believe in reincarnation and life after death. That being said, I have yet to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the OBE experience is more than a trick of the mind. Here are some of the experiments I've tried (and failed) to prove the "realness" of the experience:

1. placed a random card face up and viewed it while out of body: I could see the card but it constantly changed while I viewed it. In the end I never correctly identified the card. Experiment performed 4 times.

2. Placed a closed box ,with an unknown item inside, inside my room. I try to reach inside the box and identify the item. Never could. Experiment performed about 5 times.

3. Tried speaking to my wife while out of body. She never rememberd having had the conversation. Experiment performed maybe 3 times.

4. Tried identifying a written word left out by my wife...never could. Experiment performed 3 times.


Here are some things that make me think it might be "real":

1. I've felt my astral cord.
2. I've opened my real eyes while my arms were out of my body and I saw my astral hands.


If anyone can suggest an experiment they have done that has succeed in convincing them beyond a shadow of a doubt that this experience is more than an illusion/delusion of the mind I would like to hear about it. Thank you in advance.

[tenshi_R]

have you tried something more solid? larger objects maybe. cards can be very tricky lol

find a place in google maps and go there  explore it
and then look ad the google earth to compare

look for something you lost to see if you can locate it
people in different time zones and what were they doing while you project

ask your wife to hide a thing that you re very familiar with and try to find it.

[Lighten]

Thank god, Finally someone who has projected for many years and is still objective to the experience. This is rare, thank you. May I suggest a neighbors house that you have never been into. Project into a room that you cannot possibly see from the outside. Ring the doorbell the next day with some cookies (kind of joking here) and ask to have a look at that room.

The way it was explained to me is that the astral is changed through thought. So lets say you projected to your childhood house. Although there may be new occupants living at the house, some of the furniture may be the same. The reason being you and your family hold that image in your mind. So if you try and identify something more stable like lets say a volcano, it will most likely have the same exact shape in real life.

Let me know how its goes!

[dingo]

1. placed a random card face up and viewed it while out of body: I could see the card but it constantly changed while I viewed it. In the end I never correctly identified the card. Experiment performed 4 times.

Playing cards are difficult because they're numerical. Try Tarot cards (which have some emotional and symbolic meanings) or post cards of places you've been to.

[thedubdude]

have you tried something more solid? larger objects maybe. cards can be very tricky lol

find a place in google maps and go there  explore it
and then look ad the google earth to compare

look for something you lost to see if you can locate it
people in different time zones and what were they doing while you project

ask your wife to hide a thing that you re very familiar with and try to find it.

No need to ask...that's what she does for a living .... LOL...thanks

[UmmaGumma]

Once I flew into my son's room to see what he was up to.  I saw him sitting at the computer viewing what appeared to be wrestling videos from YouTube.  Sometime after I returned to my body and woke up, I went into his room and asked him if he had been watching wrestling on YouTube.  He said no, that he had been watching UFC on YouTube.  He must have thought I meant WWE but all I saw were two men in a ring facing off each other.  I could have very easily mistaken UFC for wrestling because to me it's about the same thing.

Also, just today, I flew down the stairs from my room, pass the living room, and into the kitchen and alerted my cat.  He appeared frightened and more than likely ran up the stairs to try and hide in my room.  Before I returned to my room and my body, I leaned over and opened the cabinet door where I store my pots and pans.  After returning to my body and waking up, I opened my bedroom door and there stood my cat at my door wanting to come inside.  I then went downstairs to see if I had indeed opened the cabinet door.  The cabinet door with the pots and pans was not opened and I felt disheartened until I looked over and saw that the cabinet door next to the stove was standing opened!  No one else could have opened it.  I must have opened it, thinking that I had opened the other one instead.  I also have another incident that proved I had not been dreaming or hallucinating the experience.  I'll post it another time.

Anyway, it seems sometimes that when I'm in a light sleep state, my OOBE experiences are weak and slow.  I can't hardly travel anywhere and get very confused about my surroundings.  But when my OOBEs are strong, I can travel fast and very easily and see things much clearer.  Also, when our surroundings seem to change or take a different form, I can't help but wonder if we're actually just seeing different dimensions of our surroundings.  I've laid on my bed and heard voices that seem to be coming from other dimensions.  I don't know, just a theory...     

[SkepticBoy]

Also, just today, I flew down the stairs from my room, pass the living room, and into the kitchen and alerted my cat.  He appeared frightened and more than likely ran up the stairs to try and hide in my room.  Before I returned to my I felt disheartened until I looked over and saw that the cabinet door next to the stove was standing opened!  No one else could have opened it.  I must have opened it, thinking that I had opened the other one instead.  I also have another incident that proved I had not been dreaming or hallucinating the experience.  I'll post it another time.

That cant have been possible in your astral body to influence the physical world. The cat must had done it when he freaked or something or more than likely you left the door open before you went upstairs to OBE and forgot it was left open and when you saw it next after your experience you saw it open making you think you did it during your OBE. Its the only plauseable explanation.

[dingo]

That cant have been possible in your astral body to influence the physical world. The cat must had done it when he freaked or something or more than likely you left the door open before you went upstairs to OBE and forgot it was left open and when you saw it next after your experience you saw it open making you think you did it during your OBE. Its the only plauseable explanation.

If poltergeists are allowed to move stuff around, why can't we?

[CFTraveler]

Well, modern poltergeist theory generally shows there's a focus person who seems to be the source of some sort of psychic pressure, so I'd think that to be able to move something while OBE more than will is needed.

[chris053890]

That cant have been possible in your astral body to influence the physical world. The cat must had done it when he freaked or something or more than likely you left the door open before you went upstairs to OBE and forgot it was left open and when you saw it next after your experience you saw it open making you think you did it during your OBE. Its the only plauseable explanation.

Anything is possible...You can't explain this certain phenomenon with empirical thinking. It has been done MANY times before (ie. Robert Monroe pinching someone on the physical plane while he was out of body; other projectors witnessing physical events.) Its good to be a skeptic but these things are real.

[catmeow]

Ok, I'll just shamelessly bump my thread again! 

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_permanent_astral_topics/validation_thread-t25607.0.html

[ancient_one]

I used to always try to validate my experiences too.  Sometimes it worked, but not always as I thought it might.  Some details are changed, but the overall idea is right, etc. 

For example, I had a shared dream with an old friend who shared this interest at the time.  In my dream, I was showing him how I could send beams of light through my hands into the nearby trees.  In his version, we were shining flashlights into the trees. 
In an OOBE to meet up with a person I had just met, and knew very little about, I was first handed a newspaper that was in French.  She was from Montreal, and I later found out had worked on a newspaper. Later I was shown a representation of a fish.  She later told me her astrologic sign was Pisces.  I could have ignored either one of those trips since they did not seem significant to me at the time.

One other time trying to go to another person I had met I completely went astray in my goal, and ended up in the dark.  I did not know what had happened. Someone said, "Who is that?"  Then, I heard my name.  After a pause, they called again, adding "Is that you?" then, it got bright, and I ended up back in my body.  I thought, Wow, what a waste of a good experience.  The next day, I drove back to the temporary house I shared with co-workers on a summer job.  My roommate came out to meet me at my truck- which was odd in itself. The guys first words to me when I turned off my truck were that there had been a ghost there last night. We had not discussed my interests about OOBEs prior to this.  I had him describe what had happened.  At a time that corresponded to my "trip", he had gotten up to get a drink of water, and seen something coming into the house from the kitchen area.  He called out "who is that?" then said my name, and asked if it was me?   When he got no response, he turned on the light, and it disappeared.  He was so freaked out by it, he spent the rest of the night talking about it to his girlfriend.

Once I had that experience, I stopped thinking so much about having to validate for myself. 

[catmeow]

Hi ancient_one

Very interesting. If you've seen my validation thread you'll realise that I have had similar validations.  It's curious, because for those of us who have had these experiences, there can be no doubt that ESP exists.  It doesn't prove that life after death continues, or that we actually leave our bodies, but ESP certainly exists.  And yet we see people like Derren Brown who are so convinced that there is no such thing as ESP.  Derren Brown is a great performer and what he does looks just like ESP, but it isn't. And yet ESP does exist because what I experienced was no trick, by a professional illusionist.  It couldn't have been anything other than ESP. For those of us who have had a personal ESP experience it's incontravertible.  For those who don't want to believe no proof is enough. Until they experience it themselves.

[thedubdude]

I've been having OBE's and lucid dreams for about 30 years now. I have them frequently about once a week on average. Since the time of my first OBE I've studied and read many books on the subject and many many books on spirtuality. My view of the world has changed dramatically since my first OBE and I do believe in reincarnation and life after death. That being said, I have yet to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the OBE experience is more than a trick of the mind. Here are some of the experiments I've tried (and failed) to prove the "realness" of the experience:

1. placed a random card face up and viewed it while out of body: I could see the card but it constantly changed while I viewed it. In the end I never correctly identified the card. Experiment performed 4 times.

2. Placed a closed box ,with an unknown item inside, inside my room. I try to reach inside the box and identify the item. Never could. Experiment performed about 5 times.

3. Tried speaking to my wife while out of body. She never rememberd having had the conversation. Experiment performed maybe 3 times.

4. Tried identifying a written word left out by my wife...never could. Experiment performed 3 times.


Here are some things that make me think it might be "real":

1. I've felt my astral cord.
2. I've opened my real eyes while my arms were out of my body and I saw my astral hands.


If anyone can suggest an experiment they have done that has succeed in convincing them beyond a shadow of a doubt that this experience is more than an illusion/delusion of the mind I would like to hear about it. Thank you in advance.

So since I posted the above, I've been carrying out another experiment. In my room I have a shoe box which I've cut out a slit and added a night light to. I place a ESP type card (i.e. a card with a symbol on it...ex. triangle, star, square...etc) in the box. This card can be viewed by looking though the slit. I randomly choose the card to be viewed from a deck of about 30 cards. I do not look at the card when I place it in the box. I light the box every night before I go to bed and I attempt to view the card while I project. So far I've viewed the card about 6 times....but not once have I gotten it correct. In fact the image I see is not an image in my deck. For example, last night I viewed a flower in the box while in fact it was a half moon. I don't intend to give up this pursuit but I am disappointed by my results. A more sceptical person would say I've proved that Astral Projection is nothing but a mind game.

[catstorm3]

I think this ties in strongly with the concept of consensus reality.

We can't see things if we don't allow them to be, in our reality. However, there is a "window of opportunity" mentioned by Bruce Moen, wherein we are taken by surprise, and for that brief moment, something which conflicts with our reality is "allowed" to happen. Then we do damage control and find something rational to explain it.

I had writing appear on my computer screen when fully conscious and without me having typed it. Believe me, I found many rational explanations for it which are just as compelling as the supernatural one. Yet it happened.

I think we need to find ways to change our consensus reality so that more interesting things become possible. They are possible, we just always find a "rational" explanation for them.

[T.L.]

I have verified what various people (mostly friends and family members) were doing on certain days, verified what was on the television in a different part of the house... I have done a lot of verifying experiments and it proved to me beyond a doubt it truly is real. This is not to say that there are not subjective elements for example you are one place, then forced to another location seemingly against your will. But this is to be expected when you think about it as logically as you can. When you are existing purely in a mental state, where perception, motion... all exists completely under mental control there are bound to be things that affect ones ability to do anything objective in terms of the physical world. I have found though that when I get out and I am in the same room as my physical self I can see my physical body. Of course being conceited and all expectation tells me I look damn good, but when out and observing myself I was really surprised at how ugly I really looked. One must place a great deal of attention to how objective or subjective one is being while out of the body though. For instance all this talk about guides...etc. In all my experiences I have never been accompanied by a guide..oversoul...higher self. I have on occassion ran into a disincarnate person who could see, hear, and talk to me but had I been subjective about it I would of automatically thought them to be my guide..etc.

   This experience has the possibility to completely come under your mental control, so expectation is going to diddle with your experiences if it goes unchecked. Perhaps you expect to fail in your attempt... perhaps you expect numbers to shift beyond so you can't observe them. I have heard a lot of talk, and read a lot about not being able to read very well while out. However I gave it a try to read things and numbers, of buildings, signs, or whatever else was around in the locations I end up in, in truth I have had very little problems reading. The only problems I have really are teleporting/shifting to other locations. I have shifted to other places but not to the places I tried to go to. Also going through dry spells is a problem too. One month you are in the zone, the next you can only get out once every two weeks or so.. it happens.

[Plasma]

I had writing appear on my computer screen when fully conscious and without me having typed it. Believe me, I found many rational explanations for it which are just as compelling as the supernatural one. Yet it happened.

What do you mean by this? when you were having a conscious AP you looked at your computer and saw writing? what did it say? this does not sound like any sort of validation what was it just random AP crazyness?

[Lighten]

Obviously it was while he/she was awake

[Fourthdimension]

here is a simple suggegstion i dont know if it has already been suggested in this thread
i know it has been suggested many times

DONT check the time when in the physical
astral project and check the time
and compare it to the physical when you get back

if you check the time before u project then you could be tricking the mind to belive you saw that time in the astral
but if you have never saw the physical time before you astral and when you get back it is the same.then there is no way you could of tricked your mind in to beliving it was that time since you never saw it

[thedubdude]

I think this ties in strongly with the concept of consensus reality.

We can't see things if we don't allow them to be, in our reality. However, there is a "window of opportunity" mentioned by Bruce Moen, wherein we are taken by surprise, and for that brief moment, something which conflicts with our reality is "allowed" to happen. Then we do damage control and find something rational to explain it.

I had writing appear on my computer screen when fully conscious and without me having typed it. Believe me, I found many rational explanations for it which are just as compelling as the supernatural one. Yet it happened.

I think we need to find ways to change our consensus reality so that more interesting things become possible. They are possible, we just always find a "rational" explanation for them.

My world/spiritual view is very consistent with the existance of Astral Projection. I would be surprised if it turns out to actually be a mind game. I do believe the validations of others.....however, to date I have not been able to validate the experience myself.

You have really peaked my interest in your computer experience. Would you please share what information appeared on your computer screen?  Thanks...

[Fourthdimension]

heres what i thought about this mind came stuff and have always thought.
if it doesnt make sense thats cause nothing i ever say makes very much sense coz am not good at describing what i think lmao

i imagine that on one hand we could be projecting our selfs to far ends of the universe and spiritual relams and so are looking out on the world.reassuring us that we will live after death.

but on they other i relaise we could as well just be looking inside our own demented minds and find torment by making our selfs hope we will live for ever in some sense.
when i think of this scenario i imaging this tiny world floating helplessy in an enormous ocean.making ripples of chaos as she takes her course/orbit by the very small inhabitants we have on this plabet.most of which are to self induldged and self seeking and greedy trying to find use out of our little oil and simillar fuels we have in our planet
and then when they die all this life would av been of waste coz none of what they lived for is transferable to where they are going .no oil no money.

then i think of they others who are trigger happy.and want eternal conflicts so they dont get bored and ask some real questions like what the hell are we on this earth for.and mabye they are just to scared to face the truth.

and lastly we have people like ourselves filled with hope and idealism who search for answers all of which could be nothing than mere distrotion of our minds

and for people like us if the latter theory is right then we are also fighting for a lost cause just like the people lost be greedy

but by all terms and no matter which theory is right u can neverthe less say we are all in wonderland looking through the looking glass lost by the tuth and tormented by the lies

imagine how alice felt

mabye the looking glass is metephorical for our perception and how we percieve and wonderland is the world we are looking at thru that glass and mabye little alice is a metaphor for all us people lost by the confusion and hypocisy with in this perception

just my silly thoughts lol

[eahudimac]

Hi,

I'm new to this AP thing. I just started trying about 2 weeks ago. I haven't intentionally done it yet, but I have come close. It will happen soon. I believe I am being "conditioned" for this. I attribute this to a dream I had last week in which I became lucid. Prior to becoming lucid, I believe I met my guides in the dream. I have three of them - 1 female and 2 males. Some really crazy stuff (but very fun at the same time) happened in that dream that led me to believe this. Anyway, my point is although I have yet to intentionally separate my consciousness, I absolutely believe in it. I think the reason I became interested in AP is because in Feb 2008, I somehow stumbled across accounts of near-death experiences on the Internet which I found to be fascinating. From there I discovered Edgar Cayce. After reading several books and contemplating the issue, I have an idea of why I think it might be very difficult, but not impossible to validate OBEs. If our consciousness operates on a different "frequency" when we are projecting, our perception of the physical cannot be altogether accurate. It would be like trying to listen to an FM radio station on an AM frequency. I've read a lot on this subject and it seems a common theme is that reality is a manifestation of consciousness. In the astral, we can create our own reality. There is no physical to impede our thoughts. Here in the physical, our thoughts are all stuck in the same frequency. We all perceive a pencil, for instance, the same. I think there is such a thing as group consciousness in the physical. We're all tuned to the same radio station. I think this can be overridden however. Many people theorize that our brains are "receptors" for our consciousness. Strangely, I have always believed this to be true, even before I ever became remotely interested in this spiritual stuff. In the physical, we are receptors of consciousness. In the astral, we are projecting our consciousness, but we can still receive input from the environment we are in. If we can project and receive consciousness in the astral, why can't we do both in the physical? I think the answer to that is if we receive together, we project together. If all, or most of, or maybe even some (I'm not sure) of humanity were to get together and believe that there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, there would be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I think we do this all of the time without knowing it. Long story short, in order to validate an OBE, I believe that a large number of people would have to accept as reality that a person could in fact astrally project and also accept as reality that it could be validated by whatever method the projector attempts. If it is to identify a hidden card, then it will be done, as long as it is accepted as reality in the physical world that the person can astrally project and identify a hidden card.

This is my first attempt to explain my thoughts on this subject. As with anything in the physical, it takes time, experience and hard work to reach a goal. Mine is to astrally project and begin to test this theory. I think this might be a good place to start. I propose that one person who is experienced in astral projection be chosen to project. As many of us as possible will know a secret item that the projector has to identify. I think that if we all believe that the projector will identify the item, he/she will actually be able to do it. I'm sure there is more to it than this, but I think it's worth trying to work out. Sound interesting to anyone?

[catstorm3]

I randomly choose the card to be viewed from a deck of about 30 cards. I do not look at the card when I place it in the box. I light the box every night before I go to bed and I attempt to view the card while I project. So far I've viewed the card about 6 times....but not once have I gotten it correct. In fact the image I see is not an image in my deck. For example, last night I viewed a flower in the box while in fact it was a half moon.

Has anyone considered that this is a perfectly natural consequence of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (and the observer effect) at work? (See quantum mechanics for the theory)

So the card's state is actually undetermined, until someone on the physical plane observes it. Maybe observation on the astral is unable to fulfill the contract of the observer effect.

So: try the experiment thus: Have someone ELSE observe the card, on the physical plane. Don't let them tell you. This should "lock in" the choice of card on the physical plane. Then observe on the astral and let us know the results.

[catstorm3]

You have really peaked my interest in your computer experience. Would you please share what information appeared on your computer screen?  Thanks...

Sure, I'll open another thread. I hope it isn't off-topic though.

[Lighten]

lost by the tuth and tormented by the lies

Nicely said.