What makes you believe in AP/OBEs?

[Pelican]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently researching the phenomenon of AP and OBEs and have stumbled upon some arguments that make me doubt the reality of astral projection:

1. OBEs can easily be induced in the lab by applying a current in a specific brain region. This includes typical separation sensations such as vibrations.
2. Reality fluctuations. I know there are many ways to explain these, but the simplest explanation is still that it's all just dreams and your brain makes errors when reconstructing your environment.
3. Many APers described a variety of locations and beings, but there seems to be little overlap between the experiences of different APers. E.g., people rarely seem to see the same locations or beings that Robert Monroe described in his books. If it all would exist beyond any individual projectors brain, people should see similar places independently and by accident, without specifically trying to visit one of those locations.

To me it all seems to point to one conclusion: AP and OBEs are illusions created by the brain.

I'm interested in why you personally believe in astral projection and why you believe it can not be explained as "just a dream" that is just happening in your head.
And if it is because of your own experiences, I'd be interested to hear what kind of experiences you have had that made it clear to you that this is real beyond your imagination.

[Nameless]

Good question Pelican.

I can't say I actually 'believe' or 'disbelieve in this. To me it is not a question of belief. It either happens or it doesn't. If it happens whether self-induced or otherwise then it is a real and valid experience. But are they illusions? Well first we would have to understand what an illusion is and therein lies a can of monkeys.

All I can say for sure is that this world is chock full of stuff we haven't figured out yet. And even though I have sometimes used the term 'just a dream' myself I can't honestly say I have ever had just a dream. I say that because I have personally had so many validations I no longer even question any of this. And those validations have come from 'just' dreams to lucid dreams to OOBEs to APs to other as yet un-named phenomena.

Look at it this way, a heart attack can just as easily be induced by passing an electric current through the body. Does that negate a heart attack of the natural or self-induced variety?

[EscapeVelocity]

#1   Not true. Sensations of bodily dislocation can be induced by electrical current...that is not an OBE. The researchers have a limited idea of what they are looking for, much less trying to measure. Like using tape measures or sending signals into space to find lions in Africa...

#2   Reality fluctuations are one indication of just how wildly our interpretations can differ in describing what are essentially energetic structures of the Non-Physical; they can be slightly dissimilar or greatly dissimilar to the next two people to describe them, dependent on many factors. There is no framework that demands they be the same or even similar. Case in point: When I did Lifeline at Monroe and we first went to the 'Hospital' in Focus 27, I got nothing...but one of the other participants experienced the twin-wheeled orbital platform from 2001: A Space Odyssey.  I saw it as a perfectly reasonable representation of the F27 hospital environment, but he didn't get it and refused to accept it as a valid experience. I tried to explain to him in terms of how he might accept his own interpretation, but he steadfastly refused. I was actually a little jealous because I understood and accepted the 'interpretation' of the energy; and yet, he refused it. This is a key part to understanding the complexity and nuance to it all.

An essential truth of any Non-Physical experience that occurred to me is that 'the question of real or not-real is not important; the question is- does it convey a message of truth, knowledge and understanding'...does it teach you something?

In this way, truth and knowledge can arrive in many unexpected forms. It's only a dream if you wish leave it as such.

#3   Not true. I wondered the same question. But if you go deep enough into these experiences, you will find incredible similarities and many that are your own slight branches off of them. This goes back again to individual interpretations of singularly energetic events. Many times where I expected to find similarities, I did not find them...and yet many times I did find similarities where I had not expected them, so there is that complexity. Having personally followed Monroe, I was a bit disappointed in not following even closely to some of his experiences, but I have realized he was quite unique and even prone to his own misinterpretations. Reading Leland and Bruce Moen, I now see that I am following a synthesis of theirs and Monroe's model, shaped eventually into my own...which now makes a certain sense that it is as it should be...it is my experience.

Would you want it any other way?

EV

[shineling]

Well for me they've meant a great deal. OOBEing and APing allowed me to dig a little pocket within myself where I have reaches that transcend all human thought. In these moments of pure concioussness you can see how important the research is in this area. We are studying pure human consciousness and it's important because it connects us to who we really are. We find the Force and it's real. That's why it's so beautiful to get into this as it adds depths to your soul that lets you see reality in amazing ways. It's not something you just ignore. It's like well... we are studying the Soul and what's really any more important than that? I've been doing it for 25 years and it's a glorious Path to take not to mention master. There's so much to learn about ourselves (right Nameless?)  Astral projection is the next level in human evolution. So that's my two cents.  

[Athensis]

Where was I before I was conceived, before my cells started to divide? Did I just quietly slip in without anyone knowing?     Can I slip out again?
If someone believes in reincarnation they may have a different  answer to those who don't.

By logging all experiences over the years if these were just all illusions created by my mind then what is the greater intelligence that is teaching me, encouraging me, showing me? Often to the side of or behind me. Speaks to me , whispers in the ear, makes  me think deeper, shows me when I am getting off track?
Gives me riddles to work out.

So you asked ' What makes you believe in AP/OBEs?'

When experiencing tunnel vision I know I'm in my bed viewing with my eyes closed. I know my husband is asleep beside me. I know in advance something is coming because the vision screen goes black then I feel I'm going somewhere BUT I know I'm still in my bed but I'm somewhere else AS WELL but no sense of body.

When viewing clairvoyantly I know I'm still in bed and husband is asleep next to me  but visions start coming. The way they present themselves can vary from watching a movie like scene to spectacular silver sparkling visions to pictures disappearIng in a flash, but I don't have a sense of having left my body.

When having what I believe to be an out of body, I've been working the energy body and sometimes its the legs that separate first. They float and bend in ways my physical legs couldn't do . I know I'm separating and still in bed and I know when I'm completely out and know when I'm going somewhere.
The difference from the first two is that this time I have the step by step awareness of leaving my physical body.

This is too big a subject to try to convince anyone else but this is how I categorise what kind of experience I have .

[Pelican]

Thank you all for your kind answers and your time.

Let me reply to a few of your arguments:

Look at it this way, a heart attack can just as easily be induced by passing an electric current through the body. Does that negate a heart attack of the natural or self-induced variety?

That's not really a fitting analogy, in my opinion. The relevant difference between a heart attack and an OBE is that everybody agrees that a heart attack happens in your heart.
Maybe the brain region stimulated in these experiments is the connection between your consciousness and your brain and the current disturbs that connection?
The brain region in question integrates different sensory inputs and creates our body schema. So the simplest explanation is that an OBE is just a moment of an erroneous body schema, basically the result of a miscalculation in the brain.

If there were good reasons to believe in veridical perception during astral projections, I'd be fine with explaining the neuroscience away, though.
The neuroscience is just one problem among many, on its own it's not enough to really cast doubt on OBEs/APs.

#1   Not true. Sensations of bodily dislocation can be induced by electrical current...that is not an OBE. The researchers have a limited idea of what they are looking for, much less trying to measure. Like using tape measures or sending signals into space to find lions in Africa...

I'm not so sure about that. The subjects description of the OBE induced by electric current seems very similar to OBEs described by other people outside the laboratory.
At a low current, the subject could feel the typical vibrations and at a higher current she was floating under the ceiling and watching everything from above. Similar to many NDEs.

Arguably, astral projections happening during REM sleep are a different class of experiences, but those on the other hand could be explained as "just lucid dreams."

#2   Reality fluctuations are one indication of just how wildly our interpretations can differ in describing what are essentially energetic structures of the Non-Physical; they can be slightly dissimilar or greatly dissimilar to the next two people to describe them, dependent on many factors. There is no framework that demands they be the same or even similar. Case in point: When I did Lifeline at Monroe and we first went to the 'Hospital' in Focus 27, I got nothing...but one of the other participants experienced the twin-wheeled orbital platform from 2001: A Space Odyssey.  I saw it as a perfectly reasonable representation of the F27 hospital environment, but he didn't get it and refused to accept it as a valid experience. I tried to explain to him in terms of how he might accept his own interpretation, but he steadfastly refused. I was actually a little jealous because I understood and accepted the 'interpretation' of the energy; and yet, he refused it. This is a key part to understanding the complexity and nuance to it all.

This gets us to a very interesting question:
How do we decide whether 2 objects or locations seen by different people in the astral are the same or different, if perceiving them to be different is not enough?
The other participant could be right about his own experience. Maybe it was not the F27 hospital. How would we know? This leads to a whole bunch of questions:
At what point do we know 2 objects/locations really are different?
If we're interpreting experiences like that, basically all experiences could mean whatever we want, right?
Are non-physical experiences just Rorschach blots for our interpretations?

The reason why it matters (to me at least), is that if two projectors could see the same objects and locations, that would mean these objects/locations exist outside the individual's imagination.

It's like well... we are studying the Soul and what's really any more important than that?

That's my concern as well and why I'm asking this question here. Either this stuff is real and we should all be doing it because it adds a whole new dimension to our lifes or it's not real and we should not be wasting our time on it (to say it kind of bluntly).

[GrumpyRabbit]

Good questions. One thing I will say is that everything we experience (EVERYTHING) will result in some sort of reaction/change "in the brain/body". Whether you're feeling love, or any other emotion, or sensing temperature, or motion, there are changes in the brain and body. Or you're looking at a tree. Again, changes in the brain and body. When you look at a tree, the light photons go into your eye, and that's translated into electrical impulses in your brain, and you "see" the tree. Can we say that because it's just electrical impulses in your brain (the photons themselves don't even reach the brain!), that there is no tree, or the tree is only "in" your brain, or was "created" by your brain?

No matter WHAT you experience, there WILL BE a change in the brain. How could it be otherwise!? So the reductionist/scientistic explanation that therefore the thing/phenomenon is fully explained by brain signals just doesn't make much sense. There is literally nothing that a human being could experience that does not result in some sort of change in the brain and body. Literally nothing.

One thing I think it's worth considering is - what if those people WERE really having an out of body experience, which was induced by certain electrical currents? Human beings have used all sorts of technologies to leave their bodies and spirit walk, connect with guides, etc, since forever. Shamans use drumming, dancing, sometimes plants. Drumming and dancing may seem simple, but they're TOOLS. And powerful tools at that. If non-ordinary consciousness is induced by drumming (or whatever), that drumming will help trigger a certain state in the body and the brain. Obviously! How could it be otherwise? So is it not real? Meditation affects brain and body - this is all so well documented - and if they made a pill that immediately put the brain/body in the *exact same state* as that achieved after years of meditation practice, and resulted is the person feeling/experiencing exactly the same thing - what are we going to say about it? Why would that be less real?

You might be interested in the book Where Science and Magic Meet, by Serena Roney-Dougal. One of the things the book points to is the work of neuroscientist Karl Pribram and physicist David Bohm. I only read the book recently, but I was giddy over it because back in the day, Pribram was one of my professors in college, and I wrote my senior thesis about the holonomic theory of the brain, consciousness, and the universe. A couple excerpts of Pribram's talks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHpTYs6GJhQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK3ILQmyIis

This is all to say that science is WEIRD. You'd think it was some woo woo person talking about this, but rather it's an esteemed professor. So when researcher folks say "oh it's just something that happened in the brain" I'm like....do you even know what you're saying? LOL JUST the brain? The brain seems to function as a lens that collapses the fuzzy spectral domain/implicate order into the discrete "space-time" domain/explicate order that we're used to perceiving! But sure, "just" the brain... I took these cognitive neuroscience courses with Pribram and that just shattered that notion for me.

One dude's attempt at understanding them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tOTX7oI5Vs

And of course, mental illness is a real thing. I found this book helpful for discussing the differences between spiritual crises and mental illness/hallucinations: Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis, by Stanislav and Christina Grof.

[GrumpyRabbit]

And as far as my own experiences are concerned...what I can say is that the first time I left my body, it was in high school. I was pretty wigged out, and then just dismissed the experience. I didn't start really trying to do it regularly until just a few months ago, early June. Since then, I've been doing it roughly every week. Sometimes a few times a week (sometimes even a few times on a single morning!). The first time I fully got out, made the request of where I wanted to go, and felt the invisible hands CARRY ME, feeling the hands, feeling myself being carried, feeling the sensation of movement/momentum - honestly that was one of the most real, powerful, transformative things I've ever experienced in my life. I'm open-minded but skeptical, and if I didn't experience myself I might be doubtful, but I can't ignore this. I was fully aware/conscious. I was lying in bed while it was starting and even touched my tongue to my teeth, to confirm that I wasn't asleep/dreaming. I also had an experience about a month ago where I went to visit a friend of mine while out of body (not something I generally do, I have a different agenda). I saw him wrapped in bandages, one around his head, the other around his abdomen. He told me, "Laura took me back." I was really confused by this, and disappointed - none of it made sense, he'd never dated a "Laura." I thought, could he be talking about his most recent ex, Gail? Did it just get translated funny? But the names "Gail" and "Laura" are nothing alike. So I thought, well, could it all have just been a dream? I decided to give him a call that afternoon. I didn't tell him anything about what I'd experienced, I just wanted to catch up. He told me he got back together with his ex-girlfriend LYNDA (who was terrible!) and that the experience of being involved with her again was HEALING OLD WOUNDS. This explains why I perceived him as being wrapped in bandages - wounds that are healing. And "Laura" and "Lynda" sound a lot of alike. They both begin with L, end with A, are the same number of letters, etc. Honestly, I was so shocked that he was back with her (because she was terrible!) that I COMPLETELY FORGOT to even tell him about visiting him that morning!

So that, for me, is pretty convincing. And if researcher-type folks object saying "but it wasn't the exact same name" all I can say is, my dudes, I saw things without physical eyes, I heard things without physical ears, I felt things without physical hands - there's a bit of a learning curve, here.

[EscapeVelocity]

GR,
Over the previous fifty+ years, I have had many NP experiences...but in 2010, just a few months after my father's death, I had an experience where I was 'escorted'; I literally felt the hand holding me by the shoulder and was taken to an area of the Afterlife to see my father for just a short moment, ten or twenty seconds, to say hello and check on his well-being...

So I fully understand when you describe the "one of the most real, powerful, transformative things" that you talked about. I had already experienced NP-wise enough to convince me, but this was the first, most recent time that I conclusively recognized the influence and assistance of an outside agency; someone or some thing had assisted me. I had never had evidence of that before, in my adult life. That was finally, a reassurance to the idea of Guidance and assistance, something that I was sadly missing and unsure of beforehand.

Guidance is there...but as you have found, it is different for each of us in very unique ways.

[Kree]

Was gonna basically say what GrumpyRab did.  The argument I always make to materialists is:
Your 5 senses can ONLY ever be experienced by your brain.  Even if you were looking at and feeling an object that's in the physical, you'd still only be experiencing what your brain tells you.  You can NEVER experience the physical no matter what.  You can only experience your brain.  How much can you trust the brain? Well, how hard is it to fool? Take some acid, and the brain tells you different things about your reality.  Cure someone's depression, and they'll describe reality in a very different way too. 

That much is basic logic that every materialist should already understand. 

Now, since you are "in the brain", and can't ever be in the physical, would the physical exist? Would you ever be able to tell? No.  You'd have to disconnect from all your brain's signals to do that, and at that point you're definitely not in a materialist's idea of a physical.  So, even if the physical existed, throughout all of human history no person would've ever experienced it.  It's inaccessible, and therefore has no purpose and couldn't exist.

(iirc, accord to Elon Musk, Neuralink (with basic functionality) is <5 years away.  When every sense can be replaced artificially, maybe then people will start to realize this.)

Understanding reality's non-physical nature, the very question of "but how do you know OBEs aren't just hallucinations of the brain?" seems absurd and childish.  If this is still not making sense, just think about how a game works.  Does the game world actually need to exist, in and of itself? Of course not.



I didn't really need to write all that to answer your question, but it might clear up others you're likely to have.  To more directly answer your question, there IS, what I consider "definitive proof".  From the man, himself:

https://youtu.be/9dj5337UQmE?t=613 watch up to ~17:00 for your proof.

[Pelican]

Understanding reality's non-physical nature, the very question of "but how do you know OBEs aren't just hallucinations of the brain?" seems absurd and childish.  If this is still not making sense, just think about how a game works.  Does the game world actually need to exist, in and of itself? Of course not.

I didn't really need to write all that to answer your question, but it might clear up others you're likely to have.  To more directly answer your question, there IS, what I consider "definitive proof".  From the man, himself:

https://youtu.be/9dj5337UQmE?t=613 watch up to ~17:00 for your proof.

I've thought about "brain in a vat" type arguments a lot and I agree that we can't know anything for certain about the "physical world".
I'm personally not really a hardcore materialist, I've been more of an idealist for most of my life.
I can imagine ways to explain these neurscientific findings away in an idealist fashion.
The neuroscience alone is not the only reason to doubt the reality of OBEs though.

The question whether or not OBEs are hallucinations still makes sense to ask. The real question is this: "Are OBEs a shared experience?"

The physical world is a shared experience. Me and you could sit next to each other and we could describe the same objects that we perceive.
Since other people can perceive the same physical objects, they must in some way exist independently of me (how exactly that is, we can't know for sure).
Dreams are arguably not a shared experience. Only I can see the content of my dreams. (I know some people here would disagree with that)

So when I'm asking the question "Are OBEs just a hallucination?" the actual question is "Are OBEs a shared experience?"

I think there are 2 ways it could be shared:
1. Someone has an OBE and can accurately describe things he has seen in the physical.
2. two or more OBEers meet up and both describe the same perceptions in the non-physical

#1 Seems to be almost impossible and as far as I can tell there are no credible, successful cases. (Some cases especially with NDEs seem credible at first, but lose their credibility when you find out more about them.)
#2 There is basically only one reported case (Thomas Cambell and Dennis Mennerich) with questionably credebility.
Another problem is the one I brought up in my reply to EscapeVelocity: When do we consider 2 non-physical experiences to be the same or different?
Some APers seem to interpret their experiences very charitably, so that any 2 descriptions of experiences might be considered the same, if you just interpret them that way.
Maybe charitable interpretation is the source of most "validation" experiences, so that if we don't interpret the experiences as liberally, we find that no validation exists?

I didn't really need to write all that to answer your question, but it might clear up others you're likely to have.  To more directly answer your question, there IS, what I consider "definitive proof".  From the man, himself:

https://youtu.be/9dj5337UQmE?t=613 watch up to ~17:00 for your proof.

I know the story of Thomas Campbell and Dennis Mennerich leaving their bodies in Monroe's lab and describing the same perceptions.
They claim they have sound recordings of their live commentary that match up exactly.
This would be very convincing evidence in favor of OBEs being a shared experience.

However, where are these sound recordings? If they exited and they were as convincing as they claim, I would imagine the TMI would feature them prominently on their website.
After all, the claimed purpose of the TMI is research and why would they not publish their most interesting findings?
Other recordings of their TMI explorer series are available, but they do not contain this specific story. But because these recordings are not available anywhere,
I think they either do not exist or they are not nearly as convincing as they pretend they are.

I agree this would be very good evidence, if they would actually show us the recordings. But the way it is, it's just them telling stories and saying "I have evidence, I just don't want to show you".

[GrumpyRabbit]

On the topic of two people having the same perception of non-ordinary reality at the same time, I can offer this small example from my own experience. Not an OBE, but rather a shamanic journey.

I've been going to "shaman school" (as it were) and was in a shapeshifting class with one other student. At one point, it was time for us to both do our own shamanic journeys (at the same time) to shapeshift into whatever we were guided to shapeshift into. We each lay on our backs on the floor, with our heads together (so, not on opposite ends of the room, or with our feet touching). Our teacher did the drumming, we closed our eyes and went on our separate journeys.

The first thing I saw was a massive green python. It didn't seem like a random thing I just imagined for no reason. It seemed to be "correct" that it was there. I wasn't sure, however, that this was "my" animal, but it seemed purposeful, so I decided to shapeshift into it anyway. It was kind of a "meh" experience. Ultimately, it just didn't....feel right. So I left the python and continued on my merry way.

Anyway, I finished doing my thing, the other student finished doing her thing, we both wrote down our experiences, and then we shared what we encountered. I went first and only talked about the second animal I shapeshifted into. I didn't even mention the part about the snake. Then, it was the other student's turn to share.

You can probably see where this is going =)

*Her* animal that came to her, for her to shapeshift into, was ::drumroll please:: a massive green python.

Well, I just exploded at that point. "OHMYGODISAWYOURSNAKE!" I perceived the exact same animal - in kind, size, and color; I perceived that it was really there for a reason (and not just random imaginings on my part); and I also perceived that it wasn't the right animal *for me*.

You could try to pass this off as "mere coincidence", but this sort of thing isn't uncommon.

I think the broader question to all this is, Is non-ordinary reality, well, "real"? And I think the answer is yes. When I practice doing soul retrievals for practice clients, somehow lil old me is able to perceive their lost soul parts - how old were they when this part left, what were the general circumstances of that part leaving, even memories of things the client associates with that time period. While this isn't "OBE", I think it does lend credibility to the idea of non-ordinary reality and non-physical perception - both of which are applicable in the OBE conversation.