OBE's just a Product of a Confused Mind?

[catmeow]

I find interesting that almost no projector will try to prove to itself that OBEs are real. Often, they will say that
while OBing one will not care about such "mundane" things...

Agreed, it is quite irritating.

[Summerlander]

I find interesting that almost no projector will try to prove to itself that OBEs are real

Well said. "Almost"! In the Astral Viewers forum people are keen to get verifications and we've had quite a few. I myself have been conducting an OOBE study whereby I've been visiting people that I both know well and don't know. So far the hits are more apparent than misses. It seems that such OOBE visits make more sense to the visited than the experiencer. Regardless of whether they are here-now projections or metaphysical realm ones, it seems that when we visit someone we turn out to see what they are doing at the time (accurately or slightly inaccurate)...OR...we see what is on their minds as thought-form representations.

The OOBEr is sometimes able to have conversations with the visited which the latter doesn't remember. I posit that we are talking to their unconscious selves while we're in the OOBE-state. However, on one occasion, one of my friends which I visited reported to his girlfriend at the time that he felt funny, as though he was supposed to remember someone or something. He was sitting on the floor and meditating at the time and had his CDs out on the floor which is exactly how I saw him in my experience. He also spoke to me and told me that he wanted to remember the conversation. I urged him to try to remember. He's a member of Astral Viewers now. His name is stoneZoMbIe.

I have a theory as to why he felt "funny". While meditating his brain waves must have gone from Beta to Alpha. This indicates the daydreaming mode and in theory this must have made him more receptive to my frequency. He lives across town from me and one might wonder how I got there just by thinking about him. Well, I posit that once focusing in the metaphysical realm, physical distance is irrelevant to the individual consciousness.

The thing is, nothing can ever be regarded as concrete proof because the hardest sceptic will put such "verifications" down to amazing coincidences or just lies. This is why I simply urge people to get acquainted with a method and project in order to get their own conclusions. Personally, I've had enough proof for myself.

On the dream note, they are just as elusive. I used to think that all dreams were generated from the dreamer's mind (I even used to interpret dreams) but I've found that even some dreams, particularly the vivid ones, have the potential to be telepathic and/or precognitive. Twice already me and my girlfriend seemed to have shared dreams. Either that or our dreams coincided and we happened to see the same ambient setup and happened to remember the same conversation. I can honestly say those dreams were the oddest ones in my life.

Explore first before coming to the conclusion that it all happens in the brain. Even this, as sound as it seems, is merely an assumption. An assumption that is usually regarded to be the most acceptable because people fear ridicule.

[Astral316]

I don't need to prove anything, least of all to myself. The OBE is the proof. That's all I need personally. The fine folks at Astral Viewers can take on the job of trying to prove it to the skeptics. Somehow I doubt a "funny feeling" at the right time is going to shake their belief systems.

For the record, I'd rather read about someone's journey into the higher realms than about Billy guessing the correct combination of dunkin donuts Patty will purchase on Wednesday.

[catmeow]

Hi Summerlander, those were very interesting validations. There is a validation thread on the board, perhaps you could add some of your validations?  Personally, I have had enough 100% validations to know that at the very least, ESP exists.

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

[bluremi]

Science doesn't have the antagonistic relationship towards OBE's that you are imagining. Of course some scientists will dismiss it right away, but you don't have to be a scientist to do that, most people on the street will do the same thing.

They're not being closed-minded: there is a difference between saying something is false and saying there's not enough evidence to believe that it's true. Just like you don't have any reason to believe that Zeus, the thunder god, is watching you from a mountain in the sky, they don't have any reason to believe that you can send your spirit or whatever out of your body.

They can't believe in something based on insufficient evidence because they have to follow the scientific method. If they didn't follow the scientific method we'd still be in the dark-ages regarding medicine, physics, computer science, pretty much all the advances you take for granted. Don't mock them for being scientists, how they think is defined by what they do. You don't work in a scientific field, therefore you can be more "open minded" about this stuff and still do your job.

[Kazbadan]

Thanks for your answers guys

My objective when saying that was to provoke and make you react.

And now i see some good answers.

[catmeow]

Don't mock them for being scientists, how they think is defined by what they do. You don't work in a scientific field, therefore you can be more "open minded" about this stuff and still do your job.

I have two engineering degrees, and I don't mock the scientific method. As you say it has dragged us out of the dark ages.  However, this thread is about a particular piece of research by Olaf Blanke, which IMO is laughable, both in its construction and conclusions.

[Volgerle]

Science doesn't have the antagonistic relationship towards OBE's that you are imagining. Of course some scientists will dismiss it right away, but you don't have to be a scientist to do that, most people on the street will do the same thing.

They're not being closed-minded: there is a difference between saying something is false and saying there's not enough evidence to believe that it's true. Just like you don't have any reason to believe that Zeus, the thunder god, is watching you from a mountain in the sky, they don't have any reason to believe that you can send your spirit or whatever out of your body.

They can't believe in something based on insufficient evidence because they have to follow the scientific method. If they didn't follow the scientific method we'd still be in the dark-ages regarding medicine, physics, computer science, pretty much all the advances you take for granted. Don't mock them for being scientists, how they think is defined by what they do. You don't work in a scientific field, therefore you can be more "open minded" about this stuff and still do your job.

But many scientist DO say that OBE etc. is nonsense instead of just stating that they have not enough evidence. That is a big difference. A "real" scientist would not negate any hypothesis on this. But this is exactly what they do. And guys like Blanke seem just keen on "debunking". They do not even look for "the real thing" because metaphysical models don't fit their world-view based on scientific materialism with sheer reductionism as the only epistemological way.

Moreover, there are other scientists who actually ARE open-minded. And they get more and more I like to say. They do even draw up theories on how it all could work within a scientific framework, even though it some things remain speculative assumptions. but modern science and progress in science was always based on assumptions and daring hypotheses. So I cannot share your view on the "dark ages" we would be in. Yes, science has helped to move us on. but also to throw us back in some fields - whoever said this: "building the atomic bomb is a clever thing to do - but not wise" isnt right?). I even daresay that the strict scientific method, which is nowadays applied in some circles of the scientific "establishment", keeps us in some dark age we are currently in. That "establishment" is an "old boys club" with power structures attached to it. Any "renegade" scientist with daring theories and experiments gets systematically ridiculed, and they get no money!

Btw, Dean Radin (an excellent and opposed to Blanke and open-minded "real" scientist) has a lot to say in this recommendable talk:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw_O9Qiwqew

The comparison with Zeus, etc. or any "specific" metaphysical entity is also not quite fair in my view. OBE and other realities/dimensions is a more general concept, which now even more gets justified by new physics, than just any proposed "fairy tale figure".

Btw. I like Juergen's "air bubble" explanation that shows why verifications are so difficult. Of course R. Bruce also has talked a lot about it regarding "reality fluctuations". Juergen is also on this forum (*waves hands*).
http://www.multidimensionalman.com/Multidimensional-Man/Mechanics_of_Out-of-body_travel.html

And whoever is interested, a while ago I had started to collect OBE-verifications on this little page (I know, it looks cheap and it is ... but therefore it's cost-free and ad-free - hard to find nowadays!). It is all about posts that you find elsewhere on the internet anyway (mostly forums), so it is just a kind of "hub". Possibly some here will find their own post?  
It is (still) a small collection, but it might grow. And it does (not yet) include the vast (!) corpus of evidence we got from NDEs and Remote Viewing or related Clairvoyant techniques.
I have drawn a good amount so far from one of the threads here. Hope you don't mind getting quoted without nickname reference, at least you get "linked" and therefore indirectly quoted. If you have more links to posts in forums with verifications, you may please tell me if you like. Then I might include some reports and the links to it. I think it might become a nice page to at least slightly 'unsettle' a few close-minded skeptics ... for a little while.  
http://reconnection.lima-city.de/OBE-Verification/index.html

[catmeow]

Best post I have read for a while Volgerle

And the Dean Radin link is superb

[bluremi]

Thank you for the Dean Radin link, that was a refreshingly honest and empirical discussion. I'm truly agnostic about those experiments he talked about, especially the Ganzfelt and presentiment (random picture) experiments. I can't think of a flaw in the studies, and while that doesn't mean one doesn't exist, for now there does actually appear to be something strange going on. Inexplicable!

That said, there's a huge temptation here to create a deductive link where none exists, ie if there is a statistically significant result showing small signs of presentiment or telepathy, this somehow relates directly to OBE experiences. I think they are categorically very different experiences from the tests Radin described. The degree of statistical significance is worlds away from anything that would cause a reasonable person to think they were actually leaving their body during an OBE. If the receiver of a Ganzfelt experiment does 7% better than chance would suggest, this only tells us that only about 7% of an OBE experience has anything to do with objective reality. The entire experience might be generated by the brain and only a single detail, like the color of a dream character's dress, would have any relation to the world at all, and without an experimental context to interpret the results (such as a group of four pictures from which to choose) the results are almost meaningless. Maybe even then it would only apply to a small percentage of people who have OBE experiences, the talented pool, for which these experiments preselected. It becomes impossible to separate validations from coincidences, no matter how convincing they appear to be.

Is it better to be utterly credulous, or to have a skeptical attitude? (by skeptical I mean requiring evidence before reaching a conclusion, not having pre-defined expectations leaning one way or the other) We can't simply choose to believe something: exhortations to have an "open mind" are meaningless to a skeptic. An idea must appear to be true before we can identify with it and adopt it as a belief. In this sense a belief about reality is analogous to a belief about moral values.

Anyway, great post, Volgerie.

[bluremi]

The validations list is interesting:

In one of my projections, some years ago, I decided to go to visit my parents' house, which is 15 km far away. It was 10:00 in the morning. I overflew my city, following the way to the hose of my childhood. I could recognize all the details, the highway, the fields...
When I arrived the house and I went into it, I see my mother cooking in the kitchen. I tried to call the attention but she did not react at all, like she couldn't see me.
Later, I went to my sister's bedroom. In that time, she was still living there, but in that moment she should have been working in the office. I checked all was normal in the room. She wasn't there, as I expected. Some thing attracted my attention. There was a paper on the table. I approached to it and I could see it was like a note. I had many problems to read it (like usually reading something out of the body). But at the end I was able to understand what It said: "PRESENT FOR _____ (my real name)"
More things happened, but to summarize I went back to my body and made a decision: I would go physically to my parents' house to check all those things. I did it, what it took twenty minutes, and my mother was there, in the kitchen cooking. I say hi and I went into my sister's room, very thrilled. There was a note on the table, exactly like the one I saw being out of the body, which said: "PRESENT FOR _____ (my real name)". Then I imagined she was thinking in my birthday, that would be in two weeks.
I think it is a perfect validation of an out of the body experience....."

To sum up, the person is surprised that their mother is in the kitchen and that their sister has a birthday present for him. He ignores the fact that the kitchen is a very common place for someone to be (my mother is regularly in the kitchen, throughout the day) and that HE KNOWS his birthday is coming up. Is it really that unusual to dream about receiving a present shortly before one's own birthday?

In the next validation the person is surprised to see their father wearing the same clothes he was wearing in a dream. People wear the same clothes all the time, especially men, especially around the house. When I visit my father's house in the evening I could probably guess what he is going to be wearing with 50% accuracy.

Is it really being close-minded to see the flaws in these validations?

[Summerlander]

Science doesn't have the antagonistic relationship towards OBE's that you are imagining.

Erm...I think we have already determined this a few posts ago, bluremi!

Not true! They are not real scientists and they give science a bad name. what those morons have managed to create was an illusion and nothing like the OOBE.

Science (real science) recognises OOBEs and NDEs to be a real phenomena. Their nature, however, is as enigmatic as consciousness itself.

About your quote above...

Is it really being close-minded to see the flaws in these validations?

I'm with you there on those validations. But the validations you stated are pretty weak anyway.

How do you explain the hits with people I've visited which I've never met but online? Also how I seemed to have caught a friend of mine doing something which he admits he was doing at the time and which he claims is unusual for him to do so?

You have to weigh both arguments and admit that the assumption of "coincidence" is always there to explain everything away in order for something that seems so far-fetched to be readily dismissed.

[catmeow]

I have to say that while I have given many many presents, I have never left a note out saying "PRESENT FOR XXXX".  What is being validated here is the presence of a note, not the prediction of a birthday present.  If the OBEr saw the exact note (size shape, spelling, handwriting, colour etc) laying in the exact position it was physically, this would be a very good validation.  I don't think it is common practice to leave notes out. Maybe that's just my family though.

[Volgerle]

Is it really being close-minded to see the flaws in these validations?

i saw the "flaws" as you call them before myself (as an open-minded skeptic), but that is not the point of the list. i still call them "validations" - personal validations, because that's what they are.

that means it applies to subjective views of private persons regarding their own metaphysical experiences that became personally validated by some facts found out or confirmed afterwards

yes, of course, it is not meant to be scientific, objective, 100%-water and bullet proof thing, that it cannot be.

and since these are all "personal" accounts (in anonymous internet forums) - except maybe for the last one by the scientist (C. Tart) you will always only find subjective views about people, locations, events and situations that we can or cannot assess correctly ourselves, moreover there are better and weaker examples.

besides, as a skeptic you can make it even easier for you then: why bother to validate these accounts at all and not use another favourite strategy? which is this:
since these are all personal accounts by anonymous internet forums and also just so-called "anecdotal evidence" you can even go about denying its validity by blaming the posters to be "im"posters, liars as it were.
just suggest that maybe they all made their stories up? we have not scientific evidence since no scientist was present to judge and examine it (with that one exception). furthermore, since we cannot do any reliable repeated experiments on this at all, it is what it is and commonly called: 'anecdotal' evidence. and therefore: not scientific. period. 

regarding these specific two examples, I would not say they are that weak:

as catmeow also already said: it was about the written note,  not about the birthday or the mother or the present, and it was exactly the same note as was read and seen before in the astral projection, fair enough to be called a "personal" validation (without bothering at all what Mr. Blanke, Mr Shermer or Mr Randi have to say about this  )

the clothes example: well, it depends on the father's clothes wearing/changing-habits, if he really ALWAYS wears the same clothes, it surely would not be a strong validation indeed.
however, no statement can be found as to the father's habits of changing his wear, and it is at least said he wore "exactly" the same clothes. can we be the judge on this now?

the general problem is: if you see these "flaws" do you tend to give the close-minded/skeptic view more weight now? does it "dis"-prove anything on the spot?

we can detect flaws in everything, we can debunk everything, that is never a problem ... we should, however, never forget one thing: being also skeptical about skepticism 

debunking nowadays has become a rhetorical exercise performed by firm close-minded skeptics to 'talk down' facts that endanger their belief system - it is not really anymore about weighing alternatives by a fair process to get nearer to some truths - it's only their own chosen truth that counts

(i just noticed the provider's server is down, so the page cannot be viewed currently, as said, they are not just low-budget but even no-budget for me, but that has its downsides as it seems ...  )

[bluremi]

I guess I'm just frustrated because I would sincerely love to see a good validation, and instead am always disappointed. It's like someone asking you to try a tasty slice of cake and finding it to be full of sawdust.

[Xanth]

I guess I'm just frustrated because I would sincerely love to see a good validation, and instead am always disappointed. It's like someone asking you to try a tasty slice of cake and finding it to be full of sawdust.

Read Robert Monroe's first book.  He's got an entire chapter where he dissects his validations.

[catmeow]

Try Mindsight by Kenneth Ring

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindsight-Near-Death-Out---Body-Experiences/dp/0595434975

Some interesting validations by people who were blind from birth reporting detailed visual-like perception during NDE.  Intriguing whilst marred by one admitted fabrication*.  Never the less very much has the ring of truth to it.  I seem to remember there was one case where a blind NDE subject reported "seeing" a slipper in the gutter of the hospital roof, which was later verified.  It could have been an elaborate hoax, but why bother?

* the "fabrication" was by an NDEr who gave an innacurate account, not by  the author who has great integrity.

[Volgerle]

And there's so many more in literature (possibly something to find online, too) on great verifications by NDEs and Remote Viewing experiments.

For example, check out the books done by these researchers and physicians:
Kenneth Ring, Melvin Morse, Raymond Moody, Pim van Lommel, Jeffrey Long, Bruce Greyson (and some more!)

You will find statistics and lots of examples for verifications in these books, also because NDErs were involuntarily "skilled" RTZ-projectors.
 

[Summerlander]

I guess I'm just frustrated because I would sincerely love to see a good validation, and instead am always disappointed. It's like someone asking you to try a tasty slice of cake and finding it to be full of sawdust.

The only "good validation" you will see will be your own. The more you experience, test and explore, the more you will find on a personal level. Make observations and build your conclusion unbiased by anything you've heard before.

[Highergoals]

Open minded scientists make a lot more sense to me than close minded scientists.

[Xanth]

Open minded scientists make a lot more sense to me than close minded scientists.

A smart man once said that you learn more when you remain open, but skeptical. 

[Fresco]

A smart man once said that you learn more when you remain open, but skeptical. 

Yup, the mind is like a parachute, it only works when open.

Its too bad most scientists cant wrap their silly little minds around that concept

[Nameless]

this was an enjoyable read with lots of intelligent input.