Do OBEs exist? (Discussion)

Paulis, I would like to point out that not everything in the scientific community is based of scientific fact. In fact, a lot of things are based off of experiences. As a part of my own proof for the above statement, here is the Higgs Boson An anomaly that scientists have not proved yet, but know exists.

I believe that OBE’s exist, and that is from personal experience. I do not LD, and I have a friend who also does not LD. In a waking moment, for both of us, he OBE’d to my side and I knew he was there without his telling me. It was after feeling him that he told me what he saw and could describe my position exactly. He told me what he did, which confirmed what I felt him do.

I do not need brain activity to tell me if that was real or not. I would also like to point out that there have been troubles with brain wave activity in the past, where the patients believed so wholly that things were taking place, that their brain waves reflected this. Placebo effects cause troubles in science, therefore even fact cannot be trusted.

I must say, that the scientists don’t know that it exists, just of the point you have stated - it has not been proven yet. Only the theoretical part has been created, which is exactly what is shown on the wikipedia page you pointed to. At the moment, to prove the exsitence of this particle, scientists are doing experiments with the hadron collider. However, until they’ve done that, it doesn’t exist. It’s just a theory.
I wouldn’t agree with the statement where you said that science has proof based on personal experience. Science does not accept such proof.

I respect your beliefs, but OBE’s are still not proven.

I find this interesting because I personally have a recurring dream theme where I wake up in my bedroom. Usually when this happens I get a sense that I’m dreaming and become lucid and fly out the window (from three stories high no less!, lol sometimes I think twice just to make sure I’m dreaming :wink: )

Though when I go around to explore outside it’s usually vastly different from WL so I suppose they don’t count.

zyonc posted a very interesting book in the “Dream Journal” topic.
obe4u.com/files/SOBT.pdf (page 8 - 23).
=> It teaches you OBE as a part of LD. The technique is much more agressive than what we usually do.
zyonc is trying it here : [community.ld4all.com/t/scythe-le-journal/36209/1)

OBE Exist! Proven by me :smile: You can see your body, all real waking live around you. You become astral, Like Ghost/Spirit. You can do anything like in LD, but playground Real World.

In my second OBE i tested it. I looked what is happaning in other room. (It was early morning, my friend was up, and i saw what he did. I fast back to my body and went to watch it was true or not. And he did exactly what i seen) So i prove my theory :smile:

Yes, this happens with my OBE style WILD’s as well…my apartment looks the same, for the most part, but when I go through the front door, !BAM! the setting changes almost instantly…although there have been a couple that I remember where I was still in the vacinity of where I was actually sleeping, with everything “in place” so to speak.

For me, the term “OBE” is simply a descriptor of the type of WILD from the dreamer’s perspective. If I have a WILD where I go from waking state and then emerge directly into a dream scene that has nothing to do with where I’m sleeping, usually…then that’s a typical WILD for me. If, while laying awake, I get the perceptual sensation of expanding beyond my reclining body to then roll out of it or pop up and out of it, then i call that an OBE simply because it feels/looks like my awareness is moving directly from “in body” state to an “out of body” state right there in the room I’m sleeping in. Sometimes I’ll be able to look over and see my sleeping form with my wife laying beside me, sometimes not…and sometimes elements of my room or apartment will become malleable and shift even as I look at them…shapes of doorknobs, seeing my kids playing around even when, later, I’ve found out they are asleep. I think this type of occurence might lend itself to OBE’s not being “real” in a way that waking consciousness is real…but then again, some OBE-ers have much more stable OBE’s and insist that they are very real indeed. Personally, I couldn’t care less whether or not they are “real” in terms of classification of what is considered provable reality. What I’m interested in is the depth and quality of what I perceive when in these states and how it enhances my daily experience IRL. If they are “real” in the classical sense…that’s exciting. And if they are “not real”…that’s just as exciting…mind-boggling even, given how real they feel when they do occur en force.

I think I’ll go over to the “shared dream” section to see what’s cropped up there. Fascinating stuff! :happy:

My poor but real experience is that OBE is much different than LD (sorry for my bad enflish).

  1. In fact OBE are SO CLEAR, so stable, it’s like “over real” compared to dream who are “steamy” or “smoky” or “blurry”.

  2. dreams are for me always difficult to remember, even if it’s going better. OBE is total clear, and I remember everything (but this can be explained for the moment by the short length of it or the happening near the waking up).

  3. OBE starts for me from an awaken state.This wake up state is initiated by a short LD, where i say “i want to wake up”. Then i’m totally conscious in my “asleep body” and strive to go out of my body. The consciousness is the same as in the daytime. I can think to everything about my reallife (the day we are, my next day etc)

  4. The fear I feel during an OBE has not a single common point with the fear of a nightmare. In a nightmare, if you’re threatened you try to fight or run or everything you can. In OBE, the fear is SO amazing that you can do nothing more that returning to your secure and sweet body.

  5. OBE gave me the unforgettable sensation that “i am NOT my body, but so much more”.

But how can you know it’s not just a very lucid dream? What you describe could be an LD aswell. My LDs can be more real-like than reality itself ( and are not blurry) and at the majority of the times not to mention, why is it excluded that what you had was a false awakening inside an LD?

If we do a WILD like an OBE and an OBE like a WILD, why do some people still say that OBE is real ?

ALIENS !

Ok, then, if I follow your way of thinking, how can you be sure that you’re not actually dreaming your whole life. And that you’re not in a LD since your birth ? “Am i wrong ?”

No, you are not wrong, there are no definite signs that your own life is NOT a lucid dream or something alike. Lucid dreams, at least for me, are dreadfully faithful to reality. If hypothetically you were in a coma somewhere else than the current reality, nothing excludes that you are currently lucid dreaming. However although you cannot be absolutely sure for that, the complexity of our world, it’s “reasonable” structures and basis, the duration of our life, the coherence between things and so on doesn’t make it so likely that we are currently LDing, but does not exclude it 100% aswell. LDs, appart from the fact that they hide LARGE worlds inside them, dreadfully detailed, and with an overal plan sometimes of how the dream begins and how it ends, still incosistensies, biased things can be found and reasoning of why you dreamed everything inside can exist. But that whole logic of yours even then does not negate what I said originally - that an OBE would be absolutely unseperatable from a very lucid dream. And at that point you should have to travel inside your OBE and check if what was happening inside your dream actually is happening when you wake up, only then would I be convinced that someone really had an OBE. Actually lucid dreams are the strangest ever thing I experienced in my life, I would never fully believe it if someone told me he had one if I hadn’t had one at that time. I don’t know if my mind is playing me tricks, it did before with the rest of the dreams I thought were very much real like. What I know is that the experience of my lucid dreams are safely, even if my mind is faking me on “reality”, 100% real like, the complexity, plan inside them is simply scary.

This is groundbreaking!!! :woo: See my previous reply that is just above, and although I wasn’t 100% sure OBEs didn’t exist, I doubted alot! I was ignorant of my, ignorance at parts!! Never trust your current perceptions fully. OBEs DO exist and I know now WHAT seperates them from a fully lucid dream that begins from where you slept. Also I managed to enter my blurry thoughts-fantasies in a more evolved version of WILDs, that could qualify as neither a WILD, nor an LD or OBE. When I close my eyes and everything is dark then ( as everyone can see) not-so clearly everyone can see shapes such as gears ( try to press a bit your eyes with you hands inside your skull), now at that state ( among the final states of the very state between being awake and sleeping) my controlled, semi-controlled or non-controlled fantasy of a place that comes to mind ( chosen or not) can become through multifractals ( the gears are just one instance of fractals, try to press your eyes more and for bit of time, others fractals will appear through the gears creating thus a whole image of multifractals) fully “real” and can be ENTERED! I haven’t quite read something like that in any WILD. Now what seperates OBEs from Lucid Dreams ( also OBE experiencers could have been more clear) :

  1. The gradual paralysis of all body parts, the head last
  2. The hallucinatory state when you are still in touch with your surroundings ( even with open eyes)
  3. The exploding head syndrome ( can be minimized)
  4. The vibrations of all your body ( can be minimized)
  5. The autoscopy
  6. The fact that you feel that you can mentally move different parts of your “non-physical” body and see still your physical body lying down, you can also see if you fantasize so the apparition of your hand, for instance, that you are moving at the time
  7. The hallucinatory state that begins after the 6th phase of OBE, and the fact that it’s almost always something scary and when you get back to your physical body (“awake”) nothing of that is true! For instance 2 wasps entering the room trying to sting you, kids playing down the road and one girl shouting that “your a coward (!)” and “can’t wake up”, then throwing you a multicolored object that flashes in the same time as time-set explosives’s beeping can be heard , you instantly perceive that it’s about to explode, the curtain in the corner of your eye being turned to an entity that you are afraid won’t let you move again if it reaches you
    8.) The fact that the transition between the being-physically-awaken and astrally awakened state is smooth with no interruption and it can be felt
  8. The fact that you awake astrally exactly where you slept
  9. The absolute clarity of your surroundings and the fact that you can check around and every single thing is in it’s place fully detailed, the lightning, time of day and all.
  10. The absolutely clear memory you have of when it begins and when it ends ( doesn’t turn into a dream, or can it also?)
  11. The fact that many events and settings, such as the wind, moving of curtains and all are very faithful to reality, hallucinations can exist at the same time
  12. The fact that you are very heavy and paralysed in your non-physical body, which BTW feels the same with your physical body
  13. The fact that you can do nothing to items and they too seem to have a non-physical self or maybe 2nd physical self, for instance personally I can’t take the blanket off me, I can feel it and pull it but I pull it infinitely and it’s image doesn’t change position
  14. The fact that you always get stuck back in your body, either because of feeling heavy or out of fear, also it seems that you don’t wake up and feel heavy like I do after some lucid dreams.

It is recommended that you are midly tired to achieve but sleeps engulfs you, also it is better to sleep upside down and let body parts be gradually paralysed, with the head last, so you can experience the before-OBE hallucinatory state or at least tranquility and can control the speed the hypnagogic jolt reaches you so you can enter your OBE.

And the proofs are ?
Aliens can exist because I THINK I saw them yesterday.

I know that this forum is “for every opinion” so I want you to explain us how do you know that OBE exist.

From what I’ve experienced, they seem very real and promising, and of course they exist!

Since you belong to this forum it is apparent that at least you have either experienced a lucid dream or acknowledge it’s existence. You have lucid dreamt or so you believe so…

And the proofs are ?
Aliens can exist because I THINK I saw them yesterday. :razz:

The very fact that you typed that here isn’t necessary true because you might have thought it happened. I am just applying the very same criteria.

The thing is that OBEs start, end and are apparently very precise in their structures. If this is not definitely an OBE it is a complete or at least 99% replication AND logical continuation of everything inside the replication including the stability of the world, the natural phenomena (wind,rain), physics ( how curtains move), all the items in the room in their exact position and state, lightning, and ofc when you “wake up” everything follows exactly this logic. OBEs always start with a smooth transition exactly where you slept and faced and you are found in the same position. You can examine for a lot of time the surroundings and everything is in it’s place. You can mentally move different parts, but they are invisible but autoscopically you can see your body where exactly it was when you slept. My very first OBE was with open eyes, they never closed, and there is absolutely no break between the beginning of an obe and between the end of one. The memory of the OBE is so clear and stable that it leaves zero doubt and the OBE itself is extremely real like, when you wake up our current reality is real like at the same point. Never ever an OBE is blurry, unprecise of what is going around at the time ( i don’t know if someone dropped in the room if it would show), the hallucinations that exist always atop of the reality are extremely real like and well planned. The overall plan of OBEs is precise, their duration, stability, scheme and it is always like that. Also the method they start as commonly described is no more no less completely true. With the gradual paralysis of the body parts, the head last with stable breaths, the control that you can have at the last state where REM sleep would occur, the vibrations where you the body vibrates internally before OBE starts ( it might fail also at the point), the exploding head syndrome, the sleep position you must take to cause sleep paralysis before sleep, the fact that you must be midly tired and although it’s controlable you can let yourself to “sweet sleep”. Now after this to leave zero doubt, although on itself whatever this phenomenon is more than a more “common” LD or a WILD someone would have to raise his mental self and go see things that occur in other rooms, outside the house and if they are faithful to reality. Someone could place a paper with something written or drawn by someone else and without having seen when awake it he could see what’s on it hen having an OBE if it’s so. If this alone doesn’t raise your curiosity, then I can add nothing more.

OBEs can, and do, happen at much lighter levels of relaxation than LDs do. Sometimes they happen when the body isn’t relaxed whatsover–like in cases of sudden trauma like a car accident or even fainting.

The WILD technique typically relies on reaching a mind awake/body asleep state. Yes, OBE practitioners also utilize SP; but there are techniques that don’t. People (not me) have reported having OBEs during times when they feel perfectly awake. Check out the literature.

My point is: SP is not necessary for OBEs.

However, SP is not necessary for LDs either. You can WILD from a lightly relaxed state; you don’t need SP conditions. So the presence of SP doesn’t discriminate between OBEs and LDs entirely.

We can argue semantically, though, and say that a dream by definition is an experience you have when your body is asleep. If the body isn’t technically asleep (and SP draws a pretty hard line), then what’s happening isn’t “dreaming.” The other options in our culture are: “OBE,” “vision,” “visualizing,” “hallucination,” etc.

Also, if we say that because OBEs share some qualities with dreams that they therefore must be dreams, then we tacitly assume (demand) that out-of-body consciousness must be like waking physical consciousness or else it’s illusory. Yet, why? Why assume that if projecting the consciousness beyond the physical body is possible that the experience of projection must be like embodied consciousness?

What if OBEs are possible and they diverge experientially from embodied consciousness quite sharply?

As far as I’m concerned, we can only run in circles until we decide what our personal standard of evidence is. Will you only accept the reality of OBEs if skeptics with PhDs, who are respected in the academic world, recruit thousands of participants for a study and scan thousands of brains and discover something statistically significant?

The trouble is, even if that happened, many people would still not believe. I once argued for a half hour with a person who didn’t believe that lucid dreaming was possible. I explained that it’s been scientifically validated, that I’d done it, etc., but he persisted in his non-belief. He believed that lucid dreamers only thought that they were aware of dreaming.

What, really, is the weight of scientific proof if an experience is only individually accessible? Ask yourself this question.

Yes, in an ideally logically evolved society, we would all nod and accept careful scientific studies and then adjust our worldviews accordingly–but that isn’t how it usually works. You may consider yourself a modern person, rational, enlightened, better than the idiots who disbelieve in evolution, but ask yourself–really ask yourself–if just one controversial, but reputable, scientific study (that was peer-reviewed, etc.) would prove the reality of OBEs to you. Wouldn’t you be tempted to say, “the methodolgy must have been flawed,” “the experimenters were biased,” “it was coincidence,” “the experimentee must have been cheating”?

What, really, would it take to prove it to you? A technological device that could induce the OBE state for you so you could perform some difficult experiment?

Regardless of what standard of evidence the greatest skeptics will accept, you can personally experiment with OBEs and seek objective validation. (If you disbelieve or doubt, though, you probably won’t.) Many have claimed to do it successfully. They’re doubted because no one else witnessed their experiment. Our cultural tendency to doubt experiences that aren’t confirmed through strict protocol and oversight is, I think, a positive tendency. Yet, being logical, I see that it’s possible for a (non-deluded) person to experience something and to report about it without lying or being mistaken.

So, listen, there are two valid levels in which you can experiment with OBEs (and possibly prove their reality). You can do it alone, or do it with oversight by another.

If you do it alone, you might succeed–and only people who are predisposed to believe you already will believe you. Everyone else will intimate that you’re a liar, or that you’re deluded.

Add:
I just thought of this: Have you noticed that those who disbelieve or doubt in the reality of OBEs insist on the one hand on a stringent scientific protocol for proving or disproving the phenomenon, but on the other hand will gladly accept anecdotal evidence that seems to disprove the reality of OBEs? That is, if someone has an OBE and concludes that it wasn’t real because, say, their bedroom appeared different, a skeptic would accept that as proof (despite the fact that it’s a subjective experience outside of a strict testing environment).

I don’t point this out to be curmudgeonly; I’m earnestly trying to ferret out the assumptions and biases around this topic.

Well they got dreamosis too … one of my favourite guy on the forum …
Our discussion is like a discussion in the Renaissance between The Lights and The Church.
We’re from different country (I’m a stupid bloody French I know, we have bad behaviours etc…).

But the point is, I don’t deny OBE because I like to (or because it can destroy my world etc…) but I deny OBE because you don’t give me enough proofs to convince me (yeah stupid French who doesn’t want to admit that he is wrong blablabla ^^).
I’m atheist, why ? Because the Bible is a good book and God a good conception. (I don’t want to argue on this).

The thing is, “Remember Tomorrow” can prove the existence of OBE. He just have to take a random card and bring it on a desk. When he will do an OBE he will just have to flip the card and remember the number. And if it’s the same card as in reality, I swear to LD4all that I will believe in OBE (I trust remember tomorrow).

Now if you are right with what you got, it can be the discovery of the century.
But I still believe in the non-existence of OBE because I have in one hand the science who’s telling me “No it can’t be possible, your mind is a stupid frenchy” and in the other hand I have an anecdote that I gladly accept :“The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it. Neil deGrasse”.

Look back at my first answer, and see how I highly doubted OBEs exist, although I can naturally never be 100% sure, it would be wiser if we all were 50% on everything, that is apparently the only logical way to go. We base our possibilities on current data but we are 100% non-safe about what TYPE of knowledge CAN even exist. First and foremost for all the details I am not exaggerating in the least bit, and since I am not exaggerating the very facts themselves added to the COMBINATION of all these facts, prove 100% that this phenomenon, name it OBE or however you like is nothing experienced before, despite what it’s significance will be proven to be. How, myself can I doubt what I experience now continuously, and why couldn’t I experience it before? And since it’s totally new, whatever it is, if it is a “hallucination” what sets it appart from it’s own reality aswell, or possibly from our own reality ( then everything could be a “hallucination” aswell or not etc), and why is it of that type of hallucination and why it exists in our world? The only thing I know with absolute safety is that I must raise my mental self and get off the bed.

My opinion is that only people that have at least lucid dreamt would possibly accept it if someone found evidence and few others would even believe in the possibility of it. Actually we are ignorant of our ignorance, and since we know that how can we be safe 100% that OBE for instance is not true, we should be 50% ( for non-experiencers). Actually people THINK they are 100% safe that it’s not true, it is naturally impossible to ever be 100% on such matters. But due to limited knowledge and understanding of the very concept of our ignorance, and atop of that due to psychological reasons almost no one would ever accept it and even try it. There are reasons to doubt how such a thing can interfere with our reality, sure, but the thing is that you don’t even know what our reality is. Someone would have to describe events taking place in a remote from where he “slept” enviroment to convince others.

I don’t care, just do the test.

I did a test that simply had no chance of a false positive.
I really can’t back up my claim, but let’s just say that I don’t “believe”
I “know” and “claim”