Astral Projection: Reality, imagination, or what!?

[jaiysun44]

Hi,

Recently I've become interested in concept of Astral Travel. I haven't acheived the levels of meditation necessary yet to be able to feasibly have such an experience, but i was wondering what the experience is like for people who claim to have done this?

Certain questions like do you really see yourself leave your body? Is everything in the experience THAT REAL, or is it more of a deep visualisation induced in profound states of realisation? Is there a difference!!??

An interesting reason for asking this is that recently my mother (who was diagnosed with Schizophrenia a few years ago) iniated a conversation with me out of the blue about occasionally "flying", and "leaving her body". She claimed basically to on a few occasions gone flying through the clouds etc as a spirit. Having heard of Astral Projection I was intrigued...