OBE's or Delusions?

[Radical]

Although some people on here claim to have experienced astral projections and OBE's, I'll have to be a bit more sceptical. I can bring myself to believing in lucid dreams, as that sounds fairly plausible, but the idea of your spirit (which I don't believe in anyway since I'm an atheist) actually leaving your body yet still attached by a thin thread, travelling to other dimensions and fighting with evil demons, sounds utterly ridiculous to me.

I will never be able to believe in OBE's unless I either experience them myself or some scientist somehow comes up with a credible scientific explanation for them. People claiming to have experienced OBE's will never be able to prove them as anything other than a delusion, and to an intelligent logical person with no personal experience of them, OBE's sound no more probable than the existence of the Easter bunny.


[Moved from here: Lucid dreaming, astral projection, out of body experiences, etc.

[Jill]

You will never be able to prove them as anything other than a delusion, and to an intelligent logical person they sound no more probable than the Easter bunny.

They do sound difficult to believe, but you're basically saying that people like Erin aren't intelligent or logical, which doesn't seem quite right.

Just because you haven't experienced something, or it sounds too difficult to believe, it means it's dumb?

[RandomJohn]

I find a lot of intelligent and logical people who believe in the existence of OBEs and astral projection.

There is the common notion that parapsychology has the best designed experiments in any field because the design is more scrutinized than any other field when the results are made public.

[Radical]

You're right they do sound difficult to believe, but does that make them dumb? Yes, unless you have some credible proof for there existence other than a few people who claim to have experienced them. Many great scientific minds have spent their lives trying to understand the universe to give us the laws of physics. Astral projections and OBE's would totally undermine this and so it is not unreasonable to be very sceptical.

[Jill]

and so it is not unreasonable to be very sceptical.

No, it's never unreasonable to be skeptical.

But it is unreasonable to call stuff that you don't understand dumb. Or to call those who do understand it dumb.

[Radical]

I'm not calling anyone dumb, I just have more faith in the convictions of the world's greatest scientists than a few so called psychics whose beliefs undermine everything they stand for. I am a strong believer in truth, and will not delude myself into believing something without credible scientific proof.

[Erin Pavlina]

Someone once said, "When you decide what is you close yourself off to what may be."

If you strongly believe something is impossible, no amount of proof will persuade you.

I think skeptics owe it to themselves to try something out for themselves before they decide it's not possible.

I too am skeptical of anything I haven't experienced myself. But I remain open to experiences and believe that anything is possible.

[RandomJohn]

I'll take my personal experience over those of Galileo, Newton, Einstein, or even Watson and Crick any day. You can also add Steve and Erin Pavlina to that list

As it turns out, I've experienced the truth of what each and every person on this list has said, and I experienced it because I was skeptical enough to say "I need to try this and see how it works for me." In other words I don't leave it to anyone, including God or the "world's greatest scientists" to carve the commandments into stone tablets and hand off to me. When it comes to Truth, appeal to authority on any level just doesn't cut it for me.

YMMV.

So when I asked about other people's experiences with trying to induce an OBE through a lucid dream, it wasn't so that I could read it and feel all warm and fuzzy inside, it was so that I could try it out. It doesn't bother me that James Randi or Richard Dawkins or Radical considers it "improbable" or "not scientifically tested."

[Adam Sargant]

Originally Posted by Radical

I will never be able to believe in OBE's unless I either experience them myself or some scientist somehow comes up with a credible scientific explanation for them. People claiming to have experienced OBE's will never be able to prove them as anything other than a delusion...

Radical, you seem to have set up a recursive set of mutually exclusive criteria... if delusional, why should believing them by virtue of experiencing prove anything?

Would you be able to accept that the OBE description is a useful model for some people who have a consistent experience that no-one has been able to offer a plausable alternative explanation for all aspects of the experience?

In love and light
Adam

[andrew]

I think of the few things I've read of Erin's stated something along the lines of "if my conscious is not there, but it happens to my body in "real life", I don't really experience it. But a dream I take part in and remember it happening and experienced it, is just as real as if it hapened, and more real to me than what happened to my body that I didn't experience." Rough summery, but you get the point.

I felt that really hit home to me and made a lot of sense. Just one of the things is what happens if you forget everything? It's like you're not alive or something.

I'm just saying some food for thought.

[escapee]

I would also recommend reading cardiac arrest near death experience as it's related to OBE . If we can indeed prove that authentic NDE experience is within the human mind or consciousness rather than outside of body , then there shouldnt be any supply or input of spirit and ghost to the world that haunt many us around the world .

[Radical]

Originally Posted by Adam Sargant

Radical, you seem to have set up a recursive set of mutually exclusive criteria... if delusional, why should believing them by virtue of experiencing prove anything?

Would you be able to accept that the OBE description is a useful model for some people who have a consistent experience that no-one has been able to offer a plausable alternative explanation for all aspects of the experience?

In love and light
Adam

If I somehow ever experienced an OBE, I would have to either radically alter my beliefs about what is possible, or consider the possibility of being delusional.

One way I've thought people having OBE's can prove they exist is to set up an experiment: Someone very sceptical and anti-supernatural (such as James Randi) writes something on a piece of paper that only he/she could possibly know about and puts it somewhere in a locked room. Then the person claiming to experience OBE's can be induced to sleep. Then they can prove whether they are delusional or not by travelling to the room, reading the piece of paper and then when they wake up will be able to recall and relay the exact transcript on the piece of paper. All of this done under controlled scientific conditions of course.

[Sean.M.Connelly]

Originally Posted by Radical

If I somehow ever experienced an OBE, I would have to either radically alter my beliefs about what is possible, or consider the possibility of being delusional.

Why not practice, then? It takes some time, but it's certianly possible to learn to experience an OBE. Anyone can learn... it took me 6 months, personally. You have to admit that there is a lot of people who claim it is real, so I'm not suggesting you blindly believe them... but it might spark enough curiosity to see for yourself.

There is nothing you could read on the internet or on these forums that would convince you. Which is good! No amount of written word should be able to shake someone's fundamental beliefs that much. Only personal experience has that power. That's healthy skepticism.

So - you have issued a challenge for psychics to "prove" it to you. I issue you a counter challenge - I challenge you to practice and see for yourself, because we both know that there is no amount of "proof" that can be presented to you via the internet.

Practice. What have you got to lose? If you're willing to waste your time arguing on these forums, then surely you have enough time to practice OBEs :-).

~Sean

[AndyMartin]

Originally Posted by Radical

If I somehow ever experienced an OBE, I would have to either radically alter my beliefs about what is possible, or consider the possibility of being delusional.

One way I've thought people having OBE's can prove they exist is to set up an experiment: Someone very sceptical and anti-supernatural (such as James Randi) writes something on a piece of paper that only he/she could possibly know about and puts it somewhere in a locked room. Then the person claiming to experience OBE's can be induced to sleep. Then they can prove whether they are delusional or not by travelling to the room, reading the piece of paper and then when they wake up will be able to recall and relay the exact transcript on the piece of paper. All of this done under controlled scientific conditions of course.

Very true; the most we can hope for anyone is that they're willing to examine both possibilities equally.

Actually experiments of exactly the sort you talk about have been performed, though I can't point you to any papers on the results. One of the problems, of this of course, is the induction of the state under controlled scientific conditions, which are not necessarily conditions of comfort, relaxation and safety that are required to achieve the state. If you're interested in exploring the topic, I'd recommend reading some of Robert Monroe's books, like Journeys Out Of Body. Interesting stuff.

Afterthought: Studies in quantum physics have shown that the intentions of those conducting an experiment sway the outcome. A qualified study would be conducted neutrally, not as a competition between opposed believers.

[Erin Pavlina]

I will say this about my astral experiences. I began learning and studying astral projection around age 12 or 13. But it wasn't until I was 15 that I finally had one. When it finally happened it was like nothing I expected. But once it did happen, I was able to do it more easily in the future. It's like finding the muscle that controls just your left eyebrow and practicing for months to be able to lift just the one eyebrow. Once you find the muscle it's easy.

So it took me 3 years, and that's once I started trying to experience an OBE.

[Radical]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

I will say this about my astral experiences. I began learning and studying astral projection around age 12 or 13. But it wasn't until I was 15 that I finally had one. When it finally happened it was like nothing I expected. But once it did happen, I was able to do it more easily in the future. It's like finding the muscle that controls just your left eyebrow and practicing for months to be able to lift just the one eyebrow. Once you find the muscle it's easy.

So it took me 3 years, and that's once I started trying to experience an OBE.

I have a challenge for you Erin. If you truly believe in the psychic world and can freely have OBE's as you claim, then why not put an end to all the skepticism?

Set up a scientific experiment similar to the one I descriped in my previous post, and prove once and for all that psychics aren't delusional. Wouldn't it make you feel great to have all the skeptiks, i.e Randi, Dawkins etc eating their words?

Better still televise the experiment, for all the world to witness.

[Erin Pavlina]

If proving astral projection exists was my purpose in life, I probably would go to great lengths to try to prove it. My purpose is to bring our planet back to a state of love, peace, harmony, and compassion. Whether astral projection exists or not will be probably be of little consequence to that goal.

[onebeliever]

Hi i don't know if obe's real or if astral projection is real or even lucid dreaming. But i know what i have been experiencing since i was around 10 years old is real.

One experience i've had is that i had loud ringing in my ears then once it stopped i looked around me and everything that was around me looked the same as i did before i fell asleep. Only thing that was different is that somethings like my wife for instance looked a little different but one time i looked at her and she was faced the opposite direction i was facing then i touched the back of her head then she turned her head, then when i came back out my dream state her face was facing me. Another time my wife my son and i were really tired so we layed down and i fell asleep. I got the loud buzzing in my ears again. Then i noticed i was saying who am I? Over and over again. Then i could hear my wife's voice saying a different name then what my name really is (well the first name was different but the last name was the same.) After that some how i was floating above my neighbours ceiling looking down on them. A minute later i was awake again. After anyone time any of this happens when i come back i feel so afraid that i can't go back to sleep right away i have to fight my sleep till i can't anymore.

[Guard]

Originally Posted by onebeliever

Hi i don't know if obe's real or if astral projection is real or even lucid dreaming. But i know what i have been experiencing since i was around 10 years old is real.

One experience i've had is that i had loud ringing in my ears then once it stopped i looked around me and everything that was around me looked the same as i did before i fell asleep. Only thing that was different is that somethings like my wife for instance looked a little different but one time i looked at her and she was faced the opposite direction i was facing then i touched the back of her head then she turned her head, then when i came back out my dream state her face was facing me. Another time my wife my son and i were really tired so we layed down and i fell asleep. I got the loud buzzing in my ears again. Then i noticed i was saying who am I? Over and over again. Then i could hear my wife's voice saying a different name then what my name really is (well the first name was different but the last name was the same.) After that some how i was floating above my neighbours ceiling looking down on them. A minute later i was awake again. After anyone time any of this happens when i come back i feel so afraid that i can't go back to sleep right away i have to fight my sleep till i can't anymore.

I will say this to you. I have not knowingly astral projected or had and OBE. Many say that we are astral every night while we are sleeping and are completely unaware of it. As far as the noise. I have heard a noise a few times just before I fall asleep but I am still aware that sounds like a whirling waterfall or something...then I hear it and I freak out and wake up. I have been told that this is the sound current we hear before having an OBE.

[desertrat]

I think thing to is to witness something while out of body . See what your wife/gf is doing , see what your friends are eating for diner , and ask later to see if you realy watched them. Some one out of body at a hospitle saw a pair of shews on a high ledg not easly seen. A doctor found them just where that person said they were. desert rat

[Tigerlily]

Why are people referring to lucid dreams like they are some paranormal magical pixie unicorn fairy thing?
Lucid dreams are a real thing, as real as sleep walking or sleep paralysis or any other real conditions that can happen when you're asleep.
It's not paranormal AT ALL.
I had them all the time when I was little, before I knew what they were. I had them without putting any effort or intention into it. I still have them but less frequently.
Idk...my brain just operates like that.