How to have an out-of-body experience

2010 April 17
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by Kevin Bridges
Article ID: 1410

What do you think of when you hear the words “out of body experience”? Perhaps you imagine an ill-fated victim of a car accident, a spirit floating inside an ambulance looking down at EMTs as they try frantically to revive his broken, unconscious body.

Explore the wilds of the Internet and you’ll get plenty of variations on the “out of body” theme. Plenty of people claim to have out-of-body experiences, saying “I’ve had one of those!” Or “I’ve had a dozen!” Or “I had one last night!” Did they all have traffic accidents? Do that many people fall off the roof trying to take down their Christmas lights? How accident-prone can a person be?

No. Further study shows that many out-of-body experiences happened in the security of a person’s own bed. It’s usually very late at night or in the wee hours of morning.

It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to debunk this one, does it? It’s called having a dream!  Elementary, my dear Watson.

However, a closer look at the experiences paints a different picture.

If an out-of-body spirit sees a tree fall in the forest, can the spirit hear the noise?

The general scenario involves a body shaking and vibrating and then a sensation of floating up out of the body and being able to view one’s own bedroom from a ceiling’s perspective.

Personally, I’ve had more dreams about being naked at my old high school than I’ve had about floating around in my bedroom.  But every one of these people will tell you that the experience isn’t like a usual dream – there is no strange dreamlike logic and plotlines, and it doesn’t physically feel like a dream – it feels real.

Then maybe it isn’t a dream.  But if it’s not an actual out-of-body experience, what else could it be?

For some of us, it’s too improbable – too much of a stretch of logic – to think that these people not only have souls but that these souls sometimes go out to play.  But a closer look at the techniques to induce an out-of-body experience shows us just how this could happen without a supernatural element.

Out of body techniques include instructions like this:

1) Lie down in a comfortable bed or kick back in a recliner.

2) Completely relax your whole body.

3) Enhance the relaxation with visualization techniques. For example, imagine yourself walking down some stairs, and with every step you descend, have your heart rate slow and your breathing grow deeper and slower.

4) Eventually you will fall into a self-induced trance.

5) During this process, say affirmations. Repeat to yourself: “The out-of-body experience is completely natural.  I will use this technique every night when I sleep. I am more than my physical body.”

6) Using these techniques, your soul will rise away from your body, and your consciousness will follow.

Anyone who’s heard the word “hypnosis” is right now cocking a skeptical eyebrow.

Many excited people out there are learning self-hypnosis without realizing it. In the books and websites with instructions for getting out of your own skin, many teach the same techniques that others use to quit smoking or lose weight. The process to coax your soul from your body is the same one you can use to stop eating three desserts after dinner.

With this in mind, let’s again look at the out-of-body experience.

Read a thick book about people’s souls flying around like thrown confetti. Spend an hour on a forum devoted to the topic. Then go lie in bed and repeat to yourself that you are going to have an out-of-body experience.

What would you expect to happen?  I’d be surprised if someone doing this didn’t have a supposed out-of-body experience.

If the out-of-body experience isn’t a dream, should we assume it’s reality? Not yet. There are other explanations available, possibilities that don’t presume the supernatural. We’d need to first rule those out before a supernatural explanation would make sense.

Although now that I think about it, just because the out-of-body experience isn’t real doesn’t mean I don’t want to try it. I could even write a book about it and teach another generation of people just how easy it is to fool oneself.

All you have to do is relax.


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from → New Age, Psychology, Supernatural

8 Comments
2010 April 17
Andy Kaiser permalink

I wanted to add a little personal addendum to Kevin’s article, something that really bugs me about claims of out-of-body experiences and astral projection. It’s about the broken logic that an out-of-body experience requires.

Assume my soul is outside my body, and I’m drifting around looking at the world, listening to things I couldn’t normally hear, seeing things I couldn’t normally see.

How is this done? How is it that the out-of-body traveler can see and hear?

If an out-of-body experience has a physical explanation, then anyone “outside” their body would be blind and deaf – they have no pupil, lens or retina with which to see. They have no eardrum with which to hear.

Or in a similar vein, if an out-of-body experience truly exists, then why does it have the same limits as our physical body? Why can’t a soul see in infrared, or hear in ultrasonic?

Andy

2010 April 19
Bob Allen permalink

Thanks for the additional comments, Andy.  Thanks for the article, Kevin.

To my way of thinking, an “out of body” experience report – comes from someone wanting attention – directed at themselves.

To my way of thinking, an “out of body” experience would be no more difficult than, say, breathing.  And who would be all that interested in watching someone running around saying, “I’m breathing, I’m breathing.”

It’s a bunch of hoowee.

2010 April 30
Ricky Barnes permalink

You say  “Not yet. There are other explanations available, possibilities that don’t presume the supernatural”.  If indeed this is occuring then maybe it is actually natural and not supernatural. If part of who we are is connected to some eternal consciousness or mind then maybe  learning to experience this is a part of our evolution as an advanced species.

2010 May 3
Gerald Guild permalink

The notion of “out-of-body experiences” implies dualism.  Dualism necessitates entering the realm of the supernatural.  Science, particularly neuro-science, suggests that such experiences are perceptual/brain based – not supernatural – and within such states we are necessarily confined to the limits of our material entities.   Although, perception is reality.  Interesting, isn’t it, that malfunctioning neuro-circuits or self induced trances are so valued or deemed as evidence of other “worlds.”  I recall reading over the last month or so that neurologists have been able to manipulate states of spiritualism by simply repressing brain function in specific areas.  We have, for years, been able to trigger emotions, memories, and sensory experiences by simply manipulating the brain.  More and more regarding the nature and complexity of the brain is coming to the fore.  The preponderance of evidence suggests (and frankly this long been the case) that me and my brain are one.

2010 June 2
Steven Zuber permalink

It seems to me that he should have named something that it more tied to the woo woo out-of-body experiences, since those are the ones it focuses on. I’ve had them too, but I recognize them as things like sleep paralysis, runner’s high, and getting good and stoned. Other than that, it was pretty well put together. Good sound effects and it wasn’t too harsh and thus probably wont appear as threateningly anti-religious or anti-spiritual.

2010 September 11
dude permalink

its very possible to get out of the body but most of you are probably better off thinking that you can’t.

2010 September 12
Andy Kaiser permalink

Thanks, Dude. Care to elaborate on your point?

Andy

2010 September 15
J Foster permalink

My difficulty with “out of body” experiences or any other “spiritual” experience is two-fold.

First, it necessarily presupposes that there is such thing as a spirit or soul… an unmeasurable metaphysical concept. I’ve often said that I do not have a certainty that spirits or souls do not exist, perhaps science simply doesn’t have the tools to measure them yet. That said, until there is a measurable or at least plausible theoretical explanation, I remain a skeptic and will stick with physical scientific evidence.

Second, the word “experience” in context is by nature subjective and as such not susceptible to objective observation and verification. One can claim any number of mystical experiences which can be readily explained by neurochemical processes. Endorphins are real and measurable. Their impact on thought, “experience”, perception and physical sensation are verifiable, reproducible and subject to peer review.

Given the choice, I’ll opt for the difficult path of understanding chemistry rather than the laziness of simply calling it “spiritual”. 

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