Talk:Out-of-body experience

Edited this page to NPOV it - it was a hodgepodge of some denying even the subjective experience of OBEs, accompanied by alternating paragraphs claiming verification of observation local events. Chas zzz brown 22:54 Jan 23, 2003 (UTC)

Hmm? I disagree sincerely; this revision, far from neutralizing it, seems to have stripped all mentions of supporting evidence. I'm rewriting it.

However, I do agree with the formatting changes made. However, the information in the article has been changed to be dead wrong- I believe we're having contrasting definitions of "lucid dreaming." My definition is simply that of being aware one is dreaming, while still within the dream. Most lucid dream induction methods involve making a habit of checking throughout the day if a situation is actually a dream; this habit carries over to dreams, and the checks come up somewhat differently. There are NOT the parallels described in the rewrite. Kistaro 00:14 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

Edit away mercilessly at the lucid dreaming parts - the techniques listed are reminiscent of at least one person I know who uses them for lucid dreaming (in terms of imagery); but I'm not a practitioner, so I bow to your expertise.

Taken out. Again. While I can see such methods working to induce lucid dreams, they are not the standard methods.

Evidence of the subjective experience which we can call an OBE is plentiful; evidence of the objective reality of actually "being out of your body" is pretty slim.

The only "evidence" originally given in the article was in these two paragraphs:

Evidence is heavy on both sides of the fence. The phenomenon simply defies logic and science; it almost demands the existance of a soul. It is also a rather erratic event, which makes it difficult to study; the difficulty involved in recreating such an event causes many experimenters to doubt that such a phenomenon actually exists.

Not much "heavy" evidence cited here (on either side). The fact that it "defies logic and science" is not evidence, nor is the fact that it "demands the existance (sic)" of a human soul - those are observations of how actual evidence would challenge other theories (one could include this as an argument regarding why some consider that there is no evidence forthcoming, but it is not truly evidence itself).

Most certainly. You took it out of context. That paragraph was for points in the perspective against the phenomenon! Kistaro

The idea that it is an erratic event making it difficult to study (notwithstanding that this directly contradicts the statement in the final paragraph about "'Projectors', who can induce this state at will, ...") is a challenge to providing evidence, not evidence in and of itself that the phenomenon exists.

On the other front, a rather large number of people have claimed to experience such a phenomenon. Recent experiments with electric brain stimulation have produced interesting results, and recent news has covered events where some hospital patients who go completely brain-dead and are later revived are able to accurately reconstruct events that occured while the patient was legally dead. "Projectors" who can induce this phenomenon at will frequently show knowledge of situations that they could not know by other means.

I have no quibble with the fact that people claim to have the experience. No idea where the "electrical stimulation" comes from - I didn't see any examples of this as an OBE technique in a web search;

I confess I lost the link. I found what looks like a promising headline on nytimes.com, but I don't feel like paying the money. I don't have a credit card; I'm only a high school student! -- Kistaro

Google - it's the Wikipedian's best friend! (... and I can't believe it's still free!) Try a search on "OBE electrical brain" Chas zzz brown 21:19 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

and in any case, I see no examples of using this technique to demonstrate real evidence that the experience is other than subjective. See changes at near death experience for some discussion of NDEs as a class of out of body experience. The final sentence can hardly be called evidence; we need to say who these "projectors" are, and describe the evidence they give that they shows knowledge of situations that cannot be explained by natural means.

Evidence needs to be evidence - not just claims. Cheers - Chas zzz brown 01:04 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

I'd consider a full debate to be somewhat beyond the scope of the article, although massive quantities of links would not be.

My real problem with the article as it stands is that it has a severe slant against the phenomenon. I agree with the concept of a neutral POV- in fact, that's what I was shooting for- but apparently, you didn't like that I mentioned something not supported by current scientific thought. Stripping out the sections even remarking on the possible validity of the non-scientific, less accepted approach does not neutralize the article, it biases it. Badly. -- Kistaro 03:30 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

What is there then to report, in order to "balance" the article, about those who believe that the subjective experience is also an objective one, except that there are those who believe that the subjective experience is also an objective one? That they really, really do believe it? Chas zzz brown 05:20 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

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As regards electrical stimulation:

Researchers from the University Hospitals of Geneva and Lausanne (Switzerland) have found that OBEs can be produced by direct electrical stimulation of a specific part of the brain. Dr. Olaf Blanke and his colleagues worked with a 43-year-old female patient who suffered from right temporal lobe epilepsy. In order to identify the location where the seizures occurred, the researchers implanted electrodes on the brain under the patient's dura. While the patient was awake, the researchers could pass electrical current through the electrodes to identify the function of the brain area under each electrode.

Nowhere is it stated that the (easily performed) experiment of verifying whether or not the subject was actually floating above the bed gave results which would be of tremendous signifiance. Chas zzz brown 01:28 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

I concede the point. I mentioned it only for completeness, not as evidence. This is not an attempt to prove the phenomenon, it's an attempt to get all angles of it! Why must you strip out the remarks on the admittedly less-scientific viewpoints and call it neutral? I'm missing something here.

-- Kistaro 03:30 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

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If y'all hadn't guessed, I've got some disagreements with how this article is being rewritten. I don't consider it neutral; I consider it very biased against any pro-OBE point of view. I fail to see how stripping out all mentions of one view and not of another makes the information in any way neutral. However, I am refraining from returning the information, as it's obviously futile to try to get an NPOV here; I'll settle for accurate for what's in it. Why did the re-rewrite insist on stripping out the somewhat wrong information on lucid dreaming? -- Kistaro 03:30 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

I'll add my POV here (it is the talk page, after all) - which is that "it's good to have an open mind; but not so open that your brains fall out". NPOV doesn't mean we have to throw out our critical faculties. If some people believe the moon is made of green cheese, we can state that belief - but we would be doing our readers (and the encyclopedic concept) a disservice if we didn't state that not only is there no particular factual basis for this belief, but instead there is considerable evidence to the contrary.

NPOV, in my opinion, is far more applicable in areas where there is no possibility of a "right" answer - there is no way to prove (in the scientific sense) that Mohammed was "really" the chosen prophet of Allah or not; or whether abortion is really killing babies, etc. etc.

The pro-OBE point of view (as I assume you are defining it) is that the experience is "real", and that their consciousness is in some way actually leaving their bodies. Aside from stating that some people adhere to this point of view, what else can be said of it? That they believe it because... they've had the experience and it seems real to them?

In an article on OBEs, I'm willing to say that it is without a doubt true that many people have had experiences which subjectively appear to be that their center of consciousness has moved outside of their body. It is natural then to wonder whether this is what actually occurs or whether this is "just" a subjective experience. There is no evidence that the former occurs; and to state otherwise without some kind of backup is to turn an encyclopedia into a rumor mill. That's not POV, it's just reporting that there is no evidence supporting the belief that OBEs have an objective component, except that people believe it to be so. Chas zzz brown 05:20 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

Which makes it a very difficult subject to approach.

How about doing something never seen before (okay, I haven't seen it before) in a Wikipedia article: two renditions, separated by a divider. The first rendition is the article almost as it stands; all mentions are written with subjectivity in mind. This may involve the heavy modification (or removal of) the description of the experience. The second rendition, after the divider, would be of what is experienced, with no judgements mentioned or evidence given.

Perhaps a third section would be appropriate for evidence, but would that be more than a little overboard? -- Kistaro, wanting a peaceful comprimize to this whole edit war

IMO, it's not necessary. It could be structured differently, though -- a paragraph on the subjective experience, then a paragraph on the scientific view and (lack of) evidence, and then a paragraph "Some people think that...". Zocky 10:19 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

Isn't that pretty much what we have now? A few paragraphs on what can be unambiguously agreed upon as facts regarding the subjective experience of an OBE (as distinct from other subjective experiences); along with methods for achieving this state; a paragraph saying that many people believe that the experience is real; and a paragraph saying that skeptics believe it's not real due to lack of evidence otherwise.

I don't mean for this to be an "edit war"; but I feel rather strongly about how one should go about applying NPOV in areas like this. I'm in process of trying to work out how to approach these issues myself, so please don't take any of what I say as personal! I'm assuming that we're all trying to live up to the noble precepts of forefathers :) - as outlined at NPOV - and my arguments are really an attempt to answer these questions in the larger context.

What I would object to in the current situation is, for example, rewriting the first sentence to read, instead of :

An out-of-body experience (or OBE) is the subjective perception that one is no longer in one's body, while (generally) being able to perceive it from the outside

as

An out-of-body experience (or OBE) is the phenomenon of being no longer in one's body, while (generally) being able to perceive it from the outside.

In the former, we assert that there is the feeling of really being outside of one's body. It is a fact (in the sense of NPOV) that people have this experience - a lot of people! In the latter sentence, we assert during an OBE one is actually outside of one's body. But this is exactly what is in contention between differing viewpoints; the objective reality of the experience. So I would consider the latter sentence does not express a fact - it is an opinion (again, in the strict sense of NPOV).

A critical difference- and I agree with use of the top version. If "subjective perception" was replaced with "delusion," however, I'd have a problem. Kistaro

My impression (I could be wrong!) is that Kistaro would prefer the latter sentence as being less biased;

Surprise. Kistaro

but to my mind, that introduces the bias of asserting what is under contention. Both a skeptic and a non-skeptic could agree that Joe Blow is having an OBE if they define it as the experience - but if they define it as the reality, then they would disagree.

On the other hand, the article prior to this series of edits seemed to throw out the baby with the bathwater and claim that skeptics believed that "there is no such thing as an OBE".

And that's the version I have a problem with. I have no problem with calling it subjective; my beef is with calling it invalid. Kistaro

But there really is a phenomenon we can call OBE, whose definition we can agree on, and which people really do experience (and experience as subjectively real). That's why I felt like I was actually making the article more NPOV - stress what can be agreed on as a fact, rather than presenting the whole article as reporting on opinions.

I see our problem here. What you're seeing as "neutralizing" to note as more of a subjectively experienced thing comes off more as calling it, in its entirety, invalid.

The problem at hand: How to avoid doing that? I agree that I'm pro-OBE biased; you're obviously skeptical of the whole thing- and that's okay!- which tilts the article slightly.

There really is no such thing as an unbiased perspective, in my experience. Kistaro

Obviously I come from a more skeptical headset than most

Not that far off from normal, actually. I'm the weird Otherkin paranormalist here; I'd say I'm the one several miles from the mainstream! Kistaro

- so, again, please don't take my comments as in any way personal!! There are a lot of topics in which this same issue arises (see New Age, pseudo-science, etc., etc.) and I'm groping towards what seems like the right approach. Chas zzz brown 21:19 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

We'll figure something out. Kistaro 00:44 Jan 25, 2003 (UTC)

A personal insight (not related to the debate, but what the hell!) Someone I know claimed an outer-body experience while being operated on. The doctors were high dubious until she was able to tell them that (a) one of the doctors had been called to the back of the operating theatre (where there was a glass wall) and shown a note written in felt-tip pen; (b) she knew and could recite word for word what that message was. No-one had spoken the words, so she couldn't have heard them. Nor even if she was awake from her position could she have possibly seen them. Nor indeed, given that there was it was a complicated operation, was she likely even to have known that one of the many surgeons there had left the operation, walked to a specific corner of a window, looked out, been shown the note, read it, smiled and shook his head, before returning. Let alone known at what time he had done this. (A small clock was just about visible through the window in the small room beyond. The surgeons challenged her, saying there was no clock. One went to check and found that, yes, there was one, on a shelf; he'd never noticed it there himself!)

Some younger surgeons were shocked at all the information she could describe. The oldest surgeon there said, however, that he wasn't surprised at all. He had witnessed a number of such incidents, including someone who claimed to have left an operating theatre and was able to recount a conversation, including describing the three people who had it (she knew one was called 'John' because he'd been called that!) and what they were talking about, that took place two rooms away, all while being operated on and out for the count on an operating table. Another doctor left a note on the top of a press, challenging anyone who claimed to have an experience to know what it said. One man not only told him of the note, but corrected his grammar, and in particular his split infinitive in the note! Spooky! JTD 01:22 Jan 25, 2003 (UTC)

A wonderful personal account, but the point remains: we have to stay neutral. The trick is figuring out what "neutral" actually is: how to present the information at hand without biasing it one way or another, since it is still a contested matter of debate? Kistaro 02:30 Jan 25, 2003 (UTC)

I know. I was just making an observation of general interest. The point I was making is that the issue has to be covered treating the claim with respect. This is no 'X-Files' garbage but a serious issue that must not dismiss the idea as if it was some sort of nutty micronations stuff (of which we have so much on Wiki that it gives one the creeps!). JTD 05:21 Jan 25, 2003 (UTC)

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Stories like those above alert my "urban legend" meter a bit. In particular, note how the evidence of actual dis-embodiment gets more compelling the further away from the original source we get - the most compelling evidence in terms of "really" out of body (reading a note in a normally "impossible" way) is actually fourth hand: JTD <- his friend <- the older surgeon <- another doctor. It is reasonable to ask if this type of account is really a kind of urban legend - tantamount to the story of Dan Quayle thinking that people in Latin America spoke Latin.

On the other hand, the only way to describe the phenomenon is via someone's firsthand experience. The story clearly had an effect on JTD; and I assume an even stronger one on his/her friend!

When in doubt - go to original sources! Here's a new take on the article, which stresses reporting of the experience; hopefully this is a more "balanced" view. Cheers - Chas zzz brown 18:51 Jan 31, 2003 (UTC)

As someone who's just come across the article, I have to say it's a mess. I appreciate the work you've all put into it, but it is definitely suffering versionitis. It's badly organized, incoherent, and changes tone several times. Ick. At the very least, I recommend actually breaking it into sections (instead of all those bullet points) and cutting down the number of examples (they're pretty redundant). And what's a detailed analysis of a case study doing in there, anyway? That really belongs in a link or on a separate page. Well, good luck. -Pat

NPOV

I just did a few little copyedits to this, but it seems to me to be suffering from POV issues, and I don't know enough about the subject to start rewriting it. The tone of the article seems to me rather to err on the side of saying that OBEs are a real experience. The problem is that for a purely subjective phenomenon, we can't make any verifiable claims about these experiences. For example, however many first-hand accounts we read, there's no way we can say for sure that they are not made up. There's too much reliance on these accounts - they make up the bulk of the article. Efortune 15:36, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Other topics... courtesy of http://www.lucidity.com/NL32.OBEandLD.html

"Out of body" experiences (OBEs) are personal experiences during which people feel as if they are perceiving the physical world from a location outside of their physical bodies. At least 5 and perhaps as many as 35 of every 100 people have had an OBE at least once in their lives (Blackmore, 1982). OBEs are highly arousing; they can be either deeply disturbing or profoundly moving. Understanding the nature of this widespread and potent experience would no doubt help us better understand the experience of being alive and human.

The simplest explanation is that OBEs are exactly what they seem: the human consciousness separating from the human body and traveling in a discorporate form in the physical world. Another idea is that they are hallucinations, but this requires an explanation of why so many people have the same delusion. Some of our experiments have led us to consider the OBE as a natural phenomenon arising out of normal brain processes. Thus, we believe that the OBE is a mental event that happens to healthy people. In support of this, psychologists Gabbard and Twemlow (1984) have concluded from surveys and psychological tests that the typical OBE experient is "a close approximation of the 'average healthy American.'" (p. 40)

Our conception, also proposed by the English psychologist Susan Blackmore, is that an OBE begins when a person loses contact with sensory input from the body while remaining conscious (Blackmore, 1988; LaBerge - Lucidity Letter; Levitan - Lucidity Letter). The person retains the feeling of having a body, but that feeling is no longer derived from data provided by the senses. The "out-of-body" person also perceives a world that resembles the world he or she generally inhabits while awake, but this perception does not come from the senses either. The vivid body and world of the OBE is made possible by our brain's marvelous ability to create fully convincing images of the world, even in the absence of sensory information. This process is witnessed by each of us every night in our dreams. Indeed, all dreams could be called OBEs in that in them we experience events and places quite apart from the real location and activity of our bodies.

WHAT ARE OBES LIKE?

So, we are saying that OBEs may be a kind of dream. But, even so, they are extraordinary experiences. The great majority of people who have had OBEs say they are more real than dreams. Common aspects of the experience include being in an "out-of- body" body much like the physical one, feeling a sense of energy, feeling vibrations, and hearing strange loud noises (Gabbard & Twemlow, 1984). Sometimes a sensation of bodily paralysis precedes the OBE (Salley, 1982; Irwin, 1988; Muldoon & Carrington, 1974; Fox, 1962).

To the sleep researcher, these strange phenomena are remarkably reminiscent of another curious experience, called sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis occurs sometimes when a person is waking from or falling into REM sleep, the state in which most vivid dreams occur. During REM sleep, the muscles of the body, excluding the eye muscles and those responsible for circulation and respiration, are immobilized by orders from a nerve center in the lower brain. This prevents us from acting out our dreams. Occasionally, this paralysis turns on or remains active while the person's mind is fully awake and aware of the world.

Some of the experiences people have reported during sleep paralysis are: "I feel completely removed from myself," "feeling of being separated from my body," "eerie, rushing experiences," and hearing "hissing in the ears," and "roaring in the head." These events appear to be much like the OBE sensations of vibrations, strange noises, and drifting away from the physical body (Everett, 1983). Fear has also been described as a common component of sleep paralysis (see the "Question and Answer" in NightLight, Vol. 2, No. 1 for a discussion of overcoming fear in sleep paralysis.)

WHEN DO OBES HAPPEN?

So, it seems possible that at least some OBEs arise from the same conditions as sleep paralysis, and that these two terms may actually be naming two aspects of the same phenomenon. As a first test of this idea, we should ask how many OBEs actually occur at times when people are likely to experience sleep paralysis -- that is, do OBEs happen when people are lying down, asleep, resting, or while awake and active?

Researchers have approached the question of the timing of OBEs by asking people who claim to have had OBEs to describe when they happened. In one of these, over 85 percent of those surveyed said they had had OBEs while they were resting, sleeping or dreaming. (Blackmore, 1984) Other surveys also show that the majority of OBEs occur when people are in bed, ill, or resting, with a smaller percentage coming while the person is drugged or medicated. (Green, 1968; Poynton, 1975; Blackmore, 1983 )

Survey evidence favors the theory that OBEs could arise out of the same conditions as sleep paralysis. There is also considerable evidence that people who tend to have OBEs also tend to have lucid dreams, flying and falling dreams, and the ability to control their dreams (Blackmore, 1983, 1984; Glicksohn, 1989; Irwin, 1988).

Because of the strong connection between OBEs and lucid dreaming, some researchers in the area have suggested that OBEs are a type of lucid dream (Faraday, 1976; Honegger, 1979; Salley, 1982). One problem with this argument is that although people who have OBEs are also likely to have lucid dreams, OBEs are far less frequent, and can happen to people who have never had lucid dreams. Furthermore, OBEs are quite plainly different from lucid dreams in that during a typical OBE the experient is convinced that the OBE is a real event happening in the physical world and not a dream, unlike a lucid dream, in which by definition the dreamer is certain that the event is a dream. There is an exception that connects the two experiences -- when we feel ourselves leaving the body, but also know that we are dreaming.

In our studies of the physiology of the initiation of lucidity in the dream state, we observed that quite of few of the lucid dreams we collected contained experiences like OBEs. The dreamers described lying in bed, feeling strange bodily sensations, often vibrations, hearing loud humming noises, and then rising out of body and floating above the bed.

Those studies revealed that lucid dreams have two ways of starting. In the much more common variety, the "dream-initiated lucid dream" (DILD), the dreamer acquires awareness of being in a dream while fully involved in it. DILDs occur when dreamers are right in the middle of REM sleep, showing lots of the characteristic rapid eye movements. We know this is true because our dreamers give a deliberate prearranged eye-movement signal when they realize they are dreaming. These signals show up on our physiology record, so that we can pinpoint the times when lucidity begins and see what kind of brain state the dreamers were in at those times. DILDs account for about four out of every five lucid dreams that our dreamers have had in the laboratory. In the other 20 percent, the dreamers report awakening from a dream and then returning to the dream state with unbroken awareness -- one moment they are aware that they are awake in bed in the sleep laboratory, and the next moment, they are aware that they have entered a dream and are no longer perceiving the room around them. We call these "wake initiated lucid dreams" (WILDs).

A casual look at the dream reports and physiological records led us to think that the OBE-type dream content was happening mostly in WILDs. So, we analyzed the data scientifically in the experiment described below.

THE LABORATORY STUDY

The data we studied consisted of 107 lucid dreams from a total of 14 different people. The physiological information that we collected in conjunction with each lucid dream always included brain waves, eye-movements, and chin muscle activity. These measurements are necessary for determining if a person in awake, asleep, and in REM sleep or not. In all cases, the dreamer signaled the beginning of the lucid dream by making a distinct pattern of eye movements that was identifiable by someone not involved with the experiment.

After verifying that all the lucid dreams had eye signals showing that they had happened in REM sleep, we classified them into DILDs and WILDs, based on how long the dreamers had been in REM sleep without awakening before becoming lucid (two minutes or more for DILDs, less that two minutes for WILDs), and on their report of either having realized they were dreaming while involved in a dream (DILD) or having entered the dream directly from waking while retaining lucidity (WILD).

Alongside the physiological analysis we scored each dream report for the presence of various events that are typical of OBEs, such as feelings of body distortion (including paralysis and vibrations), floating or flying, references to being aware of being in bed, being asleep or lying down, and the sensation of leaving the body (for instance, "I was floating out-of-body").

RESULTS: MORE OBE-LIKE EVENTS IN WILDS

Ten of the 107 lucid dreams qualified as OBEs, because the dreamers reported feeling like they had left their bodies in the dream. Twenty of the lucid dreams were WILDs, and 87 were DILDs. Five of the OBEs were WILDs (28%) and five were DILDs (6%). Thus, OBEs were more than four times more likely in WILDs than in DILDs.

The three OBE-related events we looked for also all occurred more often in WILDs than in DILDs. Almost one third of WILDs contained body distortions, and over a half of them included floating or flying or awareness of being in bed. This is in comparison to DILDs, of which less than one fifth involved body distortions, only one third included floating or flying, and one fifth contained awareness of bed.

The reports from the five DILDs that we classified as OBEs were actually much like those from the WILD-OBEs. In both the dreamers felt themselves lying in bed and experiencing strange sensations including paralysis and floating out-of-body. Although these lucid dreams sound like WILDs, we had classified them as DILDS because the physiological records showed no awakenings preceding lucidity. However, it is possible that these people could have momentarily become aware of their environments (and hence been "awake") while continuing to show the brainwaves normally associated with REM sleep. The science of the EEG is not sufficiently advanced that we can tell what people are experiencing by looking at their brainwaves. Anecdotes from dream reports indicate that people sometimes become aware of sensations from their sleeping bodies while dreaming -- for example, the dream in which you are trying to run while your legs become heavier and heavier, perhaps because you are feeling their true immobile condition.

OBES AND WILDS OUTSIDE THE LABORATORY

Our laboratory studies showed us that when OBEs happen in lucid dreams they happen either when a person reenters REM sleep right after an awakening, or right after having become aware of being in bed. However, we wondered if this relationship would apply to OBEs and lucid dreams that people experience at home, in the "real world."

Not being able to take the sleep lab to the homes of hundreds of people (the DreamLight may soon give us this capacity!), we took a survey about OBEs and other dream-related experiences, somewhat like the past studies referred to earlier. The difference between our survey and previous ones is that in addition to asking if people had had OBEs, we asked specifically about certain events that we know to be associated with WILDs, namely, lucid dreaming, returning directly to a dream after awakening from it, and sleep paralysis.

A total of 572 people filled out our questionnaire. They were either students in an introductory psychology course or readers of the NightLight. About a third of the group reported having had at least one OBE. Just over 80 percent had had lucid dreams. Sleep paralysis was reported by 37 percent and 85 percent had been able to return to t a dream after awakening.

People who reported more dream-related experiences also reported more OBEs. For example, of the 452 people claiming to have had lucid dreams, 39 percent also reported OBEs, whereas only 15 percent of those who did not claim lucid dreams said they had had OBEs. The group with the most people reporting OBEs (51%) were those who said they had experienced lucid dreams, dream return, and sleep paralysis.

We would expect people who can return directly to dreams after an awakening to be prone to having WILDs, and therefore also to have frequent lucid dreams. Indeed, in this survey, people reporting frequent dream return also tended to report frequent lucid dreams. Thus, we believe that the fact that dream return frequency was linked with OBE frequency in this study gives further support to our laboratory research finding that WILDs were associated with OBEs.

WHAT DO WE KNOW NOW?

Our two studies have compared the frequency of OBEs in the two types of lucid dream, and surveyed the relative frequency of OBEs and dream-related events in a large number of people. We have thereby learned that when OBEs happen during lucid dreams, they generally happen in lucid dreams that arise from brief awakenings in REM sleep, and that people who have certain special dream experiences are more likely to have OBEs that people who do not. These dream experiences include returning to the dream state after an awakening, lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis.

   Above we described our operating theory that OBEs occur 

when people lose input from their sense organs, as happens at the onset of sleep, while retaining consciousness. This combination of events is especially likely when a person passes directly from waking into REM sleep. In both states the mind is alert and active, but in waking it is processing sensory input from the outside world, while in dreaming it is creating a mental model independent of sensory input. This model includes a body. When dreaming, we generally experience ourselves in a body much like the "real" one, because that is what we are used to. However, our internal senses in the physical body, which when we are awake inform us about our position in space and the movement of our limbs. This information is cut off in REM sleep. Therefore, we can dream of doing all kinds of things with our dream bodies -- flying, dancing, running from monsters, being dismembered -- all while our physical bodies lie safely in bed.

During a WILD, or sleep paralysis, the awake and alert mind keeps up its good work of showing us the world it expects is out there -- although it can no longer sense it. So, then we are in a mentalÐdreamÐworld. Possibly we feel the cessation of the sensation of gravity as that part of sensory input shuts down, and then feel that we are suddenly lighter and float up, rising from the place where we know our real body to be lying still. The room around us looks about the same, because that is our brain's best guess about where we are. If we did not know that we had just fallen asleep, we might well think that we were awake, still in touch with the physical world, and that something mighty strange was happening -- a departure of the mind from the physical body!

The unusual feeling of leaving the body is exciting and alarming. This, combined with the realistic imagery of the bedroom is enough to account for the conviction of many OBE experients' that "it was too real to be a dream." Dreams, too, can be astonishingly real, especially if you are attending to their realness. Usually, we pass through our dreams without thinking much about them, and upon awakening remember little of them. Hence, they seem "unreal." But waking life is also like that -- our memory for a typical, mundane day is flat and lacking in detail. It is only the novel, exciting, or frightening events that leave vivid impressions. If we stop what we are doing, we can look around and say, "Yes, this world looks solid and real." But, if you look back and try to recall, for instance, brushing your teeth this morning, your memory is likely to be vague and not very life-like. Contrast this to a past event that excited or alarmed you, which is likely to seem much more "real" in retrospect.

Lucid dreamers often comment to themselves in dreams, "I know this is a dream, but it all seems so incredibly real!" All this goes to show that the feeling that an event is real does not mean that it is happening in the physical world that we all share when we are awake. This is not to deny that that inner experiences are real, in that they have deeply profound effects on our lives. However, as lucid dreaming so amply demonstrates, we can learn to distinguish between our personal dreams and events in the consensus dream we call physical reality. When we do, we find that what we thought was one thing -- the waking world -- is actually another -- a dream.

Proof that some or even most OBEs are dreams is not enough to allow us to say that a genuine OBE is impossible. However, in the interests of lucidity, if you have an OBE, why not test to see if the OBE-world passes the reality test? Is the room you are in the one you are actually sleeping in? If you have left your body, where is it? Do things change when you are not looking at them (or when you are)? Can you read something twice and have it remain the same on both readings? If any of your questions and investigations leave you doubting that you are in the physical world, is it not logical to believe you are dreaming?

Another point to consider is that a dream doesn't always have to happen in REM sleep. Most do, but there are probably quite a few other conditions in which people can lose touch with sensory experience and enter a mental world. Some such states that we know of are hypnotic trance, anesthesia, and sensory isolation. OBEs have been reported from these states (Nash et al., 1984; Olson, 1988). Thus, the argument that an OBE cannot be a dream because the experient wasn't asleep doesn't hold water.

THE "IN-THE-BODY" EXPERIENCE

To end this discussion of the origins of the OBE, an event considered unbelievable by many and metaphysical by others, let's consider the state of affairs that is considered normal: the "in- the-body" experience. What does it mean to be in a body? Saying that one is in a body implies that the self is an object with definite borders capable of being contained by the boundaries of another object -- the physical body. However, we do not have any evidence that the self is such a concrete thing. What we think of as "out-of-body" in an OBE is the experience of the self. This experience of being "in" a body is normally based on perceptual input from the senses of both the world external to the body and the processes within the body. These give us a sense of localization of the self in space. However, it is the body, and its sense organs, that occupy a specific locus, not the self. The self is not the body or the brain. If we think that the self is a product of brain function, even this does not make it reasonable to state that the self is in the brain -- is the meaning contained in these words in this page? It may not make any sense on an objective level to say that the self is anywhere. Rather, the self is where it feels itself to be. Its location is purely subjective and derived from input from the sensory organs.

Putting aside the question of the essential nature of the self, perception is undeniably a phenomenon tied to brain function. So, when we find ourselves experiencing a world that seems much like the one we are used to perceiving with our usual equipment -- eyes, ears, etc., all things linked to our brains, it would be logical to assume that it is our usual brain creating the experience. And, if we were to really leave our bodies -- severing all connection with them -- it would be illogical to assume that we would see the world in the same way. Therefore, although no amount of contradictory evidence can rule out the possibility of a real "out of body experience," in which an individual exists in some form entirely independent of the body, it is highly unlikely that such a form would utilize perceptual systems identical to those of the physical human form.

Spiritual teachings tell us that we have a reality beyond that of this world. The OBE may not be, as it is easily interpreted, a literal separation of the soul from the crude physical body, but it is an indication of the vastness of the potential that lies wholly within our minds. The worlds we create in dreams and OBEs are as real as this one, and yet hold infinitely more variety. How much more exhilarating to be "out- of-body" in a world where the only limit is the imagination than to be in the physical world in a powerless body of ether! Freed of the constraints imposed by physical life, expanded by awareness that limits can be transcended, who knows what we could be, or become?

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