Out-of-Body Experiences Read online

  Using affirmations works for many reasons. First, it's a way to clearly communicate with your subconscious, and we all know how powerful the subconscious is from hypnosis studies.2

  Second, many people in metaphysics believe in a higher consciousness, sometimes called your “Higher Self,” or “Oversoul,” which is even more powerful than your subconscious. Affirmations also allow you to communicate your intentions to your Oversoul which can help you reach your goals. I also believe that your oversoul has its own goals that are tied to your spiritual growth, and that it is more likely to help you if you agree to help it accomplish its goals.

  Third, many people in metaphysics believe that your beliefs directly affect your experience. Affirmations make it easier to change your belief system and make positive changes in your life.

  Because affirmations are such a powerful influence on your subconscious mind, you should carefully avoid sending yourself negative messages. One of the first affirmations I ever used was, “I am very loose from my body.” The message seemed innocent enough, but I discovered I had an underlying negative belief that being loose from my body meant that I was not quite healthy. After a few days of using this affirmation, I started feeling disoriented, dizzy, and on the verge of becomingsick. Luckily, I figured out what was happening and changed my affirmation!

  The most effective affirmations are the kind you make for yourself. They should be short, succinct, and stated in a positive way. State the changes you want in your life, as if they are already yours. For example, use “I can” messages instead of “I don't want” messages. Also, affirm what you are willing to do to make it real. For this exercise, do affirmations based on your desire to have OBEs. You can either create your own affirmation or use the one given below.

  I can easily leave my body. Out-of-body experiences come naturally to me. To prepare, I will practice OBE exercises, cooperate with the universe, follow my impulses, act on my intuitions, share my knowledge, spread my love, and cooperate with my own Higher Self.

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  2 For useful material on hypnosis, see Altered States of Consciousness, edited by Charles Tart.

  CHAPTER 2

  my childhood

  I grew up in a hectic house with three brothers and one sister. My dad was a religious man in his own quiet way. He generally kept quiet about his religion. Once or twice I heard him mention Edgar Cayce in passing, but I ignored most of this, dismissing it as either “occult” or “unscientific.” As a rule, he never exposed his kids to occult ideas.

  My mom was a devout Catholic, and she raised her kids as “good” Catholics, that is, the kind who go to church every Sunday, say their prayers, and pretty much forget about God and religion during the week. At any rate, I grew up with a healthy sense of right and wrong, and never used drugs. I was the only kid in my high school who never tried marijuana. I still haven't tried drugs; drugs are for people who are uninformed about OBEs or lack the will to induce their own, natural altered states of consciousness.

  Once I asked my mom if she remembered anything unusual about my childhood. She told me that whenever I got really sick, I would sleepwalk. To be precise, I would get up in the middle of the night and dance around in circles chanting like an Indian shaman. Of course, I wasn't conscious at the time.

  I only remember that when I got sick, a strange sensation used to terrify me: when I drifted off to sleep, I had a terrifying “nightmare.” I would “dream” that I held a tiny grain of salt in the palm of my hand. Then my consciousness would shrink to an incredibly small size until the grain of salt looked like a skyscraper. Terrified of being crushed by the salt, I would wake up screaming.

  I didn't consider myself a psychic child. Nonetheless, I had a few experiences worth noting.

  One day, when I was perhaps ten or twelve years old, I was very depressed. I don't even remember why, but my depression was so severe that I actually prayed to die. Sometime after I had gone to bed, I awoke to find myself whooshing up, out of my body, escorted by what I thought was an angel. I thought I had died, and I was amazed that I hadn't felt any pain during the separation. I thought that death would be painful, but it wasn't.

  Finally I came to a halt before a large, tremendously powerful, invisible being, who I immediately thought was God. The being told me it was time to go, and I understood immediately what that meant: death.

  Then I got a yearning to go back. I was homesick. I felt guilty about wishing to die. And I knew that my parents would be very sad about my death. So I begged and pleaded to be brought back to earth. “Why?” I was asked. I thought for a moment, searching for an answer. I said, “Everyone there thinks that death is painful and sad. I have to go back to tell everyone that death is painless and joyful.”

  After thinking about it, “God” consented and I was escorted back. I awoke amazed at the realism of my experience. I forced myself to believe it was a dream and nothing more.

  Another experience happened when I was a little older, perhaps fourteen or fifteen. I used to have playful wrestling matches with two other boys. One day we were talking about wrestling, and got on the subject of the world-famous wrestling hold called “the sleeper hold.” The hold would knock an opponent out by cutting off blood circulation to the brain. Anyway, we all wondered what it would be like to be knocked out. FD was the strongest of the three and the third boy was afraid, so I agreed to let FD knock me out with a bear-hug.

  We went outside and he gave me the strongest bear-hug I've ever experienced. 1 couldn't breathe and soon became unconscious. It was like waking from a dream; this world was a dream and I awoke to a reality more real and vivid than this world was. I saw the illusion of this existence on earth dispelled! It faded away and I didn't regret it. Soon I found myself in the “real” world in a huge city that I already knew.

  My memory seemed to return —yes, I had gone to sleep and dreamed of a little place called “earth” and now I was awake. “That was a silly dream,” I thought, and I soon forgot all about “earth.” I continued my life, just like it was before I fell asleep. I lived in that fantastic city for years and years—centuries it seemed. I lived there so long that I completely forgot about earth. For hundreds of years I had forgotten earth. If someone asked me about it, I couldn't remember, since I had left it so long ago.

  Then one day I was walking to a store. Suddenly I became confused, losing my sense of direction, and I felt myself falling. Abruptly I opened my eyes only to see strange leaves, the sky, and FD and the other boy looking at me! Where was I now? How did I get here? What happened? Then I remembered: hundreds of years ago, I fell asleep and found myself here. This place was called “earth” and was a part of a weird dream. I must have fallen asleep again. Slowly my earthly memory returned. I asked the boys how long I had been unconscious. They said only a few minutes. They asked me what happened, and I told them I didn't want to talk about it.

  A third psychic experience was as follows: I was riding with my father in his truck, and we went under a railroad bridge viaduct in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, only a few blocks from where I lived in Minneapolis. As we drove under the bridge, a train was passing over the track. I got a very uncomfortable feeling and “imagined” the train falling from the track onto the truck and street, crushing us. “I hate this,” I said to my dad. After we had gone through the viaduct I asked him, “How often do they jump the track?” My dad (who worked as a clerk for a railroad) said that it was nearly impossible for a train to derail; it was especially rare at a bridge or viaduct. Within a week, a train derailed at that very viaduct. I was about fourteen at the time.

  Some people may say that these psychic experiences would suggest I was born with some natural abilities. However, I disagree. A couple of unusual events during childhood does not make you “psychic.” My childhood was normal.

  Once when I was young I overheard my dad talking to my brother, and he mentioned something called “astral projection.” I asked my brother what it was, but he brushed me aside with a si
mple, “That's where people fly outside their bodies.” It sounded interesting to me, but too unscientific—like a fairy tale. I waited patiently until the next time my mom took me to the library, then I tried to find “astral” in the card catalog. The library didn't have any books on it at the time, so I forgot all about it.

  EXERCISE 2

  prayer

  Many people from all walks of life believe that we have spiritual guides or guardians of some sort. Christians call them guardian angels. Zoroastrians call them the Fervashi. Spiritualists call them spirit guides. Whatever we call them, they can hear our silent thoughts and prayers, and they can help us in many ways. They can even help us have OBEs.

  Since our guides are here to help us spiritually, this exercise is to pray to your guides to help you have OBEs. I can't tell you what to pray, but I can give you an example that I sometimes use:

  I pray to Cod, the All That is, and to my guides, helpers, and any other benevolent beings, to please help me achieve my goal of exploring consciously while out of my body. Help me to leave my body and become conscious, and in return, I will do my best to become more spiritual, and help you with your goals of guidance.

  CHAPTER 3

  first contact

  It wasn't until September 9, 1979 that the subject of out-of-body experiences came up again. My brother Joe knew my dad was interested in the occult, so for Father's Day, Joe gave him the book, Journeys Out of the Body, by Robert A. Monroe. I remembered searching the card catalog for books on this topic as a child, so after my dad had finished reading it, I asked him if I could borrow it, and he said yes.

  Monroe explained his OBEs in such a logical, scientific manner that I read the book faster than I'd ever read before. I didn't really believe Monroe's claims, but I liked his approach. His book urged me not to take his word for it, but to try it myself.

  I decided to take Monroe up on his offer, and follow his techniques to see for myself if these experiences were real or just hype, fantasy, or dreams. That night, before I went to bed, I attempted astral projection for the first time. I had memorized Monroe's method earlier, and I decided to close my eyes and try it.

  The first step was to relax. I spent a long time relaxing completely. The next step, which was quite a bit harder, was to drift between waking and sleeping consciousness. I found myself drifting into sleep once or twice, and I yanked myself back to full consciousness each time, being careful not to move my fully relaxed body. It took quite awhile before I felt comfortable enough to go on to the next step: clearing my mind of all thoughts.

  This was harder yet. Every time I heard a noise I would be distracted, and my mind would start to wander. Then my body started itching in the most distracting way. As soon as I'd scratch an itch, another new itch would take its place. Even after I conquered most of my itches (and ignored the rest), it was hard to keep my mind from wandering.

  At one point, I found I could hold my mind blank for several minutes, and I decided that would be long enough to go on to the next step: using imaginary lines of force to call “the vibrations.” I followed Monroe's method to the letter, carefully pausing between each step in the process. I was just about to give up when I felt a heavy “twang” in my head. It felt as if the lines of force had somehow become real and had touched a 110-volt power line. I thought, “Oops. Maybe this isn't such a good idea.” I tried to pull myself back to normal consciousness by retracting my imaginary lines of force.

  I quickly pulled the lines of force back toward me, but much to my surprise, the “electricity” I felt at the end of those lines was also being pulled toward me. It was as if I were fishing and felt a sharp bite at the end of my fishing pole: I quickly tried to pull my fishing line out of the water, but I only managed to set the hook and pull in a fish. And it was quite a fish: a kind of electrical “vibration” violently swept into my body, filling it with an electric-like shock and a terrible roaring noise. I thought I was being electrocuted and my first reaction was sheer panic. I could hear my heart beating wildly in mad fear, but I was powerless to control it.

  Somehow I could see through my closed eyelids. I looked up and saw a blue ring of electrical fire flying right toward my head. It was about a foot in diameter, with the energy sparks about an inch-and-a-half thick, and it was bright blue. I instinctively tried to raise my arms to protect myself from the impact, but I found myself paralyzed and unable to move my arms. The ring of blue energy started to slip over my forehead and I looked away, afraid to see what would happen next. I started fighting wildly to regain control of my body, and the “vibrations” slowly smoothed down and died out. When the vibrations faded completely, I could move my body again.

  I shook my arms and legs, and rejoiced that I hadn't lost the ability to move them, happy that I was completely in my body. “My God,” I thought to myself, “It worked! Monroe wasn't lying! There are other worlds!”

  EXERCISE 3

  relaxation

  A key factor in leaving the body is relaxation. The body needs to be relaxed as completely as possible. If the physical body isn't completely relaxed, it may be very difficult to turn your focus away from the body.

  Some laboratory experiments suggest that the physical body may be even more relaxed during an OBE than it is during a normal sleep state.3 Learning to relax your body to such a degree (without falling asleep) can be difficult, but it has its rewards. Learning to physically relax can lower blood pressure and counteract stress. You'll feel better and live longer by practicing relaxation regularly.

  For this exercise, you should learn to relax your body at will, completely and quickly. Learn to relax every fiber and tissue of your body. One common method of relaxation is to get into a comfortable position, and slowly go through every limb from the feet up, tensing and relaxing every muscle in that limb.

  Take special care to completely relax the muscles in your face, including your eyelids, forehead, and jaw muscles. It's all right to open your mouth for maximum relaxation.

  After finishing this first relaxation, go back and slowly check every muscle again, making sure it's relaxed. If there is tension in any muscle, repeat the procedure and check every muscle again.

  * * *

  3 For instance, in some OBE experiments done by Charles Tart, subjects reportedly had lower skin resistance during OBEs than during sleep. Skin resistance is a reasonable measurement ofrelaxation in the body. It is measured with BSR (basal skin resistance) or GSR (galvanic skin resistance) devices. Another use for these relaxation testing devices is in Polygraph (“lie detector”) tests. See “A Psychological Study of Out-of-the-Body Experiences in a Selected Subject,” by Charles Tart, in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 62, No.1, 1968.

  CHAPTER 4

  beliefs blown to bits

  After my experience with the vibrations, I got up out of bed and walked into the living room to tell somebody, anybody, that it was all real. My mom was already in bed sleeping; and my dad was asleep in his favorite chair in front of the television, and I didn't want to wake him. I walked into the kitchen and got a glass of water, occasionally shaking my arms and legs to make sure I was completely inside my body. After a few minutes I walked back to my bedroom and lay down, but I could not sleep. I could not stop thinking about the encounter and its implications.

  First, it was the most terrifying experience of my life. It felt like the vibrations were harming my body, and the roaring, hissing sound only scared me more. I had confronted humankind's two biggest fears: fear of the unknown and fear of death. My scientific self couldn't make any scientific sense out of the experience—it was not part of the physical universe that I knew. I tried to think about it based on my Catholic beliefs that insisted I could only leave my body if I died. Did I just have a close encounter with death? After several hours of trying to make sense out of the experience, I fell asleep with no answers.

  I spent the next day arguing with myself about the experience. My whole belief system was blown to pieces
. Seeing is believing, and I could not deny that I had experienced the vibrations, the hissing sound, the paralysis, and the blue ring of energy. I even “saw” through my closed eyelids. I knew I was not hallucinating, I was not insane, I was not dreaming, and I was not under hypnosis. My experience was very “real” to me, as real as my normal waking consciousness, if not more so.

  My first observation was that some kind of nonphysical reality existed. That observation was a direct contradiction of my scientific beliefs because science had been leading me to believe there was no such thing as a nonphysical reality.

  Furthermore, I reasoned, Einstein's theory of relativity says that matter is the same as energy. If a person could consciously leave his body and enter a truly nonphysical world, he wouldn't exactly be “matter” or “energy” as we know it. Science left no room for “consciousness” or “spirit” in its formulas. Science led me to believe that there were only three basic dimensions of experience (plus time) and five senses. Everything else was labeled superstition, nonsense, hallucination, or possibly religion.

  There is a fact of logic that when a premise is wrong, any conclusions made from that premise are also wrong. Since I had discovered a premise of science that was incorrect, or at the very best incomplete, I deduced that many or all of the conclusions made by modern science were also wrong. At the very least, they were ignoring some major facts.

  My own scientific training had led me to distrust science itself! I could no longer trust the textbooks I loved as a child! Nevertheless, I believe that if a system works, it is okay to use it until you find something that works better. I decided that I would still use the scientific method as a tool but never completely trust science again. Meanwhile, the only thing I could do to find peace of mind was to try to induce more out-of-body experiences and learn more about the nonphysical world.