Out-of-Body Experiences Page 3

  My inner turmoil didn't end with my scientific belief system. I was Catholic. And that caused its own complications.

  The Catholic system taught me to believe in one “heaven,” one “hell,” and one earth. On judgment day, they said, God judges a person to be either “good” or “bad.” The people labeled “bad” go to hell forever, and the people labeled “good” go to heaven forever. And of course, until you die, you spend your days on earth.

  I could guess what the Catholics would say about a nonphysical reality. The liberal Catholics would probably say that I was being absurd, and they had science to back them up. Fundamentalists would probably say that any such experience must surely be the work of the Devil, trying to lead my soul into sin.

  Still, I refused to believe I was being tricked: seeing is believing. I had seen that a nonphysical place existed and it wasn't “heaven” or “hell.” Therefore, I had also found a basic premise of Catholicism that was wrong. I decided not to trust what the Catholics had taught me because they were just as ignorant of this nonphysical world as I had been.

  I continued going to church for a while, but I started an intense examination of my Catholic beliefs. Hoping to find some answers, I found a Bible that I got as a confirmation gift, and I read the entire New Testament and much of the Old Testament. The Bible convinced me that Jesus was a good man who taught good lessons. In fact, I agreed with everything that Jesus was supposed to have said.

  But even what I read in the Bible didn't agree with my Catholic belief system! Heavy questions nagged in my heart. Why does the Catholic church insist that Jesus is the Son of God, when Jesus called himself the “son of man” repeatedly? Why do they pray, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you,” then immediately they receive Him? Why do they pray for their own petty interests instead of entrusting that God would take care of the world? Why do they preach about needing to fear God? Why do they hold carnivals and bingo games when Jesus said not to use a place of worship in these ways, and even kicked money changers out of a temple? Why, indeed, do they pass a money plate in church? Why do they spend millions and millions of dollars on grandiose churches—have you ever seen St. Peters Basilica?—when people are starving? Why do they call the pope “our holy father” when Jesus said not to call anyone father (Matthew 23:9)?

  Why do the Catholics go to church and pray in public when Jesus said, “when you pray, go into a room by yourself…in your secret place” (Matthew 6:5). Why do people go to church on Sunday and act unspiritual the rest of the week? It seemed wrong that, as a Catholic, going to church was my obligation and, once this obligation was fulfilled, I was free to be as mundane and unspiritual as I wanted. Just one out-of-body experience blasted that whole hypocritical concept out of the water. During my OBE, I saw that I was a spiritual being—in fact, I was a spirit—and the thought of dying without some real relationship with God was scary. Before my OBE, it was enough to recite prayers I didn't even understand. After my OBE, it was clear I needed to do more.

  Eventually I came to realize that my Catholic belief system was not spiritual at all. The closer I looked, the more I understood. So I stopped going to church and embarked on a truly spiritual path. I don't mean to imply that all Catholics are unspiritual. It's just that I needed to find my own answers.

  Since my OBE caused me to have a real concern with spiritual matters, I realized that it had taught me to be more spiritual, not less. I decided that God would not send me to hell for leaving the church and finding my own spiritual path.

  I resolved to ignore the pain, ignore the fear, ignore the danger, and take my chances with death and damnation to discover the truth. I decided to keep trying every night until I got more results. Meanwhile, I decided to “raid” the Minneapolis Public Library to find more information on OBEs and other methods of producing them.

  EXERCISE 4

  pretend day

  If you've read any other books on astral projection, you may have wondered: why have almost all OBE techniques been an exercise of the imagination? Why are there so many visualizations? Why is pretending so important to leaving the body?

  Well, first let me make myself perfectly clear: OBEs are a lot more than just pretend; they are real. Absolutely real. If you've had one, there will be no doubt in your mind. During the OBE, you are as wide-awake, alert, and conscious as you are while reading this. Sometimes more so. All this pretending is just a stepping-stone to get you out of your body.

  Before talking about pretending, I'd like to expose another myth. Some occult books say that children can leave their bodies easily but it's harder for most adults. They therefore conclude that as you get older, you become more cemented in your physical body. They say the older you get, the harder it is to have OBEs because we become more focused in our body. Well, that just isn't true. People who say that are using an excuse to be lazy and not practice.

  Why, then, don't adults have more OBEs? One reason is that adults don't use their imagination as much or as vividly as children. That doesn't mean we can't use our imaginations well; it just means that most people don't.

  There's something magical about the imagination. Children know that intuitively. It's a matter of focus. Children use their imagination to unfocus from their daily lives. They know how to daydream and pretend. That's why children are so psychic! And we can become that psychic—that aware—if we start exercising our playful imaginations too.

  This exercise isn't just for now, it's an all-day exercise. I want you to make today “Pretend Day.” All day today, at every available opportunity, I want you to exercise your playful imagination. These little pretend skits don't have to be long. It's better to be short and frequent, than long and drawn out. I'll give you some examples. Co through your day doing these sorts of things:

  The next time you sit down, just pretend for a few short seconds that you fall through your chair (in your astral body) and find yourself on the ground or through the floor. The next time you open a door, playfully pretend that your hand passes through the door knob instead of grabbing it. The next time you walk up a flight of stairs, playfully pretend you glide up it smoothly without walking. Pretend that your astral body glides up the stairs and patiently waits for your physical body to arrive at the top. The next time you look in a mirror, pretend you are looking at your physical body from afar. Pretend you are astral in as many instances as you can.

  Also, it's good to pretend non-OBE things today. For instance, the next time you take a drive in your car, pretend that it lifts off the ground and starts flying over the traffic. The next time you are stopped by a traffic light, pretend that you get out a gun and shoot it!

  Use your playful imagination at every available opportunity today, and where possible, work in out- of-body themes such as flying, floating, or passing through physical matter.

  CHAPTER 5

  pokes and prods

  Monroe said that fear is the biggest barrier to the out-of-body experience, and I soon found out why. If I were somehow able to leave my body, and Monroe can leave his, how many more people are “out there,” and what can they do to me while I am out there? It also made sense that when a person's body dies, they are forced to have a permanent OBE. What could these spirits do to me? Furthermore, what could happen to my body while I am out? Could somebody else get inside my body while I am out? These were some questions that crossed my mind during the two months after my first encounter.

  During those two months I had my first dream about having an OBE. I dreamed I was dreaming. In the second-level dream, I was telling my brother how I often attempted OBEs, and I showed him how to concentrate. Then I felt my chest rise. I thought of it rising more and it did. My dream-self then came out of my body, which was in the bed of the first-level dream. I started walking toward my door, when I was pulled back inside my body by the cord. I thought, “Good. Now I can wake up and record that I've been out of my body.” However, when I woke up I knew it was only a dream. It paled in comparison to my first episode with the vib
rations. Still, having a dream about an OBE was fun, and I knew that later I could compare it to a real OBE. Little did I know that my first real OBE was just around the corner.

  Although I didn't have another out-of-body experience during those two months, I did run into some unexpected and frightening sensations and experiences. These sensations weren't bad—just startling. They often jarred me out of the near-OBE state and spoiled the whole OBE attempt. Sometimes it felt as if a warm hand was being placed on my body. I even felt a few pinches on my butt!

  One night I followed Monroe's procedure to the letter and was making good progress toward leaving my body. Suddenly I became very aware and alert. My eyes were closed and I was moving deeper into the blackness that I saw ahead of me, into a deeper state of consciousness. Suddenly, I heard an authoritative voice say, “STOP!” How could I argue? I never expected to be hearing voices during these experiments. I panicked and did everything I could to force myself back to a normal state.

  Another night I was trying to blank my mind without much success. After a while, I started to feel a swaying sensation, as if some part of my consciousness was rocking gently. I tried to increase the swaying, but the more I tried, the less I swayed. When I quit trying, the swaying would get stronger again. The swaying sensation was very much like the “sea-legs” sensation that sailors experience when they've been on a ship too long and try to sleep on shore. After some experimentation I managed to change the direction of the swaying from side to side instead of up and down. The sensation was strange, but I could see no harm in it. From then on, I could start the swaying sensation quite easily once I relaxed enough during practice.

  One day, after spending many hours on a boat, I was feeling the “sea-legs” phenomena and decided to compare it with my new type of swaying. When I got into bed and started my new swaying, I could feel both sensations at the same time. The “sea legs” caused my brain to feel an artificial swaying sensation, but at the same time, my new swaying also caused another separate rocking sensation. In a way, it felt almost as if I had two astral bodies that were swaying at the same time.

  Several times I induced a strange bodily vibration that stemmed from my relaxation technique of tensing and relaxing my entire body. I wondered if this vibration was related to the true OBE vibrations. The answer came one night when I decided to conduct an experiment in which I tried to watch myself fall asleep.

  I relaxed and just kept going deeper and deeper toward sleep. Suddenly, against my will, I was “zapped” into a state of full awareness. Then I felt a slight tingling. Then the vibrations came without my “reaching” for them. This time I noticed that the “true” vibrations were a crackling, electrical vibration. It felt as if electrical currents were disrupting my body, but not painfully, and not harming it. I tried to strengthen the vibrations with my mind. I managed to get them a little stronger, but like my first encounter, I could hear (but not feel) that my heart was pounding wildly. This broke my train of thought and the vibrations faded, as if my idle thinking (or worrying) drove them off.

  One night I got to the point where my mind wouldn't wander. I heard some banging sounds in my room that I couldn't explain. Suddenly I heard a louder, more defined bang that seemed to come from the ground, about five feet from the bed. I directed my senses in that direction and “felt” a big presence there, as if a spirit or ghost of some sort were there. I was afraid, but I tried to control my emotions, and asked in my mind who it was and what its purpose was. There was no answer. I forced myself back to full consciousness and looked in that direction, where I saw a filmy, undefined movement. By then, I was so afraid that I purposely started moving parts of my body to make sure I wouldn't leave my body. I tried my hardest to find a physical, logical explanation for all of this without success. Naturally, it took me a while to calm down and dare to shut my eyes to go to sleep.

  At other times, I started noticing strange tugging sensations during OBE practice. It felt as if someone was pulling at my clothes or hair during practice. The sensation seemed to have something to do with the swaying motion. It felt as if something or someone was pulling on whatever was swaying. It was as if my astral body was being tugged while I was still fully in my body.

  I also started feeling “pressures” similar to the tugging sensations. When this happened it seemed as if heavy weights were placed on various parts of my body: my forehead, my feet, my chest. Sometimes if I didn't move, these pressures would become painful after a few minutes.

  With practice I became better at producing the vibrations. I noticed that just before the vibrations came, I was always “zapped” into a state of acute alertness. Sometimes it seemed as if my consciousness was focused into an oval disk at my body's face. But every time the vibrations would come, my heart would start pounding, I would panic, and the vibrations would slowly fade until I was back to normal. When I opened my eyes, they were cloudy but slowly cleared up. My body felt very heavy and stiff. My hands were stiff and hard to open. Sometimes I was also slightly dizzy after the experience.

  I started noticing another strange sensation while trying to leave my body: a ringing noise in my ears. I quickly learned to reproduce the ringing, but it never got me anywhere, so I learned to ignore it.

  Another thing I've experienced during practice is sudden falling sensations. I would be quietly attempting an OBE, and suddenly it would feel as if a trap door had sprung open, and I would panic-fall about three feet. After three feet, I would be startled back to full consciousness with a slight jump, as if my astral body was slapped back into the physical body. This had a simple variation that was more common: sometimes it seemed as if my consciousness was thrown three to five feet forward or backward.

  Sometimes I heard very loud rushing or roaring noises in my head. Usually when this happened, I also felt as if my consciousness was being crushed in on all sides. It was as if the very boundaries of my awareness were forced down to a tiny infinitesimal pinpoint in the center of my head.

  A friend told me of a few jarring sensations that sometimes disturb her just before OBEs. The first sensation she described as feeling as though her heart was “pulling apart” or expanding. The second sensation is loss of breath, as if the astral body does not breathe and she loses all awareness of bodily breathing. She also says that her whole field of vision sometimes shrinks suddenly, like a camera shutter.

  Trying to ignore these sensations is like trying to ignore a slap in the face. I discovered that the best thing to do is to acknowledge them, but remain passive and not let them startle me and ruin the OBE attempt. When I finally learned to get through these sensations calmly, they started leading me to conscious astral projection!

  A positive outcome of all the frightening experiences was that they helped me get over my fear. I was forced to face my fears and conquer them one by one, especially my fear of the unknown.

  EXERCISE 5

  daily visualizations

  Much of the occult literature concerning out-of-body experiences claims that we leave our bodies every night during sleep, but we usually are not conscious during these nightly excursions. Usually the OBE happens only after our consciousness has been disabled. But sometimes something goes wrong with the process, and a piece of our conscious self retains awareness during the separation. At those times, we often “wake up” abruptly with a jolt before we are fully asleep.

  One of the “tricks” to having out-of-body experiences is getting your subconscious mind to wake you up after you are out of your body. Quite simply, if you can influence your subconscious mind to reinstate your conscious awareness once the process of separation is complete, you will have fully conscious OBEs.

  There are several approaches to influencing the subconscious mind. In previous exercises, we used affirmations and prayers to influence the subconscious mind (and to influence other things as well). Hypnosis is another excellent approach. Early studies in hypnosis showed a lot of promise in inducing OBEs. Unfortunately, there have been very few experime
nts in this area to the best of my knowledge, and the literature is scarce.

  There are several audio hypnosis tapes available for inducing OBEs.4 I'm fairly resistant to hypnosis, so I haven't had any results using these tapes. The closest I've experienced was remote viewing5 which, I think, isn't nearly as fun as astral projection.

  Another way to influence the subconscious is through concentrated visualizations, done frequently throughout the day. Any visualization that is OBE-related is good. Here are a few I use:

  1. Visualize yourself flying over valleys, seas, plains.

  2. Visualize yourself shooting out away from your body.

  3. Visualize yourself floating.

  4. Sit down and visualize yourself taking a step back and standing up so that you are looking down at the back of your head. Then think to yourself, “That's not me. That's just a shell.”

  Practice holding onto visualizations as long as you can. See how “real” you can make the visualization. These skills are very valuable for learning to induce OBEs.

  * * *

  4 See bibliography for more information on OBE induction tapes.

  5 Remote vlewlng, known in the past as “traveling clairvoyance,” is a visual type of ESP. The subject actually sees the location he or she is visiting, but remains in full bodily consciousness. For more information on remote viewing, see the book, Mind Trek, by Joe McMoneagle.

  CHAPTER 6

  my first out-of-body

  experience

  The morning of November 1, 1979, started out normally. I woke up around 7:00 A.M., followed my usual morning routine and caught a bus to the University of Minnesota. I got to the university at 9:00 A.M., walked into my favorite computer lab, and started programming. I worked furiously on a microcomputer game for several hours until it was time for my Thursday class. I hurried off to class, took copious notes during class, then hurried back to the computer lab.