Out-of-Body Experiences Page 4

  This time I logged into the university's time-sharing computer and started working on another game I wrote. A hockey game was playing on a radio in the back of the lab. I worked on that computer game until 10:00 P.M. that night. After twelve hours of intense programming, I started getting tired and hungry. I hadn't eaten since breakfast. I signed off the computer and caught the next bus home.

  When I got home at 10:30 P.M., I was hungry. I looked in the refrigerator and found a big pan of lasagna. My mom must have made me a big lasagna dinner, and I missed it by staying late at the university! I took out a big slice of lasagna, heated it, and wolfed it down. Ordinarily I would have made my usual attempt to leave my body, but that night I was just too tired. I went to bed at 11:30 P.M. and was asleep the minute my head hit the pillow.

  I fell into a deep sleep and started dreaming a programmer's most hated and feared dream—the programming dream. The same dream plagued me for hours: I was sitting at a computer terminal, asking myself, “How can I make this program better?”

  I put up with that dream for four annoying hours. That was all I could stand. I became so annoyed by this dream that I couldn't take any more. Slowly I turned my attention away from the dream. I slowly forced myself to become conscious, but as I did, I noticed the dream was still going on! Somehow I was awake and asleep at the same time!

  What happened next is hard to describe. My consciousness was split into five parts. Each part was separate and unique, yet I was each of them simultaneously. Each was thinking its own thoughts, and communicating with the other four. All five of “me” were arguing about the computer game and how to make it better!

  The feeling was beyond words: I was five personalities at the same time and I was talking to myself! One of my five selves asked, “Well, how can we make the space-war game better?” Another “me” said, “Well, I think we should allow more interactive communication between spaceships.” Yet another “me” replied, “No, I think it's more important to improve the fighting ability of the computer-controlled opponent ships.” One of my five selves was bored to tears watching this whole conversation and tried to force itself to consciousness. Now that “I” was conscious, I was fascinated at what was happening: I was conscious and split into five parts, and each part was taking turns talking.

  At first I tried to follow the conversation, but something strange started happening. As I became more conscious, my four other selves seemed to speed up!6 I tried to keep up with the conversation, but the talking became faster and faster. Soon the four voices sounded like a tape player in fast-forward mode, and I lost track of what they were saying. Meanwhile, the voices faded into the distance and seemed to disappear.

  My consciousness was no longer split. I was completely awake and aware of my surroundings, but I knew something was not normal. My body felt unusual. It felt odd to be conscious and yet still asleep.

  Just then, I got a strange feeling all over, like a shiver over my whole body. I listened to see if I could hear what caused the strange feeling. I heard what sounded like a hockey announcer in the background! I thought, “Now that's odd. Where could that be coming from?” I wondered if the sound could be coming from the bathroom where we kept a small radio. It sounded a little bit too loud for that; the radio had to be closer to my bedroom.

  I wondered if a radio was playing in our dining room, which was next to my bedroom. That didn't make sense because there weren't any radios in that room. Besides, the radio seemed a bit too loud for that, too. I figured the radio must be in my bedroom somewhere.

  I thought for a moment that my little alarm clock/radio might have turned on in the night, but it seemed too loud even for that. It was loud enough to be my stereo, but I remembered turning it off before going to bed. Besides, when I listened closer, the hockey announcer sounded even closer than my stereo.

  As I listened, the sound of the hockey announcer's voice grew louder and louder as if someone were turning up the volume steadily. I started to worry as the sound became louder and louder, until finally my ears were hurting and I was ready to scream with the pain.

  Suddenly it stopped and I experienced complete and total silence. Another strange feeling came over me: I felt like I was completely separate from my body, although I was still occupying the same space. I decided to try to get out.

  I had read a few OBE books by then. Some of them had good techniques to separate the consciousness from the body, but none of them said what to do next! How could I get away from the body I was lying in? Since I was in my astral body, gravity didn't affect me, so I didn't just “fall” out of the body. My astral body could pass right through physical matter, so I didn't think I could grab onto anything to pull myself out. I didn't think I could push my way out either; what could I push against?

  I thought about the problem for a few minutes. Then I examined my physical body and noticed that it seemed solid on the outside edges. The edges looked like a barrier of gray. My physical body seemed like a bottle; it was solid on the outside, but hollow on the inside. I was like the liquid inside the bottle, fluid and elastic, but there was no way out of the bottle!

  At first I tried to twist myself inside the physical body so I could climb out the stomach. I wiggled my astral arms out of the physical arms, like taking off a tight sweater. Then I squirmed until 1 was under the rib-cage. I reached my astral arms up, and tried to claw my way through the stomach. I clawed and clawed, but some barrier, some force-field, was holding me back. The harder I struggled against the barrier, the more impossible it seemed to move. I managed to inch my way for a little while but gave up and lay down again.

  I decided to try another way out. I lifted my legs over my head, and did a backward somersault over my head and out of my body.

  I felt free and weightless. I wanted to float slowly up to the ceiling. With that thought, I started to float gently up. Then I looked up and thought about my destination, the top of the ceiling. Suddenly, I whooshed up to the ceiling. I looked around the room with a sense of delight.

  I looked straight down at my body. It was under the bed covers, but from what I could see, it looked as if it had just collapsed and was out cold. I thought, “Gee, what if I fall from up here?” As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I came crashing down into my physical body and rejoined. I went right into a short, dreamless sleep. In a minute or two I woke up in my physical body. Being a skeptic, I asked myself, “Was that an hallucination? Did I dream it all?” No way. It was real beyond my wildest expectations of real.

  I rolled over and looked at the time. It was 3:45 in the morning.

  I recalled the whole incident three or four times. During the experience I was perfectly cool, calm, and collected. That is, until I crashed into my body. Now that I was safely in my body, I felt the full realization of what had happened: I had literally been outside my body. The more I thought about it, the more scary it seemed. My heart was still pounding with excitement. However, I was more tired than I was afraid, so I managed to calm myself down enough to drift back to sleep.

  The next thing I knew, the computer conversation dream started again! This time I realized right away what was happening and I was immediately “zapped” out of my physical body again. Like before, I was separate from my body, but still lying inside it. I was too cautious to get up and walk around outside my body, but I didn't want to waste the opportunity to explore. I decided to do some experiments while still lying inside my body.

  The first experiment was a simple one: I wanted to see if I could lift my astral arms and look at them. If I could see them, what would they look like?

  I bent my astral arms at the elbow and looked at them. They looked and felt perfectly normal and natural. They seemed so normal that after shaking them a few times, I convinced myself I was back inside my body! I thought, “There's nothing unusual about this; I'm perfectly fine. I'm not out of my body—-how silly of me.” I tried to lower my arms, but I couldn't! It seemed as if my arms were held in some kind of force-field! I pushed a
nd pushed, trying to force my arms down to their normal position, but the harder I tried, the more resistance I felt: I could only move them two inches in a circle at best. Then I really panicked! I drew up as much strength as I could to use it against the force-field. With all the energy I could muster, I forcefully slammed my arms back into place.

  I blacked out for a second and went back to full body consciousness. Again I asked myself, “Was it real?” It was so real that I convinced myself I was inside my body! Why did my arms get stuck? I'm not sure. Perhaps I was so sure I was in the physical body that I became part-physical and part-astral, and my arms were held in limbo.

  As I thought about the experience over and over, I wondered, “Why don't the OBE books mention anything about this?”

  My first two out-of-body experiences were achieved by becoming conscious during a dream. This is known in today's literature as lucid dreaming. This method of leaving the body was documented in the early 1900s in books and articles by Oliver Fox (a pen name for Hugh Calloway) and Yram (a pen name for Marcel Louis Forhan). I didn't read those books until after my first experiences. Up until that point I thought the only way to have an OBE was through conscious effort. I will say more about lucid dreams in chapters 12 and 26.

  EXERCISE 6

  imaginary vibrations

  Many people have described the out-of-body exit as a raising of vibrations. In The Projection of the Astral Body, Muldoon and Carrington wrote

  Yes, you are using your astral body even now; it is tuned down, we might say, to harmonize with the vibrations common to material substance. Now there are factors which hold it down, and there are factors which tune it up. The powers which can be exerted to disharmonize the attunement are the powers which will cause the astral to move out of the physical, (p. 48)

  If this is true, your soul is vibrating a few orders of magnitude higher than your body, but the two are in sync. It is as if you and your body are experiencing the same musical note, but in different octaves. This exercise will help you to raise your vibrations.

  The exercise is as follows: Lie down, close your eyes, and relax completely. Imagine that you are separate from the body and lying inside the body-shell. Imagine that your physical body is vibrating slowly, and your astral body is vibrating at a faster rate. Pretend you can both hear and feel the vibrations throughout your astral body as if you were standing in front of nine-foot speakers.

  Next, imagine the vibration of the astral body increasing in pitch gradually, getting higher and higher. As the pitch gets higher, the two notes go out of sync and a certain resonance gets stronger and stronger.

  Repeat this exercise several times. This simple exercise can actually produce the vibrations that can separate you from your body. It also may help to try to listen intently for any sounds “inside” your head at various points in the exercise.

  * * *

  6 I have a theory about why the dream conversation seemed to speed up. Rapid eye movements (REMs) seem to indicate that some dreams happen to us at high speed, although to us they seem normal speed. They may also indicate that our subconscious thoughts can be much faster than our conscious thoughts. As I became conscious, I started to notice the difference in speeds.

  CHAPTER 7

  the party

  For me, the out-of-body experience was analogous to a party happening in a neighbor's apartment. Up to now, occasional psychic experiences had been like party noises; I did my best to ignore them. Dabbling with altered states of consciousness was like walking upstairs and putting my ear up to the door. The pokes and prods were like party noises I heard from outside. My first OBE was like opening the door and walking into the party. What happened next was like going in, getting drunk, and inviting everyone back to my place!

  The day was November 26, 1979. Twenty-four days had passed since my first two out-of-body experiences of November 2. It had been two-and-one-half months since I started exploring altered states of consciousness, trying to learn about the OBE. My playing with altered states had shaken me up quite a bit because of the pokes, prods, sounds, and sensations I hadn't expected. My first OBE shook me up even more; it was undeniably real and made the pokes and prods seem trivial in comparison. Little did I know that my dabbling had opened some kind of psychic door.

  I was living at home while attending classes at the university and working part-time. That day, my mom had a friendly, nonalcoholic birthday party, and JP and I started talking about OBEs. He asked me to try a quick experiment: he held up his right index finger about an inch away from the space between my eyes and asked me if I felt anything. I felt a strange sensation there, as if part of my astral body was being pulled out of my forehead. I tried to explain what I felt and asked him what it was. He said he didn't know for sure, but the space between his eyes worked the same for him. I hadn't read anything about the “third eye” yet, so I didn't pursue the matter.

  After the party, I went to bed and made my nightly attempt to induce an out-of-body experience. After a few minutes of practice, I opened my eyes and saw movements and lights in midair! I was frightened, and to make matters worse, I started drifting away from my body! I panicked and tried my hardest to stay in my body! Once I was securely in my body, I closed my eyes and decided not to continue. I eventually managed to fall asleep, but much later than normal.

  The next morning I woke up tired with the alarm clock. I had to get up early to go to my 8:00 A.M. class at the university. I realized I was too tired to pay attention in class, so I decided to get some caffeine in my system to help wake up. Since I hated the taste of coffee, I went to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of soda pop, opened it up, and sat down at the breakfast table. I took a sip and sat there trying to wake up and get motivated. Without warning I felt the bottle accidentally slip out of my hand and my hand closed into a fist. I was startled and expected to hear a loud crash as the bottle hit the floor, but there was no sound. I quickly looked at my hand, and the bottle was still there, securely in my hand! It wasn't psychokinesis; My astral hand had accidentally “let go” of my physical hand, but the physical hand held tightly onto the bottle. I knew right then it was going to be a strange day.

  I caught my usual bus to the university and went to my usual classes. My last class got out at noon, and I needed to be at an important meeting at work by 1:00 P.M. I debated whether to stop for lunch. Something deep down inside me said, “It's okay, you have enough time.” The thoughts seemed to be my own, and yet separate from me, like a deeper source of knowledge. I dismissed it: “That's just my stomach voicing its hunger.”

  I walked over to a local sit-down restaurant. I looked at the menu. Their specialty burger looked great, but it was served with a small portion of potato chips. I was very hungry for french fries, but short on cash, so I ordered the burger “as is.” After the waitress left I thought to myself, “I have enough money and I'm hungry; I should have ordered the fries. I really want the fries.” I didn't want to bother the waitress by changing my order, so I didn't say anything.

  A few minutes later, the waitress brought my burger with a large serving of french fries! “Something strange is happening here,” I thought, “This is getting weird.” Was it a psychic experience? “No,” I thought, “it was just a coincidence.”

  When I was almost done with my lunch, that same “something” deep down inside me said, “You better hurry or you'll miss your bus for St. Paul and miss your meeting.” Again I dismissed it, thinking, “That's just me, worrying about being late for the meeting.” Nevertheless, I rushed to the end of my meal and paid my bill. I wasn't charged for the fries.

  I ran across the street to the bus stop and my bus was just pulling up. How convenient! I got on the bus and looked at my watch. It was 12:15 P.M. The trip from Minneapolis to St. Paul usually takes 45 minutes, so I felt confident I would not be late for the meeting. Then it occurred to me: if I hadn't rushed through my lunch, I would have missed that bus, and I would have been late for my meeting. Was it a psychic experien
ce? “No,” I thought, “It was just a coincidence.”

  I wasn't late for the meeting, but the meeting kept me from working on an important project, so I decided to work late. I worked until 9:40 P.M. that night, then I went to catch my bus back to Minneapolis. By “coincidence” a bus pulled up almost as soon as I got to the bus stop. I got on the bus and sat down. I needed to catch another bus in downtown Minneapolis, so I got out my bus schedule and looked up when the other bus would be at my Minneapolis bus stop. The bus slowly pulled away from the bus stop and started sluggishly lumbering down the street at 15 miles per hour. My other bus was due to arrive downtown at 10:15 P.M. and the next bus after that was 11:40 P.M. The driver kept driving at 15 miles per hour for the next five city blocks.

  Since it was 9:45 P.M., I only had 30 minutes to get to Minneapolis to catch my 10:15 P.M. bus, and it was usually a 45-minute bus ride. To make matters worse, the bus driver was driving 15 miles per hour! I started to get very discouraged. I was brooding. I thought to myself, “I wish there were some way I could make this bus driver understand that I need to be in Minneapolis by 10:15 P.M.” One block later the bus pulled up to the next stop and another passenger got on board.

  Then something strange happened. The bus pulled away from the bus stop like a bat out of hell! The driver kept accelerating until he was ten miles per hour over the speed limit! He drove to Minneapolis at breakneck speeds—speeding the whole way—and passing up half of his bus stops! He even ran through a red light! He pulled up to my Minneapolis bus stop at 10:10 P.M. The trip took just twenty-five minutes, a new world's record! I got off the bus and it tore off into the distance. “Wow!” I thought, “That's incredible!”