Thread: OBE Skeptics.

Love your post, TJ

I agree with tornado joe (about the science). Personally, I think of course it's easy to be skeptical about OBEs....because you haven't had one. You're viewing OBEs from an outside perspective, and an opinion of someone who has never experienced what an OBE believer would classify as an OBE (even if the skeptic wouldn't) does not have a valid opinion. It's an entirely different experience. But no matter what I have said on it, either people continue to not read the ENTIRE thread, or they just completely ignore everything I've explained about OBEs and look foolish when they bring up an aspect of it that's already been covered. (Not you, Joe, just speaking in general )

And as for Polmac, do not insult skeptics. Skepticism is not narrow-mindedness, it's logical and understandable to be skeptical about something of which there is little or no scientific evidence, as science is what makes the world go round basically. People rely entirely on science for all their answers to everything, which to me is a mistake, because science is not at a point where it can answer all of the questions of the universe right now, and until it can, I feel that it is not wise to judge every thing upon it, especially since, as I have said several times now, it's all relative information.

Seriously, I think that believing OBEs is just like believing what happens in soap operas.

Personally, I think of course it's easy to be skeptical about OBEs....because you haven't had one. You're viewing OBEs from an outside perspective, and an opinion of someone who has never experienced what an OBE believer would classify as an OBE (even if the skeptic wouldn't) does not have a valid opinion.

Well, I probably should have elaborated on that. I actually have had what I think others would consider an OBE:

I was lying on my bed while attempting to WILD, and felt myself 'rise out' of the bed and proceeded to float off (in my bedroom) and out the door into the hallway.

Now, that is a common thing that OBE'ers seem to report. However, Once I got past my room, into the hall, and down the steps to open the front door, I found a completely different dreamscape beyond the door. This is why (as real as it felt to be floating about as a spirit) I chalked it up to a lucid dream. False awakenings are even another great way we can be fooled into thinking something is not what it is.

But, I'm open minded enough to realize that this particular experience may very well have been an extended lucid dream and therefore there remains the possibility of something I haven't gone through yet - the astral OBE. Is it likely? eh... in my opinion, no.

Ok, I didn't mean to call all the skeptic people narrow-minded, it was meant to those who say they'll never believe in such things.

Of course it's logic not to believe something you don't have prove of. But seriously, open a bit your mind and at lease ACCEPT that it could be true, that our current theories fall too short to be able to explain everything...

Tornado joe, I would probably take a skeptics side on your case. That doesn't sound like it's necessarily an OBE to me...it could have been a really really low-energy one, which might as well be a lucid dream. They aren't that different of a concept, but I assure you they are an entirely different experience. When you have one, if you're open minded, there's no way you'll mistake an OBE for a lucid dream.

Hey, Of course OBEs are real. I've read a lot about them on the internet and my conclusion is that OBEs are either:

1. A kind of lucid dream which involves ESP (Extra Sensory Perception). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extra-sensory_perception

or 2. Your soul/consciousness actually leaves your body.

I can't really say which one it is because I haven't had an OBE yet, but I will start practicing to get one soon! =)

Hey, Rainman: What's your technique to induce an OBE?

This is a neat technique from www.psipog.net (fantastic site btw)

1. Get your body in a comfortable position - do NOT move it no matter what for the rest of your attempt. Your body will itch. Your body will get numb. Your body will SCREAM at you "MOVE ME RIGHT NOW!!!" - don't do it. Gotta use that thing called will power.

2. Take 10 minutes and just don't move. What I do is usually think about the day, or think about how cool it would be to OBE, or whatever. Your body stays still for 10 minutes, your mind can do whatever. The goal here is to get your body to fall asleep, so you can do some visualizations of different parts of your body "turning off", going into "sleep mode", or something like that.

3. Think of nothing. Just stop thinking all together. Your body should be asleep at this point (or close), now it's time to get your brain to fall asleep. No thoughts. If you catch yourself thinking, calmly redirect yourself to stop thinking. No emotions. No anything. Just stop.

Do that for as long as you can hold it without going insane =P. It's really really hard. Usually takes only a few minutes before you start getting weird things. Remain passive, and just wait. This is where the hallucinations come in

You will think you are physically poked. Don't move. You will think someone is talking to you. Don't respond. You will hear voices, sounds, see objects, see flashes of light, etc... Don't respond. Don't fall asleep. Just hover there as long as you can.

4. Leave your body. How do you know when it's time to leave? At first you probably won't. When I first started, I would just randomally find my body parts floating outside of my body, then snap out of my trance and be like "holy shit! that's not normal!". Upon which I would freak out, and snap back into body because I didn't remain passive =P.

So, basic procedure: 1. get comfortable in bed, 2. don't move your body for 10 min, 3. think of nothing, 4. eventually you'll notice you can leave you're body.

With all do respect, that's the worst tutorial for an OBE I've ever read. Ever. It makes so little sense. Psipog is indeed a good site, but clearly know-nothings when it comes to OBEs. What they just described is how to do a WILD, nothing more. The actual step for exiting simply says "leave your body". Gee, that's helpful. Hah.

No where does it say anything about energy raising and chakra stimulation, which are very necessary to have any hope of having a decent OBE. If you do not do those things, your chances of successful exit are dramatically diminished, and even if you do get out, it will be a very low-energy projection and you will almost undoubtedly slip into a lucid dream (which certainly isn't a bad thing.)

Read up about energy raising, and movement. My best suggestion is for you to read Robert Bruce's New Energy Ways system for energy movement. Master it, and then ask me about my exit techniques. I could list them now, but it would be pointless, because exiting will not work if you do not raise energy and stimulate chakras.

Ok, yeah it sounded pretty much like a normal WILD, when I think of it.

How long did it take for you to master energy movements in your body?

Please list them so that I can write them in a text document and save them for later =).

3. Think of nothing. Just stop thinking all together. Your body should be asleep at this point (or close), now it's time to get your brain to fall asleep. No thoughts. If you catch yourself thinking, calmly redirect yourself to stop thinking. No emotions. No anything. Just stop.

That's like straight impossible unless you've achieved very high levels of meditation. You can't just shut off your thoughts especially when your brain waves are dropping in frequency while you get bombarded with HI.

I find it much easier to fantasize about something - to focus your attention away from your physical body, while still keeping on the back of your mind - I am trying to have an OBE.

It's not as hard as you think blade It's just hard to sustain it for a very long time like they suggested, and they really need to explain that. It's certainly not as easy as they make it seem (even though they said it was really hard) but it's not as hard as you think. As with anything else, blade it's just a matter of practicing!

What happens when you are trying to get into a trance for something and you hear a sound? A million thought processes (is that the proper plural for "process"?!?! bloody hell...) are going crazy at once! You hear a car alarm go off near the place where you are meditating.

Immediately, your mind is filled with questions and/or thoughts that distract you from your goal of concentrating only on one thing, or not thinking at all. See in a trance or hypnagogic state, your thought process is different. One thought leads to another, leads to another leads to another, until eventually your mind becomes lost, and you simply fall into non-lucid sleep. So dissapointing!

That is what makes not thinking so difficult! Your mind goes A.D.D. in meditation! That is why you must practice not thinking a single thought. Do not let one devolop. It sounds impossible of course, but simply try this.

Stare at a spot on the wall. Go as long as you can without thinking. Naturally a thought will pop up against your will within 2 seconds. The idea is not to "not think" it is simply to not allow yourself to dwell on any thought, because they will evolve into others, and build and build as I said before. Do not allow it to develop. You may start to think something like,

"How am I supposed to not think?"

The thing about thoughts is, you mentally SAY what you're thinking. Someone on this forum called that "vocalization" I don't remember who it was, but their post was brilliant. I can nearly guarantee right now that as you are reading this text at this very moment, you are mentally going through the motions of speaking them. You do the same thing when you think. The idea is to stop this "vocalization" as it's called now, from occuring. It takes a while but you'll learn to cut yourself off. With practice,

"How am I supposed to not think?"

will become,

"How am I supposed t..??????

will become,

"How am I- ?????"

"How a- ?????????"

"Ho- ????????????"

"?????????????"

It does take practice, but it takes no extra time to practice. You can do it at any time of the day. I can meditate and achieve an OBE (maybe a WILD) on a noisy city bus, or a train station (so long as I'm not touched) with no difficulties anymore than I would have anyway. You can do it too!

As for exit techniques, they are not important, because you will not be able to relate to them without knowledge of energy raising and movement. You don't even need an exit technique per se, they are only for people who have had difficulty with the exit. Basically you just will yourself out, and poof. I know you asked because you're impatient and want to get straight to the exiting part, but you will NOT experience an OBE without energy raising. It's not possible.

But if you must know, one way is to simply call out for help. Literally. When you're on the verge of an exit, and you can feel it, simply focus all of your intent and mind on asking for help (mentally), and often a being or entity or whatever will pull you out.

I must warn you though, that this method can be extremely scary if you're not used to experiencing this sort of thing. It can feel as horrifying as an attack, and often does. It's scary, and sometimes the being pulling you out is a neg, and if you don't know what you're doing, it can be quite dangerous, as is trying to OBE without knowing what you're doing. Not because of the action itself, but because of what it involves.

Well this is very interesting Rainman!

I never thought inner-silence would be like stopping my mind from vocalizing! This encourages me to keep trying!

Good It's really not as hard as it seems once you grasp the concept of it.

Originally Posted by Kromoh

Seriously, I think that believing OBEs is just like believing what happens in soap operas.

Wow, smart post! Didn't think that anyone with your itellectual capibilitys could pull off such a challenging arguement! Well done...

Originally Posted by Kromoh

that's what makes me wonder about the possibilities of OBE's.. Too bad these people don't dare to take Randi's challenge to try to explain things

Apparently people have and were not accepted or something like that.

Plus, I had never even heard of "Randi's Challenge" before a few days ago. Ever occur to you that most people probably never heard of it?

Relax wer, Kromoh's pretty cool as far as I'm concerned. It's almost pointless to try and convince someone of something they don't believe. But in a way, by not believing in something, it becomes not-real. Once someone is convinced something like this doesn't exist, there's pretty much not going to be anything that can happen that can convince them otherwise. Close-mindedness is a sad thing really.

Originally Posted by Rainman

Plus, I had never even heard of "Randi's Challenge" before a few days ago. Ever occur to you that most people probably never heard of it?

Relax wer, Kromoh's pretty cool as far as I'm concerned. It's almost pointless to try and convince someone of something they don't believe. But in a way, by not believing in something, it becomes not-real. Once someone is convinced something like this doesn't exist, there's pretty much not going to be anything that can happen that can convince them otherwise. Close-mindedness is a sad thing really.

Your right, sorry. People can just get a little frustrating, you know?

Oh certainly I know. I get a bit snappy too from time to time, but I try not to. Kromoh's got a lot of really good posts though. The way I see it, it's not hurting us for people to be skeptics about OBEs, I just don't like when they're assholes about it

I'm interested in learning more about your psi experience. Mine is limited to telepathy, remote viewing and astral projection only. I don't know anything about physical plane psi kinetics (nice alliteration, no?) or anything.

Just for the record, the Randi Challenge is a hoax. You can read about it here:
http://psipog.net/art-beware-pseudo-skepticism.html

One of my many theorys of how manipulation of physical matter is possible relates to the theory of the collective consciousness and the physics theorys of non-locality. Non-locality suggests that every object in the physical universe is in fact not seperate as it would appear, but is in fact connected through time and space through means thats are obviously not visible to us through typical physical sight. I believe that the force many call chi and psi are the connecting forces between everything in the universe. I have theorized that consciousness could possibly be a more refined and indivisual form of this universal lifeforce that took form through physical evolution (this is why life exists on the physical plane... perhaps physical evolution is the only way pure consciousness can develope into a more complex form of conscious and develope indivisuality). Anyways, its through this connection with everything in the universe that I believe manipulation of physical matter is possible. It also suggest that with intense study and practice, we could physically transend space and time.

I would assume you'd have to be extremely advanced and talented with manipulating energy to do something like physical teleportation. Personally I don't know if I believe it's possible, but I wouldn't shut out the idea. With everything else that is possible, I wouldn't be too surprised if someone was able to.

As for Randi's challenge, that's hilarious and thank you for posting that link. So all of the people who come on here talking about "take randi's challenge then" can go to hell.

"I regard the existence of discarnate spirits as scientifically proved and I no longer refer to the sceptic as having any right to speak on the subject. Any man who does not accept the existence of discarnate spirits and the proof of it is either ignorant or a moral coward. I give him short shrift, and do not propose any longer to argue with him on the supposition that he knows anything about the subject." Prof. James Hyslop in Life After Death (1918).

Alright, just claiming there is proof is different from showing the proof. Show proof, and you'll make skeptics believe it. If they don't believe it, either the proof is false or they are not skeptics, but disbelievers.


But if your proof is a story of how you saw a shadow cross your way when you were eleven, don't even mind posting it.

Originally Posted by Kromoh

But if your proof is a story of how you saw a shadow cross your way when you were eleven, don't even mind posting it.

i didnt just see a shadow...i took a picture of it!!!!

do you request any more proof?