Article on OBE and NDE.

Beyond Dreaming
1

Hello dreamers,

As some might or might not know I wrote a little article to explain a possible viewpoint on the nature on OBE’s and NDE’s. I wrote it originally for another AP related forum (at astralpulse), so I wrote it mainly to try to appeal to the people there. However I think it would be interesting for people on this forum too since I see many questions about OBE’s, and generally speaking I like to discuss these things with anyone. My article is just one way of viewing this phenomenon though, yet I hope it may be useful.

In essence, the article tries to explain what an OBE induced from sleep/trance is (all those OBE’s you hear about on this forum are in that category, only NDE’s are not), from a dualistic viewpoint (this means, taking into account that we exist aswell as body as spirit connected together). Well here is the link to it:

home.wanadoo.nl/xetrov/obe.doc

Have fun reading it, and I appreciate comments/critique.

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I will recommend your article to many
awesome work

can I ask what the responses were to it?

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Xetrov, I’ve read your article and I understand your point of view. I would have quite agreed.

But I think that your definitions are just adding more confusion. If OBE are so called, it’s not because something is supposed to ‘really’ go out of your body, it’s because you feel like a second body (imaginary body, dream body, etc.) goes out a primary body (whose sensations may also be dreamt, since you’re dreaming).
So, the classical OBE definition is not based upon an assumption (spirit leaving the body), it’s based upon a real feeling.

Please notice too that your first definition:

…is rather unclear, as you say that OBE = near death experience (so you must be quite dead to have an OBE); and later that you can induce it deliberately (I suppose you don’t mean a suicide :lol: ).

Moreover, your definitions are based upon ‘heavy’ hypotheses (spirit, astral body, etc.) Not everybody will agree with them, and that’s a bad beginning. And as you state that ‘astral body’ and ‘spirit’ are the same thing, even the XIX century occultists (just those who have developped the notion of astral body) wouldn’t have agreed with you.

So I generally understand your intentions and points of view, but I don’t feel they are very well expressed through the definitions you give.

4

Are you implying that, in order to have an OBE, that you must have a NDE? You must almost die to have an OBE?

Another question: Are you implying that all so-called OBEs produced from lucid dreams are your “projections?”

If this is true, then I think I understand your viewpoints, but are you sure that there actually is a difference between your projections and OBEs (considering Pilot said that you can not tell the difference between the two)?

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Hey Pilot.

I already suspected you might like it, judging from your writings on OBE I read on the forum, which are pretty similar to my ideas :happy:… The responses on the AP forum varried, from outright negative responses (in the “you dont know anything, you lack any experience” - style), to sceptic but welcoming responses, and anything in between. In the end, I got a few people to admit that my ideas make sense (thats a lot already imo, on the forum of the person who opposes my ideas most!). But I intended to “lure” as many responses as I could, and I think i succeeded pretty well at that. I posted another similar article first, but that was written a litle bad, and it did not include all the arguments. The discussion that followed allowed me to inprove the article a lot!

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Seandop, “OBE” to me is indeed LD, which differs from NDE. But read my article, and your questions shall be answered I hope… (thats why I wrote it).

Basilus, nice that you read it. I dont agree on the confusion. It confuses you, it clarifies for others (I know because many have read it).

I know that, but I dont know why you call it the “classical” definition. All I know is that many of the people that roughly fall under the term “new-age spiritualists”, like Robert Bruce, Monroe, and many others (but ofcourse not all, since I count myself as one also) claim or think/guess that what happens at any OBE is exactly this, a spirit or otherwise astrally related body is leaving the physical body. Yet, this is something that I have come to reject, through my own experiences, my slowly accumulating knowledge and experiences of others I know very closely (like Jeff, who had NDE experiences). That is also why I wrote the article, to make these people wonder about an alternative possible viewpoint, and give them some good reasons to do so. Of course an OBE is “real” and also feels “real”, from the perspective of the person experiencing it.

About my definition, NDE is called NDE because that’s what people call it (I did not invent it). You dont need to die to experience one, just come close to it. It’s like swimming compared to walking through water. And yes you can induce this deliberately, I dont see what’s so weird about that at all. Jeff did it, followers of Bardon did it, Yogis did it. It’s expremely hard to do, not impossible, and it does not involve really dying.

For many it will look like this. But again I cannot help this, as these hypothesis are my current ideas and understandings on these issues. To me, they are hypothesis too, but as close to “the truth” as I can currently get. Thereby, I have also experienced quite some phenomena that helped me build these hypothesis, so it’s not all purely theoretical from my point of view. If people don’t agree, that’s no problem to me really. I dont see that as a bad, but a nececcarry begin. Just read it or not, and make up your own mind. Im not trying to convert anyone.

Thanx for pointing that out. I have used these two terms somewhat interchangable indeed, because I see many people doing so. I have no clue about that occultism you wrote about, but I do know that Bruce sais that the astral body is an energetic projection or “double”, which is seperated from the main part of your spirit, and stays connected through a so called wire (or whatever he calls it). If I ever rewrite the article, I till take this into account!

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Xetrov, I tried to read your article, but the 9 pages scared me away… I’m too impatient right now, but I’ll try to get through it later. Something else that would help me is if you would give me your definition of a NDE, since it is not stated in your article (at least, not with the rest of the definitions).

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Seandop, I can understand this confusion. It’s hard to keep track of all the terms anyway. I defined NDE under my definition of OBE (which Basilus quoted above), because to me NDE is the only OBE in the “real” sense of the words “out of”. I should have put that more clearly in the article I realise now.

So, what most others define as an OBE isnt an OBE to me, I call that a LD or a RB style-OBE (referring here to Robert Bruce). I sometimes refer to that as “OBE” also, note the brackets to indicate it’s not what I believe is an OBE.

To remove any confusion:

My definition: OBE =-> Bruce’s (popular) definition: NDE
Bruce’s (popular) definition: OBE =-> My definition: LD, RB type-OBE, “OBE” (induced from sleep/trance). Apart from these, a minority of the OBE’s that fall under the popular definition are NDE’s (Bruce does not seperate these as being different from what he calls OBE).

[edit: note that this is just my definition, others use the term OBE most of the time as Bruce does, which complicates reading this thread a bit, but that cannot be helped]

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That’s certainly a good artical - you gave your opion, and back it up :smile:.

I noticed a couple of spelling mistakes, but they don’t matter.
Well. One does… in your definations, you misspelt ‘lucid’ as ‘ludic’ :wink:.

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Ok, Xetrov, I understand now. thanks for clearing up all the confusion. :content:

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I haven’t read your article, yet. But I’m sure going to! But based on this discussion I conclude that you don’t see an OBE as a real OBE, but merely as an illusion of going outside one’s own body. But on the other hand you believe that death causes a true OBE and that people that have experienced a NDE have truely experienced a real OBE, too. So from this perspective you do believe in a separation between a physical body and some kind of astral one. Why then is it so hard to believe that a temporary separation (such as an OBE) can be realized at will through relaxation, meditation and other such methods?

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That’s exactly the point, it is NOT hard to believe (thats why so many people just seem to accept it as true without thorough investigation). Yet I have come to a different conclusion throughout my research (which includes my own and other’s experiences) on this subject, just read the article and you will understand why. Have fun (I hope :razz:).

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I wish that I could remember all of my obe