thanks for the welcome 
im going to answer each bit as to the point as i can as i tend to ramble so if it looks abrupt its not meant to …im also in my 50’s so a lot of time to cover lol
my earliest memories of OBE are from being small child, i didn’t do anything, it just happened, i would just be dropping to sleep or actually sleeping and next thing i would be ‘awake’ in my room or in the garden. My grandma was the same and she was really the only person who listened to me, she warned me of dangers etc and encouraged me to have fun.
towards my early teens it more or less stopped happening, then when i was about 17 i hung out with guys who classed themselves ‘black witches’ they were all on a mission to OBE and were astounded that i used to do it as a kid without even knowing til it happened. These were the first people i met who i could actually talk to about it without sounding like an idiot… Because it had always happened without me doing anything i had never tried to make it happen… So i tried their ‘technique’ of relaxation/meditation then picturing yourself at the bottom of your bed and then picturing yourself standing at the foot of the bed looking at yourself lying in bed, swap positions ‘in your head’ quicker and quicker then ‘switch’ not sure if thats normal technique or not as like i said ive never really researched much about it. to start with i couldn’t do it, it took a while to realise i was concentrating too much on ‘relaxing/clearing my mind’ … when i stopped their ‘meditation’ suggestion i could easily switch to the foot of the bed but the second i was like ‘yeah i did it’ i was back in the bed lol, that realisation took quite a while to get over but in the end i did it, it was round about this time that i first got ‘taken’ to the place im on about but over the years it was few and far between that it happened until the last few years
from then to my late 30’s i deliberately OBE on and off… i have health problems and i find it pretty much wipes me out and i also love dreaming so much and after OBE i found it was sometimes days before i dreamed again… i prefer dreaming to OBE so it wasnt something i did regularly
about fifteen years ago i was OBE maybe few times a year and i started to notice there was ‘someone’ with me, i couldn’t see them, they were always to the right and behind me so that put me off for ages as i got really powerful feeling of unease. I gradually stopped doing it, i think the last time was maybe 5 years ago when the involuntary OBE kicked in really bad ( i guess its the same thing that happened to me as a kid but i never went to bad place like this) If i tried to OBE voluntarily then I could still feel the total oppression of the place i go involuntarily so i just stopped doing it on purpose.
how im taken is usually when im in bed, i have other instances of being ‘taken’ that are totally different to this, i know its not alien abduction, i know its not sleep paralysis, ive had sleep paralysis a lot over the years and ive counted both that and alien abduction out. It happens in two different ways… I usually get up out of bed, realise im OBE and in the ‘bad place’ …i know its not dream, i can tell difference easily and i immediately think ‘*** get out of here’ and start trying to pull myself out’ but i cant stop myself walking further into the gloom…the panic is terrifying whether theres ‘things’ around or not. The other way is a bit different, i will sense that im no longer in bed,then realise im on the room sofa (this happens hell of a lot to me, i think its just a little involuntary jump) and every so often when this happens i suddenly go to the ‘bad place’ instead of jumping back to my bed. very occasionally i will be involuntary OBE and be floating down the stairs and the atmosphere totally changes from top of stairs to halfway down and its the ‘bad place’ again. The first instance was like i said, in my teens, then very occasionally over the years and i didnt think much of it, then a few years ago it happened again, gradually, maybe 6 months apart then snowballed into half the nights i was sleeping then it would back off again for a while then slowly come back. Its almost like the being on the room sofa or on the stairs is a spring board to launch me back into the dreaded place… There is a slight difference between when im ‘taken’ directly and when im already OBE and get taken like on the sofa or stairs, in those cases i can get out of there a lot easier. Ive tended not to even try to OBE for ages now as the figure is always there either close or far on the horizon but i still sense it … im not sure the two are connected, strangely they dont seem to be
Sorry if thats so long after saying it wouldn’t be. I hope its understandable and feel free to ask anything else. I can describe the place if it might help, if i can actually describe it 
