I’m curious what people who believe it’s not just fancy LD (all in your head) have to say. I don’t have an opinion myself.
You think you’re:
a) Leaving your body.
b) It’s sort of remote viewing, you see other places but nothing leaves.
c) Something else…
How do you try to explain why it’s possible? You explain it spiritually (soul or whatever) or do you have some non-spiritual explanation (I’m especially interested in those)?
I’m open to the idea that it may be all in our heads, some chemical reaction suggested wibbly wobbly mindstuff. My efforts to see if the experience consistently ties with external conditions haven’t had much result, after all. (Like, shuffling a pack of cards to lay face-up on a bookshelf while I don’t look. I can’t even get near the bookshelf, the experience of wilfull movement becomes difficult for me.)
I used to just go with the idea that, to get to another physical dimension, we’d have to find a way to move at right angles to all of the familiar directions… but it was just something I read, not walls full of equations I could have any hope of understanding. Since such a feat is for now only possible mathematically, I figured that a mental discipline could be a key to a subtler reality. Or, it could just be the key to going mental 
I only know what I’ve witnessed. I’ve had lucid dreams as well as OBE’s, so I contrast quite a few aspects. (The violent “exit” sensations, the more-or-less consistent setting,) but haven’t a guess what those differences should confer in any explanation.
Oh, really? I wanted to try such test myself (assuming I’ll finally get OBE). You couldn’t move where you wanted and look?
xD
Could you elaborate? I mean, especially OBE vs WILD.
It’s… something like windy. 
It was easy the first few times (before I thought of doing that experiment,) when I didn’t overthink how to move. I tried to put one foot in front of the other, but I don’t have feet and there’s not really any friction. I shouldn’t have eyes, either, come to think of it, but I can still see. And not the 360-degree vision on all axises like you’d expect upon being freed of physical sensory constraints, so…
But, yeah, it’s not like the WILD’s I’ve had.
My first WILD, the scene faded in, and I found myself in the swimming pool of my childhood neighbourhood. I knew it was a dream because I remembered being in bed, waiting for sleep and in another country, just a few moments before. Supposedly it can’t have been just a few moments before, because REM sleep comes in after four stages of sleep, right? But, those I don’t remember, and I’ve read that WILD’s can have pretty violent physical sensations too Mine… just don’t. With chaining in particular, when I combine WILD with WBTB, I’ve used a little active imagination to coax the dream back.
My first OBE, I felt the rocking first. It’s best described like lying in the backseat of a car as it drives over a rocky road. The scene faded in, too, after that, but it was of my own bedroom, the same one I fell asleep in. I hadn’t expected either of those things: online guides said to expect “vibrations” and those were not what I would call vibrations. 
Also, the OBE state of mind was very passive. I even had to forget what I was doing, and who I was, let alone what the room looked like. So, whatever I saw, it wasn’t made out of my conscious expectations. Chained dreams are, and even then I can’t get them to consistently be recurring.
In dreams, I have a dream body. I even split its perceptions in two, in my first lucid dream. The whole dream is something in my mind, sure, but I can’t help wincing when the scenery comes up at my while I’m flying so that it feels like I’m falling and I’ll hurt my body.
In OBE’s, while I did see that I had legs the first time, (two pairs. One lying on the bed, in the pajamas that I fell asleep in, and one floating level with me that for some reason was clad in cuffed blue jeans,) I just kind of lost them in subsequent OBE’s. In dreams, the environment has the illusion of solidness by default, unless I think it some other way so that I can walk through walls and fly. In OBE’s, well, I mentioned the wind? It’s more like a blobby mess of force fields that I can’t see but keeps pushing me around and through things.
Sometimes I feel like they cross over. After experiencing something, after all, dreams would have more to throw back out at you, so I’ve had dreams of being out of body. And, sometimes my OBE contained dreamlike things, like a second body that’s wearing jeans. Mostly, though, it’s just the texture. We have ND’s because our minds take for granted that the dream scene is real, right, but when we wake up it’s not just the memory of being awake yesterday but the feel of the dream versus the feel of waking life that convinces us that we were dreaming but are now awake. FA’s throw a wrench in there, but generally at the end of an OBE I’m just not sure. Even the most vivid LD’s, however, still have that dream-feel to them.
Phew. Hope that wasn’t too elaborate. 
Hmmm, I tried WILDing once… I’m assuming it would work if I wouldn’t wake up frightened before dream started 
). I got sleep paralysis(?). Everything was black and I didn’t had sense of space… I had impression of endless space, but then I thought that it probably is narrow since I couldn’t move. Like if you’re inside something that blocks your movement but you don’t see what’s happening either so it’s narrow but might give weird impression on senses… coffin maybe? -_______- I remembered reading about ‘opening my dream eyes’ if I’d have problems with seeing so I tried it but it didn’t worked… I felt like they’re already open but scenery itself is like this. I heard something like… knocking? Maybe it’s stupid, but it sounded so unnatural that it freaked me out and I woke up. Nice trip ;], too bad I woke up… or maybe it’s good, who knows how dream would proceed when I had such terrible attitude (wondering if I’m inside coffin xD).
You don’t want to hurt yourself. Sounds normal to me.
?? 
So you’re having, like… movement problems? These force fields/wind move you around? But you can change where you move a bit, right? It’s just hard because of the wind?
How is your vision like?
Hmmm…
Not at all xD. Thanks a lot, it’s all really interesting.
This thread has actually inspired a dream for me!
I agree with Elly Eve, in the sense that its quite hard to say that there is a real distinction between LDs and AP (or OBE - what ever you want to call it). Many of my LDs seem to come from me dreaming that I leave my body - but I am still in a dream. Yet, I have had one absolute OBE - and the experience is quite… violent?! in comparison to a LD - an experience I would love to try and recreate. The violence of the vibrations scared me back into my body. Until that point, I always felt a clear distinction between LDs and OBEs - but having had enough LDs now, where I dream I am out of my body, then - the distinction is somewhat a little blurry now.
For me to really understand a clear distinction I would need to repeat the violent OBE I had before.
I would like to try your test Elly Eve… but open up the challenge to people on the forum. I will place a card, on the top of a book shelf in my attic, and I would love for people to try and see the card and tell me what it is. I would even like to try this myself. I woudl be interested to see the outcomes of those who try this in a LD (those who definitly know they are dreaming, and do not distinguish the difference between LD/OBE) and those who do this through an induced OBE.
Any other takers on the challenge?
I would if I could dream sometimes, heh. But I’m really, really curious what results other people would get.
xD
I believe it is real. What’s exactly happening I have no answer for. The most famous theory i have heard about seems to be something about changing frequency from the physical to the non-physical.
I believe it is “beyond” todays mainstream science, just like todays science would be beyond the science we had just 100 years ago. In the same sense i believe that science will one day realize “Okay, perhaps its not all in our heads” and start doing some real research.
Today there are only supernatural explanation, tomorrow they may be natural.
Well… maybe. Can’t tell since I didn’t had any yet so I don’t have full opinion. Many things were and are like this today, though, so I wouldn’t be surprised. What’s sad is that most scientists seem to ignore everything that’s too weird and/or hard to understand for them. I’m sure that gravity and Earth not being flat was weird thought at the time too .
Did you tried to test your OBE’s somehow? Like you know, reading a card or maybe meeting with someone? It looks real, but many things do… you know, advanced brain washing techniques cough - it’s possible to make people think maaany things are real while they’re not.
I’m reading this (I didn’t finished yet but I read most of it):
https://www.lucidity.com/NL32.OBEandLD.html
I like it because author (guess who ) is open but at the same time he doesn’t default to “yes we’re all pretty souls floating in other worlds, hare hare!!!111 prty clouds!!”. I mean… he acts like scientist should (at least in this one specific text) instead of being jerk (either too skeptic or too spiritual).
I think OBE’s and Lucid Dreams are the same basic phenomena, the OBE techniques just being a different flavor of WILD. I’ve done both and there are just too many similarities between them. However… I think Dreams are magical in a way science doesn’t readily accept – that they take place in Dreamworlds that actually exist (somewhere). Our awareness tunes into a being inhabiting that Dreamworld (much like a radio station) and we have access to its capacities (memories, etc) while we’re tuned in. Dreamworlds are just more malleable than our own Earth (which is perhaps a Dreamworld in itself, one that has a great deal of stability).
Nobody knows exactly how our brains work – are they more like computers, or are they more like remote control devices or radios? I’ve been in dreams that feel every bit as “real” as what we call reality – others have had dreams that last for an entire lifetime – and others have built persistent worlds within their dreams. What makes our “reality” special? Maybe we are just dream characters within one of those persistent worlds.
Science doesn’t really explain a lot of paranormal phenomena very well – while an approach of “this world is a well-constructed dream, we’re all just 99% stripped of our typical dream powers” does.
This video is a good, hard scientific look at what I’d call dream-like powers in the real world.
Spoon bending is another dream-like power – attested to be real by Michael Crichton, Harvard grad and famous author.
Or just read some of Ingo Swann’s writings for some similar stuff… The Magnetometer beneath Varian Hall comes to mind… I especially like how some of the scientists act like dream characters when faced with this sort of stuff… 
I’ve only had one OBE, 1 year ago. When/if i learn how to get them more frequently I plan on testing with a card.
I got my son to put a piece of paper on a top shelf with a number on it. When I had an OOBE I stood on a chair (!) and looked on the shelf. No note but loads of pebbles. I decided it must be a dream and moved on but then when I mentioned it to a friend she pointed out that I should have counted the pebbles to see if it matched the number. Maybe things aren’t quite the same in the world of the OOBE??? I still have mixed feelings…