Well, isn’t there a way we could check whether or not the person is in REM during the time period they claim to be OBE’ing? we’d need two or more people who live close enough, with at least one of them able to OBE.
Also, in a lab and with the right equipment, couldn’t we read the brainwave activity.
We could tell the OBE’er (before they go OBE’ing of coarse) to do a certain action that could cause a reaction with the sleeping body if they were dreaming (eg. something scary, something erotic, etc) and then record whether or not their physcial bodies react in the expected away (if you really are leaving your body, then you’re body shouldn’t react like that).
You will see that during OBE’s there was mostly beta and theta brainwave activity. Being asleep, this means you are most likely dreaming (neurotransmitters are active at this stage that induce dreams from visual cortex). Yet they found no REM, but it could be the absence of REM indicates lucidity (remember that Laberge used eye movements to signal lucidity, so those ppl had no REM at that moment either).
Your last comment on seeing how the body reacts on, for eample, an erotic OBE episode, would be very interesting indeed. But does the fact that the EEG of an OBE-er show that he/she is in alpha/teta brainwaves not already prove that the whole thing is an internal event rather then a happening where part of a person disconnects from their body?
Do you often do RC with a clock IRL and take it very seriously? I mean you control the clock several times, being open to the thought, that it actually can be a dream. If not, i suggest you to be more critical when you do RC-s IRL. When you do them, don’t just say: Ah, well, i’m awake anyway, but i will do RC to be sure of it, or i will do it as a habit. Be very critical and open to the possibility that you can actually be in a dream.
If you get used to take your environment critically, then this critical attitute starts to come into your dreams also. If you already take your environment critically, then keep practicing and those chances, where your brain fools you during dream, will be less.
Remember the time you drive first time with a car. Wasn’t it somehow terrifying? “Can i make it to keep the car on the road?” “If someone drives toward me, am i able to hold my side, so i don’t crash with the other car?”, etc etc. But if you drive now with a car in regular basis (if you do, i dunno), you are used with that and those questions don’t come to your mind. You are just doing what you are doing and you know what you are doing.
Well, OOBE is much safer than driving anyway. Because there ain’t anybody who can harm you. No one can steal your astral body what is travelling from your physical body what is in SP. No one can harm your physical body while you are astral travelling. You just need to get over it, even if it might feel weird, and weird things tend to be terrifying if we don’t learn not to fear them
Hmm well it seems that REM is caused by the eyes following the dream scene. If this is true then this would explain how lucid dreamers could signal, they exercize voluntary control over their eye movement for a while, not following their lucid dream. But then this leaves me with a question which I have to think on “why do the (so far only a few) researches into OBE conclude there is no REM during an OBE, if an OBE equals or is very similar to a LD?”. Could it be that dream content is viewed differently during an OBE? Perhaps the eyes keep still and the dreamscapes moves accordingly? Or could my initial idea be wrong, that REM isn’t caused by the eyes following the dream scene, that it is merely “random” eye movement not related to dram vision at all? But that would leave the question as how the lucid dreamers could exercise control over their eye movements to signal.
Ok so where did you read anything about this (I could agree but is there some (perhaps researched) backup on this claim?). Also, the stages you indicate with nREM must exclude deep sleep since at that stage there is no dreaming at all (seems only at the start of delta sleep there is some dreaming still, often in black and white, but not in the deeper stages of delta sleep). Ofcourse we then still have some stages of light sleep where there is also no REM, yet here dreams seem to be possible, so this could indeed very well be the stage people are in that have OBE’s from sleep/trance.
Basicly, OBE’s (OOBE’s) are just Low level dreams.
Astral Projector, that is some skill! LD does feel weird, and NREM-LD (OBE) even more so. But your spirit doesn’t (Or I don’t believe it does) leave your body. it’s just a simulation of your mind. If you want to prove it, scream and run at a wall until you wake up. You will be in your bed.
So people believe that OBE’s are really out of body experiences, but I think the majority don’t. If it is phychic it is mroe likely to be an astral projection.
Do you mean, low level lucidity? If so, that’s definately not true. A lot of experienced OBE-ers have the excact opposite experience: their OBE’s are to them much more real and ‘lucid’ then a ND or a LD.
Also, you seem to inply that nREM LD equals OBE. This is also false since there are also ‘normal’ lucids happening in nREM. But i do agree with you that you are not leaving your body and that stuff all happens in your mind.
my first posting was of being afraid, and i was mainly referring to obe type things, but suddenly i’m not, so my advice is go with the flow, (u do get physically jolted yes indeed!)and dont worry. I think it is just mind and body acclimatizing to the new experiences
OK i read some of that threat, and it seems now to me that it would be logical that most OBE’s from sleep/trance (WILD induced often) happen during nREM. First of all there are 2 nREM stages, really light sleep and really deep sleep. There is no visual activity in deep sleep so let’s focus on light sleep, the stage we enter for example when we do a succesfull WILD in the evening (since when we start sleeping it takes a while to enter REM). Now during this light sleep stage we have no REM, visuals seem more like a movie screen that we watch (which also happens for example when we meditate into a trance and have visions from beta/theta stage). This light sleep nREM stage is also where often OBE’s happen induced from WILD and trance, so it would be logical that in those OBE’s there is no REM. I am not convinced though that dreams during this nREM always have to be more clear and/or realistic then REM dreams, i guess it varies perhaps from person to person.
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your lucky to get one of them!