I don’t believe in OOBE. I think what someone calls an “OOBE” is just a different type of LD, all in your head. Going “out of our bodies” (except on Judgment Day) doesn’t scientifically make sense.
(p.s. 
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Yeah, I’m sort of on the side that OBE’s are a type of dream, however, they have happened to people in real life, so I guess I just don’t believe people are actually out of their body, and it just feels/looks like it.
On the one hand, I find the argument compelling that all dreams are OBEs - or at least, if not out-of-body experiences then certainly non-body-experiences. From that viewpoint, I find it hard to distinguish between dreams and OBEs. Perhaps the meaningful distinction isn’t between dreams and OBEs, but based on where the experience takes place–in the “I’m making this up in my head” dreamworld, or in the waking world, or on some “astral/higher plane/dimension.”
On the other hand, I’ve heard people argue that what is claimed to be OBEs is “just” remote viewing and/or telepathy. As though remote viewing and telepathy weren’t awesome! (This would be the non-body experience taking place in the waking world, I suppose.)
I absolutely believe in OBEs. I have had (at least) one experience I would call an OBE, a very brief one in which I flickered around the room, now-I’m-here! now-I’m-over-there! now-I’m-back! and that was it. But as to what leaves the body (an astral form? one’s awareness?) I remain agnostic. At the very least, I believe the consciousness can be “thrown” to other vantage points outside the body so as to have experiences one could not physically have, and that’s OBE enough for me to aspire to.
I don’t mean to be a troll, but does it really matter?
We can debate till the cows come home about whether OBEs are real, but until we’ve managed to see every single person’s OBE ever, we won’t be able to make a fully informed judgement. Even then, it would be one person’s judgement, not a definition. I’d personally take the attitude of, if I had an OBE, to form my own opinion on it and let that be that.
I mean no offence!
I don’t think having an obe is a good way to distinguish if it is real or not (real meaning if you have an ability to perceive from outside your body) because let’s face it, the brain is a funny thing and hallucinations especially while in a semi dream state can completely fool us.
The only way to prove or disprove in my opinion is to actually try and test what an individual has learned while claiming to see stuff.
I have heard plenty of anecdotes (floating into the kitchen and seeing the oven is on then waking up and going to the kitchen to find it in fact left on. By another family member I should note so this wasn’t the subconscious. Or going to visit someone who afterwards tells that they indeed saw that person. Etc.), but I would love to see more verifiable proof.
I tested it out. I had my mom write something down on a piece of paper. Then when I had an OBE I checked it. It was different from what was actually written. According to this OBEs definitely do not take place in the physical realm.
OBEs and Lucid Dreams are definitely the same phenomenon, from my experience. But like Vortexae said, both lucid dreams and OBEs are non-body-experiences because you’re not actually using your physical body. But do OBEs take place somewhere outside your body? I think it does.
Everything you experience in waking life is actually your own subjective experience. Your experience of the world is how your mind re-arranges and deciphers what it receives from your sensory organs. So in the end it’s all in your head. But this doesn’t mean the physical realm is in your head.
The same could be said for OBEs, LDs, APs (all the same experience imo). You’re definitely not experiencing the physical realm, so you must be experiencing something else. You can call it whatever you want, dreams, an astral plane, etc.
When you are awake you are in the physical realm because you are experiencing the physical realm. But what if you are experiencing a different plane of existence? That means you are in it.
EDIT:
You said that OBEs don’t make scientific sense. But judgement day does?
Mm. I’d only go so far as to say, that particular OBE did not take place in the physical realm, or, if you wish, that your OBEs do not take place in the physical realm. The sample size here is far to small to extrapolate to a universal rule. And the thing we’re talking about is so subjective that it may be impossible to assert a universal rule with any confidence.
In any case, there is a famous counter-example in Oliver Fox’s book Astral Projection in which his friend astrally projected to his house and took note of several features of the room she could not have otherwise been aware of, including one which Fox himself hadn’t known but was able to verify afterward. (At this moment there is a a copy of the book on Scribd, and the passage in question is on pages 58 and 59, in Chapter V: The Elsie Projection.)
Interestingly, she also reported that at the time of her visit, Fox’s eyes were open, when Fox protests that they were in fact closed. Still, this does not negate that she observed with accuracy the “gilt ridge” on the desk, the pin-cushion, and the black Japanese box.
This would suggest that it is untrue to say that no OBEs allow observation of the physical world, just as your example disproves any hypothesis that OBEs must take place in the physical world.
I had a similar thought, but I thought perhaps it might be disrespectful to post it. In any case, it seems to me that it’s impossible to subject to scientific inquiry the fate of the conscious awareness after death; and I’ll leave it at that.