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Imagery Techniques

It is possible to use imagery alone but it requires considerable skill.

a) Lie on your back in a comfortable position and relax. Imagine that you are floating up off the bed. Hold that position, slightly lifted, for some time until you lose all sensation of touching the bed or floor. Once this state is achieved move slowly into an upright position and begin to travel away from your body and around the room. Pay attention to the objects and details of the room. Only when you have gained some proficiency should you try to turn round and look at your own body. Note that each stage may take months of practice and it can be too difficult for any but a practiced OBEer.

b) In any comfortable position close your eyes and imagine that there is a duplicate of yourself standing in front of you. You will find that it is very hard to imagine your own face, so it is easier to imagine this double with its back to you. You should try to observe all the details of its posture, dress (if any) and so on. As this imaginary double becomes more and more solid and realistic you may experience some uncertainty about your physical position. You can encourage this feeling by comtemplating the question 'Where am I?', or even other similar questions 'Who am I?' and so on. Once the double is clear and stable and you are relaxed, transfer your consciousness into it. You should then be able to 'project' in this phantom created by your own imagination. Again, each stage may take long practice.

Inducing a Special Motivation to Leave the Body

    You can trick yourself into leaving your body according to Muldoon and Carrington [MC29]. They suggested that if the subconscious desires something strongly enough it will try to provoke the body into moving to get it, but if the physical body is immobilized, for example in sleep, then the astral body may move instead. Many motivations might be used but Muldoon advised against using the desire for sexual activity which is distracting, or the harmful wish for revenge or hurt to anyone. Instead he advocated using the simple and natural desire for water -- thirst. This has the advantages this it is quick to induce, and it must be appeased.

In order to employ this technique, you must refrain from drinking for some hours before going to bed. During the day increase your thirst by every means you can. Have a glass of water by you and stare into it, imagining drinking, but not allowing yourself to do so. Then before you retire to bed eat 'about an eighth of a teaspoonful' of salt. Place the glass of water at some convenient place away from your bed and rehearse in your all the actions necessary to getting it, getting up, crossing the room, reaching out for it, and so on. You must then go to bed, still thinking about your thirst and the means of satisfying it. The body must become incapacitated and so you should relax, with slow breathing and heart rate and then try to sleep. With any luck the suggestions you have made to yourself will bring about the desired OBE. This is not one of the most pleasant or effective methods.

Ophiel's 'Little System'

    Ophiel [Oph61] suggests that you pick a familiar route, perhaps between two rooms in your house, and memorize every detail of it. Choose at least six points along it and spend several minutes each day looking at each one and memorizing it. Symbols, scents and sounds associated with the points can reinforce the image. Once you have committed the route and all the points to memory you should lie down and relax while you attempt to 'project' to the first point. If the preliminary work has been done well you should be able to move from point to point and back again. Later you can start the imaginary journey from the chair or bed where your body is, and you can then either observe yourself doing the movements, or transfer your consciousness to the one that is doing the moving. Ophiel describes further possibilities, but essentially if you have mastered the route fully in your imagination you will be able to project along it and with practice to extend the projection.

Ophiel states that starting to move into OBE will produce strange sounds. He says that this is because the sense of hearing is not carried over onto the higher planes, and that means that your mind tries to recreate some input, and just gets subconscious static. He asserts that the noises can take any form, including voices, malevolent, eerie, and get worse and worse, more and more disturbing, until eventually they peak and then just fade to a constant background hiss while one has OBE. Apparently, his 'final noise' sounded like his water heater blowing up. He says, anyway, to ignore the noises, voice or otherwise, as they are only static or subconscious rambling, and do not represent any being in any way, not even the self really.

The Christos Technique

    G. M. Glasking, an Australian journalist, popularized this technique in several books, starting with Windows of the Mind [Gla74]. Three people are needed: one as subject, and two to prepare him. The subject lies down comfortably on his back in a warm and darkened room. One helper massages the subject's feet and ankles, quite firmly, even roughly, while the other take his head. Placing the soft part of his clenched fist on the subject's forehead he rubs it vigorously for several minutes. This should make the subject's head buzz and hum, and soon he should begin to feel slightly disorientated. His feet tingle and his body may feel light or floaty, or changing shape.

When this stage is reached, the imagery exercises begin. The subject is asked to imagine his feet stretching out and becoming longer by just an inch or so. When he says he can do this he has to let them go back to normal and do the same with his head, stretching it out beyond its normal position. Then, alternating all the time between head and feet, the distance is gradually increased until he can stretch both out to two feet or more. At this stage it should be possible for him to imagine stretching out both at once, making him very long indeed, and then to swell up, filling the room like a huge balloon. All this will, of course, be easier for some people than others. It should be taken at whatever pace is needed until each stage is successful. Some people complete this part in five minutes, some people take more than fifteen minutes.

Next he is asked to imagine he is outside his own front door. He should describe everything he can see in detail, with the colors, materials of the door and walls, the ground, and the surrounding scenery. He has then to rise above the house until he can see across the surrounding countryside or city. To show him that the scene is all under his control he should be asked to change it from day to night and back again, watching the sun set and rise, and the lights go on or off. Finally he is asked to fly off, and land wherever he wishes. For most subjects their imagery has become so vivid by this stage that they land somewhere totally convincing and are easily able to describe all that they see.

You may wonder how the experience comes to an end, but usually no prompting is required; the subject will suddenly announce 'I'm here,' or 'Oh, I'm back,' and he will usually retain quite a clear recollection of all he said and experienced. But it is a good idea to take a few minutes relaxing and getting back to normal. It is interesting that this technique seems to be very effective in disrupting the subject's normal image of his body. It then guides and strengthens his own imagery while keeping his body calm and relaxed.

Robert Monroe's Method

    In his book Journeys out of the Body [Mon71] Monroe describes a complicated-sounding technique for inducing OBEs. In part it is similar to other imagination methods, but it starts with induction of the 'vibrational state.' Many spontaneous OBEs start with a feeling of shaking or vibrating, and Monroe deliberately induces this state first. He suggests you do the following. First lie down in a darkened room in any comfortable position, but with your head pointing to magnetic north. Loosen clothing and remove any jewellery or metal objects, but be sure to stay warm. Ensure that you will not be disturbed and are not under any limitation of time. Begin by relaxing and then repeat to yourself five times, 'I will consciously perceive and remember all that I encounter during this relaxation procedure. I will recall in detail when I am completely awake only those matters which will be beneficial to my physical and mental being.' Then begin breathing through your half-open mouth.

The next step involves entering the state bordering sleep (the hypnagogic state). Monroe does not recommend any particular method of achieving this state. One method you might try is to hold your forearm up, while keeping your upper arm on the bed, or ground. As you start to fall asleep, your arm will fall, and you will awaken again. With practice you can learn to control the hypnagogic state without using your arm. Another method is to concentrate on an object. When other images start to enter your thoughts, you have entered the hypnagogic state. Passively watch these images. This will also help you maintain this state of near-sleep. Monroe calls this Condition A.

After first achieving this state Monroe recommends to deepen it. Begin to clear your mind and observe your field of vision through your closed eyes. Do nothing more for a while. Simply look through your closed eyelids at the blackness in front of you. After a while, you may notice light patterns. These are simply neural discharges and they have no specific effect. Ignore them. When they cease, one has entered what Monroe calls Condition B. From here, one must enter an even deeper state of relaxation which Monroe calls Condition C -- a state of such relaxation that you lose all awareness of the body and sensory stimulation. You are almost in a void in which your only source of stimulation will be your own thoughts. The ideal state for leaving your body is Condition D. This is Condition C when it is voluntarily induced from a rested and refreshed condition and is not the effect of normal fatigue. To achieve Condition D, Monroe suggests that you practice entering it in the morning or after a short nap.

With eyes closed look into the blackness at a spot about a foot from your forehead, concentrating your consciousness on that point. Move it gradually to three feet away, then six, and then turn it 90 degrees upward, reaching above your head. Monroe orders you to reach for the vibrations at that spot and then mentally pull them into your head. He explains how to recognize them when they occur. 'It is as if a surging, hissing, rhythmically pulsating wave of fiery sparks comes roaring into your head. From there it seems to sweep throughout your body, making it rigid and immobile.' This method is easier than it sounds.

Once you have achieved the vibrational state you have to learn to control it, to smooth out the vibrations by 'pulsing' them. At this point, Monroe warns it is impossible to turn back. He suggests reaching out an arm to grasp some object which you know is out of normal reach. Feel the object and then let your hand pass through it, before bringing it back, stopping the vibrations and checking the details and location of the object. This exercise will prepare you for full separation.

To leave the body Monroe advocates the 'lift-out' method. To employ this method think of getting lighter and of how nice it would be to float upwards. An alternative is the 'rotation' technique in which you turn over in bed, twisting first the top of the body, head and shoulders until you turn right over and float upwards. Later you can explore further. With sufficient practice Monroe claims that a wide variety of experiences are yours for the taking.

Meditation and Chakra Meditation

    Meditation has two basic functions -- achieving relaxation and improving concentration. Therefore the ideal state for OBE is familiar to meditators and indeed OBEs have occasionally been reported during meditation and yoga. The two main types of meditation are concentration meditation (focusing) and insight meditation (mindfullness). Most kinds of meditation are the concentrative type. One simply focuses his attention upon a single physical object, such as a candle flame; upon a sensation, such as that felt while walking or breathing; upon an emotion, such as reverence or love; upon a mantra spoken aloud or even silently; or upon a visualization as in chakra meditation. Concentration meditation is, simply put, a form of self-hypnosis.

The other main type of meditation, insight meditation, is the analysis of thoughts and feelings in such a way as to cause realization of the subjectivity and illusion of experience. Such meditation is done in an effort to attain transcendental awareness.

Chakra meditation is a special type of concentrative meditation which is basically kundalini yoga -- the practice of causing psychic energy (kundalini) to flow up sushumna, energizing the various chakras along the way. A chakra is 'a sense organ of the ethereal body, visible only to a clairvoyant' [Gay74]. As each chakra is energized by this practice, it is believed to add occult powers (sidhis), until at last the crown chakra is reached, and with it, full enlightenment is attained.

According to East Indian philosophy, man possesses seven major chakras or psychic centers on his body. In theosophical scheme there are ten chakras, which permit those trained in their use to gain knowledge of the astral world (three of the ten are used in black magic only). Each of the chakras forms a bridge, link, or energy transformer; changing pure (higher) energy into various forms, and connecting different bodies together. The chakras are located along the nadies (a network of psychic nerves or channels) and follow the autonomic nervous system along the spinal cord.

The first chakra, located at the base of the spine at the perineum is the root chakra, muladhara. The second chakra, known as the sacral center, svadhisthana, is located above and behind the genitals. Third of the chakras is the solar plexus, manipura, located at the navel and it is said to correspond with the emotions and also with psychic sight (clairvoyance). The heart chakra, anahata, is the fourth chakra, located over the heart and corresponding with the psychic touch. The fifth chakra is the throat chakra, vishuddha, located at the base of the throat (thyroid) and corresponding with psychic hearing (clairaudience).

The remaining two chakras are believed to relate mostly to elevated states of consciousness. The frontal chakra, (or 'third eye') ajna, the sixth chakra, is located between, and slightly above, the eyebrows. Ajna is the center of psychic powers and it is believed to be able to produce many psychic effects. Finally, the crown chakra, sahasrara, located atop the head, (pineal gland) is the seventh chakra. It is referred to as the thousand-petaled lotus and corresponds with astral projection and enlightenment.

To practice this chakra meditation, you simply concentrate on the chakras, beginning with the root chakra, and moving progressively up, as you visualize psychic energy from the root chakra traveling up shushumna and vivifying each higher chakra. As mentioned above the chakras have certain properties associated with them, so that this type of visualization may 'raise consciousness,' promote astral projection, and other things -- once you have reached ajna and eventually the crown chakra.

Hypnosis

    In the early days of psychical research hypnosis was used a great deal more than now to bring about 'traveling clairvoyance,' but it can still be used. All that is required is skilled hypnotist with some understanding of the state into which he wants to put the subject, and a willing subject. The subject must be put into a fairly deep hypnotic state and then the hypnotist can suggest to him that he leaves his body. The subject can be asked to lift up out of his body, to create a double and step into it, to roll off his bed or chair, or leave through the top of his head. He can then be asked to travel to any place desired, but hypnotist must be sure to specify very clearly where he is to go, and to bring him safely back to his body when expedition is over. If this is not done the subject may have difficulty reorientating himself afterwards.

Drugs

    There are some drugs which can undoubtedly help initiate an OBE. Hallucinogens have long been used in various cultures to induce states like OBEs, and in our own culture OBEs are sometimes an accidental product of a drug experience. In absence of any further information we might already be able to guess which are the sorts of drugs likely to have this effect. They might be those which physically relax the subject while leaving his consciousness clear and alert. Drugs which distort sensory input and disrupt the subject's sense of where and what shape his body is ought to help, and so may anything which induces a sense of shaking or vibration. Imagery must be intensified without control being lost and finally there must be some reason, or wish, for leaving the body.

Considering these points hallucinogens might be expected to be more effective than stimulants, tranquillizers or sedatives. The latter may aid relaxation but help with none of the other features just mentioned. Few other types of drug have any relevant effect. This fact fits with what is known about the effectiveness of drugs for inducing OBEs. Monroe states that barbiturates and alcohol are harmful to the ability, and this makes sense since they would tend to reduce control over imagery even though they are relaxing. Eastman [Eas62] states that barbiturates do not lead OBEs whereas morphine, ether, chloroform, major hallucinogens and hashish can.

Relatively little research has carried out in this area, partly because most of the relevant drugs are illegal in the countries where that research might be carried out. It seems that certain drugs can facilitate an OBE but what is not clear is why drug experience should take that form rather than any other. Part of the answer is that usually it does not. There is no specific OBE-creating drug, and OBEs are relatively rarely a part of a psychedelic drug experience. Drugs may help in inducing the OBE but they are not recommended as a route to the instant projection, they are no alternative to learning the skills of relaxation, concentration, and imagery control.

Dream Development

    Many OBEs start from dreams and since, by definition, one has to be conscious to have an OBE, they tend to start from lucid dreams. The dreamer may become aware that he is dreaming and then find himself in some place other than his bed and able to move about at will. He may have another body and may even attempt to see his physical body lying asleep. This topic is covered separately in the later section on lucid dreams.

Palmer's Experimental Method

    In the search for a simple and effective method of inducing an OBE Palmer and his colleagues [PL75a, 75b, 76, PV74a, 74b] use relaxation and audio- visual stimulation. Subjects went through a progressive muscular relaxation session and the heard oscillating tones and watched a rotating spiral. One of the interesting findings was that many of the subjects claimed that they had been 'literally out of' their bodies, and there were indications that their experiences were very different in some ways from other those encountered in OBEs.

What are lucid dreams?

The term lucid dreaming refers to dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming. It was coined by the Dutch psychiatrist Frederik van Eeden in 1913. It is something of a misnomer since it means something quite different from just clear or vivid dreaming. Nevertheless we are certainly stuck with it. That lucid dreams are different from ordinary dreams is obvious as soon as you have one. The experience is something like waking up in your dreams. It is as though you 'come to' and find you are dreaming. This experience generally happens when you realize during the course of a dream that you are dreaming, perhaps because something weird occurs. Most people who remember their dreams have had such an experience at some time, often waking up immediately after the realization. However, it is possible to continue in the dream while remaining fully aware that you are dreaming.

One distinct and confusing form of lucid dreams are false awakenings. You dream of waking up but in fact, of course, are still asleep. Van Eeden [Van13] called these 'wrong waking up' and described them as 'demoniacal, uncanny, and very vivid and bright, with ... a strong diabolical light.' The one positive benefit of false awakenings is that they can sometimes be used to induce OBEs. Indeed, Oliver Fox [Fox62] recommends using false awakenings as a method for achieving the OBE. For many people OBEs and lucid dreams are practically indistinguishable. If you dream of leaving your body, the experience is much the same.

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LaBerge's studies of physiology of the initiation of lucidity in the dream state have revealed that lucid dreams have two ways of starting. In the much more common variety, the 'dream-initiated lucid dream' (DILD), the dreamer acquires awareness of being in a dream while fully involved in it. DILDs occur when dreamers are right in the middle of REM sleep, showing lots of the characteristic rapid eye movements. DILDs account for about four out of every five lucid dreams that the dreamers have had in the laboratory. In the other 20 percent, the dreamers report awakening from a dream and then returning to the dream state with unbroken awareness -- one moment they are aware that they are awake in bed in the sleep laboratory, and the next moment, they are aware that they have entered a dream and are no longer perceiving the room around them. These are called 'wake initiated lucid dreams' (WILDs).

For many people, having lucid dreams is fun, and they want to learn how to have more or to how to induce them at will. One finding from early experimental work was that high levels of physical (and emotional) activity during the day tend to precede lucidity at night. Waking during the night and carrying out some kind of activity before falling asleep again can also encourage a lucid dream during the next REM period and is the basis of some induction techniques. Many methods have been developed and they roughly fall into three categories.

One of the best known techniques for stimulating lucid dreams is LaBerge's MILD (Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreaming). This technique is practiced on waking in the early morning from a dream. You should wake up fully, engage in some activity like reading or walking about, and then lie down to go to sleep again. Then you must imagine yourself asleep and dreaming, rehearse the dream from which you woke, and remind yourself, 'Next time I have this dream, I want to remember I'm dreaming.'

A second approach involves constantly reminding yourself to become lucid throughout the day rather than the night. This is based on the idea that we spend most of our time in a kind of waking daze. If we could be more lucid in waking life, perhaps we could be more lucid while dreaming. German psychologist Paul Tholey [Tho83] suggests asking yourself many times every day, 'Am I dreaming or not?' This exercise might sound easy, but is not. It takes a lot of determination and persistence not to forget all about it. For those who do forget, French researcher Clerc suggests writing a large 'C' on your hand (for 'conscious') to remind you [GB89]. This kind of method is similar to the age-old technique for increasing awareness by meditation and mindfulness.

The third and final approach requires a variety of gadgets. The idea is to use some sort of external signal to remind people, while they are actually in REM sleep, that they are dreaming. Hearne first tried spraying water onto sleepers' faces or hands but found it too unreliable. This sometimes caused them to incorporate water imagery into their dreams, but they rarely became lucid. He eventually decided to use a mild electrical shock to the wrist. His 'dream machine' detects changes in breathing rate (which accompany the onset of REM) and then automatically delivers a shock to the wrist [Hea90].

Meanwhile, in California, LaBerge [LaB85] was rejecting taped voices and vibrations and working instead with flashing lights. The original version of a lucid dream-inducing device which he developed was laboratory based and used a personal computer to detect the eye movements of REM sleep and to turn on flashing lights whenever the REMs reached a certain level. Eventually, however, all the circuitry was incorporated into a pair of goggles. The idea is to put the goggles on at night, and the lights will flash only when you are asleep and dreaming. The user can even control the level of eye movements at which the lights begin to flash. The newest version has a chip incorporated into the goggles, which will not only control the lights but will store data on eye-movement density during the night as well as information about when and for how long the lights were flashing, making fine tuning possible.

There are two reasons for associating lucid dreams with OBEs. First, recent research suggests that the same people tend to have both lucid dreams and OBEs [Bla88, Irw88]. Second, as Green pointed out [Gre68b] it is hard to know where to draw the line between an OBE and a lucid dream. In both, the person seems to be perceiving a consistent world. Also the subject, unlike in an ordinary dream, is well aware that he is in some altered state and is able to comment on and even control the experience. Green refers to all such states as 'metachoric experiences.' It is possible to draw a line between these two experiences, but the important point to realize is that that line is not clear, and the two have much in common.

But there is an important difference between lucid dreams and the other states. In the lucid dream one has insight into the state (in fact that fact defines the state). In false awakening, one does not have such insight (again by definition). In typical OBEs, people feel that they have really left their bodies. Those experiencing NDEs may have a sense of rushing down a long tunnel, which some perceive as being an entryway into a world beyond death. It is only in the lucid dream that one realizes it is a dream.

Just as in the case of OBEs, surveys can tell us how common lucid dreams are and who has them. Blackmore estimates that about 50 percent of people have had at least one lucid dream in their lives [Bla91]. Green [Gre66] found that 73% of student sample answered 'yes' to the question, 'Have you ever had a dream in which you were aware that you were dreaming?.' Palmer found that 56% of the townspeople and 71% of the students in his sample reported that they had had lucid dreams and many of these claimed to have them regularly [Pal79b]. Blackmore found that 79% of the Surrey students she interviewed had them [Bla82]. Beyond producing these kinds of results, it does not seem that surveys can find out much. There are no very consistent differences between lucid dreamers and others in terms of age, sex, education, and so on [GL88]. All these surveys seem to agree quite closely, showing that the lucid dream is a rather common experience -- far more common than the OBE.

What is the physiology of dreams and lucid dreams?

The electrical activity of the brain has been observed and classified with EEG (electroencephalograph) equipment; signals are picked up from the scalp by electrodes, then filtered and amplified to drive a graph recorder. Brain activity has been found to produce specific ranges for certain basic states of consciousness, as indicated in 'Hz' (Hertz, or cycles/vibrations per second):

delta -- 0.2 to 3.5 Hz (deep sleep, trance state) theta -- 3.5 to 7.5 Hz (day dreaming, memory) alpha -- 7.5 to 13 Hz (tranquility, heightened awareness, meditation) beta -- 13 to 28 Hz (tension, 'normal' consciousness)

In the drowsy state before falling asleep, the EEG is characterized by many alpha waves while the muscles start to relax. Gradually this state gives way to Stage 1 sleep. Three more stages follow, each having different EEG patterns and marked by successively deeper states of relaxation. By Stage 4 the sleeper is very relaxed, his breathing is slower, and skin resistance high. He is very hard to wake up. If the dreamer is awakened, he may say that he was thinking about something or he may describe some vague imagery, but he will rarely recount anything which sounds like a typical dream.

But this is not all there is to sleep -- increasing oblivion. In a normal night's sleep, a distinct change takes place an hour or two after the onset of sleep. Although the muscles are still relaxed, the sleeper may move, and from the EEG it appears that he is going to wake up and he returns to something resembling Stage 1 sleep. Yet he will still be very hard to wake up, and in this sense is fast asleep. The most distinctive feature, however, is the rapid eye movements, or REMs and the stage is also called REM-sleep. In earlier stages the eyes may roll about slowly, now, however, they dart about as though watching something. If woken up now the sleeper will usually report that he was dreaming.

Lucid dreams implied that there could be consciousness during sleep, a claim many psychologists denied for more than 50 years. Orthodox sleep researchers argued that lucid dreams could not possibly be real dreams. If the accounts were valid, then the experiences must have occurred during brief moments of wakefulness or in the transition between waking and sleeping, not in the kind of deep sleep in which REMs and ordinary dreams usually occur. In other words, they could not really be dreams at all.

This contention presented a challenge to lucid dreamers who wanted to convince people that they really were awake in their dreams. But of course when you are deep asleep and dreaming you cannot shout, 'Hey! Listen to me. I'm dreaming right now.' During REM sleep, the muscles of the body, excluding the eye muscles and those responsible for circulation and respiration, are immobilized by orders from a nerve center in the lower brain. This fact prevents us from acting out our dreams. Occasionally, this paralysis turns on or remains active while the person's mind is fully awake and aware of the world.

It was Keith Hearne [Hea78], of the University of Hull, who first exploited the fact that not all the muscles are paralyzed. In REM sleep the eyes move. So perhaps a lucid dreamer could signal by moving the eyes in a predetermined pattern. Lucid dreamer Alan Worsley first managed to do this in Hearne's laboratory. He decided to move his eyes left and right eight times in succession whenever he became lucid. Using a polygraph, Hearne could watch the eye movements for sign of the special signal. The answer was unambiguous. All the lucid dreams occurred in definite REM sleep. In other words they were, in this sense, true dreams.

A typical lucid dream lasted between two and five minutes, occurred at about 6.30 a.m., about 24 minutes into a REM period and towards the end of a 22-second REM burst. The nights on which lucid dreams occurred did not show a different sleep pattern from other nights, although they did tend to follow days of above average stimulation.

It is sometimes said that discoveries in science happen when the time is right for them. It was one of those odd things that at just the same time, but unbeknownst to Hearne, Stephen LaBerge, at Stanford University in California, was trying the same experiment. He too succeeded, but resistance to the idea was very strong. In 1980, both Science and Nature rejected his first paper on the discovery [LaB85]. It was only later that it became clear just how important this discovery had been.

Some conclusions can be drawn from this information. In both OBEs and lucid dreams, the person seems to have his waking consciousness, or something close to it. He is able to see clearly, but what he sees is not quite like the physical and it appears to have many of the properties of a dream world or imaginary world. But there are differences as well: the lucid dream starts more often when the subject is asleep, and the dream world is less distinct and real than the OB 'world,' allowing less control and freedom of movement; in addition, the person who has an OBE starting from the waking state never actually thinks he is dreaming. Most lucid dreams involve only the subject, but there are cases on record of 'meetings' in lucid dreams. The important question is whether the OBEer is observing the same world as the lucid dreamer. Are the two experiences essentially aspects of the same phenomenon?

According to Stephen LaBerge it seems possible that at least some OBEs arise from the same conditions as sleep paralysis, and that these two terms may actually be naming two aspects of the same phenomenon [LL91]. In his opinion the survey evidence favors this theory. There is also considerable evidence that people who tend to have OBEs also tend to have lucid dreams, flying and falling dreams, and the ability to control their dreams [Bla84, Gli89, Irw88]. Because of the strong connection between OBEs and lucid dreaming, some researchers in the area have suggested that OBEs are a type of lucid dream [Far76, Hon79, Sal82].

One problem with this argument is that although people who have OBEs are also likely to have lucid dreams, OBEs are far less frequent, and can happen to people who have never had lucid dreams. Furthermore, OBEs are quite plainly different from lucid dreams in that during a typical OBE the experient is convinced that the OBE is a real event happening in the physical world and not a dream, unlike a lucid dream, in which by definition the dreamer is certain that the event is a dream. There is an exception that connects the two experiences -- when we feel ourselves leaving the body, but also know that we are dreaming.

LaBerge organized a study which consisted of analysis of the data of 107 lucid dreams from a total of 14 different people. The physiological information that was collected included brain waves, eye-movements and chin muscle activity. In all cases, the dreamer signaled the beginning of the lucid dream by making a distinct pattern of eye movements. After verifying that all the lucid dreams had eye signals showing that they had happened in REM sleep, they were classified into DILDs and WILDs, based on how long the dreamers had been in REM sleep without awakening before becoming lucid, and on their report of either having realized they were dreaming while involved in a dream (DILD) or having entered the dream directly from waking while retaining lucidity (WILD). Alongside the physiological analysis each dream report was scored for the presence of various events that are typical of OBEs, such as feelings of body distortion (including paralysis and vibrations), floating or flying, references to being aware of being in bed, being asleep or lying down, and the sensation of leaving the body.

Ten of the 107 lucid dreams qualified as OBEs, because the dreamers reported feeling as if they had left their bodies in the dream. Twenty of the lucid dreams were WILDs, and 87 were DILDs. Five of the OBEs were WILDs (28%) and five were DILDs (6%). Thus, OBEs were more than four times more likely in WILDs than in DILDs. The three OBE-related events which were looked for also all occurred more often in WILDs than in DILDs. Almost one third of WILDs contained body distortions, and over a half of them included floating or flying or awareness of being in bed. This is in comparison to DILDs, of which less than one fifth involved body distortions, only one third included floating or flying, and one fifth contained awareness of bed.

The reports from the five DILDs that were classified as OBEs were actually much like those from the WILD-OBEs. In both the dreamers felt themselves lying in bed and experiencing strange sensations including paralysis and floating out-of-body. Although these lucid dreams sound like WILDs, they were classified as DILDs because the physiological records showed no awakenings preceding lucidity. However, it is possible that these people could have momentarily become aware of their environments (and hence been 'awake') while continuing to show the brainwaves normally associated with REM sleep.

The laboratory studies show that when OBEs happen in lucid dreams they happen either when a person re-enters REM sleep right after an awakening, or right after having become aware of being in bed. Could this relationship apply to OBEs and lucid dreams that people experience at home, in the 'real world'?

Not being able to take the sleep lab to the homes of hundreds of people LaBerge conducted a survey about OBEs and other dream-related experiences. The difference between his survey and previous ones is that in addition to asking if people had had OBEs, he asked specifically about certain events that are known to be associated with WILDs, namely, lucid dreaming, returning directly to a dream after awakening from it, and sleep paralysis.

A total of 572 people filled out the questionnaire. About a third of the group reported having had at least one OBE. Just over 80 percent had had lucid dreams. Sleep paralysis was reported by 37 percent and 85 percent had been able to return to a dream after awakening. People who reported more dream-related experiences also reported more OBEs. For example, of the 452 people claiming to have had lucid dreams, 39 percent also reported OBEs, whereas only 15 percent of those who did not claim lucid dreams said they had had OBEs. The group with the most people reporting OBEs (51%) were those who said they had experienced lucid dreams, dream return, and sleep paralysis.

In this survey, people reporting frequent dream return also tended to report frequent lucid dreams. Thus, LaBerge believes that the fact that dream return frequency is linked with OBE frequency in this study gives further support to the laboratory research finding that WILDs were associated with OBEs. On the other hand he stresses that the proof that some or even most OBEs are dreams is not enough to allow us to say that a genuine OBE is impossible. However, he suggests that if you have an OBE, why not test to see if the OBE-world passes the reality test. Is the room you are in the one you are actually sleeping in? If you have left your body, where is it? Do things change when you are not looking at them (or when you are)? Can you read something twice and have it remain the same on both readings? LaBerge asks 'If any of your questions and investigations leave you doubting that you are in the physical world, is it not logical to believe you are dreaming?' [LL91].