[XKAgustin]

I am not asking if OBEs are real. I'm asking if they are nothing more than subconsciously altered, wake-induced-lucid-dreams (WILDs). I really don't have any idea. But then again, maybe it doesn't matter. I would feel better knowing that they are what they are though. Does it really matter? I've always felt these things are on a continuum anyway. Lucid dreams are very special events in my book and offer potential for spiritual insight and development. I think people often dismiss them because they've only experienced vaguely lucid dreams without understanding they can be much more so.

[FrereeDoulley]

Well, I have to confess, I've never read Harry Potter. Not even a little bit. So I was actually drawing from my own perspective, rather than J.K. Rowling's.

No, not everything you imagine is or becomes real. Good thing, too! But at the same time, EVERYTHING starts with thought, and accomplishments begin by being imagined. So the idea that if it's in your head it must be "unreal" is not a good place from which to start.

I had to proceed by thinking: Perhaps some of what I experience is imaginary, my mind producing pictures and sounds and scenes of things for purposes that I don't understand consciously. Okay. Rather than trying to pick it apart all the time, I'll just have the experiences, make note of them and continue on. If they're fleeting bits of imagination, then that will become evident in time. If they're meaningful, that, too, will become evident. In time, I'll be able to tell a lot more clearly what is and is not genuinely significant and real.

And it's worked, too. When I finally stopped chasing my own tail and just let things unfold, and just experienced them as they happened, I was not only a lot more at peace, I got a much better idea of what was important and, if you will, "real", and what was just my mind having a bit of an outing.

There are still things that I've experienced that I don't understand, and I may not for years. That's okay with me. Ambiguity makes me work harder and pay attention more.

[Soresbox]

The funny thing is when you read up on the workings of the brain, specificly the information our sensory organs send to our brains, you find out that it is partly imaginary. A good portion of it made up to fill an complete sensory scene whereby only a portion is sent to the brain every period, the rest is a "best guess". The nerve pathways simply can not transit all the information, so less important data gets drops in very specific compression algorithms and transformations.

That's right, as you are reading this post right now, there are sensory experiences you are having that were not carried through your nerves to reach your brain. Neuroscience says you are hallucinating the rest.

It makes one think...

[Dapnoinaacale]

You know someone could probably sit down and come up with a scientific, logical, iron-clad argument for why consciousness does not exist, and all the people around you are no more than zombies, unthinking meat-machines...brains reacting, storing information, creating the illusion that they are powered by conscious beings when they have no more self-awareness than the Dell (or IBM or whatever) sitting on your desk. in fact, perhaps they might form a logical and iron-clad scientific argument that you yourself are not conscious either...just a complex biological machine.

And yet, your own experience of being alive, conscious, and seeing things like the color red etc should be enough to prove to your own satisfaction that there is such a thing as consciousness. I use an extreme example to make a point though. Some materialists are so dogmatic I wouldnt be suprised if they tried to argue no one was conscious, (conveniently ignoring their own "You cant prove I am conscious!")

Whatever statistical models are out there, and whatever they say, or whatever experiments "prove" positive or negative, my own personal experiences have proved to my own satisfaction (whether I were interested in convincing others, or were able to or not) that there is such a thing as what they call ESP. And thats good enough for me.

As for OBE's, well, ive thought too, actually, that maybe they are hallucination plus telepathy, or hallucination plus clairvoyance etc...which would still make them pretty cool I might add. I do actually think the "occult" theory, and more so Robert Bruce's theory is right though, because it seems to explain so much of what seems to be near universal to the experience (the vibrations, for instance. Why do people get those if its only a WILD? And how come astral projections dont all just act like vivid dreams? How are astral projectors able to so consistently induce lucid dreams about astral projecting? See what I am getting at? Seems simpler to go with the theory that explains the things that are going on without a)jumping through too many hoops or b) ignoring things that dont fit a materialist worldview)

Ok, If I rambled sorry bout that .

[GitaraMoya]

Well, my two cents is that the experiences and sensations I had during an OBE were so far from what I've felt in any dream, lucid or not, that it must be different. Also, why do you say it's only the consciousness that would project during an OBE? To me that's messing up your thought process right there, because imo consciousness is a collection of thoughts that aren't physical in any sense, where as a 'soul' or 'astral body' would be physical, just not in the same way as our material bodies. I think that in an OBE your consciousness projects along with an astral body. If we're talking about experiments to validate stuff here, then take note of experiments where patients on their deathbeds were measured with very, very sensitive scales. They actually lost a measurable amount of mass at the moment of their death that could not be explained by conventional means. So, the difference between a lucid dream and an OBE, as far as I can tell, is that a lucid dream is an experience of the consciousness only (or perhaps an experience of the consciousness and the other parts of our being, but they remain with our physical body and so have a smaller part in the experience) and an OBE is an experience involving the consciousness and also an 'astral body' or whatever you prefer to call it

ps. sorry if my post is a little involuted too lol

[ExelePlavisseu]

And how come astral projections dont all just act like vivid dreams? How are astral projectors able to so consistently induce lucid dreams about astral projecting? See what I am getting at? Seems simpler to go with the theory that explains the things that are going on without a)jumping through too many hoops or b) ignoring things that dont fit a materialist worldview)

Indeed.

And,

Also, why do you say it's only the consciousness that would project during an OBE? To me that's messing up your thought process right there, because imo consciousness is a collection of thoughts that aren't physical in any sense, where as a 'soul' or 'astral body' would be physical, just not in the same way as our material bodies. I think that in an OBE your consciousness projects along with an astral body. If we're talking about experiments to validate stuff here, then take note of experiments where patients on their deathbeds were measured with very, very sensitive scales. They actually lost a measurable amount of mass at the moment of their death that could not be explained by conventional means. So, the difference between a lucid dream and an OBE, as far as I can tell, is that a lucid dream is an experience of the consciousness only (or perhaps an experience of the consciousness and the other parts of our being, but they remain with our physical body and so have a smaller part in the experience) and an OBE is an experience involving the consciousness and also an 'astral body' or whatever you prefer to call it

Don't apologize, it was great.