Lucid Dreaming v. Out of Body Experience

I want to take the time to take a different approach to this week’s post.  I want to cover the differences between lucid dreaming and out of body experiences. Both  Lucid dreaming and out of body experiences have similar characteristics when it comes to experience.  For example, those who can dream lucidly as well as have an out of body experiences(OBEs) one can control their dream environment, meaning, if I am having a dream about a situation about a relationship or even something as simple as solving an issue one has, the dreamer can interact with that dreamscape.   Other similar aspects to these two are one’s awareness of various types of thought.  In both lucid dreams and an OBE, these types of methods the dreamer (Lucid dreaming) or the experiencer(OBE) has the capability of awareness of thought.  The factors listed are where these two end.

The differences:

Lucid dreaming is a dreamer’s ability to remember one’s dream, and all people have the ability to experience a lucid dream and with practice, one can achieve lucidity.  Lucid dreaming is a great tool to use when one feels stressed and is a great way to relax.  Some important factors regarding this dreaming, as opposed to dreaming and forgetting, are dreaming with purpose.  Before sleeping, the dreamer can remind him or herself that they will remember their dreams.  In WikiHow, they have given some examples such as:

  • Keep a dream journal
  • Learn the best time to have a lucid dream. -According to WikiHow, Lucid dreaming is associated with REM sleep, and REM sleep is more abundant just before the final waking.  Also, dreams run 60 minute cycles so the best time to remember a dream is during one of these cycles
  • Try marking an “A”(which stands for Awake) on your palm each time you notice an “A” in your waking hour’s challenge if you are awake or asleep (1).

When I first learned how to lucid dream, I started with yoga.  I bought a yoga VHS tape and learned some yoga postures and breathing techniques.  From there, I progressed to learning how to make an astral projection. At the time, I bought a book called “How to Astral Project” by Denning and Phillips – Astral Projection will be covered later on in the post.  It was through this book and many others I learned how to become aware of my dreams.  WikiHow suggests inscribing an “A” on your palm.  The method I describe is an advanced method that I used when I learned.  Once you are in your dream state and you are having a conversation, I like to use trigger words such as if someone says, “Hey,  Peter, have you seen that object that we discussed earlier?”  In this conversation, the most meaning for me would either be “object” or “discussed,” and if I hear those terms, I question if I’m awake or asleep.

One dreamer had this experience:

{Came home from practice and fell asleep. I was in such a deep sleep that I fell asleep in my dreams and was dreaming. Then I woke in my dream and started doing stuff around the house only to realize it was a dream too when C. woke me up. 🙁 Too bad I didn’t do my homework in my dream and have it be finished when I woke up cause that would have been awesome.}

This particular dreamer has the potential of having a great lucid dreaming experience.  The characteristics of awareness are all there. The knowledge of knowing the acts that was performed on multiple levels is a good characteristic of dream lucidity.  Though this person had described being aware after waking, with the proper practice and guidance, the achievement of lucidity or even an OBE is plausible.  The methods used on WikiHow of the “A” on the palm would be a good jumping-off point.  Eventually, once experience sets in, the use of things around the home could be used as triggers for future lucid abilities.

Methods that I’ve used for my lucid dreaming training are looking at a distant object, for example,  a certain brick on a brick wall(or some inanimate object).  I’ll displace some energy in that object, either positive or negative(the type isn’t important as so much as it just brings awareness). This method, if one is not highly aware, can add stress physically.  I have not seen any studies on this; however, there are some instances within an out of body experience where a person has been affected physically.  This has been my experience when it has come to achieving lucidity.   As a dreamer, you can make it as simple or as complex as you like.  For me and my experiences, this was how I was most comfortable with achieving lucidity.

Out of Body Experience(OBE)

Out of Body Experience or OBEs is a person’s ability to leave their body at will, hence, “out of body experience.”  This term can also be defined as Astral Projection.  Throughout this post, I will be using the term OBE and Astral Projection concurrently.  There is a similar experience related to OBEs called a “Near Death Experience” or NDE, which will not be covered here.  The main difference between an OBE and NDE is that an NDE, one must be declared deceased.  For resources on near-death books, “Embraced by the Light” by Betty J. Eadie is a great read as well as Dannion Brinkley‘s book, “Saved By The Light.”  A  must-read for those interested in NDEs is Raymond A. Moody‘s “Life After Life.”  He was the first person who coined the term “Near Death Experience,” and this was during the mid-1970s during his NDE studies.  So, back to the Out of body experience and what it’s all about.

So, as we recall, an OBE is a person’s ability to leave their body.   From my perspective, this is a step up from lucid dreaming mainly because of the person’s ability to actively control their experience(s) at any time compared to that of lucid dreaming where one dreams and knows that they are dreaming.  In the book “Astral Projection” by Denning and Phillips, these authors have described the body of having a silver cord extending from the belly to the projected body.  How does one draw upon this? Like most experiences, we start as babies and explore things. Leaving the body is no different.  The initial experience is surreal and does take some getting used to.   While in this state, look around and experience the feeling.

The initial experience won’t belong in duration(at least mine wasn’t).  As time progresses within your astral journey, you’ll start developing a certain awareness of your surroundings.  The progression of the astral body as compared to the physical body, the astral learns more quickly.  If you practice only once or twice a week the experience will increase.  For me,  it took about a month to get used to the feeling.  From this point on everything is all about learning.     The best I can describe is that of skydiving.  When you jump out of an airplane, you have this falling feeling, and first-time jumpers need to have coached to control and maintain their body positions. This does not mean that once you have your astral experience that you’ll be able to jump out of an airplane 😉

Like a first-time skydiver, the first time in your astral body, you’ll need to know the same principles of control.  Once control is established the experiencer can then can have their own “Choose your own Adventure” experience, which is more fulfilling than the Adventure books. 🙂  At this point of your OBE, one should treat everything as you are learning everything for the first time.  Keeping this mindset has enabled me to do some of the following:

  1. Gain more insight
  2. Patience -We all need it regardless of age.
  3. Have more fun
  4. Acceptance – this goes along with #1 in that we start to see what limitations we have.
  5. Understanding – Unless you’re ready to accept this part of learning, all I can say that this is the most challenging, and not everyone will be able to grasp this type of concept.
  6. Increased perception
  7. Strength

There are more though these are the ones that stick out to me the most.  An Out of body experience is a great way of having fun and enjoy everything around you and in your journey many things will come to pass and greater experiences will shape the environment around you.

===================================================

References:

  1. WikiHow(2012)How to Lucid Dream

retrieved on: December 2, 2012 from: http://www.wikihow.com/Lucid-Dream