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First Contact
It wasn't until September 9, 1979
that the subject of out-of- body experiences came up again. My brother
Joe knew
my dad was interested in the
occult, so for Father's Day, Joe gave him the book Journeys Out of the
Body by
Robert A. Monroe. I remembered
searching the card catalog as a child, so after my dad had finished reading
it, I
asked him if I could borrow it,
and he said yes.
Monroe explained his OBEs in such
a logical, scientific manner that I read the book faster than I'd ever
read
before. I didn't really believe
Monroe's claims, but I liked his approach. His book urged me not to take
his word for
it, but to try it myself.
I decided to take Monroe up on his offer, and follow his techniques to see for myself if these experiences were real or just hype, fantasy or dreams. That night, before I went to bed, I attempted astral projection for the first time. I had memorized Monroe's method earlier and I decided to close my eyes and try it.
The first step was to relax. I
spent a long time relaxing completely. The next step, which was quite a
bit harder, was
to drift between waking and sleeping
consciousness. I found myself drifting into sleep once or twice, and I
yanked
myself back to full consciousness
each time, being careful not to move my fully relaxed body. It took quite
a while
before I felt comfortable enough
to go on to the next step: clearing my mind of all thoughts.
This was harder yet. Every time
I heard a noise I would be distracted and my mind would start to wander.
Then my
body started itching in the most
distracting way. As soon as I'd scratch an itch, another new itch would
take its
place. Even after I conquered
most of my itches (and ignored the rest) it was hard to keep my mind from
wandering.
At one point, I found I could
hold my mind blank for several minutes, and I decided that would be long
enough to go
on to the next step: using imaginary
lines of force to call "the vibrations." I followed Monroe's method to
the letter,
carefully pausing between each
step in the process. I was just about to give up when I felt a heavy "TWANG"
in
my head. If felt as if the lines
of force had somehow become real and had touched a 110-volt power line.
I thought,
"Oops. Maybe this isn't such
a good idea." I tried to pull myself back to normal consciousness by retracting
my
imaginary lines of force. I quickly
pulled the lines of force back toward me, but much to my surprise, the
"electricity" I felt at the end
of those lines was also being pulled toward me. It was like I had been
fishing and I felt
a sharp bite at the end of my
fishing pole: I quickly tried to pull my fishing line out of the water,
but I only managed to set the hook, and pull in a fish. And it was quite
a fish: A kind of electrical "vibration" violently swept into my body,
filling my body with an electric-like shock and a terrible roaring noise.
I thought I was being electrocuted and my first reaction was sheer panic.
I could hear my heart beating wildly in mad fear, but I was powerless to
control it.
Somehow I could see through my
closed eyelids. I looked up and I saw a blue ring of electrical fire flying
right
toward my head. It was about
a foot in diameter, with the energy sparks about an inch-and-a-half thick,
and it was
bright blue. I instinctively
tried to raise my arms to protect myself from the impact, but I found myself
paralyzed and
unable to move my arms. The ring
of blue energy started to slip over my forehead and I looked away, afraid
to see
what would happen next. I started
fighting wildly to regain control of my body and the "vibrations" slowly
smoothed
down and died out. When the vibrations
faded completely, I could move my body again.
I shook my arms and legs, and
rejoiced that I hadn't lost the ability to move them, happy that I was
completely in
my body. "My God," I thought
to myself, "It worked! Monroe wasn't lying! There ARE other worlds!"
Beliefs Blown to Bits
After my experience with the vibrations,
I got up out of bed and walked out into the living room to tell somebody,
anybody, that it was all real.
My mom was in bed sleeping already, and my dad was asleep in his favorite
chair in
front of the television, and
I didn't want to wake him. I walked into the kitchen and got a glass of
water, occasionally
shaking my arms and legs to make
sure I was completely inside my body. After a few minutes I walked back
to my
bedroom and lay down, but I could
not sleep. I could not stop thinking about the encounter and its implications.
First, it was the most terrifying
experience of my life. It felt like the vibrations were harming my body,
and the
roaring, hissing sound only scared
me more. I had confronted mankind's two biggest fears: fear of the unknown
and
fear of death. My scientific
self couldn't make any scientific sense out of the experience--it was not
part of the
physical universe that I knew.
I tried to think about it based on my Catholic beliefs that insisted I
could only leave
my body if I died. Did I just
have a close encounter with death? After several hours of trying to make
sense out of
the experience, I fell asleep
without any answers.
I spent the next day arguing with
myself about the experience. My whole belief system was blown to pieces.
Seeing
is believing, and I could not
deny that I had experienced the vibrations, the hissing sound, the paralysis
and the blue
ring of energy. I even "saw"
through my closed eyelids. I knew I was not hallucinating, I was not insane,
I was not
dreaming and I was not under
hypnosis. My experience was very "real" to me, as real as my normal waking
consciousness, if not more real
than that.
My first observation was that
some kind of nonphysical reality existed. That observation was a direct
contradiction
of my scientific beliefs because
science had been leading me to believe there was no such thing as a nonphysical
reality.
Furthermore, I reasoned, Einstein's
theory of relativity says that matter is the same as energy. If a person
could
consciously leave their body
and enter a truly nonphysical world, they wouldn't exactly be "matter,"
or "energy" as
we know it. Science left no room
for "consciousness" or "spirit" in their formulas. Science led me to believe
that
there were only three basic dimensions
of experience (plus time) and five senses. Everything else was labeled
superstition, nonsense, hallucination
or possibly religion.
There is a fact of logic that
when a premise is wrong, any conclusions made from that premise are also
wrong. Since
I had discovered a premise of
science that was wrong, or at the very best incomplete, I deduced that
many or all of
the conclusions made by modern
science were also wrong. At the very least, they were ignoring some major
facts.
My own scientific training had
led me to distrust science itself! I could no longer trust the textbooks
I loved as a
child! Nevertheless, I believe
that if a system works, it is okay to use it until you find something that
works better. I
decided that I would still use
the scientific method as a tool but never completely trust science again.
Meanwhile,
the only thing I could do to
find peace of mind was to try to induce more out-of-body experiences and
learn more
about the nonphysical world.
My inner turmoil didn't end with my scientific belief system. I was Catholic. And that caused its own complications.
The Catholic system taught me
to believe in one "Heaven," one "Hell" and one Earth. On judgment day,
they said,
God judges a person to be either
"good" or "bad." The people labeled "bad" go to hell forever, and the people
labeled "good" go to heaven forever.
And of course, until you die, you spend your days on earth.
I could guess what the Catholics
would say about a nonphysical reality. The liberal Catholics would probably
say
that I was being absurd, and
they had science to back them up. Fundamentalists would probably say that
any such
experience must surely be the
work of the Devil, trying to lead my soul into sin.
Still, I refused to believe I
was being tricked: Seeing is believing. I had seen that a nonphysical place
existed and it
wasn't "heaven" or "hell." Therefore,
I had also found a basic premise of Catholicism that was wrong. I decided
not to trust what the Catholics
had taught me because they were just as ignorant of this nonphysical world
as I had
been.
I continued going to church for
a while, but I started an intense examination of my Catholic beliefs. Hoping
to find
some answers, I found a Bible
that I got as a confirmation gift, and I read the entire New Testament
and much of
the Old Testament. The Bible
convinced me that Jesus was a good man, and taught good lessons. In fact,
I agreed
with everything that Jesus was
supposed to have said.
But even what I read in the Bible
didn't agree with my Catholic belief system! Heavy questions nagged
in my heart.
Why does the Catholic church
insist that Jesus is the son of God, when Jesus called himself the "son
of man"
repeatedly? Why do they pray,
"Lord, I am not worthy to receive you" then immediately they receive him?
Why do
they pray for their own petty
interests instead of entrusting that God would take care of the world?
Why do they
preach about needing to fear
God? Why do they hold carnivals and bingo games when Jesus said not to
use a place
of worship in these ways, and
even kicked moneychangers out of a temple? Why, indeed, do they pass a
money
plate in church? Why do they
spend millions and millions of dollars on grandiose churches-- have you
ever seen St.
Peters Basilica? --when people
are starving? Why do they call the pope, "our holy father" when Jesus said
not
to call anyone father (Matthew
23:9)? Why do the Catholics go to church and pray in public when Jesus
said, "when
you pray, go into a room by yourself...in
your secret place" (Matthew 6:5). Why do people go to church on Sunday
and are unspiritual the rest
of the week? It seemed wrong that, as a Catholic, going to church was my
obligation
and, once fulfilled, I was free
to be as mundane and unspiritual as I wanted. Just one out-of-body experience
blasted
that whole hypocritical concept
out of the water: During my OBE, I saw that I was a spiritual being--in
fact, I was a
spirit--and the thought of dying
without some real relationship with God was scary. Before my OBE, it was
enough
to recite prayers I didn't even
understand. After my OBE, it was clear I needed to do more.
Eventually I came to realize that
my Catholic belief system was not spiritual at all. The closer I looked,
the more I
understood. So I stopped going
to church and embarked on a truly spiritual path. I don't mean to imply
that all
Catholics are unspiritual. It's
just that I needed to find my own answers.
Since my OBE taught me to have
a real concern with spiritual matters, I realized that my OBE had taught
me to be
more spiritual, not less. I decided
that God would not send me to hell for leaving the church and finding my
own
spiritual path.
I resolved to ignore the pain,
ignore the fear, ignore the danger, and take my chances with death and
damnation to
discover the truth. I decided
to keep trying every night, until I got more results. Meanwhile, I decided
to "raid" the
Minneapolis Public Library to
find more information on OBEs, and other methods of producing them.
My First Out-of-Body Experience
The morning of November 1, 1979,
started out normal. I woke up around 7:00am, did my usual morning routine
and
caught a bus to the University
of Minnesota. I got to the University at 9:00am, walked into my favorite
computer
lab and started programming.
I worked furiously on a microcomputer game for several hours until it was
time for my
Thursday class. I hurried off
to class, took copious notes during class, then hurried back to the computer
lab.
This time I logged into the University's
timesharing computer and started working on another game I wrote. A
hockey game was playing on a
radio in the back of the lab. I worked on that computer game until 10:00pm
that
night. After twelve hours of
intense programming I started getting tired and hungry. I hadn't eaten
since breakfast.
I signed off the computer and
caught the next bus home.
When I got home at 10:30pm, I
was hungry. I looked in the refrigerator and found a big pan of lasagna.
My mom
must have made me a big lasagna
dinner and I missed it by staying late at the University! I took out a
big slice of
lasagna, heated it and wolfed
it down. Ordinarily I would have made my usual attempt to leave my body,
but that
night I was just too tired. I
went to bed at 11:30pm and was asleep the minute my head hit the pillow.
I fell into a deep sleep and started
dreaming a programmer's most hated and feared dream: the programming
dream. The same dream plagued
me for hours: I was sitting at a computer terminal, asking myself, "How
can I
make this program better?"
I put up with that dream for four
annoying hours. That was all I could stand. I became so annoyed by this
dream that
I couldn't take any more. Slowly
I turned my attention away from the dream. I slowly forced myself to become
conscious, but as I did, I noticed
the dream was still going on! Somehow I was awake and asleep at the same
time!
What happened next is hard to
describe. My consciousness was split into five parts. Each part was separate
and
unique, yet I was each of them
simultaneously. Each was thinking its own thoughts, and communicating with
the
other four. All five of "me"
were arguing about the computer game and how to make it better!
The feeling was beyond words:
I was five personalities at the same time and I was talking to myself!
One of my five
selves asked, "Well, how can
we make the spacewar game better?" Another "me" said, "Well, I think we
should
allow more interactive communication
between space ships." Yet another "me" replied, "No, I think it's more
important to improve the fighting
ability of the computer-controlled opponent ships." One of my five selves
was
bored to tears watching this
whole conversation and tried to force itself to consciousness. Now that
"I" was
conscious, I was fascinated at
what was happening: I was conscious and split into five parts and each
of them were
taking turns talking.
At first I tried to follow the
conversation, but something strange started happening. As I became more
conscious,
my four other selves seemed to
speed up! I tried to keep up with the conversation, but the talking became
faster
and faster. Soon they sounded
like a tape player in fast-forward mode, and I lost track of what they
were saying.
Meanwhile, the voices faded into
the distance and seemed to disappear.
My consciousness was no longer
split. I was completely awake and aware of my surroundings, but I knew
something was not normal. My
body felt unusual. It felt odd to be conscious and yet still asleep.
Just then, I got a strange feeling
all over, like a shiver over my whole body. I listened to see if I could
hear what
caused the strange feeling. I
heard what sounded like a hockey announcer in the background! I thought,
"Now
that's odd. Where could that
be coming from?" I wondered if the sound could be coming from the bathroom
where
we kept a small radio. It sounded
a little bit too loud for that; the radio had to be closer to my bedroom.
I wondered if a radio was playing
in our dining room, which was next to my bedroom. That didn't make sense
because there weren't any radios
in that room. Besides, the radio seemed a bit too loud for that, too. I
figured the
radio must be in my bedroom somewhere.
I thought for a moment that my
little alarm clock/radio might have turned on in the night, but it seemed
too loud
even for that. It was loud enough
to be my stereo, but I remembered turning it off before going to bed. Besides,
when I listened closer, the hockey
announcer sounded even closer than my stereo.
As I listened, the sound of the
hockey announcer's voice grew louder and louder as if someone were turning
up the
volume steadily. I started to
worry as the sound became louder and louder, until finally my ears were
hurting and I
was ready to scream with the
pain.
Suddenly it stopped and I experienced
complete and total silence. Another strange feeling came over me: I felt
like
I was completely separate from
my body, although I was still occupying the same space. I decided to try
to get out.
I had read a few OBE books by then. Some of them had good techniques to separate the consciousness from the body, but none of them said what to do next! How could I get away from the body I was laying in? Since I was in my astral body, gravity didn't affect me, so I didn't just "fall" out of the body. My astral body could pass right through physical matter, so I didn't think I could grab onto anything to pull myself out. I didn't think I could push my way out either; what could I push against?
I thought about the problem for
a few minutes. Then I examined my physical body and noticed that it seemed
solid
on the outside edges. The edges
looked like a barrier of gray. My physical body seemed like a bottle; it
was solid
on the outside, but hollow on
the inside. I was like the liquid inside the bottle, fluid and elastic,
but there was no way
out of the bottle!
At first I tried to twist myself
inside the physical body so I could climb out the stomach. I wiggled my
astral arms out
of the physical arms, like taking
off a tight sweater. Then I squirmed until I was under the rib-cage. I
reached my
astral arms up, and tried to
claw my way through the stomach. I clawed and clawed, but some barrier,
some
force-field, was holding me back.
The harder I struggled against the barrier, the more impossible it seemed
to
move. I managed to inch my way
for a little while but gave up and lay down again.
I decided to try another way out.
I lifted my legs over my head, and did a backward somersault over my head
and
out of my body.
I felt free and weightless. I
wanted to float slowly up to the ceiling. With that thought, I started
to float gently up.
Then I looked up and thought
about my destination, the top of the ceiling. Suddenly, I whooshed up to
the ceiling. I
looked around the room with a
sense of delight.
I looked straight down at my body. It was under the bed covers, but from what I could see it lo>
I rolled over and looked at the time. It was 3:45am in the morning.
I recalled the whole incident
three or four times in my mind, so I wouldn't forget to write down any
of the details
later. During the experience
I was perfectly cool, calm and collected. That is, until I crashed into
my body. Now that
I was safely in my body I felt
the full realization of what had happened: I had literally been outside
my body. The
more I thought about it, the
more scary it seemed. My heart was still pounding with excitement. However,
I was
more tired than I was afraid,
so I managed to calm myself down enough to drift back to sleep.
The next thing I knew, the computer
conversation dream started again! This time I realized right away what
was
happening and I was immediately
"zapped" out of my physical body again. Like before, I was separate from
my
body, but still laying inside
it. I was too cautious to get up and walk around outside my body, but I
didn't want to
waste the opportunity to explore.
I decided to do some experiments while still laying inside my body.
The first experiment was a simple
one: I wanted to see if I could lift my astral arms and look at them. If
I could see
them, what would they look like?
I bent my astral arms at the elbow
and looked at the arms. They looked and felt perfectly normal and natural.
They
seemed so normal that after shaking
them a few times I convinced myself I was back inside my body! I thought,
"There's nothing unusual about
this; I'm perfectly fine. I'm not out of my body--how silly of me." I tried
to lower my
arms, but I couldn't! It seemed
as if held in some kind of force-field! I pushed and pushed, trying to
force my arms
down to their normal position,
but the harder I tried the more resistance I felt: I could only move them
two inches in
a circle at best. Then I really
panicked! I drew up as much strength as I could to use it against the force-field.
With
all the energy I could muster,
I forcefully slammed my arms back into place.
I blacked out for a second and
went back to full body consciousness. Again I asked myself, "Was it real?"
It was so
real that I convinced myself
I was inside my body! Why did my arms get stuck? I'm not sure. Perhaps
I was so sure
I was in the physical body that
I became part physical and part astral, and my arms were held in limbo.
As I thought about the experience
over and over, I wondered, "Why don't the OBE books mention anything about
this?"
My first two out-of-body experiences
were achieved by becoming conscious during a dream. This is known in
today's literature as Lucid Dreaming.
This method of leaving the body was documented in the early 1900s in books
and articles by Oliver Fox (a
pen name for Hugh Calloway) and Yram (a pen name for Marcel Louis Forhan).
I
hadn't read those books until
after my first experiences. At that point I thought the only way to have
an OBE was
through conscious effort. I will
say more about lucid dreams in chapters 12 and 26.
The Party
The out-of-body experience was
analogous to a party happening in a neighbor's apartment. Up to now, occasional
psychic experiences were like
party noises; I did my best to ignore them. Dabbling with altered states
of
consciousness was like walking
upstairs and putting my ear up to the door. The pokes and prods were like
party
noises I heard from outside.
My first OBE was like opening the door and walking into the party. What
happened
next was like going in, getting
drunk and inviting everyone back to my place!
The day was November 26, 1979. Twenty-four days had passed since my first two out-of-body experiences of November 2. It had been two and one half months since I started exploring altered states of consciousness, trying to learn about the OBE. My playing with altered states had shaken me up quite a bit because of the pokes, prods, sounds and sensations I hadn't expected. My first OBE shook me up even more; It was undeniably real and made the pokes and prods seem trivial in comparison. Little did I know that my dabbling had opened some kind of psychic door.
I was living at home, while attending
classes at the University and working part-time. That day, my mom had a
friendly, nonalcoholic birthday
party, and JP and I started talking about OBEs. He asked me to try a quick
experiment: he held up his right
index finger about an inch away from the space between my eyes, and he
asked me
if I felt anything. I felt a
strange sensation there, as if part of my astral body was being pulled
out of my forehead. I
tried to explain what I felt,
and asked him what it was. He said he didn't know for sure, but the space
between his
eyes worked the same for him.
I hadn't read anything about the "third eye" yet, so I didn't pursue the
matter.
After the party, I went to bed
and made my nightly attempt to induce an out-of-body experience. After
a few
minutes of practice I opened
my eyes and saw movements and lights in midair! I was frightened, and to
make
matters worse I started drifting
away from my body! I panicked and tried my hardest to stay in my body!
Once I
was securely in my body I closed
my eyes and decided not to continue. I eventually managed to fall asleep,
but
much later than normal.
The next morning I woke up tired
with the alarm clock. I had to get up early to go to my 8:00am class at
the
University. I realized I was
too tired to pay attention at class, so I decided to get some caffeine
in my system to help
wake up. Since I hated the taste
of coffee, I went to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of soda pop,
opened it up
and sat down at the breakfast
table. I took a sip and sat there trying to wake up and get motivated.
Without warning
I felt the bottle accidentally
slip out of my hand and my hand closed into a fist. I was startled and
expected to hear a
loud crash as the bottle hit
the floor, but there was no sound. I quickly looked at my hand, and the
bottle was still
there, securely in my hand! It
wasn't psychokinesis; My astral hand had accidentally "let go" of my physical
hand,
but the physical hand held tightly
onto the bottle. I knew right then it was going to be a strange day.
I caught my usual bus to the University
and went to my usual classes. My last class got out at noon, and I needed
to
be at an important meeting at
work by 1:00pm. I debated whether to stop for lunch. Something deep down
inside me
said, "It's okay, you have enough
time." The thoughts seemed to be my own, and yet separate from me, like
a
deeper source of knowledge. I
dismissed it; "That's just my stomach voicing its hunger."
I walked over to a local sit-down
restaurant. I looked at the menu. Their specialty burger looked great,
but it was
served with a small portion of
potato chips. I was very hungry for french fries, but short on cash, so
I ordered the
burger "as is." After the waitress
left I thought to myself, "I have enough money and I'm hungry; I should
have
ordered the fries. I really want
the fries." I didn't want to bother the waitress by changing my order,
so I didn't say
anything.
A few minutes later, the waitress
brought my burger with a large serving of french fries! "Something strange
is
happening here," I thought, "This
is getting weird." Was it a psychic experience? "No," I thought, "It was
just a
coincidence."
When I was almost done with my
lunch, that same "something" deep down inside me said, "You better hurry
or
you'll miss your bus for St.
Paul and miss your meeting." Again I dismissed it, thinking, "That's just
me, worrying
about being late for the meeting."
Nevertheless, I rushed to the end of my meal and paid my bill. I wasn't
charged
for the fries.
I ran across the street to the
bus stop and my bus was just pulling up. How convenient! I got on the bus
and looked
at my watch. It was 12:15pm.
The trip from Minneapolis to St. Paul usually takes 45 minutes, so I felt
confident I
would not be late for the meeting.
Then it occurred to me: If I hadn't rushed through my lunch, I would have
missed
that bus, and I would have been
late for my meeting. Was it a psychic experience? "No," I thought, "It
was just a
coincidence."
I wasn't late for the meeting,
but the meeting kept me from working on an important project, so I decided
to work
late. I worked that night until
9:40pm, then I went to catch my bus back to Minneapolis. By "coincidence"
a bus
pulled up almost as soon as I
got to the bus stop. I got on the bus and sat down. I needed to catch another
bus in
downtown Minneapolis, so I got
out my bus schedule and looked up when the other bus would be at my Minneapolis
bus stop. The bus slowly pulled
away from the bus stop and started sluggishly lumbering down the street
at 15 miles
per hour. My other bus was due
to arrive downtown at 10:15pm and the next bus after that was 11:40pm.
The driver
kept driving at 15 miles per
hour, for the next five city blocks.
Since it was 9:45pm, I only had
30 minutes to get to Minneapolis to catch my 10:15pm bus, and it was usually
a 45
minute bus ride. To make matters
worse, the bus driver was driving 15 miles per hour! I started to get very
discouraged. I was brooding.
I thought to myself, "I wish there were some way I could make this bus
driver
understand that I need to be
in Minneapolis by 10:15pm." One block later the bus pulled up to the next
stop and
another passenger got on board.
Then something strange happened.
The bus pulled away from the bus stop like a bat out of hell! The bus kept
accelerating until he was ten
miles-per-hour over the speed limit! He drove to Minneapolis at breakneck
speeds--speeding the whole way--and
passing up half of his bus stops! He even ran through a red light! He pulled
up
to my Minneapolis bus stop at
10:10pm. That was twenty-five minutes; a new world's record! I got off
the bus and it
tore off into the distance. "Wow!"
I thought, "That's incredible!"
As I patiently waited for my 10:15pm
bus home, I thought to myself again, "Was it a psychic experience?"
How many coincidences can pile up before you believe that something extraordinary
is happening to
you? If someone off the street,
or even a respected scientist, were to tell me of a series of psychic experiences
like
that, I would have laughed in
his face. But since they were happening to me, I couldn't laugh. "All right,"
I admitted
to myself, "things like that
don't just happen 'by coincidence.' That's an excuse I've been using too
long."
I had asked for Out-of-Body Experiences,
not psychic experiences. Somehow I had got them both. Somehow I was
becoming psychic, whether I wanted
it or not. I absolutely loved the psychic things that were starting to
happen, but
I started to worry about my sanity:
What's next--delusions of grandeur? Psychotic behavior? Paranoia? Just
how
important are my thoughts anyway?
Can this power be abused?
"Should I tell anyone what is
happening to me?" I asked myself. "If the experiences were not mine, I
would never
have believed them in a million
years. So how can I expect anyone to believe they happened to me? No way!"
I
not to tell anyone.
As a skeptic, I didn't want to
believe in psychic experiences. I thought it was all a load of rubbish.
But in the years
ahead, as I kept practicing OBEs,
I also kept having psychic experiences. Most days I would have three to
five
experiences I would classify
as "psychic." They happened so often that I couldn't deny they were real.
I doubt that the psychic experiences
were directly related to the out-of-body experiences. Rather, I think they
were
more related to the practice,
during which I would induce altered states of consciousness. I discovered
that when I
became too wrapped up in daily
life, I would have fewer psychic experiences. And if I took the time to
meditate and
explore altered states of consciousness,
I would have more psychic experiences.
I was disappointed in the many
OBE books that never mentioned the connection between OBE practice and
psychic
experiences. People brave enough
to try to induce OBEs should be aware of the connection: When you try for
OBEs, you may get more than you
expect! Some of these psychic experiences can be alarming, unnerving, and
sometimes even scary.
Out of Body Experiences
-- This link is to the site at which the Out of Body Experience was
originally accessed