Bad --> How Many Skeptics Have Had OBEs?

[Miss_Kitt]

This is a sincere post by a committed skeptic. I have had some weird stuff happen in my life--many involving migraine, some involving night terrors, and some involving chemicals I will swear to my kid I never took--but I've never had an out-of-body experience.

I've always thought they sounded interesting, and I read a post by a newcomer who described the one she had while in labor. It occurred to me to wonder how many of you (the JREF / Skeptical community) have had them, and what were they like?

So, this is a poll for my interest's sake, and I'd love to have those that have had them put down a description. Given their rate of occurance in the general population, it will also be interesting to see how common they are in a group that is unlikely to be "looking" for such an experience.

Thanks for you time and interest, Miss Kitt

[Miss_Kitt]

There was supposed to be a box appear that let me add my questions so there was a poll? Apparently I misunderstood the instructions.

Oh mighty Thread-gods, please remove this embarassment and let me try again...

Humbly, MK

[Gate2501]

I have had a drug induced one on salvia in which my body seemed to be teleporting into different seats in a room while my main body was visible in the chair I was in. I had 2 other people there that confirmed I never left the chair.

This however is debunked by the fact that they said I rambled on the entire time, and in my experience the *me* in the chair was catatonic and not talking. Apparently I talked about how behind the scenes, the entire universe was built upon ducks on treadmills.

[sleepy_lioness]

I had one episode of depersonalisation/derealisation while under a lot of stress. It was terrifying. I could behave perfectly normally, even go to work etc, but I was floating somewhere above and behind my head watching myself.

Luckily it passed after a few days.

[hipparchia]

I learned to induce OBEs and visit known places (that soon changed to weird dreamlike places). I've had false awakenings when I was certain I sat up in bed only to wake up and find out it was a dream.

A narrow bed usually helped me have more of those experiences. They are fun, but I see nothing supernatural in them.

What also helps is bromide cough medicine which relaxes the muscles and seems to impair my sense of proprioception. Easy to get to a floating sensation.

[YourSpleen]

I had an OBE while I was lucidly dreaming, so I am not sure if it counts.

[Blue Bubble]

Well, I can think of quite a few skeptics who would deserve an OBE award.

[fls]

I have had OBE's. The spontaneous ones were mostly peri-sleep. I can also induce them, but it's not pleasant as it gives me vertigo.

Linda

[TobiasTheViking]

Many a years ago when i still smoked cannabis once in a while(so, 10 years ago or so)

[Scazon]

One of the more famous skeps to have had one is SusanBlackmore (http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/). One day they'll give her an OBE too :) (Brit joke).

[paximperium]

I had one with a concussion. A year back.

I was skiing and went headfirst into a snow bank. It was an interesting experience since I felt myself floating away and seeing myself as I floated away.

If I was coherent I'd probably say: "Aww damn...I lost Pascal's wager." but I was too busy being dizzy and confused after that.

[paximperium]

One of the more famous skeps to have had one is SusanBlackmore (http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/). One day they'll give her an OBE too :) (Brit joke).

Ummm, she had an OBE, become a true believer and finally became a skeptic.

[zooterkin]

Well, I can think of quite a few skeptics who would deserve an OBE award.

Terry Pratchett has one already :)

[Moochie]

A long time ago, when I was <= 6 years old, I had what could be termed an OBE in which I floated above the place where I lived and could move about unencumbered by gravity. What I remember most about it was how vivid it was, and how pleasurable it felt. I later learned to understand it as some kind of lucid dream, possibly brought on by illness and/or medication for illness. I occasionally have lucid dreams when on medication, but none as vivid or pleasurable as the one I recall from childhood.


M.

[slingblade]

I had what I thought for years was some kind of OBE as a child. A sensation as I was sleeping that I floated above my own body.

Then my sister told me, many years later, that she'd been screwing around and had lifted me up in the air and back down, gently, as I slept. We shared a bed back then. She was 16 and I was 6. But the joke backfired on her, as I hadn't (as far as she knew) woken up, nor had I run screaming to mama about it.

So, no.

[Fengirl]

I once had an OBE as part of a sleep paralysis episode, where I suddenly seemed to be outside my body, clinging to the wall of the bedroom. I then seemed to float across the ceiling and look down at myself asleep in bed. Even though I understood that this was a particular type of hallucination, the experience still freaked me out for a while afterwards. It was 5 years ago now, but I still recall my utter confusion when I woke up and realised I'd just had an unreal experience which was, at the time, indistinguishable from reality.

[godless dave]

I've never had an out of body experience. I did have an experience where I briefly felt like my perception was floating slightly above my body and looking down. This was shortly after taking pseudoephedrine.

[Miss_Kitt]

fls -- Tell me, oh She-Who-Seems-to-Be-On-Every-Thread that I'm interested in, and is so damned cool! --you can really induce them? I've never been able to. (Admittedly, it has been years now since I've tried to.)

Is it somewhat like self-hypnosis, rhythmic breathing and such to get the limbic system all fired up? Oxygen deprivation followed by relief??

Color me curious, Miss Kitt

[Babbylonian]

I've only had one "proper" OBE, despite having ingested various recreational drugs in younger days. It was at age 17, brought on by high fever and dehydration during an infection for which I probably should have been in the hospital. While sitting on the toilet I left my body, left the house, turned the house upside down with my mind, came back in convinced that I had accidentally done something terrible, apologized to my mom for destroying the house, and laid down on the couch to continue watching live coverage of air operations during the first Gulf War.

The combination of severe illness and war anxiety resulted in my worst hallucination ever.

[Ron_Tomkins]

I had an OBE while I was lucidly dreaming, so I am not sure if it counts.

Sure it counts. Studies say that it is especially frequent to have OBEs when one is Lucid Dreaming.

It has happened to me many many times.

[Tanstaafl]

I had one episode of depersonalisation/derealisation while under a lot of stress. It was terrifying. I could behave perfectly normally, even go to work etc, but I was floating somewhere above and behind my head watching myself.

Luckily it passed after a few days.


This sounds like exactly what I had a couple of times, caused by a bad reaction to a decongestant. It was a creepy, really awful sensation for me. Fortunately for me it only lasted for an hour or so. I looked out from a vantage point just below the ceiling, and slightly behind myself.

[fls]

Is it somewhat like self-hypnosis, rhythmic breathing and such to get the limbic system all fired up? Oxygen deprivation followed by relief??

Color me curious, Miss Kitt

I don't think I'm going to be much help because I just do it. :)

I've sent you a PM with more details.

Linda

[Agatha]

This has happened to me twice. First time I was in A&E after being hit by a car, and had been given pethidine. I felt I was floating on the ceiling, watching the medical staff treating me. I knew it was a hallucination, and this was confirmed years later when I was in another accident.

This time I was trapped in a car and was given pethidine at the scene before being cut free. I was up in the sky watching firemen cut the car up.

Both times, I was still in pain but the pain was happening to another me; it's hard to describe the sensation, the best I can do is feeling like you are two halves of one person, one in pain and one observing the pain.

Since then I have turned down all offers of pain relief during labour (four kids) and sedation during colonoscopies; I really don't want to feel that out-of-control again.

[Cainkane1]

When I was addicted to valium about 20 years ago I had sleep paralysis and I would dream I was out of bed when in fact i was asleep in bed. I would awake and be so tired that i was immediately go back to a better quality type of sleeping. I went to a doctor, got off the valium and it never happened again.

[coalesce]

Since then I have turned down all offers of pain relief during labour (four kids) and sedation during colonoscopies; I really don't want to feel that out-of-control again.

First, welcome.

Secondly, you just summed up why I never did any drugs. I don't like feeling out-of-control. The idea that I would intentionally induce a surrendering of my free will is something I'd rather not do.

Insofar as the OBE experience, my couple of brushes with it were just lucid dreaming, much like most everyone else here. Interesting, to say the least, but dreams nonetheless.

Michael

[Third Eye Open]

When I was a teenager i used to try to get them all the time, I read several books on it but could never do it.

Guess I didn't do enough drugs.

[blobru]

When I was very young (about 4 years old), I used to feel as if I was falling through the mattress, or coach or chair, just as I feel asleep. I would say, "uh-oh, falling again!", feeling as if my awareness was falling right out of my body, and then fall asleep instantly. Waking up, if I'd been dreaming, there would be a patch of blue sky and clouds seeming to pass over me in a shush of wind (so it was moving, not I), and then I'd be aware of entering our house and myself floating just under the ceiling. I'd slowly rotate 'til I was looking down on me sleeping, rotate to face the ceiling again, then feel myself descend into my sleeping body, and wake up.

I changed bedrooms when I was 5, to one farther away from the living room, and instead of the "falling out of my body / re-entry 'OBE''s" started having night terror / "alien" visitations (not exactly aliens: I remember them as luminous detectives, gumshoes -- hats pulled down so you couldn't see their faces and loose trench coats -- glowing bright pink, yellow, green or orange). They'd circle the bed for what seemed like hours never meeting my gaze or each other's, though occasionally a couple would skulk off to a cornerand appear to be conferring about something. Sometimes one would sit down at the foot of the bed or even crawl into bed beside me, curl up and have a bit of a nap (no wonder, parading around my bed all night must have been exhausting!) It sure was terrifying at first, but less so as it happened so often; finally, I got to kind of like the company. After we moved away and the visitations stopped... I kind of missed them.

"Où sont les nuages, les détectives brillants, d'antan?" (- apologies to F. Villon) :ghost:

[borealys]

I've had false awakenings when I was certain I sat up in bed only to wake up and find out it was a dream.


I get those a lot. Usually when I'm mildly sleep-deprived, or when I'm having a mid-afternoon nap. Sometimes the false awakening lasts long enough for me to dream that I've gone downstairs, picked up the paper, gone into the kitchen, and made myself a cup of tea.

I don't really count that as an OBE, though, since, for all I know at the time, my body is right there with me, digging through the cupboard for the good tea.

I've had some truly spectacular flying dreams in the past six months or so, but those aren't really OBEs, either.

So, I guess my answer is no.

[SisterSmile]

I had an OBE 14 years ago and it was an impressive experience.
It's quite a long story, but it happened while I was the passenger on a motorbike returning from a visit to friends in England back home to Belgium.
While out of my body, I visited my children who stayed with a friend and tried to contact them but they didn't react to my presence. I also returned back to our friends' home we left hours earlier.

It all felt very real still I knew my body was still on the motorbike.
The most impressive of all was the emotion I was experiencing. It's very hard to put in words, but I was in some kind of extreme euphoria.
It felt like the most powerful love for the entire universe and its creations and it flowed through every fibre of my being - up until the point that it got almost unbearable. I got the feeling that my "heart was about to explode".
This euphoria lasted for more than a week and then gradually faded away very slowly.

I cannot explain why that happened to me - I hadn't done drugs or drunk alcohol and I wasn't ill either.

I haven't been able to repeat it - I did experiment with lucid dreaming but it was a completely different experience.

[Gene L]

I'm not exactly sure this qualifies, but I'll report it anyway.

A long time ago, I was engaged in an activity that was pretty much disengaging, and was repetitive and not very interesting. I say this because I'm pretty sure this was why it happened.

Anyway, the entire experience was very, very brief. It was like I was looking at a scene from above, and it seemed (when I thought back) I was looking down at some people around a table. I was conscious of stone walls, and it was like it was from a medieval time. Once I became aware of it and tried to mentally grasp it, it was gone. Brief, in other words.

The same thing happened a few minutes later, but I was more aware of it this time and it didn't last nearly as long. Not that the first time was long, it was maybe 1/10th of a second.

BUT...after thinking about the circumstances, I am convinced it wasn't an OBE, it was something like a "waking dream." Never had anything like it happen again.

[Moochie]

It would be lovely to have these experiences again, to feel the pleasure/euphoria whenever needed. Just dreaming, I guess.


M.

[CurtC]

When I was a lad I had tonsillitis caused by strep several times, which always came with a high fever. I sometimes would get a feeling of floating over to the side of the room, while becoming very small. For some reason, I would most frequently imagine floating over to a window sill. It was a cool feeling, at least fairly cool considering I was sick as a dog.

[sthomson]

When I used to ingest certain drugs back in college, I could induce a state where it felt like my consciousness was floating above my head, but it would get all ruined when I opened my eyes.

So no, no traditional OBEs for me.

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Once, when I was 11 years old. My father had taken me and my younger sister to Sweden in the summer during the weeks that they have the most hours in a day. We couldn't sleep a wink and none of the sleeping pills my father reluctantly gave us worked. So, as cautious as he always was about giving children any kind of medication, he gave us each a full dose of his sister's pills.

I hallucinated for hours before I passed out. My sister passed out about 30 minutes before I did and slept for hours.

We were so scared and embarrassed about the incident, we didn't tell my father until two or three years later.

[JonWhite]

Some years ago when I used to be big on meditating (TM) I had several.

My personal favorite occurred whilst in France on a documentary shoot. Earlier that evening I had meditated for almost an hour whilst sitting in a van guarding camera gear as everyone else were at a meeting in an estate on the outskirts of Paris. Later that night, in the small hours, sitting in the front passenger seat as we were driving down to Marseille I suddenly "flew" straight out through the windscreen and up to the stars. Fantastic! At a guess the experience probably lasted for about a minute before my rational brain kicked in with a "What the Feck...???" type thought and I was "pulled" extraordinarilly rapidly back into my body.

Genuinely Out of Body? Nah, don't think so. It felt as real as sitting here typing this but I still see it (and all other such OBE experiences) as nothing more than simply being in the hypnogogic twighlight zone between wakefullness and sleep prompted by the relaxation the meditation caused.

The experiences were always spontaneous and random, and haven't occurred for a long while since I almost never bother meditating any more.

As for learning to initiate one deliberately I never could, but if I recall the aforementioned Susan Blackmore includes a few ideas on how to do so in her book (http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Body-Investigation-Out-Body/dp/0897333446) on the subject.

[luchog]

I used to have minor OBEs all the time when I was a child. Just the "floating up and out of my body" thing; typically shortly before falling asleep. I even learned how to induce them if I was in suitably relaxed. I never really thought much about them, other than the fact that they were a pretty cool experience. As I grew older, it became harder and harder to do; and is now almost impossible.

[duggie]

I had an OBE on my first skydive (solo static line, not tandem). Along with the sensation of observing myself from outside my body, I had a strong "oceanic" sensation of oneness with the universe. I also remember being siezed with the notion that I had acquired great wisdom, and that I could easily solve any famous unsolved mathematical problem, if only I could bring one to mind.

It was an extremely pleasant sensation, to the extent that I took up the sport in earnest in a bid to recapture it, but never did.

Psychologically, I suspect that the incredible relief of seeing that beautiful open canopy, and the sensation of floating in space one gets from parachuting triggered the OBE.

It remains one of my most treasured experiences.