PsiPog.net

Alright. This is a little complicated - so if you're interested, try and follow along with these thoughts... sorry if they come out jumbled .

I had a possible OBE last night. The tricky part is that during the possible-OBE, I identified it as an OBE, and it was not in the same location as my physical body. I'm sleeping in my Maryland dorm room... and the possible-OBE was experienced in my parents' old room in upstate New York.

Now, there are two categories of different possible explainations for this:

1. It wasn't an OBE. ("Then what was it?", "Then why did you identify it as an OBE during the experience?", "What does that say about previous OBEs that you identified as OBEs?", "Does a real OBE even exist?").

2. It was an OBE. ("Then why wasn't it in the same location as your body like your previous 70+ OBEs?").

So, let's assume that it wasn't an OBE, and I simply mis-identified it during the experience (very possible). If it wasn't an OBE, then it's most likely a dream. It could have been mistakenly identified because of my desire to leave my body, and my intention before I went to bed to have an OBE. This intention could have manifested in the dream, and produced a false OBE based on what I expected to experience (the mind does this for lots of things... for example, if you are thinking about skiing right before bed time, you might have a dream about skiing... I just happen to be thinking about OBEs right before bed time, so my dream was reflecting that).

Now the important question: how do I determine whether or not my past OBEs were dreams based on wish fulfillment? I.e., if it's possible for me to fool myself into incorrectly identifying an OBE, then how do I determine what are real OBEs, and which are false ones? Do real OBEs even exist? Perhaps I am just misidentifying every single OBE! (wrong: because this wouldn't explain some expereinces I've had in the past).

The point still exists though: how do I determine if I've had an OBE? If I am capable of fooling myself, then what methods can I use to prevent that from happening?

Ok - now let's backtrack to the other possibility: I had an OBE. Why wasn't it in the same location as my body, like all my other OBEs? Well, there could be a million explainations for that. Perhaps I was unconscious when I left my body, and unconsciously travelled to my parents' old bedroom... then "woke up" consciously in that location, confused. Perhaps I left my body, but since visual perception in the OBE state is very shakey, my mind incorrectly interpretted my surroundings as my parents' old bedroom. Perhaps a million other explainations.

I have experienced something that contradicts my 70+ past OBE experiences. Both categories of explaination produce very strong questions.

What do I personally feel happened? If I probe my intuition, it feels like... it wasn't an OBE. It feels like I incorrectly identified it as an OBE during the experience, and that it was really a dream based on my desire to have an OBE. If this is true, then the question becomes: have I done this in the past? I think the answer is yes. Although, I don't think I've done it a lot. Perhaps 5-10 times.

For those hardcore skeptics: no, this isn't evidence that OBEs don't exist. It's evidence that the mind is insanely more complicated than the normal OBE-theory can accommodate. Things are not clear cut. It's not as simple as just popping outside of your body and floating around "like a ghost". There are serious problems in perceiving the external world, and determining what exactly you are experiencing. But, at the same time, it is something more than dreaming. You can perceive your immediate external environment and get real results. But it's not easy, nor does it happen a lot.

But it is possible. And it does happen.

~Sean