Out of Body Travel

From LoveToKnow Paranormal

If you've ever been curious about out-of-body travel, this article details the current scientific and religious beliefs surrounding the phenomenon. Traveling "outside" of your body is a phenomenon and belief system that is very wide in scope, with numerous theories and beliefs that attempt to explain it. This article incorporates the most common theories in order to provide you with a thorough overview of the phenomenon.

Out of Body Travel

What Is Out-of-Body Travel?

Out-of-body travel is known by a wide variety of other terms including astral travel, astral projection and psychic travel. Many scientists explain the experience by pointing out how the phenomenon can be induced through various techniques. They believe that many people who believe they are traveling outside of their bodies are simply being fooled by sensations of their bodies and subconscious manifestations of their minds. On the other hand, believers in out-of-body experiences point out the numerous anecdotal stories where experiencers have not only traveled outside their bodies, but have also noted facts and events that they were not consciously aware of while asleep. They also point out those stories where other experiencers have even predicted the future.

Debunking the Out of Body Experience

In 2007, writer Sandra Blakeslee of the New York Times published an in-depth article detailing how scientists were able to use virtual reality goggles and other instruments to induce the sensation of an out-of-body experience. In these examples, scientists used visual illusions and physical sensations to "trick" the mind into believing that it existed within a body other than its own. Scientists point to such experiments as proof that when people are on an operating table or in the paralysis phase of the normal human sleep cycle, a person's mind miscalculates its own physical position outside of its real physical location. Many people experience a similar sensation as they fall asleep at night and just before falling asleep, sometimes feel as though they are floating. Many people who practice deep meditation also report the same physical sensation upon entering a deep trance.

Proving It's More than Delusion

The flaw with the current scientific explanation for the phenomenon is that there exists such a wide range of anecdotal stories and experiences. The experiencer was able to not only visually identify locations and events far from where they were physically located during the episode, but in some cases the experiencer was even able to successfully detail places and events that happened in the future. While many scientists shrug off these stories as unproven or made up, other scientists are considering the possibility that science might not fully understand the phenomenon of out-of-body travel.

The following are a few examples of those anecdotal experiences reported by people who believe the events that took place were real out-of-body experiences.

At Archive X, one visitor from Seattle, Washington submitted a story about being so exhausted and worried about her infant daughter's failing health that one night as she fell asleep on the nursery floor, she suddenly found herself looking at her own body on the floor through her infant daughter's eyes. Another reader at Archive X reported how he and his twin brother shared an identical out-of-body dream at exactly the same time, and that his brother saved him from the deathly clutch of a strange, dark-suited angel of death.
Writer Ed Conrad reported on the experiences of two surviving miners, David Fellin and Henry Throne of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, who in 1963 shared identical out-of-body experiences which were later verified in psychological evaluations and media interviews. In one instance, they both saw Pope John XXIII appear within a blue light. The Pope had just passed away no more than ten weeks before this mining accident where 18 other miners died.
The most famous example of predicting the future during an out-of-body experience is that of Edgar Cayce. Cayce was reported to induce a meditative state that included out-of-body experiences in order to obtain his predictions about the future.

Whether or not you believe that these astral experiences are authentic or nothing more than imagination, the reported experiences of countless individuals suggest that there is more to these experiences than misinterpreted physical sensations and a confused mind.

Religion and Astral Traveling

Numerous religions across the world incorporate some form of out-of-body experience or astral travel into their ceremonies, rituals and practices. The following are a few examples of how the experience fits into those belief systems.

Many Native American ceremonies involved drumming and ingesting the smoke of specific plants in order to induce these experiences during a waking state. Through the generations, Native American cultures report communication with the spirit world.
Chinese Taoism involves the use of breathing techniques to enter a meditative state and to modify the body's energy state in order to enter an astral plane. Buddhism also incorporates references to achieving astral projection in enlightened states.
Many Hindus believe that once enlightened, a soul can experience the power or "siddhis" of spiritual travel.
Tibetan monks are probably the most famous eastern practitioners of these ancient practices. They reportedly use chants and chimes in order to help enhance a meditative state that induces an out-of-body experience.

More Information

You can learn more about meditation and out-of-body experiences from the following LoveToKnow Paranormal articles.

The reality is that regardless of its cause, experiences of traveling outside of the physical body have been recorded by the human race throughout history.

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