What Is An Out Of Body Experience?
Out of body experience (OOBE) is where a person in an altered state of consciousness can see their physical body from a distance. OOBEs naturally occur during sleep and in times of trauma or near death experience but are also induced through hypnosis and as a side effect of some medicinal and recreational drugs.Over the course of history we find people trying to explain OOBEs.
The oldest that I could find comes from the ancient Greek philosopher Plato who theorized that they are a reflection of what the spirit could see if it was released from the restrictions of the physical body. He also believed that in this state, it would be possible to freely converse with the spirits of the deceased. Now Plato lived around 428-348 BC what’s amazing is that many people still share these same ideas today. Science may have advanced significantly since Plato’s time but cannot convincingly explain them. The only explanation that science can really provide is that OOBEs are a form of hallucination but can this really explain why so many people have the same delusion?
Why Do People Seek An Out Of Body Experience?
The majority of people who seek an outer body experience simply desire a higher level of consciousness or enlightenment but there are many who are simply curious or want to be entertained.
Is There Any Harm With Out Of Body Experiences?
This has been a long debated question and putting it bluntly, there is no evidence that there is, unless drugs are involved. There are many people who feel OOBEs are deeply disturbing but there are others who find the freedom and ability to roam extremely arousing. Age old fears include inability to return to the physical body leaving the person in a vegetated state, a comma or worse dead! Obviously to prove such claims would require a person to be alive, Can you see the floor here?
Here is an out of body experience kindly submitted by Gerry from Kent (UK)
About 17 years ago, I lived in Lincoln and was involved in a fight for my troubles. I was pushed through a shop window and a large piece of glass embedded in my left groin. Unknown to me at the time, I had a ¾ inch cut through a main artery and shortly after coming through the window, was rushed to the local hospital where I don’t remember much except having a pain in my groin area where a trainee nurse pinched very tightly. She must have been around18 or 19 years of age. I asked her, actually shouted at her in an un-gentlemanly manor to stop pinching me there. Looking back, I’m very grateful to her for not letting go as I would have bleed to death. Any how, the next thing I remember was being in an operating theatre looking down at myself. All I could see was people running around the room and a nurse being shouted at for dropping something on the floor. After I had woken up, I found the same student nurse was in the emergency treatment room sitting next to my bed and holding my left hand. I asked her if she had got into any trouble having dropped something when I was being operated on. She asked who had told me when I explained that I was looking down on myself and had watched everything going on in the room.
Before this experience didn’t believe in anything like this but now I believe!
One last note: If any of the people who worked on me in the hospital in Lincoln in 1989/90 and can recall this story or you was that student nurse, I would like to say a big thank you on behalf of my wife, my children and myself. Thank-you for saving my life
Gerry
