Out of Body, Out of Mind?

Out of Body Experiences and Astral Projection are the same thing to some authors on the subject. Some writers even include Lucid Dreaming as just another description for an OBE or projection. The more technical experts on this subject however will view each term as a different event arising and experienced in a different form to the other. I would tend to agree that at least two of these three names are not the same thing.


Here is a description of Astral Projection by Abisheck Agarwal;

"It is a process by which the human consciousness temporarily leaves the physical body and functions independently, while the physical body remains passive and still throughout.

This results in observing the world from a point of view other than that of the physical body and by means other than those of the physical senses.

Sometimes, however we have complete waking consciousness during the experience, and remember the event in every detail upon returning to the physical body. Mostly this happens without any forethought, by complete surprise and more often than you might think."

When the human consciousness leaves the body it travels in a vehicle more suited to the astral plane, the astral body. Robert Bruce in talking about OBEs clarifies the point well by saying;

"When you project out of body you are not leaving your body an empty shell devoid of mind, spirit, and soul. The term out-of-body experience is really a misnomer, because your spirit is not actually departing your physical body. Rather, you are transferring a perfect thinking copy of your consciousness into a projected double that can exist outside the confines of your physical body and mind. The transfer of this copy occurs automatically during the OBE exit process. In essence, this can permit projectors to experience two places at once."

This creation of a double, a copy of your mind, is the reason that two streams of memory and experience can exist at one time, as first mentioned in the post Who is The Night Stalker.

It gets more complicated as other copies/bodies come into the theory and is confused further by the fact that the names for them will differ between projectors & authors. The descriptions of these bodies may also often be coloured slightly by a particular religious outlook.

For the sake of clarity I will look at the breakdown of our bodies and describe them in terms that are the made the most accessible. Perhaps a better understanding of the attributes of each body will provide some greater insight for the sleep paralysis victim.