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OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCE (OOBE)
This is a phenomenon, when a man feels himself being out of his own body, even in non-physical worlds. Out-of-body experiences (OoBE) are considered paranormal. Though, these kinds of phenomena have been reported since the ancient times, they have never been proved scientifically. Not even a single satisfying explanation of the given phenomenon is available so far. Out-of-body experience is also known as an “astral projection”, “astral tour”, and “exteriorization”. Almost one-fourth of the western elder generation, according to them, has experienced this phenomenon, at least once in their life.
OoBE could be caused by bilocation, appearance of dual personalities, crisis visions, and mutual sightings and near death experiences. Mystic people, like Emanuel Swedenborg, who had visions of heaven and hell, were capable of surviving OoBE in the alien spheres of existence.
In some of the cases of OoBE, a physical or ghost-shaped form of that person, from which it got formed, has become visible to other people. In other cases, the person, from whom the projection was formed, could see others, being invisible to them. In those cases, when the person’s double was visible to other surrounding people, he looked just like a copy of the real person right up to the clothes.
Some people, who survived OoBE, said that, during this experience, they have felt the flashes of light or energy flows. Others say that they touched up on some kind of silver thread, so-called astral thread, which was joining their projection with the physical body. They also said that they travelled with the speed of thoughts and all the material objects were seemed to them like ghosts.
Researchers, studying OoBE, are unable to exactly identify what is this all about. Many theories were put forward, for instance: it is a real projection, having some kind of form, reminding an astral body; this is a projection of consciousness, which is seemed to others as if having a physical form, it is a hallucinatory experience; it is a mental projection, characterised by extra-sensory reception, - either it is a clairvoyance, or a telepathy, or it could be both at the same time. If there is a certain form, which is capable of separating itself from the body, and then again entering the same, then it is just impossible to scientifically explain and measure the same. Psychiatrist Karl Gustav Yung stated that, at least in some the cases of OoBE the projections are archetypes, hypothetic primordial collective unconscious constituents, which, according to Yung, are common for the whole human hood.
In spite of the absence of any evidence, the belief that the consciousness is capable of separating itself from the body is common for all the nations. Ancient Egyptians had faith in “a wandering “ka”, as a mode of existence of consciousness and in soul (“ba”). Plato also considered that the soul can leave a body and start travelling on its own. Other Greece and Roman philosophers, such as Socrates, Pliny, Plotinus and Plutarch, described the experiences, resembling OoBE. In Shamanism, the main activity of Shaman is leaving the body and starting a journey to another world.
In majority of the cases, the OoBE takes place spontaneously. Often during the periods of grave injuries and stresses, as it was noticed in cases of crisis visions, a dying person projects himself away from his body and starts observing other living people. Some of the people are capable of causing their projection on their own (see Bilocation).
The research on OoBE is being conducted from the end of the 19th Century. One of the famous experiments was of Sylvan Muldoon, who was experiencing OoBE spontaneously since the age of 12 years. Muldoon, who was an American, has studied these experiences from 1915 to 1950. He says that he keeps travelling in the form of his ghost double. Muldoon was a sick kid and as his health got deteriorated, his OoBE were occurring very often. He wrote a book about his experiences and research work – “Projection of Astral Body” (1929) – with the co-author and the scientist of psychic affairs, Hereward Carrington.
Modern laboratory experiments with the people, who, according to them, were capable of projecting themselves out of the body on their own, gave controversial and contradictory results. People, who were projected at a far distance recurrently, gave unreliable description of the places, which perhaps they see. The ESP tests pertaining to the experiments on OoBE gave sporadic results. Tests on the behaviour of animals, which were supposedly influenced by the person experiencing OoBE, gave very interesting but extremely uncertain results. The tests, conducted during sleep, have shown that the OoBE are not connected with dreams, which take place during so-called rapid eye movement stage of sleep.
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For the first time in history scientists were able to recreate out-of-body experiences without any use of drugs, in as many as 10 participants of the scientific experiment.
The ten people reported seeing their own bodies from another location while being absolutely awake. This sensation caused some participants to get scared, but others were simply excited.
This experiment is considered an important step to broadening the understanding of relationship between consciousness and human body.
