A final Theory about the real cause for OBEs

Ron_Tomkins

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Ron_Tomkins
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So I've been studying the phenomena of Out of Body Experiences for quite a few years and I've experienced a couple. I am of course entirely skeptical of the "Out of Body" explanation, since all of my OBEs have had the basic qualities of a Lucid Dream (meaning, the room I see is not exactly my bedroom the way it really looks), only that there's the aspect of feeling that you're floating outside your body.

So yesterday morning I woke up and then fell asleep again. This triggered one of those OBEs (Which are normally triggered that way: through waking up and then going back to sleep). As I began feeling the vibrations in my ear, I felt that I was begining to float and spin. And so, as I was going through the experience, it just popped into my head: Wouldn't the fact that I'm putting some kind of weird preassure in my ears, be the main cause why I feel I'm spinning?

(Explanation: most people who experience OBEs, they get this kind of vibration in their ears. It's hard to describe, but you can do it consciously. It is sometimes triggered accidentally if you blink really hard. Then you hear this BRRRRRRR in your ears. Now, our sense of balance is in our ears. That is why people who suffer from laberintitis get dizzy and they feel like the room is spinning. This is what led me to think if perhaps, the fact that we're putting a great deal of preassure in our ears while having the OBE, creates the effect of our body spinning in the air)
 
Ron_Tomkins said:
since all of my OBEs have had the basic qualities of a Lucid Dream (meaning, the room I see is not exactly my bedroom the way it really looks), only that there's the aspect of feeling that you're floating outside your body.
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What you're referring to is usually called Sleep Paralysis. I've experienced it quite a few times. It's always a bit unnerving. One time I had the sensation that my father was standing in my doorway trying to talk to me, which was odd because he'd been dead for a few years. If I were prone to woo, I'd probably have seen this as proof of communicating with the dead. The fact that these things only happen when I'm in bed half-asleep keeps me from falling for such fantasies.

Steve S.
 
When I've had a couple of OBE's that are like (or are) lucid dreams I've never had that sound in my ears. But I have found out that if I hear for a while that high-pitched whine that I think we all hear when we are surrounded by quiet then I tend to get the floating sensation.
 
I've had many years of sleep paralysis/lucid dreams/"out of body" experiences, too. Only one time have I ever heard a sound like that. To me it was so loud, it sounded like a jackhammer or drill and seemed to be coming from the back part of my skull. I can see how it is similar to the sound you hear after you blink hard, but mine was louder and didn't seem to be coming from the area of my physical ears.
 
ExMinister said:
I've had many years of sleep paralysis/lucid dreams/"out of body" experiences, too. Only one time have I ever heard a sound like that. To me it was so loud, it sounded like a jackhammer or drill and seemed to be coming from the back part of my skull. I can see how it is similar to the sound you hear after you blink hard, but mine was louder and didn't seem to be coming from the area of my physical ears.
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No but that's it: You're right on track. That's how many people describe it: As a drill coming from the back part of your skull.

And so my question remains open to those who have more experience on the medicine fields: Is it posible that this preassure in the ears is what generates the feeling of floating and spinning?
 
How are you putting weird pressure on your ears? Sleeping on your side? I've generally had these experiences while lying on my back. Also, I mostly had them during my college years & early 20s. In another thread about OBEs, other people seemed to have had them mostly in their 20s as well, which I thought interesting. Do you think you could produce one by purposefully putting pressure against your ears?
 
Tiktaalik said:
How are you putting weird pressure on your ears? Sleeping on your side? I've generally had these experiences while lying on my back. Also, I mostly had them during my college years & early 20s. In another thread about OBEs, other people seemed to have had them mostly in their 20s as well, which I thought interesting. Do you think you could produce one by purposefully putting pressure against your ears?
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I don't know if I am indeed putting preassure in my ears when I do that thing for which I have no name (because I don't know what is it I'm doing) which creates a vibratory sound in my ears. That's why I'm asking: could that be the reason why I get the spinning sensation?. That's the essential question of this thread.
 
Mine was accompanied by a sensation of movement but not spinning. I never thought to associate it with the sound. Interesting theory. I was lying on my back, though. It was followed by what seemed like a vivid out of body experience but with the clock in my room a different color and in a slightly different place than it was in "real" life.
 
I had an experience of floating whilst laying on my back on a sofa a few years ago. I am not prone to this kind of phenomenon, but this feeling came about during a period of light awakening.

Firstly, I could feel my feet getting light and the effect was moving up my body, but my head never felt that it was lifting so I ended up, tilted so to speak. I could not move muscles in this situation, until I fully awoke.

I was perfectly relaxed, no buzzing in my ears, and the room looked just the same.

I would question whether sleep paralysis is the same as an OBE, or whether you have to have sleep paralysis as a pre-requisite to an OBE.

Perhaps others who know more could enlighten me.
 
In my experience they are different things. OBEs are like lucid dreams but instead of waking up in a dream environment, you either feel yourself moving "out" of your body, or just wake up feeling you are hovering over your body. In OBE the environment looks somewhat realistic, though will usually be slightly changed around. In sleep paralysis you think you've awakened but then realize you are paralyzed and can't move. Most of the time this is accompanied by feelings of terror. In hallucinatory sleep paralysis (the kind I experience regularly) it seems there is some type of demonic presence or evil presence in the room. If it attacks, you are paralyzed and helpless to fight it off and unable to fully awaken no matter how you struggle or yell out, which is even more terrifying.

I read in another thread recently about a theory involving REM bleedthrough where it stated that some people have more REM sleep than others, with the idea that possibly this would account for why some of us are more prone to these types of experiences, including near-death experiences. They all seem so "real" to the person experiencing them, and yet they all often include some "hallucinatory" component, which is what first made me consider they are not "real" but brain manufactured experiences. I thought this theory was interesting because I've had a lot of "near death experience" material come through in my lucid dreams, OBEs and sleep paralysis episodes (tunnels, lights, otherworldly beings, traveling through space).

Getting back to the topic of this thread, I wonder if the part of the brain affected during REM has any connection to the inner ear or to anything that might produce the sounds or the spinning sensation.
 
ExMinister said:
In my experience they are different things. OBEs are like lucid dreams but instead of waking up in a dream environment, you either feel yourself moving "out" of your body, or just wake up feeling you are hovering over your body. In OBE the environment looks somewhat realistic, though will usually be slightly changed around. In sleep paralysis you think you've awakened but then realize you are paralyzed and can't move. Most of the time this is accompanied by feelings of terror. In hallucinatory sleep paralysis (the kind I experience regularly) it seems there is some type of demonic presence or evil presence in the room. If it attacks, you are paralyzed and helpless to fight it off and unable to fully awaken no matter how you struggle or yell out, which is even more terrifying.
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Then I definitively haven't had any sleep paralisis nor hallucinatory sleep paralisis experiences... and thank God for that! (No. Not literally).



ExMinister said:
Getting back to the topic of this thread, I wonder if the part of the brain affected during REM has any connection to the inner ear or to anything that might produce the sounds or the spinning sensation.
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I don't know. You think? Even if you can trigger the vibrations when being fully awake and conscious?
 
Ron_Tomkins said:
Then I definitively haven't had any sleep paralisis nor hallucinatory sleep paralisis experiences... and thank God for that! (No. Not literally).






I don't know. You think? Even if you can trigger the vibrations when being fully awake and conscious?
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I'm an experiencer, definitely no scientist, but have been researching sleep paralysis (when you have this, it is highly motivating to try to figure out what is causing it in the hope of being able to get rid of it). There has to be some rational explanation for it, though I've been discouraged by what little has been discovered about it so far. What I suspect is that phenomena like OBEs, sleep paralysis and NDEs will be found to be linked to a common brain region or function/dysfunction (such as the theory of REM cycles), and this should explain even the noise. I haven't been able to find that thread or I'd link to it. The article was posted by Steve Grenard, who apparently works in a sleep laboratory setting, debated by CFLarsen as I recall, but I found it interesting.
 
I'm suprised that nobody in this thread has yet linked to the research that has been done in artificially inducing an OBE.

Several years ago it was discovered that this can be induced in epilepsy patients by applying an electrical stimulus to a brain area called the angular gyrus:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/health/psychology/03shad.html

More recently, it has been discovered that it can be induced in healthy individuals via virtual reality goggles:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070823141057.htm

So we know a part of the brain that is related to this, and we know it can be induced without physically altering the brain. In other words, there are entirely non-paranormal explanations for OBEs.
 
Out of body experiences, unlike dreams or lucid dreams, unfold in a logical sequence of events, just as waking experiences do, rather than a haphazard jumble of people, images and locations.
 
ExMinister said:
In hallucinatory sleep paralysis (the kind I experience regularly) it seems there is some type of demonic presence or evil presence in the room. If it attacks, you are paralyzed and helpless to fight it off and unable to fully awaken no matter how you struggle or yell out, which is even more terrifying.
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Ahh, The Blackness ;)

I still can't sleep on my back voluntarily without experiencing sleep paralysis. It drives me nuts when I see people on TV trying to fall asleep on their backs. Which has put a dampner on my OBE's. When I can fall asleep on my back and get by The Blackness I usually have some lucid dream, OBE or astral projection. I used to wake up particularily refreshed after a lucid dream in which I'm flying. But night terrors or sleep paralysis seemed hardly worth the risk of falling asleep on my back hoping for a flight through the ether :) But in regards to the OP, it is a curious thing to think that perhaps the equalization of pressure on the inner ear as a result of sleeping on your back is responsible for OBE's. I'm not sure what this guy has to say about it.
 
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