How to have an out of body experience?

[Drewbot]

Protip: Try Benedryl, sleep on your back, watch a scary movie before you go to bed.

 

[Dessi]

So I was wondering if anyone could share some tips on how to have an OBE or at least point me in the direction of some decent books and/or websites that act as a guide to induce OBEs? I'd be interested to hear about peoples own OBE experiences. I'd prefer not having to open my medicine cabinet or having to hire out the God Helmet though . If I do end up in the grips of some greys on an operational table, so be it, I'll just have to tough it out and I won't blame anyone for this unfortunate experience. I'm also open to the possibility that it is not really possible that one can achieve an OBE through meditation alone.

A few drugs, legal and non-legal, can induce out-of-body experiences:

Cannabis [I do not advocate using this drug. My OBE are for academic interest only.]: high dose of cannabis very easily triggers this feeling, its most profound if you have no other people around you. At the peak, your perspective alternates between first-person and third-person, you can see yourself moving around, you sense body motions as if they happen from very far away. This experience can be positive or neutral. At irresponsibly high doses, users will often feel themselves dissociating in a very unpleasant manner.

Strong doses can contribute to closed eyed visuals, which seem to morph endlessly into random shapes or images, you may feel yourself "pressed" into these images and they randomly shift around. Music tends to intensify this experience.

Cannabis usually suppresses dreams, but the closed-eye visuals can become full-blown hyponogogic sensations. Sexual arousal right on the threshold of sleep can trigger extraordinary feelings of closeness, and exquisite tactile and visual sensuality from first and third person perspectives. Falling deeper and deeper into this state, but not all at once, users typically sit at one level and "break though" to never experienced levels of euphoria. The process is not quick, it can last 45 minutes from start to finish.

Salvia divinorum [I do not advocate using this drug. My OBE are for academic interest only.]: at irresponsibly high doses, this drug is a profound dissociative, you may perceive yourself flickering in and out of existence, perceive yourself existing across multiple slices of time simultaneously, feel your consciousness merging into other objects like walls or paintings, feel yourself breaking away from concrete reality and into an ineffable abstract universe instead, feel these different reality swirling in and around and through each other, feel yourself literally falling through your own ego in an endless loop.

I used a very strong extract hoping for a spiritually enlightening journey, resulting in a purely terrifying experience. Wikipedia has this nice blurb about idiots like me:

Dale Pendell expresses some concerns about the use of highly concentrated forms of salvia. In its natural form salvia is more balanced and benevolent, and quite strong enough, he argues. High strength extracts on the other hand can show "a more precipitous, and more terrifying, face" and many who try it this way may never wish to repeat the experience.

Spironolactone / Aldactone: this a prescription drug which is used for a variety of reasons, such as treating hypokalemia, loss of head hair, excessive body hair, treating acne. I had very bad acne for years, spiro completely cleared my face in 6 weeks, I've never had another breakout, it was more effective than any other face wash, topic, or prescription I've ever had.

This drug has has bizarre side effect of extremely vivid dreams, frequently triggering lucid dreams. The dreams can seems to last for hours, they are so real that you cannot tell whether you're awake or asleep. In my spiro dreams, I've run my hands along carpet and felt every fiber, I could feel every dimple and ridge in a painted wall, see every leaf in trees with exquisite clarity, every item of clothing is detailed and colorful, objects have perfectly proportioned shapes and shadows, you can feel and see the fine detailed grain in wooden doors, sexual experiences in dreams are far far far beyond any level of pleasure or satisfaction you could ever hope to achieve in the real world.

Numerous times I've had false awakenings, sometimes dozens of them in a row, they can be incredibly real and yet lucid at the same time, I've had experiences where I'm actually arguing with people in my dreams because they insist I'm awake and should get up for work, and I tell them to go away because they aren't real.

For the first few months, dreams were extremely violent and just plain weird. Now they're very pleasant, they last such a long long time and appear to tell a story the entire time, many of which are documented in a dream journal. Most dreams are relatively coherent, others have been reality shattering.

Dreams of this nature occur at least once or twice a week, they can be so engaging that you wake up feeling overwhelmed by detail. I haven't found a consistent strategy to inducing lucid dreams, they aren't quite as frequent as they used to be, probably once a month now.

Spiro has also contributed to some odd hypnogogic sensations as well. I had a cold last year and couldn't sleep, I laid on the couch with a vaporizer, and I could feel and see the presence of toy-like entities traced out in green ribbons of light on the floor. This was triggered by me having watched Toy Story earlier that day, green color was a result of the light on top of the vaporizer. I could see myself laying on the couch, I found the sensation very interesting (it would have been unnerving if I were more woo-inclined), and allowed it to go on, the shapes wordlessly communicated that they wanted me to stitch their bodies together into a kind of quilt, I could briefly feel my sense of self becoming the stitches and ribbons of green forming off of me in a pattern not unlike the quilt I was under. I was such an uncanny and fascinating experience, and lasted 20 minutes, it abruptly ended when I got up to eat a bagel, and resumed where it left off when I laid back down. Absolutely fascinating from start to finish.

As you can imagine, I look forward to sleeping more than any other part of my day.

 

[Reivax]

Thanks for your in-depth reply Dessi!

I've only tried cannabis on a few occasions, and have only had moderate doses. I'm not too sure I'd go full out with it considering one of my extended family members has schizophrenia. So it would probably be a bad idea to use it regularly and/or in heavy doses.

Your experience with Salvia divinorium sounds crazy.

I'm sure you're aware of it and may perhaps have tried it, but apparently dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is the be all and end all of spiritual and psychedelic experiences as far as substances go. I don't think this is considered an out of body experience, perhaps an out of universe experience.

Spironolactone / Aldactone sounds interesting. I sometimes get pretty bad skin myself, but I would not consider it acne, just a few zits. I used to get it a fair bit worse during high school though. Does this drug have a side effect of depression, I was talking to someone about this the other day, and they said that some acne medications can cause depression and sometimes lead to suicide?

 

[Andrew Wiggin]

That's interesting, didn't know that. I wonder what the message says...? It must be something fairy long and random, otherwise I'm sure eventually that someone will coincidentally guess it and be 1M richer.



What was that? Pethidine, let me write that down...

Were these experiences extremely vivid, compared to say a standard dream?
It seems like lucid dreaming is the way to go. I wonder if there is any evolutionary explanations for OBEs in near death or traumatic situations?

So far I've got 'falling out of a tree' and 'pethidine' on my list.

Legal issues aside, I'd second the pethidine (demerol for the USA crowd). I personally loath how it makes me feel, but after a surgery my father reported having an out of body experience where he floated away and discovered the green grassy hillside where Marshmallow Peeps^WP were hatched from the engine compartment of the rusty hulk of a volkwagen beetle. He woke up feeling he had experienced something trancendent and arcane, and didn't start realizing just how silly it sounded till he said it and heard it outloud.

 

[JJM 777]

> How to have an out of body experience?

I believe that oxygen deprivation helps. Create a test environment where several qualified doctors monitor you and ensure your safety, as the oxygen level is gradually lowered in your room.

 

[Dessi]

I've only tried cannabis on a few occasions, and have only had moderate doses. I'm not too sure I'd go full out with it considering one of my extended family members has schizophrenia. So it would probably be a bad idea to use it regularly and/or in heavy doses.

Probably better that way

Your experience with Salvia divinorium sounds crazy.

It was extremely unpleasant. Most people who try a strong extract like I did have a terrifying experience. The peak effects last for 5 to 8 minutes, so its extremely short-lived before you snap back into reality.

In spite of saying that, I very strongly believe salvia is safe, it thoroughly incapacitates a person within 20 seconds (not an exaggeration) making the risk driving under the influence non-existent, its not "fun" in the sense of most recreational drugs, its definitely not a party drug, its non-addicting, and the unpleasant effects are so profound that the risk of abuse is zero. I very very strongly believe this substance should be legal.

I'm sure you're aware of it and may perhaps have tried it, but apparently dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is the be all and end all of spiritual and psychedelic experiences as far as substances go. I don't think this is considered an out of body experience, perhaps an out of universe experience.

If its anything like salvia, I don't think I could.

Spironolactone / Aldactone sounds interesting. I sometimes get pretty bad skin myself, but I would not consider it acne, just a few zits. I used to get it a fair bit worse during high school though. Does this drug have a side effect of depression, I was talking to someone about this the other day, and they said that some acne medications can cause depression and sometimes lead to suicide?

It does not cause depression. As a plus, it smells like spearmint, makes breath minty fresh

Negative side effects depend on whether you're male or female. It works on acne because its an anti-androgen, it occasionally causes a small amount of gynecomastia. Due to the anti-androgen effects, most derms won't prescribe the drug to men.

If you don't mind me going into a little detail, spiro gradually reduces the level of free testosterone in men, but it will not raise estrogen levels. It totally kills involuntary libido in men (i.e. libido can be activated when you want to be), may reduce the intensity of orgasm, generally lowers sperm count and semen production. Low testosterone can cause excess tiredness and loss of muscle mass. It has an effect comparable to castration as long as you're taking the drug -- as soon as you stop, within days your involuntarily libido kicks in, testerone levels return to normal, though secondary effects like gynecomastia are permanent. (Incidentally, all the properties above are why spiro is the most commonly prescribed anti-androgen for transgender women.)

In women, it can cause tender breasts for the first few months. Its a mild diuretic, but I did not notice any differences in fluid retention or loss and would rate its diuretic properties lower than caffeine. A label on the bottle suggests taking spiro with food to avoid upset stomach, I've personally never had the problem.

The acne dose is about 25-200/mg per day, while transwomen usually take doses doses of about 50-200 mg/day for the full anti-androgen effect. You can't take the drug without experiencing some of its feminizing effects.

Bottom line, if you're a guy and intend to stay that way, you shouldn't take spiro.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

A few drugs, legal and non-legal, can induce out-of-body experiences:

Cannabis
Salvia divinorum
Spironolactone / Aldactone

I've tried the first two, but have only had OBEs when using DXM.

The out of body experiences felt as real as can be. I started rising out of the top of my head, and could looks down and see my own body far below as well as the surroundings. I should have tested to see if I could notice anything that could not have been spotted from where my body was situated. If so, I could have repeated and gotten the million dollars from Randi.

 

[jakesteele]

For about the last 6 months I've been interested in alternate states of consciousnesses, in particular out of body experiences (OBEs). Admittedly my interest in such a strange phenomenon stems mainly from my boredom, but I do feel OBEs are a challenging meditation exercise and could be a somewhat valuable experience. I've done a bit of research, mainly on the internet and have come across a few sites that seem fairly genuine, but so far I have not had any success with the advice given. Unfortunately, most websites talk about what I believe to be the 'woo' aspect of OBEs, referring to astral projection and other such things, which I have little interest in as it is goes beyond common scientific understanding of the phenomenon and is often exaggerated, anecdotal and unsubstantiated. About 3/15 of my attempts I have felt close to achieving an OBE, but have failed.

I understand that some people have this experience regularly and it can be a hindrance to them and would prefer to have no such experience at all. It is understood that OBEs are associated with sleep paralysis and hypnagogic hallucinations.

So I was wondering if anyone could share some tips on how to have an OBE or at least point me in the direction of some decent books and/or websites that act as a guide to induce OBEs? I'd be interested to hear about peoples own OBE experiences. I'd prefer not having to open my medicine cabinet or having to hire out the God Helmet though . If I do end up in the grips of some greys on an operational table, so be it, I'll just have to tough it out and I won't blame anyone for this unfortunate experience. I'm also open to the possibility that it is not really possible that one can achieve an OBE through meditation alone.

The following video is James Randi talking about his own out of body experience which I found pretty interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NwKkbd2e-c&feature=related

Thanks in advance!

http://www.monroeinstitute.org/

http://www.monroeinstitute.org/product/hemi-sync-support-for-journeys-out-of-the-body

 

[crhkrebs]

So I was wondering if anyone could share some tips on how to have an OBE

I recommend dissociative anaesthetics. Ketamine is an old stand-by.