Are Out of Body Experiences real or imaginary experiences?

Great Debates
1

Hello everybody:

Has anybody ever wondered whether Astral Travelling (or OBE, Out of Body Experiences) are real or imaginary experiences? Do you think there is any scientific way to find out the difference for sure?

In a Spanish Science forum (www.100cia.com) we have asked ourselves those same questions and we do believe there is a way to find out the difference for sure. This forum is specialized in Science and it has sub-forums for almost every Science field there is: Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Biology, Medicine, Genetics, Engineering, Astronomy, Computer programming, etc., etc.

After around 10 months debating this subject in depth (starting January-05), we have designed a very simple, but at the same time a very reliable and accurate scientific method to verify if these experiences are real or imaginary (a product of your imagination, dreams, hallucinations, etc.).

Using this method, anybody who may have an OBE (Out of Body Experience) could very easily verify, in its own home and without having to use complicated technology, if his/her experiences are real or not. And that person could also give his relatives and friends very convincing scientific prove of the real nature of these experiences.

We have named this method “Agnostic Method” (AM) to verify astral travelling, and it is based on the mathematical probabilities of guessing by chance a random number, which have been calculated by professional mathematicians of the math sub-forum. This is the link in Spanish:

- Post #301 al #305, pag. 31. Detailed instructions of Agnostic Method:
http://www.100cia.com/opinion/foros/showthread.php?t=4290&page=31&pp=10

In case anybody needs a translator, this is a good free translating web site: http://www.freetranslation.com/

Since the information in the Spanish Science forum 100cia.com is in Spanish, we have translated to English a small portion to the Spanish debate (some of the key instructions of this method) and have posted it in two other English forums, one about astral travelling and another one about science:

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=20907
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=49410

We are very much interested in knowing the opinion of scientists about the validity of this method (the Agnostic Method) from a purely scientific point of view (Ex: criticisms, possible conceptual errors that you may find in it, possible improvements, etc.). We will appreciate very much your comments!

Best regards. qbeac.

2

This subject has been kicked around here a bit; others may remember more recent discussions.

3

:dubious:

Copy Cats

4

Your method of picking words is not truly random. It depends on the selector’s personal opinion of what constitutes a “strange or difficult” world.

Also your method for picking a dictionary page is ambiguous. You say that with a 1500 page dictionary the selector draws four numbers. What if he draws “3715”?

Here’s a better method:

  1. Make a list of 100 familiar words.
  2. Use a pair of 10-sided dice to randomly pick three words from the list.
  3. Write these down as your test case.

The odds of a person guessing three words picked this way are 1 in 1 million.

Of course, the hardest part isn’t picking the test case. It’s making sure the astral reader doesn’t sneak a peek. Or isn’t tipped off by the selector. THAT’S the experimental protocol you should be concentrating your efforts on.

5

I’ve definitely experienced these myself, quite fun really.
After experimenting, I also concluded that the body doesn’t move and it is only the brain generating very convincing sensations of moving, touching things, seeing things, etc. The content of the simulated reality can only be from the brain’s prior expectations or just wild guesses.

I was just never definitely sure that this was what those OBE/remote-viewing-mystics were experiencing.

6

And I just wanted to add that the difficulty for me is in getting into the state on demand. Caffeine and sleeping at odd times seems to increase the chances.
I also have difficulty prolonging the state. Usually, I wake up against my will before I get to do anything interesting.

7

I understand exactly what is being asked here, but just thought I’d mention that the term ‘imaginary experience’ makes me chuckle; sort of like asking whether the arithmetic performed inside my computer is ‘real’ or ‘simulated’.

8

This was discussed here in the context of Near Death Experiences in hospitals. I’d suggest a randomly chosen English dictionary word of 4-8 characters followed by a two digit number would suffice. “Impetus 54” or something: easily readable and memorable, but random enough for these purposes.

I suggest a useful element in the experiment would be to have someone suggesting an incorrect word-number combination. If the patient said they could literally see the wrong combination on the monitor pointed at the ceiling, then they couldn’t literally be viewing from the ceiling. (There is precedent here: a patient misheard a surgeon refer to a “mayo”, a small tray near the operating table, as “mail” and saw a handwritten letter there instead!)

If the correct number came up in the experiment in a cheat-proof test (and note that it is very difficult for this to be made cheat-proof, such that clever tricksters could not communicate with each other via Morse or sign), it would herald a revolution in science.

If, instead, 30 or so wrong numbers came up (ie. the ones suggested audibly), I’d consider the matter largely settled as hallucinatory. They would still be interesting, of course, but not anomalous, revolutionary, or in violation of the current scientific paradigm.

9

A question for qbeac-Considering all the previous tests concerning this subject that have failed, if this test fails would you then close the book on the subject, or do you continue testing until you finally get a positive result? Is this a test to see if OBEs are real, or the extension of a search that never ends until you get a “satisfactory” result?

10

http://www.biomindsuperpowers.com/Pages/CIA-InitiatedRV.html (God I wish I could find a link that didn’t have words like ‘super mind powers’ in the link)

During the eight-month pilot study of remote viewing the effort gradually evolved from the remote viewing of symbols and objects in envelopes and boxes, to the remote viewing of local target sites in the San Francisco Bay area, demarked by outbound experimenters sent to the site under strict protocols devised to prevent artifactual results. Later judging of the results were similarly handled by double-blind protocols designed to foil artifactual matching. Since these results have been presented in detail elsewhere, both in the scientific literature [6-8] and in popular book format [9], I direct the interested reader to these sources. To summarize, over the years the back-and-forth criticism of protocols, refinement of methods, and successful replication of this type of remote viewing in independent laboratories [10-14], has yielded considerable scientific evidence for the reality of the phenomenon.

[10] J. P. Bisaha and B. J. Dunne, “Multiple Subject and Long-Distance Precognitive Remote Viewing of Geographical Locations,” in Mind at Large, edited by C. T. Tart, H. E. Puthoff and R. Targ (Praeger, New York, 1979), p. 107.

[11] B. J. Dunne and J. P. Bisaha, “Precognitive Remote Viewing in the Chicago Area: a Replication of the Stanford Experiment,” J. Parapsychology 43, 17 (1979).

[12] R. G. Jahn, “The Persistent Paradox of Psychic Phenomena: An Engineering Perspective,” Proc. IEEE 70, 136 (1982).

[13] R. G. Jahn and B. J. Dunne, “On the Quantum Mechanics of Consciousness with Application to Anomalous Phenomena,” Found. Phys. 16, 721 (1986).

[14] R. G. Jahn and B. J. Dunne, Margins of Reality (Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, New York, 1987).

11

Funny how the same names appear in those “independent” laboratories. How come other scientists who have dedicated their careers to constructing careful experiments to find similar evidence have given up after decades of failure?

12

I was thinking along the same lines. Since such things are probably all inside the brain they are imaginary in the sense that they are just brain activities.

13

Targ and Puthoff. Those two gentlemen have shown in the past a nigh-complete disregard for the concept of labratory controls, isolated experiments, and proper proceedure.
Furthermore, they report successes on… things that aren’t. Check their remote viewing of the… was it Titan probe? for a good example.

I wouldn’t trust an experiment they were involved in unless I had very good reasons to do so.

14

Damn, I wish I’d actually read those.

15

As I said, watch for anything P&T are involved in.

16

Hi Pochacco, you are right, picking words from a dictionary “manually” is not the best “random procedure” to do it. You could also do that with a computer program and with military precision. But, there is a reason why we have preferred to say to people in general to pick the words manually, and we have explained that in the Spanish debate, but have not had time yet to translate that to English. In summary, we said that simply because it is easier and because the first stage (or level) of the experiment is intended to be only a home made test. Then there are two more levels to go (see bellow explanation).

Our intention is to translate the instructions to English as time permits. If you read the complete instructions of the Agnostic Method (in Spanish), you’ll realize we have divided this experiment in three levels.

And that’s why in the Spanish Science forum (100cia.com) we have defined three levels of validation: Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3.

**Level 1 validation is only a personal level, for a single individual. **

This level is only intended for a single individual to do home made tests of his own abilities. It would be easy to pick the words from the dictionary manually. And if that person guesses them, he/she can decide to use a more sophisticated and complicated method of selecting the word: with computer programs that offer military precision when generating the random number.

**Level 2 validation is for small groups of people (Ex: family members, friends, etc.). **

Same thing that applies to Level 1 also applies to Level 2. This is a way by which somebody who has OBEs could perform a home demonstration of his/her abilities to his/her friends, relatives, etc.

**Level 3 validation is for the scientific community and, therefore, for all humanity. **

This “Level 3 validation” is based on the Scientific Method. The Agnostic Method will still be a good method to obtain this type of validation, but it will have to be done according to all the guarantees of the Scientific Method (Ex: with all types of security measures, with double blind control groups, using computer programs to generate the random numbers with military precision, etc.).

If anybody is interested in learning more about this experiment, we are discussing it in the following links in English. You’ll realize there are some people who “say” they can read the words. The question now is: Will they be able to do it? These are the links:

qbeac.

17

Hello everybody,
Hello Czarcasm,

Our intention is to delve into the real truth behind this matter (whatever it may be) keeping in mind two conditions: a) To follow exclusively the Scientific Method, and b) To keep an open mind (and the definition of an “open mind” could be part of the debate itself). Our intention is also to clearly differentiate personal beliefs (which all are very respectful) from Scientific conclusive proof.

The following statement pretty much defines the attitude with which we would like to do these experiments:

“I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led.”

–Thomas Jefferson (1812)

In summary, we pretend to seek the real truth behind this matter.

By the way, I like this forum, it looks good, it works good, and people in it say coherent and interesting things, but I have not subscribed (due to money reasons!), so my participation will expire in about 30 days I think. So, if I disappear and don’t answer some of your well posed questions, that’s the reason why. Sorry! But we will continue with this debate in the other free membership forums I gave in my previous post, and also in the Spanish Science forum (www.100cia.com) where this debate originated (see post #1).

Best regards. qbeac.

18

Hi Wesley Clark, very interesting the information you have provided. Check this out:

IN ENGLISH:
Joe McMoneagle (expert in remote viewing): http://www.mceagle.com/
Jerry Gross (expert in astral projection): http://www.near-death.com/gross.html

IN SPANISH: