Astral Projection

When one is out-of-body the physical world is seen in a fuzzy haze, like a mild fog. But the spiritual world – deceased relatives and such are clear. If the letters were large enough I think they could be read. I know of the experiments with signs around the ER, these have not been seen by an experiencer. I am not surprised, the concentration is on the dead body and what is being done to it or worry about relatives. The last thing would be to look around the building to read the signs.

There are multiple ways to know you are out-of-body. You can move easily from room to room through walls and ceilings, some are documented to have traveled great distances from their dead body. Danion Brinkley followed the ambulance carrying his body to the hospital. You are not able to touch things or make people still living in the physical hear you. Many NDEers have tried to grab their relatives and tell them they are ok, but couldn’t do it. You notice you don’t have a body, but are “wearing” a white gown. That is really energy. This happens before you see the light.

In the light, radiant glowing golden light that is conscious of you, most feel this is our creator or God. In the light is love so strong and so accepting that you never want to leave. There is also knowledge of all things. You know who you are and what you are doing here, how the world was set up and anything else you want to know. Thoughts are the key, Think of a question and the answer is there. Think of a location and you are there. This is why NDEers says thoughts and love are everything. We are here to learn about our thought processes.

I will stop, probably said more than you wanted.
But will be happy to answer more questions if you want.

Love

It’s hilarious, but while Wolpert (the skeptic) just blithers, Sheldrake cites study after study, after statistic, after number.

Are you sure you guys really want these cites? :rolleyes:

I am singularly unimpressed. I’ve heard claims like this, especially meta-analysis of certain old experiments, and they eventually fall to the wayside. PEAR even recernlt was forced to admit they had found nothing worthwhile.

Sheldrake’s defense of his Jaytee experiments is reprehensible. He actually attacks Wiseman’s setting of a criteria for the dog’s success or failure. Sheldrake neatly forgets that Wiseman did this becuase Sheldrake had failed to establish such a criteria himself. He complains that his graphics are correct, but Sheldrake’s sloppy history is no indicator that we should believe him.

Remember that citing papers is all very well and good, but it is ones that stand the test of time and exanimation that actually mean something. Meta-analysis on a bunch of experiements followed by claims of odds is a poor path to proof.

So said the bishop who, relenting and deigning to look through the telescope, saw a vague blob (moon) seem to revolve around another blob (Jupiter)

Excuse me, is this English?

Riiiight, so if Sheldrake neglects to specify a criterion, then the skeptic is free to declare any criterion himself, no matter how absurdly strict. So if the dog goes to the window at all when his mistress is not returning home, it’s all wrong! How convenient.

What do you mean by “stand the test of time”? Sounds like a sociological thing to me, not something related directly to the truth of the claims.

This thread has been quite a read. My head is still spinning (a neat trick).

What I’m interested in is this: suppose someone trotted out a person who could pass Randi’s test, could AP at will, verifiable, undeniable, etc.

Then what? Since no there are no good theories to explain this phenomenon, what next? Hell, suppose you found 1000 people who could verifiably AP; how would “science” proceed on this.

It’s already been beaten to death that it’s not a known force; so how do you find an unknown force, even if you know it’s real?

Sorry to be repetitive but … :confused:

“They laughed at Galileo” fallacy usage noted.

Sorry for my misspelling. PLease change the third word of that sentence to “recently”.

When doing something in any field of science, such as finding a new insect or adding a decimal place to a particle’s characterisitics, you will have much stricter criterion that anything Wiseman had. Science is about tightening controls to be certain the effect is real. Don’t like it? Tough, making end-runs around the scientific method means you’re not doign science.

I mean that the whole history of woowoo is filled with claims that were given huge publcity, then abandoned as they were found to be wanting: Rhine, SRI, Eisenbud, Schwartz, and PEAR. All of these enjoyed time in the limelight when they first published their results, as time went on the reality of the errors in protocol were revealed. PEAR now admits they had nothing after years of meta-analysis, Schwartz’s can’t even get published in the goofier journals because his work was so poor, Eisenbud was the definition of fawning and ego, etc, etc.

And, you know that you know, and always knew. I can relate to that. And it all seems so, … obvious … that I wonder why I didn’t realize it while in the body. Then I get back to the body and it’s like I still have the information, somewhere, ‘inside’ me, but I left the Rosetta Stone behind. I have trouble translating it.

But, then we are leaving the realm of debate, of Great Debate, anyway. lekatt, I for one would like to see you open a thread in IMHO about this subject, where we can discuss the issue and share information without having to document every word. I have spoken of only a fraction of my experiences, and I want some more information from you and others like you.

No reason the debate can’t continue here, as well, but I think we can find a better environment to discuss the phenomenon, a less hostile enviornment.

(sig deleted by request)

:smiley:

God…fucking…dammit.

Not sure I understand your anger.

I’m not whooshing here, but maybe the tenor of my question came off wrong.

I’m just speculating on what would happen if someone/many people passed the
criteria for scientific acceptance.

It wouldn’t be enough to say “aha, it’s real, next question”. It would beg further research. And that’s the rub. In all of the links I’ve seen in this thread has anyone given a credible theory? I’m not talking about the NDE DMT link, I’m narrowing this to AP experiences.

I’m trying to imagine the next step in this process; which in an odd twist, seems backwards. You’d have a phenomenon that was seemingly proven to be genuine through repeatable testing. But it’s underlying principles would be unknown.

So what would happen next?

So the other day, I was astrally projecting my ass, when all of a sudden…

Oops, sorry, wrong thread. :smiley:

Researchers would aim to objectify the experience. They would come up with preliminary models with one or two seemingly obvious variables*. Vary them, conduct basic experiments and try to find pattern among the noisy data that accumulates. In incremental steps, they’ll try to refine the models by testing hypotheses (via the predictions made).

*What variables or skeletal structure would be adopted, cannot obviously be foretold now. Let someone pass the first test.

Yes, while out-of-body we are not limited any more and can easily understand, but upon returning to the body we lose a lot of the knowledge because there are no physical representations for what we learned. No words, or colors, or pictures, etc. I think the thing that impressed me most besides the love was the different colors not seen in the physical – so beautiful.

We could try posting in IMHO, but I doubt it would be much different. Why not using my message board. Look at my profile to find the address.

In fact, my whole site is a discussion of this type material. There are also over 200 experiences.

Love

Bwana Bob

[quote]
This thread has been quite a read. My head is still spinning (a neat trick).

What I’m interested in is this: suppose someone trotted out a person who could pass Randi’s test, could AP at will, verifiable, undeniable, etc.

Then what? Since no there are no good theories to explain this phenomenon, what next? Hell, suppose you found 1000 people who could verifiably AP; how would “science” proceed on this. **

Go back to the first page. Controlled, empirical work has shown that electrical stimulation of a specific region of the brain can produce “Out of Body Experiences” on demand. For some reason, this small fact seems to have eluded or been purposefully disregarded by certain posters.

Our brains produce the drug dimethyl-tryptamine (DMT) in the pineal gland. During stressful conditions, DMT is naturally released.

This drug ALWAYS causes experiences that are EXACTLY the same as NDE’s.

Lekatt, explain these “coincidences” to me:

DMT causes a buzzing sound = common in NDE’s.
DMT causes the most intense visuals = common in NDE’s.
DMT causes you to see and communicate other beings = common in NDE’s.
DMT causes you to leave your body = common in NDE’s.
DMT causes some to see instruments and/or symbols = common in NDE’s.

There is no reason why a soul leaving a body would result in a buzzing sound. Thats stupid.

Not the same fallacy, a different one! :cool: Seriously, I’m making the point that your feelings of whether evidence is “extraordinary” or “impressive” have no bearing on the truth value of the claims, or the worth of the evidence.

[quote]
BTW, you’ve raised the debate from Stage 1 (“No evidence!”) to Stage 2 (“I’m unimpressed with the evidence.”) We’re making progress!

Please cite the debunking of PEAR and the other things you half-mentioned. I’m not challenging you; I want to read about these.

Oh puh-lease. See what I’ve been saying about psychology in this thread. In the soft sciences they come up with correlations that would make a lab scientist blow milk out his nose–whereas in parapsychology they’re actually coming up with amazing stats that skeptics just ignore anyway. At any rate, it says in the cite of the debate that the guy made a criterion–1 minute or something like that–but changed arbitrarily later and said the experiment had failed. The nerve!

Cites for the above, please. And you seem to imply that every experiment in the history of parapsychology has been debunked, when you know that that’s not true-ue! The same STRONG effects observed in the 19th century are observed today–even with controls 50x tighter.

BTW, anyone reading the debate I cited above will have to admit that Wolpert’s performance is an absolute SHAME.

Why not?

To me it just seems like a pointless byproduct of a soul leaving a body. If god had this planned out, one would think that there would not be a buzzing sound, but a choir of angels singing. Comon, this is you going to heaven!

Wow, not just a straw man but a decent Scarecrow![sup]*[/sup]

As I’ve said earlier, the afterlife is not something “sponsored” by Jesus or any other supernatural entity–it’s a completly natural process, a product of the evolving universe and everything else.

[sup]*[/sup]“If I Only Had a Brain”–music by Harold Arlen, lyrics by Yip Harburg. Scarecrow character created by Frank L. Baum.

I have not had a chance to really study the experiences resulting from the drug DMT, but I will. If you know of a list of such experiences I would appreciate it.

A few years ago the same thing was being said about Ketamine. I did have an opportunity to read many experiences of Ketamine, and found that while there was some similarities to NDEs, it ended there.

Now, many NDEers report a sound when leaving their bodies, it is not always a buzzing sound. Could be a whoosing, or a rushing wind sound, and some report no sound at all.

As for the other items I need to actually read the accounts and compare them with what I know about NDEs.

I will say that NDEs are not caused by drugs, unless the drug brings the body to the threadhold of death. NDEs happen when the body is dead. How intense and how long the NDE is determined by the length and time the body is dead. Now it is possible for some similarities to start showing up before the death of the body as in the case of Ketamine. Real NDEs only happen after the death of the body.

It could be said that car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, drowning, etc., all cause NDEs and this would be correct.

Psychic mediums can do all the things you listed above without dying also. There might be something to look at from this stand point.

The real NDE has conversation about dying and usually a choice of “going back” to finish their lives. Some are forced to go back. So there are many factors to look at and study before it can be determined what is happening with DMT.

In no way does taking a drug prove the non existence of the spiritual world. It is just another means of exploring it. A very dangerous one I might add, since the long term effect of these drugs has yet to be determined.

Another major difference is: after a real NDE there is no desire on the part of the individual to have another one. After drug use there is always a desire for more and more showing the lack of completeness offered by drugs.

Please let me know where I can read some DMT experiences. I am looking forward to it.

Love

There are DMT reports. I posted that back on page 5, it appears you weren’t paying attention. Take your time and read a great many.

I’m glad we are finally making progress, Lekatt.

Ketamine is nowhere near as interesting, or as natural, as DMT. DMT is found in each and every one of us, and in pretty much animal/plant on this planet, ketamine isn’t. The DMT molecule very closely resembles Serotonin, which as you should know, is a neurotransmitter. Some have gone as far to call DMT a neurotransmitter itself.

One of the most amazing coincidences(?) is that Buddhists believe it takes 49 days for the soul to reincarnate. 49 days is how long it takes for the pineal gland, where DMT is produced, to appear up in a fetus. The “third eye” of many beliefs centers right on the pineal gland.