Out-of-Body
What does a typical out of body experience feel like?
Note: I can only describe what I personally experience. Others will have different experiences. Even my own experiences vary a lot, so this post is an amalgamation of common things I experience, but not exhaustive. This is typical for the night – my experiences in the morning have a different structure.
I decide I want to have an out of body experience.
I lay down for bed at night, and slowly watch myself fall asleep. Sometimes I even play an active role, and control my breathing, and instruct different body parts to “fall asleep”.
The first sensation is a strong desire to move. Wiggle my feet. Flip over. Itch my face. I ignore all these sensations, as best as I can. It may become so unbearable that I simply must scratch my nose – so I do it calmly, and settle back in.
The sensation to move still persists, but I get through it, perhaps by distracting myself with other thoughts.
Before too long my body is asleep. My mind is awake, and thinking clearly.
Next is the light show. I see colorful lights on the back of my eyelids. Nothing too bright, just little bursts of color. It is a little hard to distinguish between something in my mind, and a physical sensation. Still, the lights strike me as physical.
I track them for a minute or so, and just enjoy the show.
Slowly, I start to see more complicated visions. These might be geometric shapes at first, or simple patterns. These feel like they’re in my mind’s eye, not physical.
From here I can move into a creative state of mind, where I can see an endless stream of unique visions, flashing quickly one after another. Each vision lasts less than a second, and is sort of like flipping through random photographs.
Even though I’ve been here many times, I’m always surprised at the creativity – surely, after a couple minutes of this, I would start to see repeats… but I don’t. Every image is unique.
Sometimes I transition into a dream from here. I can pull in the images, and direct them into a living scene, where I can convince myself that I am inside of it. The dream will fade in, and I can continue like normal.
However, today I decided I want to have an out of body experience. Wow, I nearly forgot! I was distracted by the show, but now I remember.
So I calm myself down. I clear my mind. And I wait.
As I calm myself, the images fade out. The creativity stream is turned off. I am alone, with blackness in front of me. I have no awareness of my body. It’s just me, in my mind. I sit here, and wait, without thinking.
I sense an opening. I have been sitting here in blackness for maybe a minute, or maybe five minutes, I’m not entirely sure. Maybe I lost consciousness for a moment, or maybe I didn’t.
But there is an opening in my mind that I recognize from my years of experience. I know that if I move towards that opening, I can get out of body.
I move my mind towards the opening. This is not a physical movement, this is a mental movement, like listening. I am focusing towards my destination.
I hear a loud sound. It is deafening! It sounds like an industrial turbine, screeching, metal on metal. It sounds electrical. It’s so loud that it’s painful!
I’ve heard this many times, so I’m not scared. I know that on the other side, I will be out. I sit through it for around 10 seconds. Then it becomes a choice.
I can sit in it more if I want, or I can leave. I’d really rather not hang out, so I calm down, and begin the process of leaving.
I don’t see anything, but now I do sense my body. I sense myself laying in bed.
In some sense it feels like I woke up. I can tell I’m in my bedroom, in the dark. I feel the bed under me.
I start to slide around. I’m just sort of playing, with no real goal. I slide towards the edge of the bed, and slowly fall to the floor. This feels real, and I’m quite aware of what I’m doing. In fact, it feels so real that there have been times I thought I actually physically fell out of bed. But I know better at this point.
I snap myself back to my body, and slide around in a different direction. I slide towards the foot of the bed. While sliding, I feel the sensation of the bed sheets moving against my non-physical body.
I snap back again. Now I decide to fall directly through the bed. I start to fall, and accelerate downwards. I feel a whooshing sensation as I fall faster and faster.
I snap back.
Alright, well… that’s been fun. But maybe I can get my vision working.
I position myself as if I was standing up next to the bed. Then I start to play with my vision.
The room starts to fade in and become visible.
Everything has a bluish-gray color to it, like it’s being lit by moonlight. It’s still very dark, but I can see the wall and the window.
I decide to leave the bedroom and walk around the house.
But I sort of start to panic…
Not that I’m scared or anything, but I know from experience that this is where things typically fall apart for me, and I will soon lose consciousness. I can move around like normal, but I can’t help but feel I’m on a time limit.
I have 30 seconds.
I run out the door. I start to look around quickly, taking note of my surroundings. I am looking for anything noteworthy. Anything that I can analyze afterwards. Some sort of evidence, or some sort of memory I can keep with me.
I run down the hallway, and turn into a room. There are paint cans on the floor. That’s normal, right? We have paint cans in here. Or do we?
Wait, that isn’t normal, why would we have paint cans in here. This is wrong. How did I get in this room, anyways?
I went down the hallway, and turned right, and now I’m in a room that I don’t recognize, and there are paint cans. Maybe I can snap back? No… I’m going to lose consciousness soon now.
The world becomes confusing. There is color now. There is a scenario. I am in a dream. There are characters, and I lost it. Somewhere in the hallway I lost it. I knew I would, I normally do.
I try to go back, but there is no “back”, just more dream world. The hallway is a dream. The house is a dream. This is all fake.
Oh well. I remember the paint cans. Maybe I can figure that out in the morning. Though there probably isn’t much to figure out.
I lose consciousness and sleep the rest of the night, dreaming like normal.
When I wake up in the morning, I remember the out of body experience. Not everything at first, but I remember leaving, and sliding around. Then what? Oh right, my vision came on in the bedroom. Then I ran down the hallway – oh yeah, and those damn paint cans! Why would I see that? There isn’t even a doorway on that side of the hall.
Oh well, that was fun.