OOBE, or exteriorization, is a phenomenon that consists in perceiving reality from outside your own body. It can be experienced by anyone, both unconsciously and with the help of special techniques to facilitate it. What should you know about OBE?
The art of exteriorization is popular and many people say they have experienced it. However, scientists believe that this is impossible and it all takes place within the human brain, not in reality. The skeptical theory says OBE is just a figment of the imagination. Externalization can be experienced while sleeping or meditating, and there are special techniques to facilitate this. What exactly is out-of-body-travel?
OOBE is an abbreviation of the English "out-of-body experience", meaning out-of-body experience. The person who experiences this has the feeling that they are seeing the world beyond their own body. This is a phenomenon that can be experienced in a dream or during deep relaxation or trance. Anyone can experience it, even unconsciously. However, people who would like to enter OBE should use appropriate techniques and exercises to facilitate this.
Survivors say they could move, observe, and communicate with others while their bodies were asleep. They also believe that you can move far away from your body during this time, even over long distances. Interestingly, blind people after experiencing OBE were able to accurately describe their surroundings. There are also known cases where patients experienced exiting their physical body during surgery. According to esotericists, some people experience this condition once or several times in their lifetime for no apparent reason.
The most popular theory is that the soul leaves the body during exteriorization. It is difficult to verify this view from the point of view of science because in science there is no concept of the soul. In turn, in most religions, the departure of the soul from the body is called death.
Advocates of exteriorization emphasize that there are many techniques that deliberately help out the body travel.
One of them is visualization, during which you should focus your thoughts on your goal, which is leaving the body.
Then it is worth imagining looking at the body from the perspective of flight. You can also imagine yourself in motion, which supposedly helps in achieving your OBE.
It is mainly about movement that will allow the physical body to detach from the astral, so you should visualize, for example, swinging on a swing, rotating around your axis or climbing a rope, and then jumping off or throwing out of the vortex, thus achieving exteriorization.
Another technique is the trance technique, which consists in focusing on one specific target, e.g. by relaxing and not moving, which allegedly causes physical paralysis and detachment from the physical body.
According to the supporters of OBE, the effectiveness of the technique results from focusing on the inside and ignoring external and bodily sensations.
Another way to get the externalization state is the technique of lucid dreaming, which resembles visualization because it involves making a sudden movement during sleep, e.g. jumping off, lifting, hitting, etc.
Another way is to use the 4 + 1 technique, which involves falling asleep for 4 hours and then waking up, getting up, and doing any activity actively outside of bed for 1 hour. After this time, go to sleep again.
According to advocates of this technique, it is very easy to achieve an OBE with this method.
This technique is often modified and occurs e.g. in the 6 + 2 variant. In order for the externalization to take place, it is also recommended to induce it with drugs such as phencyclidine or ketamine.
The most famous researcher and popularizer of exteriorization were Robert Monroe. The American parapsychologist published his experiences with the OBE in three books and founded his own research center, in which, inter alia, compiled a collection of recordings facilitating out-of-body travel.
According to the researcher, it is possible to leave the physical body and consciousness wandering beyond it, and the return is possible thanks to a special connection between soul and body, i.e. silver line.
Robert Bruce, who described them in his book, Treatise on Astral Projection, also had similar experiences. Currently, the phenomenon is also popularized, among others in esoteric and some religious-philosophical circles (e.g. in Hinduism and Buddhism).
Science clearly states that it is impossible to leave the physical body and travel outside of it.
This is evidenced by the fact that many experimental attempts were made during which the sense of locating oneself in space was manipulated.
Initially, these were only visual illusions and perceptual experiences used in research individually, but in 2007 researcher Henrik Ehrsson decided to combine them and thus showed that it is possible to induce an illusion involving the whole body.
Virtual reality apparatus was used in the experiment, which made it possible to see the delocalized body of the participant.
In practice, this meant that when the equipment was turned on, cameras placed behind the participant showed him an image in which he could see the back of his back not far in front of him.
At this stage, the researcher tapped gently on the subject's real chest and at the same time made a similar movement on the reflection of the cage, after which the participants of the experiment declared that they felt the touch in both cases.
Thus, these people had the impression that they were functioning outside their own bodies, from which they could view their backs.
Also interesting is the recent research by scientists from the University of Ottawa in 2014, during which the brain activity of a woman who allegedly experienced externalization was examined.
As she claimed, this was due to years of exercises in which she visualized the observation of her body from above, being outside of it.
In the experiment, scientists used nuclear magnetic resonance and obtained brain scans in which the areas responsible for visual coordination were less active, and those for motor coordination were more active.
Experience has shown that the states experienced by a woman are similar to those that can be obtained through meditation and induce hallucinations on their own, such as hearing colors or feeling sounds.
The research conducted in 2004 and 2007 by the researcher Blanke and Thut also shows that the experience of exteriorization may also be the result of temporal-parietal contact dysfunction, which causes disturbances in the perception of locating one's body in space.
In addition, it is also worth remembering that phenomena identical to externalization very often occur in people suffering from epilepsy and after taking psychoactive substances.
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