Astral Projection, Astral Travel and Out-of-Body Experiences

Skepticism

I must admit I am skeptical when it comes to astral projection, astral travel or out-of-body experiences. I never experienced one and they seem rather unbelievable, but I am open to discover and research almost anything. I have mentioned throughout my lessons, that I have lucid dreams on a regular basis. So, it is easy for me to believe in lucid dreaming. I have a solid testimony that lucid dreaming is real. Just because I don’t have any personal experience with astral travel, I can’t just dismiss them as myths. I’ll share with you what I have discovered so far.

Definition

Wikipedia.org describes astral projection (or astral travel) as an interpretation of out-of-body experience (OBE) that assumes the existence of an “astral body” separate from the physical body and capable of traveling outside it. Astral projection or travel denotes the astral body leaving the physical body to travel in the astral plane.

I’ll refer to this phenomena as “astral travel” throughout this blog.

People claim that all senses are utilized during astral travel. Some people claim that they saw or heard things which they could not possibly have seen or heard from the actual positions of their bodies such as being in bed sleeping.

History

The term out-of-the-body experience was introduced in 1943 by G.N.M Tyrrell in his book Apparitions. Astral travel is recorded in history as early as ancient Egypt, 5,000 years ago. The Egyptian priests had knowledge of the existence of the astral body that they referred to as Kha. There are ancient Egyptians inscriptions and drawings on rock walls of many temples and buildings representing the abandonment the physical body during sleep.

Scientific Study of Astral Travel

From my research, the vast majority of scientists don’t believe that astral travel really exists. They believe that astral travel is simply a recreation of sensory feelings that our minds just make up. Through the use of virtual reality goggles, cameras, poking or touching a person, etc., scientists can recreate what it is like to experience real astral travel, if they do indeed exist.

Real Astral Travel?

Surveys show that about up to 35% of the population have experienced astral travel at some time during their life. One explanation of the astral travel is that consciousness or one’s spirit is a separate entity from the body and can exist without the body.

There are thousands of claims of astral travel and many Websites dedicated to people sharing their personal astral travel with the world. Those that claim to have experienced astral travel totally believe that they real and not something that is simply made up in their minds. They are truly convinced that there consciousness or spirit is temporarily leaving there bodies. I was truly amazed at the number of believable astral travel stories I have read. Just do a search on the Internet and you will see what I am talking about.

Lucid Dreaming and Astral Travel

Some believe that astral travel begins when a person loses contact with sensory input from the body while remaining conscious.

From Blackmore, 1988; LaBerge – Lucidity Letter; Levitan – Lucidity Letter: The person retains the feeling of having a body, but that feeling is no longer derived from data provided by the senses. The “out-of-body” person also perceives a world that resembles the world he or she generally inhabits while awake, but this perception does not come from the senses either. The vivid body and world of the OBE is made possible by our brain’s marvelous ability to create fully convincing images of the world, even in the absence of sensory information. This process is witnessed by each of us every night in our dreams. Indeed, all dreams could be called OBEs in that in them we experience events and places quite apart from the real location and activity of our bodies.

Conclusion

This is only the beginning of my research on astral travel. I will continue to research and share my findings with you. It is really much too early for me to draw any conclusions on astral travel other than there are just too many people that claim to be experiencing them. It makes no sense to me to simply dismiss them just because scientists can’t prove in a laboratory that they really exist.

Please feel free to share any experiences with astral travel that you may have had!

© 2009 – 2011 Gary Gardner, All Rights Reserved