By: Nelson
Correia Abreu
After
the typical day struggling for survival, John lies in bed exhausted. He sleeps lightly for a while, and when he
regains some awareness, he realizes he is feeling some unusual sensations. He feels very numb and light and is unable to
move. Exotic tingling and
electricity-like vibrations throughout the body spring up, and he feels like
his body is floating and rocking out of control. The vibrations get really intense until John
finds a pressure at the back of the head propels him out of the bed accompanied
by a strong sinking sensation. The
vibration sensations cease and he can see his physical body resting in
bed. John feels wonderful with the
liberation from matter and from breathing.
He
notices a very pleasant and kind presence and gets a strong wish to see his
mother at the hospital. He flies out through the wall and finds himself
immediately at his mother’s bedside. The guide instructs him to send healing
vital energies to his mother. He notices
her non-physical body is floating a few inches above her physical body and
helps her to awaken in the astral dimension.
Soon afterwards, his diseased grandfather comes by to greet them. John
misses his grandfather so much that he is unable to control his emotions and
feels immediately tugged back into his body. The next day, his mother tells him
of a “dream” where she relates the events of the previous night.
An
out-of-body experience (OBE) could go something like this account. Also known as astral projection or projection
of the consciousness, this is a natural phenomenon that occurs nightly during
sleep, though most people do not realize that it is happening. For example,
have you ever felt like you were falling while sleeping and awakened with a
jerk-awake sensation? Have you found yourself unable to move while you were
falling asleep or waking up? Have you ever "awakened" to find
yourself floating above your body? Or, have you ever felt yourself awake
outside of your physical body? These are normal experiences.
Conscious
projectors are able to temporarily leave the restriction of their physical body
and access non-physical dimensions where they discover new aspects of the
nature of consciousness and life. The OBE is completely different from dreams
(ordinary or lucid), and from other altered states of consciousness. It is nor
a type of hallucination, neither a creation of the imagination like a daydream.
Everyone
has spontaneous, unconscious OBE’s but only about 10% have had at least one
conscious projection. Less than 1% of
humanity currently projects with awareness and is then able to recall the
experience. However, anyone can take the
first step towards this goal by overcoming fear and insecurity derived from
cultural indoctrinations and ignorance of the phenomena, being ethical, and
wanting to use projection to help others.
By understanding the mechanisms surrounding these transcendental phenomena,
we are able to eliminate the fears, misinformation, romanticism, and mysticism
that often surround these phenomena. With some basic information and
techniques, motivated individuals can have their own multidimensional
experiences and knowledge.
Experience
shows that willful control of bioenergies (chi, prana, vital energies) greatly
facilitates projections. The out-of-body experience makes it clear that
bioenergies play a major role in physical health, our interactions with
physical and non-physical people and environments, our level of self-defense,
our healing ability, and our level of psychic abilities, communication,
awareness and perception. With
experience, we can become simultaneously aware of what goes on physically and
non-physically (multidimensional awareness).
Benefits
of the out-of-body experience / multidimensional awareness include:
-
Elimination of the fear of death;
-
Knowledge and preview of life after death or before birth;
- Increase in psychic abilities;
-
Facilitation of recall of past lives or the period between lives;
-
Recall of planning and preparation for current life;
- Greater understanding of the purpose of life;
-
Enhanced meditation and consciousness expansion due to reduced physical
restriction;
- Ability to communicate with diseased loved ones and spiritual guides;
-
Greater sense of humanity and desire and ability to help others;
- Valuing life more;
-
Leading a more purposeful, mature, ethical and humanitarian or assistantial
life;
-
Fostering a gradual social renovation away from divisiveness and materialism;
-
Better preparation for inevitable physical death (less traumatic transition);
-
Finding missing persons, surveying distant physical locations (tourism,
science, looking for a new house);
-
New methods of prevention, diagnosis, and remission of physical ailments;
-
Relief from restrictive physical conditions (prison, physical disability);
-
More restorative sleep
Accounts
of this experience have been recorded by persons from all walks of life
for thousands of years. What the new methods and techniques seek to do is to
put the phenomenon under the voluntary control of the individual, thus
empowering the person to remain lucid during the experience, to reach various
chosen extraphysical objectives, and to remember the experience
afterwards. Projections accelerate our
growth and expand our self-awareness through interactions with non-physical
persons and environments. We can better
understand our life purpose and the process of individual and collective
evolution. The mastering of one's projectability allows the individual to
use, over many physical lives, that one-third of his or her life wasted in
sleep toward learning and helping others. Continuous consciousness is an
essential milestone on the way to exiting the rebirth process.
The
out-of-body experience is a phenomenon known since ancient times. Early
references to the OBE are found in Ancient Egypt where priests considered the
existence of a subtle body (Ka), as well as in Ancient Greece, where it was
mentioned in the writings of Plato, and the studies of the historian Herodotus.
During the Middle Ages, as a result of the repression and fear imposed by
religious ideologies of the time, the out-of-body experience was studied and
practiced within secret societies and schools. In the 18th century, the Swedish
scientist Emmanuel Swedenborg made early attempts to systematize the study of
the out-of-body experience and in the 19th century, the French writer Honoré de
Balzac predicted the creation a new science that would study this phenomenon
(today called Projectiology).
In
the last decades of the 20th century, researchers such as Karlis Osis, Janet
Lee Mitchell, and Robert Morris, to name a few, published the results of their
scientific investigations of psychic experiences and out-of-body phenomena.
From this point on, the out-of-body experience became the subject of more
rigorous scientific investigation. Anthropologists have recently identified
that 95% of cultures worldwide believe in some sort of extracorporeal
experience (Alcock & Otis, 1980). The out-of-body experience is currently
considered to be a universal phenomenon, present in all civilizations and
described in many philosophical, religious, and literary writings throughout
human history.
One
of the factors that keeps people from the benefits of OBE’s is fear. Truly, the
antidote of fear is knowledge. Studying
the massive collection of anecdotal accounts and history from throughout the
world helps you realize: you wouldn’t be the first one – far from it! There are over 200 different names from
different cultures, languages, and eras for the out-of-body experience, the
non-physical body, and bioenergies – this is nothing new!
Many people start exploring the ‘paranormal’
after they have a spontaneous striking experience that defies conventional
understanding like a near-death experience (NDE): clearly they live to
tell the tale. Apart from dreaming that I was mourning the very night before my
father died, I only started having significant parapsychic experiences after
inducing out-of-body experiences by will starting in 1999.
I began studying hypnosis and later the OBE
simply because it fascinated me, because they were mysterious and could help
people. The first time I read about the
OBE, I felt giddy with the idea that I too could explore the afterlife and come
back to tell about it! Through my own
experiments, I can know instead of believing.
I was anxious the first times that I felt the
unusual and sometimes very intense pre-projective sensations. However, it was
scarier to play out the drama on this physical stage of life, ignorant (and not
always blissfully so) of the backstage – where a lot more action goes on. I
wanted to be more aware, beyond the tip of the iceberg, to better understand
how life works so I can make less mistakes and do more with my life: grow
faster by helping more people in ways few people are currently doing. The
thought of being limited solely to the “normal,” robotic, animal, materialistic
life depresses me before the chance of exploring the unknown, making more sense
of life, and sharing new emancipating ideas.
This yearning for a more purposeful and exciting life may be behind many
cases of depression and deaths (OBE skydiving sounds a lot safer and at least
as much of a high), but it’s also a powerful counter to beginner’s fear.
Being raised in Portugal, I valued the courage,
honor, and excitement of being a pioneer like the 14th century
navigators that expanded the European view of the world by overcoming technical
and mystical obstacles. How many of us
wanted to be astronauts as kids? How many of us would mind having an
out-of-body experience into outer space and look at this beautiful Planet from
without?
The longing to meet with a diseased loved one,
dissatisfaction with our materialistic reality, the dullness of repeating daily
life ad nauseum, even musings of a pre-planned life purpose or life
partner… all can overpower fear of the unknown. Lucid projectors, sensitives,
and clairvoyants realize that fearing what is “out there” is immature, because
the physical and extraphysical realms aren’t separated. Knowing and becoming more aware of what has
always been there provides more self-control, liberty, and protection.
Besides, the death of our physical body is inevitable. So, it seems more intelligent to face it, get
a glimpse of what’s to come, and learn more so you can have a more fulfilling
life and a smoother, better death (unlike most people). Many individuals who have had projections with
low or even high awareness but lack information on the issue can mistake
projections for vivid or lucid dreams of “flying” or “seeing their dead body”
and so on. Lucid projectors also notice
that we all project every night – so projecting is not the problem; doing so
with lucidity and control is an acquired skill.
The out-of-body experience is an important tool
at your disposal to lead a more lucid and purposeful life. Yes, a global
paradigm shift will take a very long time… But you have the opportunity
(responsibility?) to help it come about sooner. Let’s become the cutting edge
and catalyze personal and social change.
Viagem Espiritual II by Wagner Borges – Now
available in English (free online book with neat illustrations) at http://www.ippb.org.br/
Sample Related Resources:
Understanding the Fear of Out-of-Body Projection by Alfredo Gutiérrez
Interview
with Nanci Trivellato in Soul Travel
Magazine.
This
article was originally published in Natural Awakenings, North Central
Florida edition, January/February 2005.