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OBE = Out of Body Experience. Also known as Astral Projection. I don’t dwell on it much. In fact, I hardly ever think about it any more except when I read something that reminds me. Most recently that was a discussion regarding death. Some people claim there is more to a person than just a body. Others claim there isn’t. And so it goes back and forth with no resolution either way. We apparently can’t come back to tell people what it is like after we die. Houdini promised to, and if anyone could have, I think it would have been him. So we are left guessing.

Back to the story. This happened to me in the summer of 1979 when I was 21. I had been into mediating from time to time and had some success with self-hypnosis on a few occasions so I was used to playing mind games with myself. On this particular evening I had acquired a small amount of some very gold marijuana. Please don’t stop reading yet. Yes there was a small amount of that drug involved, but what happened was not a hallucination or my imagination. I had smoked before, and lots more at times, so I was familiar with the effects of said drug. I knew what it was like to be “wasted.” I was not wasted that evening, I was pleasantly buzzed. I include that fact for the sake of completeness to the story. I am not proud or ashamed, it just was.

So anyway, I was reclined on my bed feeling very relaxed and pleasant. It was a great day. One of the things I had learned to do while mediating was to stimulate noises in my mind. Usually a ringing or buzzing type noise much like what people with tinnitus complain of. But, I could do that when I meditated. That came very easy on this evening. The noise grew and grew, and it grew more complex. There were, pardon the cliche, little animals chirping and chipping and getting louder. I really don’t know for sure how long that went on, not very long I think. Probably only around 10 minutes or so from the first noises to the crescendo.

At the crescendo my life changed. It felt as if someone had grabbed the bed and shook it very hard, and then my .. something .. left my body and raised straight up a couple of feet. I was on the bed and could feel it below me, and I was above the bed and could feel myself floating. At that point I went wide-eyed and upright. As I said, I was not “stoned” and I had not been drinking alcohol or taken any other intoxicating substance. So I was immediately alert to what was happening. There was another person across the room so I explained what was going on and asked if they could see anything. The response was negative. I sat on the edge of the bed very scared and for probably less than a minute I “fought” to keep myself together, so to speak. The feeling did pass after a bit as my mediative state and buzz both came to an abrupt end.

I had not been prepared for that event. I wish I had been. Certainly I searched for answers in the years afterward. It turns out that the events I experienced have been experienced by many. Some claim to do it regularly and for both recreational and more serious reasons. I don’t doubt that. But my efforts to recreate that event have come right to the cusp of separation and then failed. The reason, I am sure, is fear. In spite of everything I have read, that is a door that brings up such fear that it destroys the mood every time.

But, my OBE did indeed change my views on death and soul and such. Not that I have answers, but I have experienced something more than just physical body. So I have to wonder what it all means. I don’t think death of my body will mean death of my essence. Some will say that my experience was some kind of brain malfunction like how they try to explain deja vu. I can’t prove otherwise, but I don’t believe it.

Many people have had near-death experiences and talked about seeing themselves being worked on by the doctors and that kind of thing. Some claim religious experiences, but I attribute that to a predilection for such things. If you are looking for an explanation and you have been prepared for a religious experience, that is how you would report it. I have never been religious, and having an OBE just reinforced my views that one does not need to be religious to be a spiritual being. We are all spiritual beings, whether we acknowledge it or not.

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