In my first dispatch, which I called “Soul Project,” I announced my intention to have an out of body experience.
I wanted to see firsthand if I could witness the soul, or at least consciousness, as separate from the body.
Well, my report is long overdue.
In a word, I was able to do it! Though I’m not yet sure what I learned from it.
Read on to hear how it happened for me.
Table of Contents: Jump To
1. I signed up for a course in OBEs, (yes I did).
Check out Darius J Wright
I wanted a little help and support as I attempted an out of body experience, and since I had been listening to podcasts and interviews with the prolific OBE experiencer Darius J. Wright, I signed up for his course in the AYDA method which offers guidance for people who wish to experience their true nature.
The course was totally worth it, and it helped me ultimately to exit my body.
Wright supplied, for instance, specific beats and detailed instructions for how to prepare the body for exit. It’s also nice to have access to a community of people attempting the same thing.
2. What are the basic instructions?
How to Get Out of Body - Sleep Paralysis
- Lie down on your back. Optionally, use binaural beats. As the body falls asleep, you are trying to keep your mind awake.
Bob Monroe’s classic instruction, for instance, is “mind awake, body asleep.”
2. If successful, you will enter a state called sleep paralysis. During this phase, you will not be able to move your body but your mind can still perceive.
It is very common to perceive strange, scary or dark presences, or even spiders (or anything else that induces fear) during this phase. The challenge is to remain calm and to trust that you are completely safe.
MANY people will remain unable to progress beyond this stage because of fear.
I myself have been experiencing sleep paralysis since I was a child, and it has taken me several motivated years to get over the fear and heart racing I experience in this liminal, hypnogogic state.
If you make it past the sleep paralysis, here is where things get REALLY interesting!
Read on…
3. The Vibrational State.
Just before you exit
Bill Buhlman and others discuss at length the vibrational state.
It’s what happens in the seconds before your consciousness exits the body.
Normally, it happens after you’ve maintained sleep paralysis for a while, perhaps a minute or two.
In my experience, this state feels like electric waves traveling through the body. You may or may not shake, tremor, or shiver.
For me, it feels somewhat like the body is terrified, quaking; but it is possible — with practice — to keep the mind at ease.
This state signals that you are ALMOST READY to exit the body, but you’ll know for sure when a couple more things happen:
4. That SOUND!
Like a Transformer Just Burst in Your Head
For MANY but not all out of body experiencers, myself included, you will hear an intense, incredibly loud, electric-sounding noise mere milliseconds before your consciousness separates from the body.
The first few times I heard a sound like this, it scared me so badly I woke right up.
This is the point where many would-be experiencers pull the plug, so to speak, out of sheer terror.
Some have described it as the howling of banshees, or the imminent oncoming of a locomotive.
The best words I have are that it sounded electric and very loud — maybe louder than anything in life — and very close.
If you envision that your consciousness (or soul) is linked to your body by a powerful electric force, it makes sense that you would hear this loud staticky separation as your consciousness rips away from the physical form.
I am told that this is completely safe, that your soul is irrevocably attached to your body until death, and that you are a sovereign being who cannot be violated if you don’t allow it
5. A Sensation of Hovering
Time to Roll Out!
Once I heard that loud electric sound (I had heard it perhaps three times before this successful exit attempt), I also noticed that it felt like *I* was somehow hovering maybe an inch above my body.
This is exactly how Monroe, Buhlman, and Wright said it would be.
Other experiencers describe feeling like they are somehow sinking below or behind their bodies. Either way, as soon as you feel like your consciousness has separated from your body, or could, it is time to roll out.
Note that some people have better success sitting up or imagining pulling a rope, but what worked for me (and many others) was the roll-out method, so that’s what I share here.
As soon as I felt that signal to roll out, off I rolled to the left.
And what I felt next was wild.
6. I'm Out!
Is This Real?
I rolled out of my bed and right on to the floor. It felt as real and hard as day.
As prompted by many OBE teachers, the first thing I did was look at my hands.
They appeared real, substantial, and totally as I would expect to see them in everyday life.
Next, I looked at my legs. I noticed immediately that they were incredibly smooth-shaven — smoother than I knew they were, given that I had not shaved in a few days. This detail was bewildering but I had heard that the soul self that exits the body is the perfected self, so it made sense to me.
Still, I ran my hands up and down my legs to experience their smoothness, and I was indeed able to experience them as soft and silky legs.
I DARED NOT look back at my sleeping form because I knew I would get sucked back into my body due to my heart racing.
My plan was to fly out the window, so I did just that.
7. The Astral Realm
Visiting My Own Mind Space
As soon as I flew out the window, I saw a cobblestone city beneath the back of my house.
There were people toiling happily below, and they looked up at me and waved with big smiles. It felt as though I had appeared in the year 1600 or so, but I couldn’t be sure.
I wanted to keep exploring, so I flew toward a tree and then thought of my mom’s house, which is only a few streets away.
At this point, my surroundings became fuzzy and difficult to control. I ended up getting frustrated and then waking up in my body, on the bed.
Wright teaches that out of body experiencers will often first encounter the astral realm which he takes to be manifestations of one’s own thoughts and in some cases others’ thoughts.
It’s a whole next level to enter places that are shared and real and supposedly as physical and dense as our 3-D human reality on Earth.
8. What's Next
Where to Go from Here...
I cannot deny the reality of my experience. My consciousness was as fully present as it is in this moment, and yet I also cannot draw any serious conclusions yet.
It’s taken me many months to process this experience, and I am still harboring some fear which has prevented me from going all in on another attempt — though I’m getting closer to being ready again.
Next time, I would sure like to look back at my body, even if I immediately get sucked back in, because I believe that would give me further confirmation that my experience was real.
In addition, I would like to experience shared realms that exist beyond the astral.
For now, I am certain that consciousness really IS NOT limited to the body. But there is certainly much more exploration to be done.
About Leigha Butler
Long-time consciousness explorer Leigha Butler offers yoga teacher trainings and yoga flows on her membership site, LBY.
Wow!!! That is sooo cool! My dad would talk his out of body experience and I would always wonder if it was real or not. Thanks for sharing your story and experience. I am curious now for myself…..
Cool that your dad had those experiences. Fascinating stuff!