What are astral projection and OBEs like?

[Bluto]

I'm fascinated with the notion that consciousness can leave one's physical body. However, despite listening to numerous accounts of people who claim to have experienced this, I'm still very curious about something: what exactly is it like compared with ordinary embodied wakefulness? Hardly any of the accounts I've listened to focus on this aspect. They tend to focus more on the meaning of it, and what they encountered on their travels. I never really hear people describe the experience in terms of how real it feels compared with bodily experiences. I hope I make sense.

Can anybody here describe in detail what it feels like? How it compares to their waking life inside their body? Are OBEs and AP essentially the same experience as bodily life, but with more freedoms? How do you know you're not dreaming? Is it less real, as real, or more real than bodily life when awake and going about one's daily life? Does it make bodily life feel more like the dream? Do you feel sensations such as travel, flotation, rotation, etc? I'm very keen to understand the experience, and even keener to have one, and to know I've had one.

I once had a profound experience whilst asleep where I met someone I was close to who died 18 days later. The experience happened at the same time I should have been with her, but she was taken to hospital urgently earlier that day, so we didn't get to meet that night. The experience was in the exact room where I was sleeping, was also dark and night time, and was very vivid, although bathed in sepia colour. I could even see the grain pattern in the cushions. Everything was correctly proportioned according to my room, except for one additional item. I did not feel myself leave my body. In that experience my close friend briefly appeared, looking about 30 years younger, and simply winked at me with a smile. But what happened immediately after leads me to wonder if I had an OBE or a lucid dream. After she winked I felt a sense of extremely fast movement back towards my body, and then I jolted awake when I reached my body. However, it was not the same or quite as real as if I was wide awake. But it was more real than a typical dream.

Thank you in advance for any insights.

[ThatMan]

@Bluto I believe you had an out of body experience ( you were pulled back into your body, I had a few experiences like this ), it's not a "rule" so to say to be fully conscious, you can be in observing mode, where you can only observe and not react. You can be in instinctive mode, where you act instinctively, usually coming from our deepest feelings. You can be conscious to some degree or you can be fully conscious, what I found is that an OBE that happens while asleep misses the "waking" element, even though one may feel like fully conscious, at least that's my experience.

Well, you are still you, you even have an image of your physical body with you, you feel it, legs, arms, head, everything or you can be just a point of awareness. You can literally experience the process of leaving the body, usually it's like floating out. I think you have seen those images with the astral body leaving the physical body? They are all over google, it is just like that and so much more.

I am at a point where in meditative state I can float out of my body or keep that astral body within the bounds of my physical body. I mean I can feel myself sliding, floating ( to my right side ) out of my body, took me quite some time to be able to do this. This is a huge difference from when it's happening while asleep, the waking element is still here.

I had hundreds OBE, I know a ton about this stuff but I still know nothing.. there's so much more and whatever I know it is based on how I perceive things but there are many common things shared globally.

[AstralTraveller]

Originally Posted by Bluto

Can anybody here describe in detail what it feels like? How it compares to their waking life inside their body? Are OBEs and AP essentially the same experience as bodily life, but with more freedoms?

It feels like you are awake with heightened senses, and you will seem to know more about what is actually going on, like you have more knowledge. You feel more aware, and charged, depending on the light body you can defy various laws of physics. And no matter how dark it is, it's always lite around you, and you can always "see", and with absolute clarity even if you physically wear glasses. I have an immense white glow. Some claim to see a cord, but unfortunately, I was never able to see this silver cord. Overall, it just feels like your consciousness was shifted over to a lighter body with far less limits.

AP is a type of OBEs; AP is an OBEs that you ended up in the Astral Plane. Some OBEs people leave their body and remain here on the Physical Plane, and ghost around. Some starts off in the Physical and take off to the Astral.

[Bluto]

Thank you ThatMan and AstralTraveller. Your replies are enlightening.

Originally Posted by AstralTraveller

It feels like you are awake with heightened senses, and you will seem to know more about what is actually going on, like you have more knowledge. You feel more aware [....] And no matter how dark it is, it's always lite around you, and you can always "see", and with absolute clarity

This description supports a view I've held for a while after I went through what I describe as a healing/awakening. It's the view that the brain's job is not to produce consciousness, but to keep it out. I'd like to know how to break free from the brain's constraints and invoke an OBE so as to alter my consciousness. The time feels right in my life to experience this. So I'll begin by learning the techniques, and being committed and patient.