O.B.E.'s

i sometimes have what i call 'Galactic Dreams', dreams or memories which are not too surreal, but definitely not normal/ mundane. Un / surprisingly, i'm rather convinced that i am a 'star seed', given that i have some traits of what is apparently common to such people, according to spacely new age circles..... However, i will let the Official Verdict of whether or not i am a Starseed, be declared by others (optimally, by any visiting Galactic Humans who may happen to be around.)

of the galactic dreams i've had, most tend to fall into two categories, i think; non-terrestrial past life memories, and out of body travel (to other not-earth places), the difference being that the former seem to be me-yet-not-me, as if i am remembering an old neighborhood or school building in my head (and yet these places are pretty distinctly Not-Earth-like, imo), and the latter feeling more in the 'here and now' with me as an earthling, in a generally non-earthling place.

is it a case of me being too into sci-fi, at too early a (mental) age, thus resulting in self-fulfilling mis-identity and delusion ? i don't know, but within my own personal experience, it is fairly convincing, and according to it being a big enough thing to have a niche label (or several, depending on either the criteria or social circles), im apparently not the only one experiencing this.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: Is this that moment between sleep and awake where you think you were disembodied but in actuality were really not? These are artificial constructs by the brain to create a sense of "body ownership" of something that exists outside of itself. In actuality these experiences of being outside your body are false ones due to a cognitive dissonance in brain states. In effect, you have not left your body, instead your brain creates this illusion that you have due to a lack of cohesion the brain experiences in identifying the body's location in space.

I take it then that you've never experienced an OBE then.

I have. And I would have dismissed it as going nuts, except that I visited someone far away, and afterwards this third party later confirmed everything I had seen, information that I could not have been able to guess otherwise.

However, it is not something I intended to do, nor can I control it at all, nor do I think I could reproduce it. I definitely cannot prove it to you either.

Which is why in general I don't bother with these things. They are super cool and interesting, but I'd rather spend my time getting things done than meditating for 40 years hoping for it to happen again.

JamesSand wrote: I'm not saying things exist just because we want them to, I'm saying that the experience exists if someone experiences it.

This is a meaningless statement. Can you prove the experience exists? If you can prove it exists can you objectively prove the experience occurred according to the parameters defined by the experiencer?

Magnus Staar wrote:
I take it then that you've never experienced an OBE then.

I have. And I would have dismissed it as going nuts, except that I visited someone far away, and afterwards this third party later confirmed everything I had seen, information that I could not have been able to guess otherwise.

However, it is not something I intended to do, nor can I control it at all, nor do I think I could reproduce it. I definitely cannot prove it to you either.

You claim to have evidence you experienced a seemingly supernatural event outside the realm of science and then you claim you can't prove your experience. This is nothing more than cognitive bias. You build a set of facts that support a claim you have already arrived at. I simply do not find this a viable or constructive way to interact with my emvironment.

To answer your question, yes I have experienced what seemed to be an OOB experience. However instead of jumping to a conclusion I investigated the experience in an objective manner using science and principles such as occams razor. In the light of a compete lack of evidence or the fact that I could consistently reproduce the phenomena I am forced to conclude that, due to the lack of evidence, the phenomena is nothing more than a well documented trick of the brain. I will hold that opinion until such time as new and sufficient evidence is presented to contradict that.

Just the way science works, you can't prove something doesn't exist per se, only that it hasn't given certain conditions in the past. ESP/OOBE/Psi and that whole family of pseudoscience have made claims that have been tested with double blinds and disproven. Honestly, the whole issue seems just like a matter of semantics. Person A had a dissociative experience, and when Person B disputes the capital T Truth of having a literal out of body experience, Person A feel invalidated. As long as you don't literally think you can experience something physically inaccessible to you due to ESP/OOBE/Psi working as a natural phenomenon, then we're all in agreement, and most likely have experienced something like you.

I believe in OBE's. Thats good enough for me. I have no reason, need or desire to argue, debate, prove or disprove otherwise. My belief is good enough for me

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: You claim to have evidence you experienced a seemingly supernatural event outside the realm of science and then you claim you can't prove your experience. This is nothing more than cognitive bias. You build a set of facts that support a claim you have already arrived at. I simply do not find this a viable or constructive way to interact with my emvironment.

To answer your question, yes I have experienced what seemed to be an OOB experience. However instead of jumping to a conclusion I investigated the experience in an objective manner using science and principles such as occams razor. In the light of a compete lack of evidence or the fact that I could consistently reproduce the phenomena I am forced to conclude that, due to the lack of evidence, the phenomena is nothing more than a well documented trick of the brain. I will hold that opinion until such time as new and sufficient evidence is presented to contradict that.

Fair enough. My evidence was third party confirmation. That's good enough for me.

Magnus Staar wrote: My evidence was third party confirmation. That's good enough for me.

Why? This is something I could never understand. Why do we spend so much time emphasizing how easily our senses can deceive us, especially how someone else's senses can deceive them, but then turn around within the minute and insist that a non-reproducible, undocumented, personal experience can suddenly be "good enough", if it confirms what we find to be a neat idea? Why wait for the experience at all then? Why not just declare everything you (not you personally, Magnus, I'm just using the opportunity to vent a little) like the sound of accurate and drop critical thinking altogether? Might as well!

Gisteron wrote:

Magnus Staar wrote: My evidence was third party confirmation. That's good enough for me.

Why? This is something I could never understand. Why do we spend so much time emphasizing how easily our senses can deceive us, especially how someone else's senses can deceive them, but then turn around within the minute and insist that a non-reproducible, undocumented, personal experience can suddenly be "good enough", if it confirms what we find to be a neat idea? Why wait for the experience at all then? Why not just declare everything you (not you personally, Magnus, I'm just using the opportunity to vent a little) like the sound of accurate and drop critical thinking altogether? Might as well!

Risk management. We do the same with many things that we take for granted as real.

I know that I might be wrong. But as long as I am not hung up on the experience I had, what harm is there in believing it might have been real as well?

This could work with a bunch of "real" things, such as believing in the faithfulness of my spouse, the veracity of our media, and my likelihood to get promoted at work. Lots of variables, lots of unknowns, and all we can is manage probability.

On the flip side, I ask you, why so quick to dismiss OBEs (or any ESP-like experience) as false?

Magnus Staar wrote: Risk management. We do the same with many things that we take for granted as real.

I know that I might be wrong. But as long as I am not hung up on the experience I had, what harm is there in believing it might have been real as well?

This could work with a bunch of "real" things, such as believing in the faithfulness of my spouse, the veracity of our media, and my likelihood to get promoted at work. Lots of variables, lots of unknowns, and all we can is manage probability.

On the flip side, I ask you, why so quick to dismiss OBEs (or any ESP-like experience) as false?

This is just a version of Pascals wager. Hedging your bets "just in case". What this boils down to is that you would rather live your life according to your best fantasy rather than actually pursuing truth. Sometimes lifes pursuits lead us to truths we don't prefer or to questions we can't answer. When we find ourselves in these places its ok to just say "we dont know". This is just the nature of our existence. What I don't understand is why people then decide to abandon logic and make a leap to a madeup belief that there is no evidence for. As a Jedi don't you feel the pursuit of truth should take persistence over devolving into a belief in superstition or invented fantasy?