CHAPTER 1 
Background
I was born in Minneapolis Minnesota and spent the first 24 years of my life there. My childhood was normal except for a few unusual experiences that will be described later. 
Before I started Kindergarten, met a boy named Brian, who was about three years older, and we became friends. Brian was a good friend, but he had a bad habit of lying. Brian felt that lying made him seem more knowledgeable and important than other kids, and he loved to be in that position of power. At that young age, I was naive and always asking questions, but I had no concept of dishonesty. Hanging around Brian, it didn't take me long to find out what a lie was. Before long, I didn't trust anything that Brian said to me. Still, Brian was my only friend and there were no other kids my age in the area. Instead of abandoning our friendship, I took it as a challenge. I still valued his friendship, but I had to learn to separate the fact from the fiction. I was forced to use logic to tell when he was lying and when he was telling the truth. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't. But I got better at it by verifying some of the facts with grownups I knew I could trust. 
Before too long, my parents intervened and told me I couldn't see Brian again because he was a "bad influence." They were right. But Brian's friendship taught me some valuable lessons when I was at an impressionable age. First, I learned that you can't believe everything you hear or read. I gained a real appreciation for the "truth" and I learned to question everything. Second, I learned how to use reason, deduction and logic. My love of the truth turned into a love for scientific knowledge, an insatiable curiosity, and a thirst for knowledge and exploration. 
When I entered grade school, I made my first important discovery: The school library. Most of the kids would run to the fiction section to grab the story books. I would run to the shelf marked "SCIENCE" and I'd read text books. I would read any book as long as it was scientific: dinosaurs, biology, lasers, botany, archaeology, astronomy and anything else that crossed my curious mind in a particular week. Even before I could read I would learn by looking at the pictures. 
My mom used to take me to the public library and let me wander around while she picked out books. Of course, I'd go straight for the science books there too. But in the public library, children's books were mostly story books. So I would wander around the adult section and look for science books. I remember one day when I stumbled into the anatomy section of the adult books. I wonder what my parents would have said if they found out I knew all about sex and the reproductive system at the age of six! I remember arguing with other six-year-olds about where babies came from. They insisted on storks and cabbage-patches, and I just couldn't talk any sense into them. 
I got a reputation for being a "know it all" or a "brain." I didn't care for that status at all, because people couldn't relate to a "brain" and everyone resents a "know-it-all." I did my best to fight against my reputation, and stuck to a small group of friends. 
In high school I became interested in the field of computers and my curiosity led me to study computers in my spare time. I took several computer short-courses offered by the University of Minnesota. After I had taken every short-course the University had to offer, I spent my free time reading computer manuals and writing computer games. My face became well known in the University computer labs. I often chuckled when people twice my age would ask me for help on their programming class assignments. 
After high school, I entered the University of Minnesota majoring in the field of Computer Science. During that time I started having Out-of-Body Experiences (OBEs), and it changed the course of my life. Perhaps it can change your life too! 

EXERCISE 1
Affirmations
This "exercise" section, which appears at the end of each chapter, is designed to present exercises and pointers to readers who are interested in learning to have out-of-body experiences. The exercises will be simple in the early chapters and get more complicated in later chapters. 
This particular exercise is an affirmation. An affirmation is like a New Year's resolution; something you say to yourself to strengthen your ability to do something. It's not enough just to say the affirmation, you should think about it first, then say it slowly to yourself a few times. Each time you say an affirmation, you should try to put emotion behind your words and actually believe what you are saying. 
Affirmations work for many reasons. First, it's a way to clearly communicate with your subconscious, and we all know how powerful the subconscious is from hypnosis studies. 
Second, many people in metaphysics believe in a higher consciousness, sometimes called your "Higher Self," or "Oversoul," which is even more powerful than your subconscious. Affirmations also allow you to communicate your intentions to your Oversoul which can help you reach your goals. 
Third, many people in metaphysics believe that your beliefs directly affect your experience. Affirmations make it easier to change your belief-system, and make positive changes in your life. 
The most effective affirmations are the kind you make for yourself. They should be short, succinct and stated in a positive way. For example, use "I want" messages instead of "I don't want" messages. State the changes you want in your life and what you are willing to do to make it real. For this exercise, you should do affirmations based on your want to have OBEs. You can either create your own affirmation or use the one given below: 
I want to have out-of-body experiences. I want to leave my body. I know that the Universe will respond to my needs and wants quickly, efficiently and joyously. In return, I will practice OBE exercises, cooperate with the Universe, follow my impulses, act on my intuitions, share my knowledge, spread my love and cooperate with my own Higher Self. 
CHAPTER 2 
My Childhood
I grew up in a hectic house with three brothers and one sister. My dad was a religious man in his own quiet way. He generally kept quiet about his religion. Once or twice I heard him mention Edgar Cayce in passing, but I ignored most of this, dismissing it as either "occult" or "unscientific." As a rule, he never exposed his kids to occult ideas. 
My mom was a devout Catholic, and she raised her kids as "good" Catholics, that is, the kind who go to church every Sunday, say their prayers, and pretty much forget about God and religion during the week. At any rate, I grew up with a healthy sense of right and wrong, and never used drugs. I was the only kid in my high school who never tried marijuana. I still haven't tried drugs; drugs are for people who are lazy and lack the will to induce their own, natural altered states of consciousness. 
Once I asked my mom if she remembered anything unusual about my childhood. She told me that whenever I got really sick, I would sleepwalk. To be precise, I would get up in the middle of the night and dance around in circles chanting like an Indian shaman. Of course, I wasn't conscious at the time. 
When I got sick, I only remember a strange sensation that used to terrify me: When I drifted off to sleep, I had a terrifying "nightmare." I would "dream" that I held a tiny grain of salt in the palm of my hand. Then my consciousness would shrink to a terrifyingly small size until the grain of salt looked like a skyscraper. Terrified of being crushed by the salt, I would wake up screaming. 
I didn't consider myself a psychic child. Nonetheless, I had a few experiences worth noting. 
One day, when I was perhaps 10 or 12 years old, I was very depressed. I don't even remember why I was depressed, but my depression was so severe that I actually prayed to die. Sometime after I had gone to bed, I awoke to find myself whooshing up, out of my body, escorted by what I thought was an angel. I thought I had died, and I was amazed that I hadn't felt any pain during the separation. I thought that death would be painful, but it wasn't. 
Finally I came to a halt before a large, tremendously powerful invisible being, whom I immediately thought was God. The being told me it was time to go, and I understood immediately what that meant: Death. 
Then I got a yearning to go back. I was homesick. I felt guilty about wishing to die. And I knew that my parents would be very sad about my death. So I begged and pleaded to be brought back to Earth. "Why?" I was asked. I thought for a moment, searching for an answer. I said, "Everyone there thinks that death is painful and sad. I have to go back to tell everyone that death is painless, and joyful." 
After thinking about it, "God" consented and I was escorted back. I awoke amazed at the realism I had experienced. I forced myself to believe it was a dream and nothing more. 
Another experience happened when I was a little older, perhaps 14 or 15. I used to have playful wrestling matches with two other boys. 
One day we were talking about wrestling, and got on the subject of the world-famous wrestling hold called "the sleeper hold." The hold would knock an opponent out by cutting off blood circulation to the brain. Anyway, we all wondered what it would be like to be knocked out. FD was the strongest of the three and the third boy was afraid, so I agreed to let FD knock me out with a bear-hug. 
We went outside and he gave me the strongest bear-hug I've ever experienced. I couldn't breathe and soon became unconscious. It was like waking from a dream; this world was a dream and I awoke to a reality more real and vivid than this world is. I saw the illusion of this existence on Earth dispelled! It faded away and I didn't regret it. Soon I found myself in the "real" world in a huge city that I already knew. 
My memory seemed to return--Yes--I had gone to sleep and dreamed of a little place called "Earth" and now I was awake. "That was a silly dream" I thought, and I soon forgot all about "Earth." I continued my life, just like before I fell asleep. I lived in that fantastic city for years and years--centuries it seemed. I lived there so long that I COMPLETELY forgot all about Earth. For hundreds of years I had forgotten Earth. If someone was to ask me about it, I couldn't remember, since it happened so long ago. 
Then one day I was walking to a store. Suddenly a confusing loss of direction hit me and I felt myself falling. Suddenly I opened my eyes only to see strange leaves, the sky and FD and the other boy looking at me! Where was I now? How did I get here? What happened? Then I remembered: Hundreds of years ago, I fell asleep and found myself here. This place was called "Earth" and was a part of a weird dream. I must have fallen asleep again. Slowly my Earthly memory returned. I asked the boys how long I had been unconscious. They said only a few minutes. They asked me what happened, and I told them I didn't want to talk about it. 
A third psychic experience is as follows: I was riding with my father in his truck and we went under a railroad bridge viaduct. It was near Columbia Park in Columbia Heights Minnesota, only a few blocks from where I lived in Minneapolis. We drove under the bridge, and a train was passing over the track. I got a very uncomfortable feeling and "imagined" the train falling from the track onto the truck and street, crushing us. I said, "I hate this" to my dad. After we had gone through the viaduct I asked my dad, "How often do they jump the track?" My dad (who worked as a clerk for a railroad) said that it was nearly impossible for a train to derail; it was especially rare at a bridge or viaduct. Within a week, a train derailed at that very viaduct. I was about 14 at the time. 
Some people may say that these psychic experiences would suggest I was born with some natural abilities. However, I disagree. A couple of unusual events during childhood does not make you "psychic." My childhood was normal. 
Once when I was young I overheard my dad talking to my brother and he mentioned a thing called "astral projection." I asked my brother what it was, but I was brushed aside with a simple, "That's where people fly outside their bodies." It sounded interesting to me, but too unscientific--like a fairy tale. I waited patiently until the next time my mom took me to the library, then I tried to find "Astral" in the card catalog. The library didn't have any books on it at the time, so I forgot all about the subject. 

EXERCISE 2
Prayer
Many people from all walks of life believe that we have spiritual guides or guardians of some sort. Christians call them Guardian Angels. Zoroastrians call them the Fervashi. Spiritualists call them spirit guides. Whatever you call them, they can hear our silent thoughts and prayers, and they can help us in many ways. They can even help us have OBEs. 
Since our guides are here to help us spiritually, this exercise is to pray to your guides to help you have OBEs. I can't tell you what to pray, but I can give you an example which I sometimes use: 
I pray to God, the All That Is, and to my guides, helpers and any other benevolent beings, to please help me achieve my goal of exploring consciously while out of my body. Help me leave my body and become conscious and in return, I will do my best to become more spiritual, and help you with your goals of guidance. 
CHAPTER 3 
First Contact
It wasn't until September 9, 1979 that the subject of out-of- body experiences came up again. My brother Joe knew my dad was interested in the occult, so for Father's Day, Joe gave him the book Journeys Out of the Body by Robert A. Monroe. I remembered searching the card catalog as a child, so after my dad had finished reading it, I asked him if I could borrow it, and he said yes. 
Monroe explained his OBEs in such a logical, scientific manner that I read the book faster than I'd ever read before. I didn't really believe Monroe's claims, but I liked his approach. His book urged me not to take his word for it, but to try it myself. 
I decided to take Monroe up on his offer, and follow his techniques to see for myself if these experiences were real or just hype, fantasy or dreams. That night, before I went to bed, I attempted astral projection for the first time. I had memorized Monroe's method earlier and I decided to close my eyes and try it. 
The first step was to relax. I spent a long time relaxing completely. The next step, which was quite a bit harder, was to drift between waking and sleeping consciousness. I found myself drifting into sleep once or twice, and I yanked myself back to full consciousness each time, being careful not to move my fully relaxed body. It took quite a while before I felt comfortable enough to go on to the next step: clearing my mind of all thoughts. 
This was harder yet. Every time I heard a noise I would be distracted and my mind would start to wander. Then my body started itching in the most distracting way. As soon as I'd scratch an itch, another new itch would take its place. Even after I conquered most of my itches (and ignored the rest) it was hard to keep my mind from wandering. 
At one point, I found I could hold my mind blank for several minutes, and I decided that would be long enough to go on to the next step: using imaginary lines of force to call "the vibrations." I followed Monroe's method to the letter, carefully pausing between each step in the process. I was just about to give up when I felt a heavy "TWANG" in my head. If felt as if the lines of force had somehow become real and had touched a 110-volt power line. I thought, "Oops. Maybe this isn't such a good idea." I tried to pull myself back to normal consciousness by retracting my imaginary lines of force. I quickly pulled the lines of force back toward me, but much to my surprise, the "electricity" I felt at the end of those lines was also being pulled toward me. It was like I had been fishing and I felt a sharp bite at the end of my fishing pole: I quickly tried to pull my fishing line out of the water, but I only managed to set the hook, and pull in a fish. And it was quite a fish: A kind of electrical "vibration" violently swept into my body, filling my body with an electric-like shock and a terrible roaring noise. I thought I was being electrocuted and my first reaction was sheer panic. I could hear my heart beating wildly in mad fear, but I was powerless to control it. 
Somehow I could see through my closed eyelids. I looked up and I saw a blue ring of electrical fire flying right toward my head. It was about a foot in diameter, with the energy sparks about an inch-and-a-half thick, and it was bright blue. I instinctively tried to raise my arms to protect myself from the impact, but I found myself paralyzed and unable to move my arms. The ring of blue energy started to slip over my forehead and I looked away, afraid to see what would happen next. I started fighting wildly to regain control of my body and the "vibrations" slowly smoothed down and died out. When the vibrations faded completely, I could move my body again. 
I shook my arms and legs, and rejoiced that I hadn't lost the ability to move them, happy that I was completely in my body. "My God," I thought to myself, "It worked! Monroe wasn't lying! There ARE other worlds!" 

EXERCISE 3
Relaxation
One of the key factors in leaving the body is relaxation. The body should be relaxed as completely as possible. If the physical body isn't completely relaxed, it may be very difficult to turn your focus away from the body. 
Some laboratory experiments suggest that the physical body may be even more relaxed during an OBE than it is during a normal sleep state. Learning to relax your body to such a degree (without falling asleep) can be difficult, but it has its rewards. Learning to physically relax can lower blood pressure and counteract stress. You'll feel better and live longer by practicing relaxation regularly. 
For this exercise, you should learn to relax your body at will, completely and quickly. You should learn to relax every fiber and tissue of your body. One common method of relaxation is to get into a comfortable position, and slowly go through every limb from the feet up, tensing and relaxing every muscle in that limb. 
Special care should taken to completely relax the muscles in your face, including your eyelids, forehead, and jaw muscles. It's all right to open your mouth for maximum relaxation. 
After finishing this first relaxation, go back and slowly check every muscle again, making sure it's relaxed. If there is tension in any muscle, repeat the procedure and check every muscle again. 
CHAPTER 4 
Beliefs Blown to Bits
After my experience with the vibrations, I got up out of bed and walked out into the living room to tell somebody, anybody, that it was all real. My mom was in bed sleeping already, and my dad was asleep in his favorite chair in front of the television, and I didn't want to wake him. I walked into the kitchen and got a glass of water, occasionally shaking my arms and legs to make sure I was completely inside my body. After a few minutes I walked back to my bedroom and lay down, but I could not sleep. I could not stop thinking about the encounter and its implications. 
First, it was the most terrifying experience of my life. It felt like the vibrations were harming my body, and the roaring, hissing sound only scared me more. I had confronted mankind's two biggest fears: fear of the unknown and fear of death. My scientific self couldn't make any scientific sense out of the experience--it was not part of the physical universe that I knew. I tried to think about it based on my Catholic beliefs that insisted I could only leave my body if I died. Did I just have a close encounter with death? After several hours of trying to make sense out of the experience, I fell asleep without any answers. 
I spent the next day arguing with myself about the experience. My whole belief system was blown to pieces. Seeing is believing, and I could not deny that I had experienced the vibrations, the hissing sound, the paralysis and the blue ring of energy. I even "saw" through my closed eyelids. I knew I was not hallucinating, I was not insane, I was not dreaming and I was not under hypnosis. My experience was very "real" to me, as real as my normal waking consciousness, if not more real than that. 
My first observation was that some kind of nonphysical reality existed. That observation was a direct contradiction of my scientific beliefs because science had been leading me to believe there was no such thing as a nonphysical reality. 
Furthermore, I reasoned, Einstein's theory of relativity says that matter is the same as energy. If a person could consciously leave their body and enter a truly nonphysical world, they wouldn't exactly be "matter," or "energy" as we know it. Science left no room for "consciousness" or "spirit" in their formulas. Science led me to believe that there were only three basic dimensions of experience (plus time) and five senses. Everything else was labeled superstition, nonsense, hallucination or possibly religion. 
There is a fact of logic that when a premise is wrong, any conclusions made from that premise are also wrong. Since I had discovered a premise of science that was wrong, or at the very best incomplete, I deduced that many or all of the conclusions made by modern science were also wrong. At the very least, they were ignoring some major facts. 
My own scientific training had led me to distrust science itself! I could no longer trust the textbooks I loved as a child! Nevertheless, I believe that if a system works, it is okay to use it until you find something that works better. I decided that I would still use the scientific method as a tool but never completely trust science again. Meanwhile, the only thing I could do to find peace of mind was to try to induce more out-of-body experiences and learn more about the nonphysical world. 
My inner turmoil didn't end with my scientific belief system. I was Catholic. And that caused its own complications. 
The Catholic system taught me to believe in one "Heaven," one "Hell" and one Earth. On judgment day, they said, God judges a person to be either "good" or "bad." The people labeled "bad" go to hell forever, and the people labeled "good" go to heaven forever. And of course, until you die, you spend your days on earth. 
I could guess what the Catholics would say about a nonphysical reality. The liberal Catholics would probably say that I was being absurd, and they had science to back them up. Fundamentalists would probably say that any such experience must surely be the work of the Devil, trying to lead my soul into sin. 
Still, I refused to believe I was being tricked: Seeing is believing. I had seen that a nonphysical place existed and it wasn't "heaven" or "hell." Therefore, I had also found a basic premise of Catholicism that was wrong. I decided not to trust what the Catholics had taught me because they were just as ignorant of this nonphysical world as I had been. 
I continued going to church for a while, but I started an intense examination of my Catholic beliefs. Hoping to find some answers, I found a Bible that I got as a confirmation gift, and I read the entire New Testament and much of the Old Testament. The Bible convinced me that Jesus was a good man, and taught good lessons. In fact, I agreed with everything that Jesus was supposed to have said. 
But even what I read in the Bible didn't agree with my Catholic belief system! Heavy questions nagged in my heart. Why does the Catholic church insist that Jesus is the son of God, when Jesus called himself the "son of man" repeatedly? Why do they pray, "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you" then immediately they receive him? Why do they pray for their own petty interests instead of entrusting that God would take care of the world? Why do they preach about needing to fear God? Why do they hold carnivals and bingo games when Jesus said not to use a place of worship in these ways, and even kicked moneychangers out of a temple? Why, indeed, do they pass a money plate in church? Why do they spend millions and millions of dollars on grandiose churches-- have you ever seen St. Peters Basilica? --when people are starving? Why do they call the pope, "our holy father" when Jesus said not to call anyone father (Matthew 23:9)? Why do the Catholics go to church and pray in public when Jesus said, "when you pray, go into a room by yourself...in your secret place" (Matthew 6:5). Why do people go to church on Sunday and are unspiritual the rest of the week? It seemed wrong that, as a Catholic, going to church was my obligation and, once fulfilled, I was free to be as mundane and unspiritual as I wanted. Just one out-of-body experience blasted that whole hypocritical concept out of the water: During my OBE, I saw that I was a spiritual being--in fact, I was a spirit--and the thought of dying without some real relationship with God was scary. Before my OBE, it was enough to recite prayers I didn't even understand. After my OBE, it was clear I needed to do more. 
Eventually I came to realize that my Catholic belief system was not spiritual at all. The closer I looked, the more I understood. So I stopped going to church and embarked on a truly spiritual path. I don't mean to imply that all Catholics are unspiritual. It's just that I needed to find my own answers. 
Since my OBE taught me to have a real concern with spiritual matters, I realized that my OBE had taught me to be more spiritual, not less. I decided that God would not send me to hell for leaving the church and finding my own spiritual path. 
I resolved to ignore the pain, ignore the fear, ignore the danger, and take my chances with death and damnation to discover the truth. I decided to keep trying every night, until I got more results. Meanwhile, I decided to "raid" the Minneapolis Public Library to find more information on OBEs, and other methods of producing them. 

EXERCISE 4
Pretend Day
If you've read any other books on Astral Projection, you may have wondered: Why have almost all OBE techniques been an exercise of the imagination? Why are there so many visualizations? Why is pretending so important to leaving the body? 
Well, first let me make myself perfectly clear: OBEs are a lot more than just pretend; they are real. Absolutely real. If you've had one, there will be no doubt in your mind. During the OBE, you are as wide-awake, alert and conscious as you are while reading this. Sometimes more so. All this pretending is just a stepping-stone to get you out of your body. 
Before talking about pretending, I'd like to expose another myth. Some occult books say that children can leave their bodies easily but it's harder for most adults. They therefore conclude that as you get older, you become more cemented in your physical body. They say the older you get, the harder it is to have OBEs, because we become more focused in our body. Well, that just isn't true. People who say that are using an excuse to be lazy and not practice. 
Why, then, don't adults have more OBEs? One reason is that adults don't use their imagination as much or as vividly as children. That doesn't mean we can't use our imaginations well, it just means that most people don't. 
There's something magical about the imagination. Children know that intuitively. It's a matter of focus. Children use their imagination to unfocus from their daily lives. They know how to daydream and pretend. That's why children are so psychic! And we can become that psychic--that aware--if we start exercising our playful imaginations too. 
This exercise isn't just for now, it's an all-day exercise. I want you to make today "Pretend Day." All day today, at every available opportunity, I want you to exercise your playful imagination. These little pretend skits don't have to be long. It's better to be short and frequent, than long and drawn out. I'll give you some examples. Go through your day doing these sorts of things: 
The next time you sit down, just pretend for a few short seconds that you fall through your chair (in your astral body) and find yourself on the ground or through the floor. The next time you open a door, playfully pretend that your hand passes through the door knob instead of grabbing it. The next time you walk up a flight of stairs, playfully pretend you glide up it smoothly without walking. Pretend that your astral body glides up the stairs and patiently waits for your physical body to arrive at the top. The next time you look in a mirror, pretend you are looking at your physical body from afar. Pretend you are astral, in as many instances as you can. 
Also, it's good to pretend non-OBE things today. For instance, the next time you take a drive in your car, pretend that it lifts off the ground the starts flying over the traffic. The next time you are stopped by a traffic light, pretend that you get out a gun and shoot it! 
CHAPTER 5 
Pokes and Prods
Monroe said that fear was the biggest barrier to the out-of-body experience, and I soon found out why. If I were somehow able to leave my body, and Monroe can leave his, how many more people are "out there," and what can they do to me while I was also out there? It also made sense that when a person's body dies, they are forced to have a permanent OBE. What could they do to me? Furthermore, what could happen to my body while I was out? Could somebody else get inside my body while I was out? These were some questions that crossed my mind during the two months after my first encounter. 
During those two months I had my first dream about having an OBE. I dreamed I was dreaming. In the second level dream, I was telling my brother how I often attempted OBEs, and I showed him how to concentrate. Then I felt my chest rise. I thought of it rising more and it did. My dream-self then came out of my body, which was in the bed of the first level dream. I started walking toward my door, when I was pulled back inside by my body by the cord. I thought "Good. Now I can wake up and record that I've been out of my body." However, when I woke up I knew it was only a dream. It paled in comparison to my first episode with the vibrations. Still, having a dream about an OBE was fun and I knew that later I could compare it to a real OBE. Little did I know that my first real OBE was just around the corner. 
Although I didn't have another out-of-body experience during those two months, I did run into some unexpected and frightening sensations and experiences. These sensations weren't bad--just startling. They often jarred me out of the near-OBE state and spoiled the whole OBE-attempt. Sometimes it felt as if a warm hand was being placed on my body. I even felt a few pinches on my butt! 
One night I followed Monroe's procedure to the letter and was making good progress toward leaving my body. Suddenly I became very aware and alert. My eyes were closed and I was moving deeper into the blackness that I saw ahead of me, into a deeper state of consciousness. Suddenly, I heard an authoritative voice say, "STOP!" How could I argue? I never expected to be hearing voices during these experiments. I panicked and did everything I could to force myself back to a normal state. 
Another night I was trying to blank my mind without much success. After a while, I started to feel a swaying sensation, as if some part of my consciousness was rocking gently. I tried to increase the swaying, but the more I tried, the less I swayed. When I quit trying, the swaying would get stronger again. The swaying sensation was very much like the "sea legs" sensation that sailors experience when they've been on a ship too long and try to sleep on shore. After some experimentation I managed to change the direction of the swaying from side to side instead of up and down. The sensation was strange, but I could see no harm in it. From then on I could create the swaying sensation quite easily once I relaxed enough during practice. 
Several times I induced a strange bodily vibration that stemmed from my relaxation technique of tensing and relaxing my entire body. I wondered if this bodily vibration was related to the true OBE vibrations. The answer came one night when I decided to conduct an experiment in which I tried to watch myself fall asleep. 
I relaxed and just kept going deeper and deeper toward sleep. Suddenly, against my will, I was "zapped" into a state of full awareness. Then I felt a slight tingling. Then the vibrations came without my "reaching" for them. This time I noticed that the "true" vibrations were a crackling, electrical vibration. It felt as if electrical currents were disrupting my body, but not painfully, and not harming it. I tried to strengthen the vibrations with my mind. I managed to get them a little stronger, but like my first encounter, I could hear (but not feel) that my heart was pounding wildly. This broke my train of thought and the vibrations faded, as if my idle thinking (or worrying) drove them off. 
One night I got to the point where my mind wouldn't wander. I heard some banging sounds in my room that I couldn't explain. Suddenly I heard a louder, more defined bang that seemed to come from the ground, about five feet from the bed. I directed my senses in that direction and "felt" a big presence there, as if a spirit or ghost of some sort were there. I was afraid, but I tried to control my emotions, and asked in my mind who it was and what its purpose was. There was no answer. I forced myself back to full consciousness and looked in that direction. I saw a filmy, undefined movement in that direction. By then, I was so afraid that I purposely started moving parts of my body, to make sure I wouldn't leave my body. I tried my hardest to find a physical, logical explanation for all of this, but was unsuccessful. Naturally, it took me a while to calm down and dare to shut my eyes to go to sleep. 
At other times, I started noticing strange tugging sensations during OBE practice. It felt as if someone were pulling at my clothes or hair during practice. The sensation seemed to have something to do with the swaying motion. It felt as if something or someone were pulling on whatever was swaying. It was like my astral body was being tugged while I was still fully in my body. 
I also started feeling "pressures" similar to the tugging sensations. When this happened it seemed as if heavy weights were placed on various parts of my body: my forehead, my feet, my chest. Sometimes if I didn't move, these pressures would become painful after a few minutes. 
With practice I became better at producing the vibrations. I noticed that just before the vibrations came I was always "zapped" into a state of acute alertness. Sometimes it seemed as if my consciousness was focused into an oval disk at my body's face. But every time the vibrations would come, my heart would start pounding, I would panic, and the vibrations would slowly fade until I was back to normal. When I opened my eyes, they were cloudy but slowly cleared up. My body felt very heavy and stiff. My hands were stiff and hard to open. Sometimes I was also slightly dizzy after the experience. 
I started noticing another strange sensation while trying to leave my body: a ringing noise in my ears. I quickly learned to reproduce the ringing, but it never got me anywhere so I learned to ignore it. 
Another thing I've experienced during practice is sudden falling sensations. I would be quietly attempting OBE, and suddenly it would feel as if a trap door had sprung open, and I would panic-fall about three feet. After three feet, I would be startled back to full consciousness with a slight jump, as if my astral body was slapped back into the physical body. This had a simple variation that was more common: sometimes it seemed as if my consciousness was thrown three to five feet forward or backward. 
Sometimes I heard very loud rushing or roaring noises in my head. Usually when this happened, I also felt as if my consciousness was being crushed in on all sides. It's as if the very boundaries of my awareness were forced down to a tiny infinitesimal pinpoint in the center of my head. 
A friend of mine told me of a few jarring sensations that sometimes disturb her just before OBEs. The first sensation she described as feeling like her heart was "pulling apart" or expanding. The second sensation is loss of breath, as if the astral body does not breathe and she loses all awareness of bodily breathing. She also says that her whole field of vision sometimes shrinks suddenly, like a camera shutter. 
Trying to ignore these sensations is like trying to ignore a slap in the face. I discovered that the best thing to do was to acknowledge them, but remain passive and not let them startle me and ruin the OBE attempt. When I finally learned to get through these sensations calmly, they started leading me to conscious astral projection! 
There was a good outcome of all the frightening experiences: they helped me get over my fear. I was forced to face my fears and conquer them one by one, especially my fear of the unknown. 

EXERCISE 5
Daily Visualizations
Much of the occult literature concerning out-of-body experiences claims that we leave our bodies every night during sleep, but we usually are not conscious during these nightly excursions. Usually the OBE only happens after our consciousness has been disabled. But sometimes something goes wrong with the process and a piece of our conscious self retains awareness during the separation. At those times, we often "wake up" abruptly with a jolt before we are fully asleep. 
One of the "tricks" to having out-of-body experiences is getting your subconscious mind to wake you up after you are out of your body. Quite simply, if you can influence your subconscious mind to reinstate your conscious awareness once the process of separation is complete, you will have fully conscious OBEs. 
There are several approaches to influencing the subconscious mind. In previous exercises, we used affirmations and prayers to influence the subconscious mind (and influence other things as well.) Hypnosis is another excellent approach. Early studies in hypnosis showed a lot of promise in inducing OBEs. Unfortunately, there have been very few experiments in this area to the best of my knowledge, and the literature is scarce. 
There are several audio hypnosis tapes available for inducing OBEs. I'm fairly resistant to hypnosis, so I haven't had any results using these tapes; The closest I've experienced was remote viewing which, I think, isn't nearly as fun as astral projection. 
Another way to influence the subconscious is through concentrated visualizations, done frequently throughout the day. Any visualization that is OBE-related is good. Here are a few I use: 
1. Visualize yourself flying over valleys, seas, planes. 
2. Visualize yourself shooting out away from your body. 
3. Visualize yourself floating. 
4. Sit down and visualize that you take a step back and stand up so that you are looking down at the back of your head. Then think to yourself, "That's not me. That's just a shell." 
Practice holding onto visualizations as long as you can. See how "real" you can make the visualization. These skills are very valuable for learning OBEs. 
In some exercises for other chapters, I will be giving visualizations for inducing out-of-body experiences. 
CHAPTER 6 
My First Out-of-Body Experience
The morning of November 1, 1979, started out normal. I woke up around 7:00am, did my usual morning routine and caught a bus to the University of Minnesota. I got to the University at 9:00am, walked into my favorite computer lab and started programming. I worked furiously on a microcomputer game for several hours until it was time for my Thursday class. I hurried off to class, took copious notes during class, then hurried back to the computer lab. 
This time I logged into the University's timesharing computer and started working on another game I wrote. A hockey game was playing on a radio in the back of the lab. I worked on that computer game until 10:00pm that night. After twelve hours of intense programming I started getting tired and hungry. I hadn't eaten since breakfast. I signed off the computer and caught the next bus home. 
When I got home at 10:30pm, I was hungry. I looked in the refrigerator and found a big pan of lasagna. My mom must have made me a big lasagna dinner and I missed it by staying late at the University! I took out a big slice of lasagna, heated it and wolfed it down. Ordinarily I would have made my usual attempt to leave my body, but that night I was just too tired. I went to bed at 11:30pm and was asleep the minute my head hit the pillow. 
I fell into a deep sleep and started dreaming a programmer's most hated and feared dream: the programming dream. The same dream plagued me for hours: I was sitting at a computer terminal, asking myself, "How can I make this program better?" 
I put up with that dream for four annoying hours. That was all I could stand. I became so annoyed by this dream that I couldn't take any more. Slowly I turned my attention away from the dream. I slowly forced myself to become conscious, but as I did, I noticed the dream was still going on! Somehow I was awake and asleep at the same time! 
What happened next is hard to describe. My consciousness was split into five parts. Each part was separate and unique, yet I was each of them simultaneously. Each was thinking its own thoughts, and communicating with the other four. All five of "me" were arguing about the computer game and how to make it better! 
The feeling was beyond words: I was five personalities at the same time and I was talking to myself! One of my five selves asked, "Well, how can we make the spacewar game better?" Another "me" said, "Well, I think we should allow more interactive communication between space ships." Yet another "me" replied, "No, I think it's more important to improve the fighting ability of the computer-controlled opponent ships." One of my five selves was bored to tears watching this whole conversation and tried to force itself to consciousness. Now that "I" was conscious, I was fascinated at what was happening: I was conscious and split into five parts and each of them were taking turns talking. 
At first I tried to follow the conversation, but something strange started happening. As I became more conscious, my four other selves seemed to speed up! I tried to keep up with the conversation, but the talking became faster and faster. Soon they sounded like a tape player in fast-forward mode, and I lost track of what they were saying. Meanwhile, the voices faded into the distance and seemed to disappear. 
My consciousness was no longer split. I was completely awake and aware of my surroundings, but I knew something was not normal. My body felt unusual. It felt odd to be conscious and yet still asleep. 
Just then, I got a strange feeling all over, like a shiver over my whole body. I listened to see if I could hear what caused the strange feeling. I heard what sounded like a hockey announcer in the background! I thought, "Now that's odd. Where could that be coming from?" I wondered if the sound could be coming from the bathroom where we kept a small radio. It sounded a little bit too loud for that; the radio had to be closer to my bedroom. 
I wondered if a radio was playing in our dining room, which was next to my bedroom. That didn't make sense because there weren't any radios in that room. Besides, the radio seemed a bit too loud for that, too. I figured the radio must be in my bedroom somewhere. 
I thought for a moment that my little alarm clock/radio might have turned on in the night, but it seemed too loud even for that. It was loud enough to be my stereo, but I remembered turning it off before going to bed. Besides, when I listened closer, the hockey announcer sounded even closer than my stereo. 
As I listened, the sound of the hockey announcer's voice grew louder and louder as if someone were turning up the volume steadily. I started to worry as the sound became louder and louder, until finally my ears were hurting and I was ready to scream with the pain. 
Suddenly it stopped and I experienced complete and total silence. Another strange feeling came over me: I felt like I was completely separate from my body, although I was still occupying the same space. I decided to try to get out. 
I had read a few OBE books by then. Some of them had good techniques to separate the consciousness from the body, but none of them said what to do next! How could I get away from the body I was laying in? Since I was in my astral body, gravity didn't affect me, so I didn't just "fall" out of the body. My astral body could pass right through physical matter, so I didn't think I could grab onto anything to pull myself out. I didn't think I could push my way out either; what could I push against? 
I thought about the problem for a few minutes. Then I examined my physical body and noticed that it seemed solid on the outside edges. The edges looked like a barrier of gray. My physical body seemed like a bottle; it was solid on the outside, but hollow on the inside. I was like the liquid inside the bottle, fluid and elastic, but there was no way out of the bottle! 
At first I tried to twist myself inside the physical body so I could climb out the stomach. I wiggled my astral arms out of the physical arms, like taking off a tight sweater. Then I squirmed until I was under the rib-cage. I reached my astral arms up, and tried to claw my way through the stomach. I clawed and clawed, but some barrier, some force-field, was holding me back. The harder I struggled against the barrier, the more impossible it seemed to move. I managed to inch my way for a little while but gave up and lay down again. 
I decided to try another way out. I lifted my legs over my head, and did a backward somersault over my head and out of my body. 
I felt free and weightless. I wanted to float slowly up to the ceiling. With that thought, I started to float gently up. Then I looked up and thought about my destination, the top of the ceiling. Suddenly, I whooshed up to the ceiling. I looked around the room with a sense of delight. 
I looked straight down at my body. It was under the bed covers, but from what I could see it looked like it had just collapsed and was out cold. I thought, "Gee, what if I fall from up here?" As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I came crashing down into my physical body and rejoined. I went right into a short, dreamless sleep. In a minute or two I woke up in my physical body. Being a skeptic, I asked myself, "Was that a hallucination? Did I dream it all?" No way. It was real beyond my wildest expectations of real. 
I rolled over and looked at the time. It was 3:45am in the morning. 
I recalled the whole incident three or four times in my mind, so I wouldn't forget to write down any of the details later. During the experience I was perfectly cool, calm and collected. That is, until I crashed into my body. Now that I was safely in my body I felt the full realization of what had happened: I had literally been outside my body. The more I thought about it, the more scary it seemed. My heart was still pounding with excitement. However, I was more tired than I was afraid, so I managed to calm myself down enough to drift back to sleep. 
The next thing I knew, the computer conversation dream started again! This time I realized right away what was happening and I was immediately "zapped" out of my physical body again. Like before, I was separate from my body, but still laying inside it. I was too cautious to get up and walk around outside my body, but I didn't want to waste the opportunity to explore. I decided to do some experiments while still laying inside my body. 
The first experiment was a simple one: I wanted to see if I could lift my astral arms and look at them. If I could see them, what would they look like? 
I bent my astral arms at the elbow and looked at the arms. They looked and felt perfectly normal and natural. They seemed so normal that after shaking them a few times I convinced myself I was back inside my body! I thought, "There's nothing unusual about this; I'm perfectly fine. I'm not out of my body--how silly of me." I tried to lower my arms, but I couldn't! It seemed as if held in some kind of force-field! I pushed and pushed, trying to force my arms down to their normal position, but the harder I tried the more resistance I felt: I could only move them two inches in a circle at best. Then I really panicked! I drew up as much strength as I could to use it against the force-field. With all the energy I could muster, I forcefully slammed my arms back into place. 
I blacked out for a second and went back to full body consciousness. Again I asked myself, "Was it real?" It was so real that I convinced myself I was inside my body! Why did my arms get stuck? I'm not sure. Perhaps I was so sure I was in the physical body that I became part physical and part astral, and my arms were held in limbo. 
As I thought about the experience over and over, I wondered, "Why don't the OBE books mention anything about this?" 
My first two out-of-body experiences were achieved by becoming conscious during a dream. This is known in today's literature as Lucid Dreaming. This method of leaving the body was documented in the early 1900s in books and articles by Oliver Fox (a pen name for Hugh Calloway) and Yram (a pen name for Marcel Louis Forhan). I hadn't read those books until after my first experiences. At that point I thought the only way to have an OBE was through conscious effort. I will say more about lucid dreams in chapters 12 and 26. 

EXERCISE 6
Imaginary Vibrations
Many people have described the out-of-body exit as a raising of vibrations. In The Projection of the Astral Body, Muldoon and Carrington wrote: 
Yes, you are using your astral body even now; it is tuned down, we might say, to harmonize with the vibrations common to material substance. Now there are factors which hold it down, and there are factors which tune it up. The powers which can be exerted to disharmonize the attunement are the powers which will cause the astral to move out of the physical. (Pg. 48) 
If this is true, your soul is vibrating a few orders of magnitude higher than your body, but the two are in sync. It is as if you and your body are experiencing the same musical note, but in different octaves. This exercise will help you to raise your vibrations. 
The exercise is as follows: Lay down, close your eyes, and relax completely. Imagine that you are separate from the body, and laying inside the body-shell. Imagine that your physical body is vibrating slowly, and your astral body is vibrating at a faster rate. Pretend you can both hear and feel the vibrations throughout your astral body as if you were standing in front of nine-foot speakers. 
Next, imagine the vibration of the astral body increases in pitch gradually, getting higher and higher. As the pitch gets higher, the two notes go out of sync and a certain resonance gets stronger and stronger. 
Repeat this exercise several times. This simple exercise can actually produce the vibrations which can separate you from your body. It also might help to try to listen intently for any sounds "inside" your head at various points in the exercise. 
CHAPTER 7 
The Party
The out-of-body experience was analogous to a party happening in a neighbor's apartment. Up to now, occasional psychic experiences were like party noises; I did my best to ignore them. Dabbling with altered states of consciousness was like walking upstairs and putting my ear up to the door. The pokes and prods were like party noises I heard from outside. My first OBE was like opening the door and walking into the party. What happened next was like going in, getting drunk and inviting everyone back to my place! 
The day was November 26, 1979. Twenty-four days had passed since my first two out-of-body experiences of November 2. It had been two and one half months since I started exploring altered states of consciousness, trying to learn about the OBE. My playing with altered states had shaken me up quite a bit because of the pokes, prods, sounds and sensations I hadn't expected. My first OBE shook me up even more; It was undeniably real and made the pokes and prods seem trivial in comparison. Little did I know that my dabbling had opened some kind of psychic door. 
I was living at home, while attending classes at the University and working part-time. That day, my mom had a friendly, nonalcoholic birthday party, and JP and I started talking about OBEs. He asked me to try a quick experiment: he held up his right index finger about an inch away from the space between my eyes, and he asked me if I felt anything. I felt a strange sensation there, as if part of my astral body was being pulled out of my forehead. I tried to explain what I felt, and asked him what it was. He said he didn't know for sure, but the space between his eyes worked the same for him. I hadn't read anything about the "third eye" yet, so I didn't pursue the matter. 
After the party, I went to bed and made my nightly attempt to induce an out-of-body experience. After a few minutes of practice I opened my eyes and saw movements and lights in midair! I was frightened, and to make matters worse I started drifting away from my body! I panicked and tried my hardest to stay in my body! Once I was securely in my body I closed my eyes and decided not to continue. I eventually managed to fall asleep, but much later than normal. 
The next morning I woke up tired with the alarm clock. I had to get up early to go to my 8:00am class at the University. I realized I was too tired to pay attention at class, so I decided to get some caffeine in my system to help wake up. Since I hated the taste of coffee, I went to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of soda pop, opened it up and sat down at the breakfast table. I took a sip and sat there trying to wake up and get motivated. Without warning I felt the bottle accidentally slip out of my hand and my hand closed into a fist. I was startled and expected to hear a loud crash as the bottle hit the floor, but there was no sound. I quickly looked at my hand, and the bottle was still there, securely in my hand! It wasn't psychokinesis; My astral hand had accidentally "let go" of my physical hand, but the physical hand held tightly onto the bottle. I knew right then it was going to be a strange day. 
I caught my usual bus to the University and went to my usual classes. My last class got out at noon, and I needed to be at an important meeting at work by 1:00pm. I debated whether to stop for lunch. Something deep down inside me said, "It's okay, you have enough time." The thoughts seemed to be my own, and yet separate from me, like a deeper source of knowledge. I dismissed it; "That's just my stomach voicing its hunger." 
I walked over to a local sit-down restaurant. I looked at the menu. Their specialty burger looked great, but it was served with a small portion of potato chips. I was very hungry for french fries, but short on cash, so I ordered the burger "as is." After the waitress left I thought to myself, "I have enough money and I'm hungry; I should have ordered the fries. I really want the fries." I didn't want to bother the waitress by changing my order, so I didn't say anything. 
A few minutes later, the waitress brought my burger with a large serving of french fries! "Something strange is happening here," I thought, "This is getting weird." Was it a psychic experience? "No," I thought, "It was just a coincidence." 
When I was almost done with my lunch, that same "something" deep down inside me said, "You better hurry or you'll miss your bus for St. Paul and miss your meeting." Again I dismissed it, thinking, "That's just me, worrying about being late for the meeting." Nevertheless, I rushed to the end of my meal and paid my bill. I wasn't charged for the fries. 
I ran across the street to the bus stop and my bus was just pulling up. How convenient! I got on the bus and looked at my watch. It was 12:15pm. The trip from Minneapolis to St. Paul usually takes 45 minutes, so I felt confident I would not be late for the meeting. Then it occurred to me: If I hadn't rushed through my lunch, I would have missed that bus, and I would have been late for my meeting. Was it a psychic experience? "No," I thought, "It was just a coincidence." 
I wasn't late for the meeting, but the meeting kept me from working on an important project, so I decided to work late. I worked that night until 9:40pm, then I went to catch my bus back to Minneapolis. By "coincidence" a bus pulled up almost as soon as I got to the bus stop. I got on the bus and sat down. I needed to catch another bus in downtown Minneapolis, so I got out my bus schedule and looked up when the other bus would be at my Minneapolis bus stop. The bus slowly pulled away from the bus stop and started sluggishly lumbering down the street at 15 miles per hour. My other bus was due to arrive downtown at 10:15pm and the next bus after that was 11:40pm. The driver kept driving at 15 miles per hour, for the next five city blocks. 
Since it was 9:45pm, I only had 30 minutes to get to Minneapolis to catch my 10:15pm bus, and it was usually a 45 minute bus ride. To make matters worse, the bus driver was driving 15 miles per hour! I started to get very discouraged. I was brooding. I thought to myself, "I wish there were some way I could make this bus driver understand that I need to be in Minneapolis by 10:15pm." One block later the bus pulled up to the next stop and another passenger got on board. 
Then something strange happened. The bus pulled away from the bus stop like a bat out of hell! The bus kept accelerating until he was ten miles-per-hour over the speed limit! He drove to Minneapolis at breakneck speeds--speeding the whole way--and passing up half of his bus stops! He even ran through a red light! He pulled up to my Minneapolis bus stop at 10:10pm. That was twenty-five minutes; a new world's record! I got off the bus and it tore off into the distance. "Wow!" I thought, "That's incredible!" 
As I patiently waited for my 10:15pm bus home, I thought to myself again, "Was it a psychic experience?" How many coincidences can pile up before you believe that something extraordinary is happening to you? If someone off the street, or even a respected scientist, were to tell me of a series of psychic experiences like that, I would have laughed in his face. But since they were happening to me, I couldn't laugh. "All right," I admitted to myself, "things like that don't just happen 'by coincidence.' That's an excuse I've been using too long." 
I had asked for Out-of-Body Experiences, not psychic experiences. Somehow I had got them both. Somehow I was becoming psychic, whether I wanted it or not. I absolutely loved the psychic things that were starting to happen, but I started to worry about my sanity: What's next--delusions of grandeur? Psychotic behavior? Paranoia? Just how important are my thoughts anyway? Can this power be abused? 
"Should I tell anyone what is happening to me?" I asked myself. "If the experiences were not mine, I would never have believed them in a million years. So how can I expect anyone to believe they happened to me? No way!" I vowed not to tell anyone. 
As a skeptic, I didn't want to believe in psychic experiences. I thought it was all a load of rubbish. But in the years ahead, as I kept practicing OBEs, I also kept having psychic experiences. Most days I would have three to five experiences I would classify as "psychic." They happened so often that I couldn't deny they were real. 
I doubt that the psychic experiences were directly related to the out-of-body experiences. Rather, I think they were more related to the practice, during which I would induce altered states of consciousness. I discovered that when I became too wrapped up in daily life, I would have fewer psychic experiences. And if I took the time to meditate and explore altered states of consciousness, I would have more psychic experiences. 
I was disappointed in the many OBE books that never mentioned the connection between OBE practice and psychic experiences. People brave enough to try to induce OBEs should be aware of the connection: When you try for OBEs, you may get more than you expect! Some of these psychic experiences can be alarming, unnerving, and sometimes even scary. 

EXERCISE 7
Hypnogogic Play
Sleep is a very complex thing. Each sleep cycle has several stages including the dream stage, or Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. Most of my out-of-body experiences occur during the hypnogogic and hypnopompic states. The hypnogogic state occurs at the beginning of the sleep cycle when we're just starting to fall asleep. During this state, your conscious mind is normally "letting go" and your subconscious mind is taking over. The hypnopompic state is similar, but it occurs when you are waking up naturally (not awaken by an alarm clock). 
It's very easy to recognize these states of consciousness: In both states, it is normal and natural to see mixed-up visual images, and to hear voices. Usually the voices and images don't make any sense. 
For this exercise, I want you to experiment with these states of consciousness. Learn to recognize these hypnogogic images and watch them or listen to them with interest, instead of falling deeper into sleep. Just "play" with these natural altered states to get a feel for this type of experimentation with the "borderland" of consciousness. This kind of play is fun, and can induce OBEs. Since we typically have five or more sleep cycles per night, we have at least ten opportunities to have OBEs every night! That's seventy opportunities for an OBE every week, in addition to your normal practice sessions! 
As an experiment, try to stay awake or prolong consciousness while you're falling asleep. Try to "walk" the thin line between conscious and unconscious. Try to get closer and closer to sleep while holding onto a thread of consciousness. Learn to hang onto that borderland state for long periods: This is a useful skill in learning OBEs. 
Late one night I was using a computerized "TALK" program, talking to other programmers. I asked one guy what he was doing up so late. He said always had problems sleeping for as long as he could remember. He had a bad case of insomnia and hadn't slept for days. I told him I could cure his insomnia, and he said he didn't believe me, but he'd be forever grateful if I could. Well, I started telling him about my astral escapades, and I ended up giving him about five OBE-techniques to try. Several weeks went by. The next time I ran into him (on the same TALK program) he said, "It worked! You cured my insomnia! With your techniques, I fell right asleep! I haven't had any problem sleeping since!" 
The point is, it's easy to fall asleep during OBE-practice. The best way to keep from falling asleep is to rouse yourself as soon as you recognize the first signs of sleep. In this way, you can learn to hold onto consciousness without drifting off to sleep. 
Another technique is to lie down and try to fall asleep with your arm held up in the air, bent at the elbow. When you start to fall asleep, your muscles will relax and your arm will drop, waking you up again. This way, you can learn to get very close to sleep without being overcome by it. Later, you can stop holding up your arm during practice and get even closer to sleep and remain conscious. 
These exercises have another benefit. By doing this, you are learning to unite the conscious with the subconscious. You are learning to keep yourself conscious during the times when your subconscious is usually in control. And when that happens, your conscious can talk directly to your subconscious without interference. Then magical things will start to happen. Your subconscious will cooperate with your conscious. Your left brain will cooperate with your right brain. Your creative mind will cooperate with your analytical mind. All areas of your life will improve. 
CHAPTER 8 
Overcoming Fear
Clearly as long as I continued to try OBEs, strange and frightening things would happen to me. After some serious consideration I decided that I had been playing with fire. This OBE business was just too scary and dangerous. What was it doing to my body? What was it doing to my mind? Was I becoming prone to outside forces, such as spirits? I had begun to worry about my sanity and started to wonder if I were some kind of freak. I decided to quit trying to have OBEs and try to go back to a normal life. 
The next two weeks I didn't attempt any altered states of consciousness. I tried my best to go back to my normal life. But although I wasn't trying, weird things still happened to me. I started reading people's minds. I started to "know" what song would be on the radio next. As I was trying to fall asleep at night, I would still feel the same weird sensations: Swaying, pokes and prods, the whole gambit. It was even more alarming because I wasn't even trying to make them happen. 
I came to some important conclusions: First, there was no turning back--I couldn't just turn it off. Second, the best way I could deal with these weird experiences was to explore them and try to understand them. I needed to learn how to control them and learn how to control my fear of them. 
My first step was to confront my fears. As long as I feared these experiences, they had control over me. If I could eliminate the fear, the experiences would no longer have that power over me. I could be in control of myself and the experiences. 
The first step was to organize my thoughts. I listed all the reasons why I wanted to have more out-of-body experiences and why I should not be afraid of them. The list looked like this: 
1. I wanted to have more OBEs. After the first two experiences I couldn't turn away and forget it. I tried that and it didn't work. Besides, my curiosity still motivated me to go on. 
2. I reasoned that some day, when I die, I will be forced out of my body, and I'll have to deal with the issue then. It seems better to learn the rules before I die, so I can handle it better when my time is up. If I explore the out-of-body state while still alive, perhaps my transition to the waiting world will be smoother. When I die, I will be cast into a strange new world, just as an infant is cast into our world. Imagine how wonderful it would be if a fetus could attend some kind of school while it was still in the womb! Imagine a baby that can talk on the day it was born! 
3. When people die, they are all cast out of their bodies. It is our inevitable, inescapable fate. Since billions of people have died since the beginning of time, this new world must be quite safe for human "existence" and not as frightening as I thought. 
4. I had been out of my body twice and nothing terrible had happened to me: I hadn't felt any pain, I hadn't been attacked, and there weren't any demons waiting to possess my body. During the first experience, I was gently floating in the air. I felt completely safe at the time. My fear of the unknown is what stopped both OBEs. 
5. I had recently read several OBE books, many of which had hundreds of OBE narratives. In almost all cases, people described the OBE as beautiful, painless, and even ecstatic. Many people who experienced "near-death experiences" (NDEs) didn't want to get back in their bodies. They were perfectly happy and content to stay out forever! 
6. Despite my distrust of the Catholic religion, I still held some beliefs, like a belief in God. I figured that if I were a good person, God wouldn't let anything bad happen to me while I was out of my body. "After all," I thought, "I'm dealing with God's kingdom." 
7. The OBE books I read claimed the body is equipped with safeguards to pull me back into my body if things got too rough. The books said that many simple things would automatically bring me back to my body, such as poor blood circulation, fear, and thoughts of the physical body. 
8. I believed (and still believe) in "guardian angels" who help me in times of trouble or need. 
9. I also read that if I got into serious trouble, I would faint and my subconscious would take over, bringing me back to safety. 
I read over my list and confronted my fears directly. I became determined to learn to face and control my out-of-body experiences and their side effects, even if it meant death. That night I wrote a note in my journal, explaining what I was doing and how I felt about death. I made my apologies in case I died during practice. 
Once I faced and conquered my fears, I started attempting OBEs again. This time I took a more serious approach. I developed a simple training schedule: Every Saturday and Sunday morning I would lay around in bed for several hours, trying to leave my body. I was no longer just dabbling with altered states of consciousness; I was on a mission. I was an explorer, determined to discover my own truths. 
With practice, I got better at reproducing the conditions necessary to induce the vibrations. I learned to remain calm during my attempts and I found out that staying calm is very important because it helps to prolong the experience. 
I eventually learned that fear wears off over time. After you confront the unknown a hundred times, it's no longer as frightening. Conquering my fears was a big step in my spiritual development and it made me a much happier person in daily life. It gave a whole new meaning to the famous quote from The Bible (Psalms 23:4): "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." 

EXERCISE 8
Resolving Fears
However frightening OBE-practice might be, the actual OBEs themselves aren't frightening. They are usually very peaceful and happy--not frightening at all. OBEs are only frightening to people who don't understand what's going on. Mostly it is fear of the unknown. Being put into unfamiliar surroundings with new laws, can be terrifying to anyone. But you don't have to be afraid of OBEs if you understand the rules. Rule #1: Your beliefs create your experience. Rule #2: Attitude makes all the difference. If you go into the experience with negative thoughts, your OBE is likely to be unpleasant. If you go into the experience with positive thoughts, your OBE is likely to be wonderful. Rule #3: Your body cannot be possessed by a spirit while you are away. I'll say more about that in chapter 26. Rule #4: There is no such thing as a "demon." I'll say more about that, also in chapter 26. Rule #5: You cannot get lost or lose your body. Rule #6: The only thing you have to fear is fear itself. 
The exercise for this chapter is as follows: Write down a list of each desire, belief, fear and expectation you can think of. Of course, if you have a problem with writing, just running through it in your head will help. 
First, write down your desires. Do you want to leave your body? Do you want to see higher truths? What do you want from this and other experiences? 
Second, write down your beliefs about the out-of-body experience. Do you believe it is wrong? Do you believe it is a trick of the devil? Do you believe it is merely a dream? Do you believe there are demons or spirits out there to harm you? Do you believe hell and heaven are somewhere out there? Do you believe that demons or spirits can take over your body while you are out? Do you believe that the OBE is a sin in the eyes of God? 
Third, write down your fears. Are you afraid of getting lost while out of your body? Are you afraid of spirits? Are you afraid of possession? Are you afraid of flying? Are you afraid of heights? 
Fourth, write down your expectations. Do you expect to meet angels or spirits? Do you expect to meet other astral travelers? Do you expect to be weightless? Do expect to be wearing clothes? 
Fifth, go through your lists and mark each item you don't "like." For instance, if you believe demons can take over your body while you are out, mark that item. When you are done marking your "negative" items, go through each of them and confront them in your own mind. Don't attempt to have an OBE until your negative items are conquered or at least under control. Once you have conquered your negative feelings toward the OBE, your worries are over. If you still believe in demons, you might just meet one. If you don't believe in demons, none can bother you. But until you resolve these fears, your experiences may be influenced by them. 
Examining and conquering beliefs isn't easy. I don't know of anyone who is completely free of negative beliefs. But working on them is a step in the right direction. And just knowing that you're working on them, is usually enough to keep your OBEs wonderful and positive. 
CHAPTER 9 
Scared to Death
After I conquered my fears about the OBE, I made good progress. My third and fourth OBE were self-induced, not sporadic. They were also short and uneventful. 
Up to then, I thought there were only two ways to leave your body: Through lucid dreams like my first two, or through practice like my third and fourth. It wasn't long before I discovered there were other ways. 
01/01/80 - OBE #5 
...I was dreaming that I was camping along a riverside with a group of people. We thought we were safe, but suddenly two vampires--one male, one female--attacked our camp, and the dream turned into a nightmare. 
I fought the female vampire for a long time and I finally killed her. I was exhausted. 
Much to my horror, the other vampire came running and attacked me. We fought long and hard, but I was weak from my fight with the female vampire. He finally overpowered me and started sucking the blood out of me. I became weaker and realized I couldn't fight anymore. I was dying in my dream! I actually believed I was dying. 
Then I woke up startled, and opened my eyes. I immediately saw a hand grasping for my throat! I was fully conscious, inside my body, and it seemed as if someone was trying to kill me! 
I reenacted the dream-battle in my head for a few seconds, thought I was dying again, and I was ejected out of my body like bread out of a toaster! 
I sat up and turned to look who was attacking my poor body. The hand that was reaching for my throat was my own! It was loosely draped over the pillow! I sighed a breath of relief. I wasn't in danger after all. I had literally been scared to death! 
I was glued to my body, but this time instead of trying to free myself I tried to control my astral self with my mind. I thought hard, "I want to go to [my brother's house]" but nothing happened. Instead, I heard my physical voice (kind of muffled) saying it in the background! I looked at my astral hands. They were gently waving back and forth....I was drawn closer to the physical body and I dropped inside and immediately opened my eyes (no blackout). I saw my hand draped over the pillow, as if it was reaching for my throat, exactly as I saw it during the OBE. 
We've all heard the term, "scared to death," right? Well, this OBE sheds new light on the term. Perhaps it shows there is no such thing as being "scared to death" because the worst that can happen is that you're scared out of your body. Perhaps it means we can only die when we are ready to die. I like to think that our deaths are planned by our higher self, and there are no accidents. 
In later OBEs, I discovered yet another way to leave my body. This one took me by surprise too: 
05/23/80 Fri - OBE #16 
I went to my math class. When class started at 12:15pm, something strange happened to me. I was sitting, and suddenly I became completely disoriented, and couldn't feel my body. It seemed as if I fell out of my body, and drifted to my left (west)! Then I came back and was disoriented and very dizzy. My dizziness wore off in seconds. 
Since that OBE, I've had similar experiences in which I fell out of my body. Once I tripped and fell out while I was walking down the street! When I came back to my body, it was fine and it hadn't missed a step. 
The strange thing about this type of OBE is that it happens without warning, from full consciousness. I was in excellent health each time and not on any medications. I wasn't tired during the experiences, and my body wasn't very relaxed, at least not to the extent that I normally induce the vibrations. Perhaps we're not as body-bound as we think we are! 
Some researchers have gone as far as to suggest that we aren't even "in" a body at all. Perhaps our physical body is just a focus for our consciousness, and when we learn how to change our focus we can leave the body at will. 

EXERCISE 9
Yoyo Visualization
This exercises uses imagination to create an astral swaying motion. Once created, you can latch onto the swaying and it will pull you away from your body. I've used this method to leave my body several times. 
The exercise is this: lay down, relax completely and put yourself into a receptive mood. Next, imagine that there is a yoyo in front of you at eye level. Imagine the yoyo string is attached to the area between your eyes. The yoyo is weightless, so it doesn't fall with gravity. A real yoyo needs a pushing and pulling action from your hand, but this imaginary yoyo needs pushing and pulling from your third eye. With your imagination, push the yoyo down to the end of its string then pull it back to your third eye. As you work with the yoyo, try to work your way into a single- minded, focused state of mind. 
With your mind, push and pull the yoyo about fifty times. Try to do this until your visualization is so real that you can actually see the yoyo in front of you. Don't try to count the number of pushes you give, because that may unfocus your mind and bring you out of the single-minded focus. 
You may think it sounds silly, but it's one of the most successful techniques I've ever developed. If you can't visualize it clearly today, keep working on it every day until you can. When you are trying to leave your body there are very important key points to keep in mind, and one of them is realism. If you can visualize the yoyo with absolute realism, out-of-body experiences are a short step away. 
CHAPTER 10 
The Small Still Voice Within
One cold day in early 1980, I was waiting at a bus stop. At that time, I had about a dozen OBEs to my credit. I thought about my favorite television show, "Kung Fu," which always had tidbits of wisdom sprinkled throughout the show. The Shaolin masters in the show were always portrayed as kind and humble, but above all wise. I wished I could be wise like that. Then I remembered a story in the Bible about Solomon (1 Kings, 3: 5-13). In the story, God offered to give Solomon anything and Solomon chose the gift of wisdom. Solomon was rewarded well for his choice. I wondered what it would be like if I were wise: "If I were wise," I thought to myself, "I could probably think up any question and look inside and find a truly wise answer there." 
If I were a wise man and someone asked me questions, what would I say? I started to fantasize, asking myself philosophical questions and making up answers, pretending I was wise. Suppose they asked, "What is love?" I paused to think. I'd say, "Love is the binding force of the Universe." If they asked "Who am I?" I would answer, "You are a spark of God's divine Light." 
My bus wasn't there, so I continued with this daydream. I asked myself more questions. Each time I'd look deeper into myself for the answer. After a few times I was surprised at the answers I came up with; the answers didn't seem like me at all! At the time, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so I didn't even write about it in my journal. 
This "wisdom" game was a lot of fun, so the next few days I practiced whenever I had free time. Instead of asking specific questions, I started asking myself to "Say something wise." This also gave me unexpected results, such as: 
Perfect love is never selfish. It's wrong not to love at all. It is better to love someone and selfishly desire their love. It is still better to love someone, and desire to give them your love, asking nothing in return. It is best to love All That Is unselfishly, and recognize everything as a part of that creation, including your loved one and yourself. 
Upon closer examination, I didn't exactly make up "words" in my head when I asked myself questions. I got a jumble of thoughts, feelings, words, sounds and images, and I "translated" this jumble into words. Then I said the translated words to myself, and somehow they made sense. Later, this translation process became so automatic that it was just like "talking." 
I had learned to ask myself questions, and come up with answers, but I was very skeptical about it. It seemed as if I were pretty much "making up" the answers I wanted, even if the answers often had a lot more "insight" than I thought I had. The answers just came to me from the top of my head. They only came when I asked, and often they were the first things that entered my mind after I formulated the question. For that reason, I viewed this all as a "game" I was playing, never taking it seriously. 
Then the inner source of wisdom started to develop a personality of its own. Very gradually I started noticing that I was sometimes getting "answers" without asking questions. I started getting advice and reminders from within, which would come out of the blue. 
I noticed that the answers addressed me in the second person; instead of receiving the message, "I should park over there" I would receive the message, "You should park over there, Bob." Also, the answers started getting more specific. Messages like, "You should park over there" became "You should park over there, because there's more time on that parking meter than this one." Later, these things turned out to be true. At first I thought I might be going crazy. Crazy people heard voices. But as I said before, I wasn't really hearing voices; I was just getting impressions and translating them into words. Then I began to worry about spirits. 
So one day I decided to probe a little deeper into this issue. One day after I left work, I went for a short walk and started asking this "source" some new questions: 
Q: "What is your name?" 
A: "You can call me anything you like." 
Q: "Do you have a name?" 
A: "Names are not important; wisdom is important. Remember, the message is important, not the source." 
Q: "Are you a spirit?" 
A: "No, not as you think of it." 
Q: "Then what are you?" 
A: "Someone who has your best interests at heart: I am you; another part of you." 
Q: "Why are you here? Why am I hearing you?" 
A: "My job is to help you in any way that I can, to help you become more aware, to see that you pay attention to the lessons that you are learning." 
Q: "If you're me, than why do you address me as 'you'?" 
A: "That's to help you tell the difference between your own thoughts and my messages." 
Because of some book I had read, I started calling it my "inner voice." For months I distrusted my inner voice. Sometimes I would take its advice and sometimes I would not. Time after time, my inner voice proved its guidance was sound, but still I would not trust it. And because I was afraid of what people would think, I never told anyone. 
One day my inner voice started speaking with me, saying, "Why do you constantly fight me?" I replied, "I just don't trust you; I've heard of stories where insane people murder and later say that 'God' or 'Voices' told them to kill. If you ask me, any kind of nonverbal communication seems really strange to me; if anyone knew I talked to a voice inside of me, they would lock me up." My inner voice replied, "Have I ever told you to kill people? No! Have I ever told you a lie? No! Have I ever given you any reason to mistrust me? No! Has anything I've said ever been wrong? No!" 
It continued. "Always remember this: It is okay to listen to your inner voice, and it is okay to take its advice, but always, always use your own judgment. You are not allowed to use me as an excuse for not taking action, or for taking an action, or for not using your own judgment. As long as you use your own common sense and judgment, you aren't going to murder people, because common sense tells you that murder is wrong." 
"I am here to give you advice and helpful hints. I can give you answers to any questions, provided those questions are not part of your current lessons. For some lessons, you must find the answers for yourself." 
"What I am asking is very simple. Try an experiment: try trusting me and taking my advice (while still using your own judgment and common sense) for one week, without fighting me. After one week, if I've lied to you or misguided you, feel free to ignore me. However, if my advice has been good, you can take this as far as you want." 
I agreed to the experiment, and I started following the advice of my inner voice. One week passed and my psychic awareness increased. I decided I would continue to trust my inner voice until it gave me reasons to distrust it. 
That was the beginning of a new cooperation between me and my inner voice: It started giving me more advice, helping me interpret my dreams and reminding me of things I had forgotten. For example, one morning I had gotten my motorcycle out of the garage to go to work when my inner voice said to bring my bag of tools with me--"It'll come in handy today; You'll regret it if you don't." So I got off my motorcycle, walked back inside and got my tool bag. I asked my inner voice if my motorcycle was going to run into mechanical problems. It replied, "Your motorcycle is fine." "Then why should I bring tools?" "Trust me. You'll regret it if you don't." Later that day, as I pulled into a parking spot, I noticed a man with a stalled truck. I asked, "Having truck problems?" He said, "Yeah. You haven't got a Phillips screwdriver on you, do you?" I got out the tool bag and gave him a screwdriver. I was glad I had brought the tools, and I thanked my inner voice. It was right--I would have regretted it if I had not brought the tools. 
My inner voice is often fond of helping people. For example, one day I went to my credit union, but I arrived ten minutes before they opened. I walked down the street, wondering what I should do to kill the time. Then my inner voice asked me to go into MacDonalds, which was in the opposite direction. So I walked to MacDonalds and went inside. The man in front of me ordered some coffee, but his speech was very slurred because he was deaf. The man repeated himself several times, but the cashier didn't understand. I knew a bit of American Sign Language, so I acted as translator to allow him to speak with his cashier. After I left the restaurant, I felt good inside. My inner voice congratulated me for a job well done. 
My inner voice also provided me with "psychic" information I could not have known otherwise. One day I decided to eat lunch in the cafeteria. I stood in line trying to decide what flavor of yogurt to buy. Finally I decided to get blueberry yogurt, so I picked up a container. Then my inner voice said, "Boysenberry." I asked my inner voice, "Do you mean I should switch?" It replied "That's okay. Eat what you like." So I decided to keep my blueberry yogurt. I sat down and opened it, and there was boysenberry flavored yogurt inside! The carton was plainly marked "Blueberry" and the carton was deep blue. But the yogurt inside was purple boysenberry. 
My inner voice carefully guided my actions, and it always worked out to my advantage. This journal entry from 1985 shows what I mean: 
02-09-85 Sat 
More "Psychic" events. About a month ago I found out that Boston (the rock group) had a member named Barry Goudreau, who put out an album. Since I'm a fan of Boston I tried to find the album, but it was out of print. I went to every record store I knew in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area, but nobody had it. I told JO that I'd mail her a copy of the album on cassette tape if I ever found it. Well, I was going to mail another tape to JO today, and my inner voice was very active. 
First I had to go to an office-supply store to find a mailer to mail the tape in. I went and found a perfect-sized mailer, and was going to buy one, when my inner voice said, "Get two!" I asked it, "Why? I'm not planning to send any more tapes for a while." My inner voice just said, "Just get two; I'm sure you can find a use for the second one." I was in a hurry, so I didn't argue with my inner voice, I just bought two, without any plans to send another tape. When I went to the post office, I got the best parking spot, when all of the other available parking was taken. My inner voice suggested before I left from home that I should make some copies of the latest MSPR [Minnesota Society for Parapsychological Research] newsletter. So after I left the post office, I went to the University to make more copies of the newsletter. As fate would have it, I couldn't find a parking spot except two blocks away from the print shop. My inner voice said, "Park here; it's not that far to walk." So I parked there, and started walking to the print shop. On the way, I noticed something interesting in a shop window, so I looked at the shop. It was a record shop, a very tiny one I didn't know about and one I'd never been in. My inner voice said, "Go in. The newsletters will wait." So I went in. It was a very small record shop, but there was a section that said "ON SALE." My inner voice said, "Go over there and look in the "G's." I replied mentally, "Oh come on! I hunted in every record store in Minnesota for Barry Goudreau's album; this tiny store won't have it, and they wouldn't have it on sale!" But I thought, "Oh what the heck, it doesn't hurt to look." Sure enough, I had been very carefully guided to find Barry Goudreau's album, and it only cost me $2.19! I told the shop owner that I'd been hunting high and low for that album, and had been to almost every record store in the Twin Cities, and couldn't find it anywhere. He said, "Really? That's interesting. And now you found it on sale." 
Then I made the copies of the newsletter. I came out of the print shop and I remembered that I never fed my parking meter. My inner voice said, "Don't worry about it. Go over to JRCA and buy some tapes to record the album." I argued back, "But my parking meter is expired, and JRCA's tapes are not as cheap as Best Buy. I could go to my car, save myself a ticket and get tapes at Best Buy for $2.00 each, whereas JRCA tapes are usually $2.50 each." But my inner voice insisted that I go to JRCA. Despite always arguing with my inner voice, it always knows what is best for me. I went to JRCA, and asked "How much are your Maxell UDXL-II's?" The man went and grabbed four tapes (I wanted to buy four tapes, but I didn't tell him that!) He told me the tapes were $1.99 each! I only had $9.00 left, so I had just enough money to buy four tapes! I got back to my car. No ticket! 
My inner voice has been responsible for much of the "psychic" information I have received. In many ways, it seems like "cheating" because I don't have to work for this information; it's there for the asking. 
I also found out my inner voice had a sense of humor. One morning I wrote down an out-of-body experience and I lost track of the time. When I realized I was running behind, I left in a hurry. I bolted out the door when my inner voice suddenly interrupted, "Hey, Bob, you forgot to lock the door!" I ran back, locked the door and thanked my inner voice. My inner voice jokingly replied, "You'd forget your body if it wasn't attached!" 
I've also been helped by my inner voice during my out-of-body experiences. For example: 
07/25/82 Sun - OBE #80 
...I used the same swaying method to get out of my body again....I was stuck to my body. I thought about it some more. I figured that the only way I could move was to close my eyes and trust my feelings. So I closed my eyes but immediately thought, "No! If I close my eyes, I might fall asleep!" If I have been reading for an hour, and I close my eyes, I will usually fall asleep. I can tell how likely this is to happen to me. So although I had started to move, I decided to open my eyes, and I saw that I was again in the same place. I thought of another way: if I could change my vision to purely astral vision I should be okay, I thought. So I lifted my arms out in front of me, and I tried to see clairvoyantly. I heard my inner voice clearly say, "Practicing clairvoyant vision here will greatly help your Earthly clairvoyant vision." I looked at my arms, not astrally, but clairvoyantly, as if trying to see a spirit from the physical world. My arms were transparent when I looked at them that way. They looked like transparent, dark black, filmy shadows. I studied them for a while, then blacked out. 
Here is another example of my inner voice helping me during an OBE: 
10-31-82 Sun - OBE #83 
...Another thing happened last night. It was like a lesson from my inner voice. It wanted to teach me the difference between clairvoyant vision and out-of-body vision. So first it showed me a place clairvoyantly, and it said, "this is clairvoyant vision." Then it showed me the same scene with out-of-body vision. I remember some of the differences. First, although both pictures were clear and vivid, the out-of-body picture had more of a sense of depth. I could tell my spatial location, because I had normal depth perception. In the clairvoyant vision, I saw the same things, and I could tell it was three-dimensional, but it was more like a photograph, where some particulars stood out more than others. In short, the clairvoyance was like looking at a regular photograph, only some objects in the room seemed somehow emphasized. The out-of-body vision was different in that I was in the picture. 
My inner voice has been one of the most beneficial forces in my life. Amazing things can happen if you begin using this tool. Your inner voice has always been there; all you have to do is listen inside. 
What exactly is an inner voice? Some people may believe it to be a spirit guide. Perhaps some of today's "trance channels" are merely talking to their inner voice, then doing the same sort of verbal translation. Personally, I believe the inner voice is a communications link to your oversoul, or higher self. 
My inner voice is notoriously honest and blunt. Once I asked my inner voice, "Why didn't you communicate with me before that cold winter day?" It replied, "Why didn't you listen to me before?" I asked, "Why don't you talk to me more often now?" It replied, "Why don't you listen to me more often now?" Then it struck me: Why don't we all? 

EXERCISE 10
Astral Doorway
This is a variation of the OBE technique found in many books, such as Astral Doorways, by J.H.Brennan. 
Get into a comfortable position and close your eyes. Relax as completely as you can, and start a visualization. Pretend that your consciousness shrinks into an infinitesimal pinpoint of light. Then visualize that you are standing in front of a locked door. Visualize the doorway any way you want, with fancy engravings and door knobs or whatever--personalize the doorway. 
Next, visualize yourself taking a fancy key out of your pocket (or from a chain around your neck, etc.) and unlocking the door. Open the door and step through the doorway. Close the door behind you, and lock the door again. The symbolic act of locking the door is for protection: Lock it every time you use it. 
Put the key back where you found it, and start walking forward. Imagine there is a tunnel in front of you with a bright light at the end. Imagine that you walk to the end of the tunnel, step outside and find yourself outside your body, standing next to it. 
Next, visualize a complete out-of-body experience, in all the detail you can imagine. Imagine walking away from your body to a destination. Try to imagine and remember as much detail as possible. When you are done, imagine walking back to your body. Imagine finding yourself back in the tunnel, walking back to the door. Again, unlock the door, step through, and lock it again from the other side. Guide yourself back to full consciousness and open your eyes. 
Many authors say that this exercise in visualization can induce genuine OBEs as well as impressing the idea on your subconscious. 
CHAPTER 11 
The Clairvoyant
By the end of July 1981, I had 44 OBEs and psychic experiences were piling up. I was doing computer programming for the Minnesota DNR. One of my co-workers was LD, an ordinary woman except for her eyes. I couldn't look into her eyes, because they seemed to look right through me. Somehow I got the strong impression she was clairvoyant. I talked to JP about her and he suggested I ask her. I didn't want to; she'd probably think I was crazy. 
Everyone at work used a computer mail program, much like modern E-mail. One day I wanted to send a message to my boss who wasn't very prompt at reading her on-line mail. LD read her mail often, so I sent her a message that said, "Please tell PL [my boss] to read her mail." A couple of days later, LD sent me a message that said "This is not a message." When I asked her to explain herself, she complained that she never got any "good" mail. She sent me a non-interesting message because my message to her was so non-interesting. I got gutsy. I sent her the following reply: 
FROM: BOB FRI JUL 31, 1981 9:39 a.m. 
So you don't want messages like "Please tell PL to read her mail" huh? Okay. I always like a good philosophical discussion. I'll start it out with a *BANG*. 
ARE YOU CLAIRVOYANT?
Much to my surprise and relief, I was right: she was clairvoyant! She also had out-of-body experiences, and was even attending a spiritualist church. Like me, she was afraid to talk about it for fear of what others might think. 
LD and I became good friends. I rarely saw her in person because we worked different shifts, but we exchanged computer mail for a couple of years. During that time, we agreed on a little experiment: To establish proof during an OBE, I would try to visit her while out of my body. When I arrived, she could see me clairvoyantly and validate that my OBE was "real." From then on, I started trying to reach LD during my OBEs. 
Literally all of the books on out-of-body experiences claimed that during an OBE everything was controlled by the person's thoughts. To travel, they said, all one had to do is to think of the person or place you wanted to visit, and you would be magically transported there. And I fully expected my thoughts to be all-powerful during an OBE, but I found out it wasn't that simple. The following excerpt from my journals illustrates some of the problems I had during OBEs, especially when trying to travel to a specific place. It also illustrates several points about OBEs, including clarity of consciousness and how out-of-body sight works. The topic of consciousness is discussed in chapter 19 and out-of- body sight is discussed in detail in chapter 18. 
10/24/81 Sat - OBE #52 
...I woke up at 8:00am this morning and decided to try to have an OBE. I had no luck on my first try. I finally went back to sleep, and I kept going in and out of sleep until 9:30am. I was fully relaxed and in the proper state of mind when I woke up the next time. I mildly thought about OBE, and I noticed how relaxed my body was. 
I felt a twinge of vibration, and I directed my attention to it. It grew stronger, but it wasn't strong like my first experience with the vibrations. It was more like the type I used to feel when practicing at night. "Well," I thought, "I wish I could remember what to do next, like I usually do," but I couldn't, and already the vibrations seemed a little weaker. Then I thought, "Well, I could arch my back, but it probably won't work." I couldn't think of anything else, so I decided to try it. I arched my back and threw my arms back behind my head. I was immediately flung into my astral body. 
When I reached the peak of my backward (downward) motion I started to sway back up again. When I reached my body again I made an effort to get away, but I got stuck to the body instead. I was fully conscious, glued tightly to my body, and amazed that my consciousness was so perfectly clear. Strangely enough, I could "see" all right. I had the astral equivalent of physical sight...I freed my astral arms, reached behind me, and tried to push myself away from my body. As I pushed, I felt my astral body being stretched from behind. I felt just like a cracker stuck in a vat of very thick honey. I felt millions of tiny streamers or ribbons attached to the two bodies (not with my hands; I just felt them there). Well, I gave it my best effort to get free, but I reentered my body after about 15 seconds. 
So I came to, and thought it was the end. I rationalized that I couldn't do it again, because I was fully awake. But my stubborn side demanded that I try it again. So I got comfortable, and looked for the vibrations. They came immediately, and I used the same method to get out again. I wasn't stuck to the body this time. I sat up with no problem, again with a good sense of sight. I looked around and thought, "Wow. I'm really conscious. I've never been this conscious before. Not even in waking life. Now I'm going to do some experiments I've been meaning to do." 
The first experiment that came to mind was to test how sound worked. So I said something like, "Hello? Testing One-two-three." Although I formed the words with my astral lips and used my astral vocal cords, no sound came out. I faintly heard a tiny voice in the background, but it was too muffled to understand. Perhaps the problem was merely my brain's interpretation of the sound. 
Anyway, I looked around and noticed how things looked different in an OBE. In the past, I often saw gray clouds during an OBE. But now I examined my sight more closely. I saw a few places where astral matter was just sitting in small bunches. And as I looked around the room I noticed that everything was normal except now I could see different types of "glows" around everything. It was as if everything in my room had an aura of its own which glowed a little differently from any other thing....I also noticed that in some places there seemed to be blots, or places where the aura was either black or covered up by a blackness. Then I thought to myself, "This is foolish. I am wasting my time. I should go at once to LD's house for purposes of verifying the reality of this experience." But then I blacked out again and once more woke up immediately in my body. 
Once again my analytical self said no, but I was too stubborn to give up. I repeated the method, the vibrations came again, and I was ready for another excursion. When I got out, I was about one foot above my body. I sat up. I knew what I wanted to do: get to LD's house. I thought to myself, "Hmm. There are two possible routes I could take: Through the back door or out through my window." I heard the back door open and shut so I directed my attention to it. My astral vision opened up and I saw my mom coming in the house. I also noticed the clock in the kitchen, but it was too blurry to see the time. It was more like second-sight or clairvoyant vision than physical sight. I thought, "I better not go through the back door; there is too much risk of being distracted. I better try the window." So I looked at the window sill, then tried to go to it by pulling the image toward me. The image of the window did come to me, but when I looked again, I was still no closer to it. I tried to look at it closer. At once my eyes tried to be like a "zoom-lens" on a camera. But instead of my eyes magnifying what I saw, I moved closer to it in a gliding motion. I only glided one foot closer when I came to a stop. I tried to do it again, and it worked a tiny bit. Then I was about two feet away from the window sill. 
I thought, "Enough of this moving-with-my-mind nonsense." I got up on my knees, then stood up, preparing to step through the window. I decided to keep my eyes open so that nothing could go wrong. As I stepped through the glass window pane, my consciousness dimmed considerably. At once everything seemed strange. I was outside, but it looked so strange that I couldn't tell where I was. I looked around and saw images, possibly from an oncoming dream. I couldn't even tell whether I was on the first-floor or on a second-story. I recognized things, but everything seemed out of place. I saw toys, furniture and other objects. I twisted around and saw that I was outside, to the north of our kitchen, and one story up! I became confused and eventually blacked out. I remember thinking, "I don't want to enter a dream now." I woke up fully conscious in my body again. 
I got comfortable and tried again. I immediately got the vibrations again as soon as I thought about them. Instead of flinging myself backward, I just flung myself forward and sat up in the astral body with no trouble. 
I thought, "Almost every book I have on astral projection says that you can travel to a person instantly by thinking about them. I'm going to try it again." So I closed my eyes and visualized LD perfectly in every detail. I just sat there and visualized and nothing happened. I thought at first that my visualization wasn't good enough. But I visualized her perfectly in every detail. I opened my eyes and I was still in bed sitting up in my astral body. I thought, "This is getting me nowhere." I started to think about LD, hoping this would work better than visualizing her. Still no results. Then I blacked out for maybe half of a minute. Then I woke up in my body again and knew it was over.... 
This entry shows another unsuccessful attempt at travel: 
04/10/82 Sat - OBE #70 
...I couldn't see my arm, so I figured that I must be out of my body. But just to make sure, I reached my right arm down through my bed. When my arm went through the physical bed again, I knew I wasn't physical. I swung my legs around, pulled away, and stood up. I tried to walk but couldn't. I was standing about four feet from my bedroom door, with my arms outstretched toward it. As much as I tried to get away, I didn't move an inch. I thought, "My only hope is to think of LD and maybe I will be transported there." I closed my eyes and thought of LD. Nothing happened, so I visualized LD. Again, nothing happened. I thought of her personality. No movement. I imagined how I feel when I'm with her. Still no movement. None of this worked at all. I felt another quick motion, and I felt myself become physical again. I was totally back in my body again. 
A few times I could "think" myself to another location, but these had unpredictable results: 
07/10/82 Sat - OBE #79 
...I closed my [astral] eyes and started thinking about LD. I opened them again and nothing had changed. I decided to try to visualize LD instead. I closed my eyes, and visualized LD. "LD," I mentally called. I opened my eyes and looked around. I was not in the same place! I didn't see LD either. I had no idea where I was. I was so overwhelmed by the change of scenery without any physical sensations, that I lost all consciousness.... 
03/25/84 Sun - OBE #105 
...I launched myself straight up in the air. I thought about LD and in a split-second, it seemed as if my consciousness blurred and instead of flying, I was transported somewhere at a blinding speed. That confused me, and I thought for a second, "No! I want to fly there." I felt LD's presence for a second, but my confusion sent me back to my body again instantly.... 
11/10/85 Sun - OBE #118 
...I pulled out and up so that I was in a squatting position near my body's right arm, about a foot up from the body. I knew right away what I wanted to do. I had read almost all of Robert Monroe's book, Far Journeys, so the first thing I wanted to try was to contact my guides--a process that Monroe calls, "Ident Inspect." The first thing I tried was saying aloud, "Ident Inspect," but nothing happened. Then I tried thinking, "Ident Inspect," and nothing happened. Then I heard the friendly thoughts of another person. It was a 30 year old man's voice, and it said, "What are you trying to do?" I looked around, but I couldn't see anybody. I replied, "I'm trying to contact my guides." The other voice said, "Oh. But 'Ident Inspect?'" I felt very foolish and laughed. I must have looked pretty foolish trying to contact my guides by saying--or thinking--the words I had read in a book. Especially since the words were just the author's attempt at describing an indescribable astral experience. And especially since I was so incompetent at using my mind as transportation. "Never mind." I said, "It's from a book I read." 
Then I tried to pull myself toward the "Ident Inspect" instead of thinking about it, but I lost all consciousness. The next thing I knew, I came to in my body a couple of hours later. 
To people who live without bodies, we must seem like simplistic children. When we are out of the body, we must be willing to try new things, learn from our mistakes, and not be afraid or embarrassed to ask for help. Above all, we should be able to laugh at ourselves. 

EXERCISE 11
Falling In a Well
As always, get into a comfortable position and close your eyes. Relax as completely as your can, then visualize that you are looking down a very deep well. Next, pretend you fall in, head first. As you fall, watch the bottom of the well getting closer. Try to imagine the sensation of falling as real as possible. Feel the gravity pulling you toward the bottom. Get caught up in the feeling. If this works, you may be zapped into your astral body. If this doesn't work the first time, repeat the visualization several times until your visualization seems almost real. 
CHAPTER 12 
Flight School
After reading so many books on out-of-body experiences, I had great enthusiasm about astral travel. After all, why hop a plane to the coast, when you can hop the astral plane to the ghost? But I tried everything I knew to travel with a thought, but nothing seemed to work. Perhaps my expectations had been too great. Perhaps science had been too deeply ingrained in me, and a part of me still believed traveling had to be more complex than thinking. 
Whatever the reason, I decided to take a different approach to out-of-body transportation. Instead of trying to use my mind to teleport myself, I decided to fly the friendly skies! My first attempt at flight wasn't too disastrous, but not too coordinated either: 
01/27/81 Tue - OBE #32 
...Some unknown time in the night I woke up out of my body. I could not see in the physical sense of the word, yet I knew where I was; I was in our back alley, and I knew I was projecting. 
I thought, "Where should I go?" and immediately decided "To EJ" without hesitation--I had decided this before I went to bed....So I took a running leap and started off in the air. 
I rose above the houses quickly and was shaky for a while; I remembered many flying dreams in which I have crashed. But I decided that if I controlled my mind, I would be all right. I flew higher and higher, and was touched by a little fear; I was afraid to fly too high. So I made effort to keep myself low enough for my own comfort. I could see the roofs of houses, the trees, and everything. 
When I first went up I realized I wasn't seeing physically, so I thought, "I should see." Then I saw everything okay. I saw my arms raised in front of me Superman-style. I started to climb too high for comfort and I became afraid of getting too far away from Earth. 
With that thought, I started getting lower and lower. I descended very quickly until I was forced to land. I landed okay in some street, on the slope of a hill. I thought, "...Now I'll never get there!". The next thing I knew I was dreaming again. 
Nobody ever taught me how to fly, so I was proud of my first attempt. My next attempts were just as awkward, if not more so. 
05/08/82 Sat - OBE #72 
...I walked through the door and outside....It was bright and sunny outside. The change was striking to me, since the room in which my body was sleeping was dark. The sunlight didn't hurt my eyes; it just seemed very clear and bright out. I thought, "Now where should I go to take off on a flight?" I looked up and I saw the branches of our hackberry tree. I walked along our sidewalk toward the west. 
I went to our front yard, and I stopped and faced the east (where our back yard is). I looked all around. I was very embarrassed to be out in the public where everyone could see me while about to take a flying leap in the air in an attempt to fly. I knew that I couldn't be seen by anyone, but still I hesitated, dreading the possibility that I might be seen. Such a flying attempt would look pretty silly for a physical person. I took a few quick steps toward the east and I leaped forward into a good flying position. For a second or two I was completely weightless and I glided in midair for a few feet. But then I stumbled and fell! I caught myself before I fell on my face. 
I decided to try again. This time I walked further west until I was on the front sidewalk outside our house. I ran about five feet toward the south this time (away from my house) and I took a flying leap into the air, after looking around for neighbors who could see. I fell flat on my face again! It didn't hurt because I was not physical, and so I picked myself back up. I decided to walk to our back yard (east) and try [to fly] there once. I walked about ten feet or so and I blacked out without any warning. 
07/02/82 Fri - OBE #77 
Early this morning I was dreaming. I dreamed that I was talking to someone about astral projection. After the conversation ended, and I was back inside my bedroom, I said to myself (still in a dream state), "That's an excellent idea; I think I'll project." 
So in the dream, I stood up and went outside. I walked to the place just behind (east of) my house and I woke up there out of my body! I realized my condition, and I was surprised, but I stayed in perfect control of my emotions: The dream had prepared me to be calm for the upcoming OBE. 
I was standing outside, facing east. I thought about recent failures with astral levitation, but I said calmly to myself, "It's worth a try." With an act of will, I started rising through the air, straight up, in an upright position (standing). It startled me but I told myself, "Stay calm; it's no biggie. I'm going to go for a nice, simple flying lesson. I'm not going to try for a big adventure." 
I waited until I was about 15 feet in the air, then I said, "Okay; that's high enough for now." The thought that I might not stop rising did cross my mind, and it caused me to rise a bit further, but I said to myself, "It's okay. Nothing bad can happen. I can't be harmed. I'm in control." So I stopped in midair. I totally relaxed my astral body so I couldn't even feel it and I propelled myself forward through the air toward the east with a mere thought properly placed. 
I was slowly moving (flying) toward the east in a comfortable position. I thought, "I'm totally relaxed. This is a great bodily position to be in for flying." Then I looked down at my astral body, and I saw I was almost upright. My arms were hanging down, my head was forward, and I was leaning forward about 30 degrees. My legs were relaxed and naturally bent about 45 degrees. The position I was in was almost exactly that of a 10-speed bicycle rider except I was more upright and my arms were relaxed by my side. 
I wasn't too steady in my flying. I bobbed up and down, left and right, trying to correct my direction of flight. I was moving slightly faster now, and the ash tree in my yard was straight ahead of me. I tried to steer around it, but I could not; I wasn't practiced enough at flying. I was just about to hit the tree, when I wiggled my torso to the left (north) and my head managed to miss hitting the tree. The rest of my body hit the tree, and much to my surprise it bent around the tree, and slithered around it elastically like a snake overcomes an obstacle. "Whew!" 
After that, there was nothing in my way. I started flying a little faster, and I purposely climbed higher and higher. I climbed to about four-hundred feet, then I descended back to about two-hundred feet, so that I could see the scenery more closely. I looked down without any panic at all. I noticed that I could see everything well--equally well as in the body, and very clearly. But I saw there was no sun, and I felt it was dark out. I could see fine, however, and everything appeared in a pale, almost gray light. It was like seeing a picture from an infrared camera. 
I glided softly, somewhat slowly over the houses, eyeing the details of the neighborhood houses. I kept a close eye on all the details of everything as I moved, and I verified that I once again was in a real, waking situation. The details didn't change, nor did my speed. And the tremendous detail I saw around me, assured me I was seeing reality and not a dream. I reasoned that: 
1. In dreams I notice very few details, only those that are necessary to the immediate story unfolding around me. This wasn't a dream. Besides, I was fully awake and conscious. 
2. Even in ordinary reality we screen out and ignore most of the details of our surroundings. So I knew I was experiencing reality with more clarity than normal in-the-body life. 
3. Since what I saw didn't change, (I was looking for changes) I knew my eyesight was at least normal, and that I wasn't dreaming. Dreams have a bad habit of changing the scenery to produce certain situations and emotions. 
4. I verified and studied the details I saw below. The details were all the same as waking life. 
I flew to the east about three city blocks. I looked to the north, and I saw a man come out of a house that was on the north side of Lowry Avenue. He stood and looked at me, up in the air. So I brought myself softly down across the street, on the south side of Lowry, also to the west (I was now kitty-corner to where he was standing). He walked across the street toward me, and he came up to me. Just as he began to speak, I lost consciousness and entered the dreamlike semiconscious state. In this state the man and I exchanged a few words, and I lost consciousness. The man was about 30 years old, with short brown, wavy hair, very friendly, with kind eyes. He wore casual clothes. He was a little taller than me, perhaps six feet tall. I can't remember anything we said while I was in the dreamlike semiconscious state. 
This OBE brings up a very important question: What's the difference between a lucid dream and an OBE? I do believe that occasionally people confuse one experience for the other. It's very difficult to tell the difference in some cases. Some people believe OBEs are poorly developed lucid dreams. Others believe lucid dreams are poorly developed OBEs. 
A comparison of the two experiences is given in chapter 6 of With the Eyes of the Mind (An Empirical Analysis of Out-of-Body States) by Gabbard and Twemlow (1984). The authors found the following differences between OBEs and lucid dreams: 
* Lucid dreams occur in 50%-70% of the population, whereas OBEs occur in 14%-25% of the population. 
* There are two types of lucid dream: The first type occurs during REM sleep, and they are known as Dream Initiated Lucid Dreams (DILDs). The second type occurs at the beginning phases of sleep, and they are called Wake Initiated Lucid Dreams (WILDs). Both types of lucid dreams occur only during sleep or the onslaught of sleep. Typical OBEs are initiated from a waking state, much like WILDs are, but some OBEs unexpectedly occur from a waking state. Several people have reported OBEs during which they have unexpectedly "fallen out of their body" from total consciousness, as described in chapter 9. Some of these occur when the physical body is active, such as walking down the street. 
* Lucid dreamers can consciously program their dream, whereas OBEers are usually passive observers. 
* Lucid dreamers have an integrated body image, whereas OBEers view themselves as separated from the physical body, which is inert and thoughtless. 
* Lucid dreamers have consciousness that is vivid, even mystical, whereas OBEers experience a more normal form of consciousness. 
* Lucid dreamers view their experience as a production of their mind, whereas OBEers view the experience as objective reality. 
* Lucid dreamers have brain waves typical of dreaming, whereas OBEers don't exhibit dream-like brain waves. 
* Lucid dreamers have Rapid Eye Movements (REMs), whereas they are not observed during an OBE. 
* Lucid dreamers don't typically see their physical body, but OBEers usually do. 
* In addition, the authors felt that fewer lucid dreams have a lasting positive lasting impact on the subject, whereas OBEs usually a highly positive lasting impact. 
* In a lucid dream, typically one does not dream about being in one's bedroom, as is common in the out-of-body state. 
* After a lucid dream, the subject accepts the "unreality" of the lucid dream after awakening. After an OBE, the subject usually asserts emphatically that the experience was "real." 
* Many Lucid Dreams contain sexual content. In fact, author Patricia Garfield indicates that "fully two-thirds" of her lucid dreams have sexual content. Lucid dream sex is convincingly real; it feels the same as real sex. OBEs, however, rarely have sexual content. When OBEers report having "astral sex," the experience is not anything like physical sex. It's more like an ecstatic mind-trip, a transfer of energy, or a euphoria, but it doesn't feel like physical sex. 
* Lucid dreams--like normal dreams--are not easily remembered, unless one is conditioned. Memory is a key factor of having Lucid Dreams. OBEs, however, are usually remembered vividly for years, without prior conditioning. 
Also, an out-of-body experience is a typical feature of a Near Death Experience (NDE). One can hardly think that Lucid Dreams occur during an NDE, especially because the physical body doesn't spontaneously go into REM sleep during an NDE. 
Perhaps the most convincing argument is this: I've had lucid dreams in which I had complete control, then dispelled the dream only to wake up in an out-of-body state. When this happens I've noticed that the scenery in a lucid dream seems artificial, unlike OBE scenery. It's even possible to change the scenery with your mind. Here is an example: 
05/17/86 Sat - OBE #126 
This morning I was in the beginning of a dream in which I found myself walking through the hallways of a hospital, and there were other people in the hallways. I realized I was dreaming, and became lucid. 
First, I wanted to play with the lucid dream state for a little while, so I started gliding through the hallway. Then I levitated my feet and began to fly down the hospital corridor at a good speed. The hallway ended, but instead of hitting the wall I decided to change my focus and create a tunnel that I could fly down. With an act of will, a hole appeared in the wall ahead, and a tunnel formed. The hospital scene slowly blended into a tunnel scene, the hallway becoming the tunnel. In real life, a tunnel of this size (without lights) would appear to be darker toward the end of the tunnel. The dream-tunnel I created didn't seem to end, and it appeared lighter in the back and darker in the front. There was a strange kind of grayish light, almost like a fog, that obscured where the end of the tunnel. 
I started flying down the tunnel at a great speed, but I knew it was an illusion. I got bored with flying, so I slowed myself down, lowered my feet and focused myself back in the hospital. I was in the same hallway. I turned and started floating myself back down the hallway in the opposite direction, turned left, and down toward the main desk. Then I stopped completely and decided that I didn't want the illusion of the dream anymore. 
I closed my eyes, to unfocus from the dream. The dream scenery melted away and my vision went black. I was floating out of my body. Then I decided to have some fun, and I started flying wildly in all directions, doing loop-the-loops and having a ball. I turned about twenty loops of great size, just like a jet airplane, but I was unable to open my eyes for some unknown reason. Still, the sensation of flying was a blast. 
I was having great fun flying so freely, and I decided to try an experiment: I decided to try to fly to the sun. I stopped and stood straight up. I reached up over my head with an imaginary line of force, and I kept reaching, trying to touch the sun with my line of force. When I decided that my line of force had reached the surface of the sun, I tried to "feel" what it was like at the end of the line. It really didn't feel any different, just a little "denser" (that's the only way I can describe it.) 
Then I started pulling myself straight up, along that line of force, toward the sun. I accelerated tremendously toward the sun, until I was traveling what I felt to be near the speed of light. After about three minutes of this tremendous speed I still didn't feel any change, so I stopped and I tried to see where I was, but I wasn't able to see anything. With that, I blacked out and woke up inside my body. 
If I had remembered any astronomy from my childhood, I would have known it takes more than eight minutes traveling at the speed of light to reach the sun. And I might not have been traveling at the speed of light. 
The difference between the out-of-body experience and the lucid dream is not always apparent. I guess you'll have to rely on your own sense of "real" and "not-real" to decide this for yourself. One thing is for sure: more scientific study is needed. It is premature to jump to the conclusion that "OBEs are actually variant interpretations of lucid dreams" as proposed by Stephen LaBerge in chapter 9 of his excellent book Lucid Dreaming. 

EXERCISE 12
Lucid Dreaming
Many OBE experts say that some part of our psyche is already familiar with the out-of-body experience. Many books claim that every night, some part of our psyche leaves our physical body and goes about work of its own. What happens then is so far removed from the physical world that we usually only remember bits and pieces of these journeys as "dreams." 
During OBEs and lucid dreams your body is asleep, but unlike dreams, your consciousness is awake. Well, your body goes to sleep every night. Suppose you had a way to "wake up" your consciousness but leave your body asleep. You could turn an ordinary dream into an OBE. You could wake yourself up and say, "Wait a minute. I know this is a dream. I'm wide awake now." From there you could either keep dreaming and have a "Lucid dream," or wake yourself out of the dream and have an out-of-body experience. Both are fun. 
Lucid dreams are great. You can literally do anything you want. You can remain completely conscious and do anything you can imagine. They're almost as fun as OBEs, but they're not as real. The scenery will be fake. OBEs, on the other hand, are sometimes more constraining, but they're real. 
The problem is, when you're dreaming, you usually don't think to wake yourself up. In fact, you usually don't realize you're dreaming: You think you're awake. 
Here's a simple exercise to help you get around that problem. Ask yourself in all seriousness, "Am I dreaming?" Well, are you? Maybe you're just dreaming about reading this book. So how do you know you're not dreaming all this? I want you to make sure you're not dreaming this. 
If you ask yourself this question every fifteen minutes today, you'll probably ask yourself the same question tonight when you're dreaming. Daytime habits often carry over into dream habits. 
You don't have to ask it every fifteen minutes, but the more often you ask, the more likely you are to catch yourself dreaming. You can set yourself a reminder, like your watch. How often do you look at a clock? Every time you look at a clock, try to figure out if you're dreaming. It won't take long. And it could be a life-changing experience! 
CHAPTER 13 
"Ever the Silver Cord be Loosed"
My first strategy for contacting people from the out-of-body state--using thought power--didn't seem to work. My second strategy--flying--didn't work well either; some distraction always stopped me before I reached my goal. I decided to try a third strategy, walking. At least until I could find a better way to travel. After all, what could go wrong with walking? 
That's when I discovered the "silver cord" the books talked about. Most books call it the silver cord, based on a verse in the Bible (Ecclesiastes 12:6). The cord, they said, connects the astral body to the physical and will pull you back inside in case of danger. I soon found out the cord doesn't play fair: 
03/08/80 Sat - OBE #11 
...I jerked myself out of line of my body, and floated up. I tried to get away from my body by clawing the atmosphere and using my legs to push. I got about five feet away from my body when the cord's pull became stronger and started pulling me back toward my body. 
I fought the pull and about one foot away from my bed, I resisted the pull for a few seconds, and then was violently sucked back into my body by my cord. After I was rejoined to my physical body, I woke up and looked around. 
I wasn't in danger, or even emotional during the whole OBE, and yet the silver cord pulled me back in the body against my will. Why? 
Sylvan Muldoon and Hereward Carrington tried to address the cord-problem in their book, The Projection of the Astral Body. They claimed there was a "cord activity range" which was like a fifteen-foot magnetic field all around the physical body. If you're within the cord activity range, they said, the silver cord was likely to pull you back inside. However, once beyond that range, you are free to roam. 
I was fairly angry with my silver cord, but what could I do to keep it from pulling me back to my body? Many books on astral projection warned me against tampering with my astral cord. They said if I damaged the cord, my body would suffer great physical harm, and if my cord was broken my body would die. 
But what made them the experts? How