Astral Projection Experiences
- traveling out of the body

Craig answers your questions about astral projection.

I TRAVELLED OUT OF MY BODY

Just before our street party for the V.E. Day celebrations I fell over and broke my wrist very badly. I was in great pain and worried sick because I had organised the party and didn't want to let everyone down. My sister and her husband took me to hospital.

As I was being X-rayed I felt myself lift up from the couch. Suddenly I was looking down at myself from the ceiling. I also visited the waiting room where I saw my sister and, from the ceiling, I also noticed that my doctor had a bald patch on the crown of his head. I heard him say "She's away"

I then met my mother and father-in-law. But they weren't visiting me at the hospital; they had both died years ago!

Mrs Kathleen T-

Craig's Reply: You had what doctors call an out-of-body-experience (OOBE). These vivid experiences have been reported by many people undergoing surgery and can sometimes be triggered by severe shock. Psychologists like Susan Blackmore from Bristol University argue that these experiences are a hallucination caused by opium like chemicals released by the brain during stress. However, patients' reports often contain information about events taking place in the hospital that they could only know about by directly witnessing them. Many doctors believe that patients reporting OOBE's are traveling out of their bodies. And we psychics believe that at these times it is possible to make contact with the spirit world.

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Video about flying dreams

PSYCHIC PHONE CALL SAVED MY LIFE

When father died, mother and I were devastated. I tried to contact dad through the Spiritualists- but was unsuccessful. Soon, my mother was also taken ill.

One morning ,as I was preparing to go to work, I saw for a split second my father sat on the settee. He looked young again and seemed very happy. That afternoon Mum died.

I began to have regular nightmares and would wake up exhausted. A week after mother's death I lay resting on the settee when I saw a white female figure step through the wall. I was terrified. She was young and wore a long white dress with a sash across the middle.

I tried to move- but couldn't. Then I felt myself float out of my body towards her. I was petrified-I knew that if I passed with her through the wall I wouldn't return. Then the phone rang and I was back on the settee shaking with fright and feeling hysterical inside. I took a cold shower and left the house for a few days unable to face the prospect of the same thing recurring.

Lynne Mc C

Most reports of out of body experiences (OBE's) are described as beautiful and happy but there are a few odd exceptions. The emotional pressures and tension caused by losing both parents triggered the experience.

Having seen both parents die you were afraid for your own life as well. The spirit lady was trying to help you establish a communication with your mother.

FILE: SDR31 Fran 52

I FLOATED ON THE CEILING

One night I went to bed and couldn't get to sleep. I had the feeling that my Gran was beside me. I started to get frightened and said inside my head 'Go away'. The next thing I knew I was up on the ceiling of my bedroom , bobbing up and down and trying to stop myself hitting the top of it.

I am sure that I wasn't dreaming. The thing that worries me is that I told my Gran, who I loved very much, to go away.

Elaine M

You experienced astral travel where your spirit body for a short time left your physical body. When this happens many people say that they see their dead relatives.

Your fear of this unusual experience made you resist the contact that your gran was trying to make. She would understand that you were not trying to snub her.

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THAT FLOATY FEELING

Last week a strange thing happened to me. I was laying on my bed, wide awake, when my whole body lifted into the air and started to float around the room. I felt myself turn over in the air and I tried to reach out for the light switch.

To my horror I couldn't turn it on and I floated again into the middle of the room. I tried to call to my husband, who I could see sleeping in the bed, "Robert I'm flying!!" but he couldn't hear me. Then I floated back down onto the bed and sat up. Robert insisted it was just a dream but I just know that I wasn't sleeping.

Anne Mc C

You experienced astral traveling Each of us has a duplicate body that is made of light and can sometimes leave the physical body.This usually occurs when we enter that fluid state of mind that sometimes happens just before we fall asleep.

When you astral traveled your state of mind was very alert , indeed more alert than in your normal waking consciousness and it seemed as if it was your physical body that was flying. It is an experience that many people describe.

At first it is a little disorientating and that's why you panicked. If it happens again, stay calm and enjoy the experience. No harm will come to you.

Astral Projection
ASTRAL HOLIDAY

I had an out of body experience: I felt myself leave my body and float upwards and into a long dark tunnel. There was a bright light at the end with four people knelt in prayer. They had their backs to me. Other people then appeared wearing long brown hooded robes. One of them spoke to me about my past life 1,000 years ago.

Brilliant light filled the scene and I was transported with the man to a beautiful place. There were golden mountains, green lush valleys and a feeling of deep and perfect peace that I cannot describe. Many times this has happened and the same hooded man comes for me.

Ian R

You had a vision of the Spirit world and met your spiritual guide. Many of the details are consistent with other people's experiences. The father of analytical psychology, Carl Jung, describes similar visions of the after life in his autobiography.

There he saw the surgeon who was soon to operate on him dressed in the ancient robes of Kos. Days later the surgeon was taken suddenly ill and died.

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I WAS BLOWN BY THE WINDS OF HEAVEN

I woke up at 2 am in the morning but couldn't get back to sleep so I decided to go and make myself a cup of tea. When I tried to get up someone or something was holding me down on the bed. I couldn't move. The next thing I heard and felt was what I can only describe as a wind that lifted me out of the bed. I tried to hold on but couldn't. It felt as if the wind had taken my body and lifted me ,ever so gently, towards the ceiling.

I felt safe, calm and peaceful. I remember thinking "I am dying, but it's so soon God, the children aren't settled yet" I could see my daughter's face and thought of how my son would react on hearing the news that I had died. I then felt myself being lowered back onto the bed-the noise and feeling of the wind went just as quickly as it had come.

At first I thought it was a dream but the experience is still as real and vivid in my mind as when it happened.

Alison L

Your decision to get up triggered an out-of-body experience. Although healthy , you experienced the same state of awareness as described by people that have come close to death. It is said that there is a wind that blows through the astral plains described in holy books as the Pneuma.

The American chat show host Joan Rivers has claimed to have traveled out of her body to California where she saw her daughter in the shower- A fact that she was able to immediately confirm after the experience.

I saw myself from above

A few years ago I had an extremely painful operation without anaesthetic. I left the hospital twenty minutes after the surgery in a state of shock, anger and mixed emotions. My centre of vision suddenly changed. I was stood about three stories high above myself looking down at the scene below. I could see the pedestrians walking by, the cars and buses, the flat rooftops of the buildings. I even saw myself stop at the curb look both ways and cross the street.

I have a bald spot on the top of my head and noticed that there was a small scar on it that I did not know was there!

Mrs Finlayson

Your out of body experience may have been triggered by the emotional shock of the surgery. Skeptics dismiss these reports as either fantasy, hallucinations caused by oxygen deprivation or as a result of the drugs used during an operation. But you had no anaesthetic.

And how could they explain away the fact that you saw a scar on your head that you never knew you had.

FILE No : SDR26

FLYING DREAMS

I keep having the same dream. In it I am walking then break into a jog. My feet seem to lift high of the ground until I find myself gliding through the air.

When I first had the dream I could travel about 30 ft or so. It then got easier and now in the latest dreams I seem to have mastered the art. I can glide through the air at will or drop to the ground and walk. Sometimes in real life when I'm walking through town I feel that I could do exactly the same but of course I couldn't.

Michael G-

Dreams of flying often occur at times of tension or frustration say the psychologists. They are a form of release. However some people claim to be able to really travel outside of their bodies during sleep. It appears that you are gaining control over your dream.

Try this experiment: Next time you have a flying dream, try visiting the attic of someone you know. Observe what you see in there and ask them later if you are correct. Alternatively you could ask someone to set up a target object for you to view.

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VIVID DREAMS

As soon as I lay my head on my pillow I dream of places that are so real that it's like I'm really there. This is not the confusion of an ordinary dream; the people I meet are as real as you or me. I meet all sorts of characters, even children. Why do I go to all these places? Does my spirit travel there?

Mrs Martha McC

You may be experiencing 'Astral Travel'. Some people's spirits are capable of leaving their body during sleep and traveling all over the world through the spiritual dimension known as the 'Astral Plane'.

The Tibetan monks practiced this technique which was popularised by the writer Lobsang Rampa who made the somewhat dubious claim that he wasn't really a plumber but had swapped bodies with a Tibetan monk. SEE ALSO ASTRAL BODY & CAUSAL BODY

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Astral Projection Experiences
I SLEEP ON THE CEILING

Please, please can you explain why, throughout my life, I have the frightening feeling that I'm flying whilst asleep. In my dreams, I float high into the sky and, like an astronaut, I see the whole Earth laid out below me.

Sometimes it's as if I'm asleep on the ceiling. I've honestly felt myself hovering on our bedroom ceiling, then, with one almighty thump I've landed back into my sleeping body. I awake suddenly and, just for a second, feel my heart-beat race.

I promise you, I am not on any medication; in normal health; and don't drink alcohol. Is there something wrong with me or do other people experience the same?

Ada P-

I've published other readers letters about these episodes that doctors call Out-of-Body Experiences. (OOBE's) Many people report having them whilst undergoing surgery but they can happen to perfectly healthy people as well.

There are secret techniques described in ancient scrolls from Tibet that instruct the monks how to leave their body during meditation. Some monks would be sealed away in frozen caves for years at a time and leave their bodies to wander over the skies of distant lands. You have this same remarkable ability.