My Scary OBE
An out of body experience, or an astral projection is defined as a phenomenon where a person’s consciousness is detached from his physical body, and travels or exists outside of the body. I had personally never heard or read about out-of-body experiences until I experienced one firsthand. Underneath I explain the event as it happened to the best of my memory.
It was around 3:00 pm, on a lazy friday afternoon. I had just come home from college, and decided to doze off for a while. I stretched out across my bed, stole a last glance at my phone, and then closed my eyes in the hopes of drifting off to a soothing afternoon slumber.
What I experienced next wasn’t soothing in the least, in fact, it scared the living shit out of me. I felt as if I was being lifted off my bed, like you feel when you go up in an elevator. My stomach felt jittery. Everything was pitch black but I was completely lucid and could hear the neighbour’s dog barking outside. This feeling of rising seemed to go on and on – in my mind I thought two things; either I’m having a heart attack or I’m dreaming. I tried opening my eyes, moving my hands and legs but I couldn’t. My entire body was paralyzed, but my mind was active, active like it is right now.
Finally, after tremendous effort, I managed to open my eyes a little. What I saw, horrified me. My face was just two inches from the ceiling. My lifeless body was levitating in thin air. I could still hear the neighbour’s dog barking. I wanted to scream. It was then, I felt my body descend downwards, the elevator feeling was back. Finally, I was back on the bed and had broken free from my paralysis. I looked back at the ceiling and caught a fleeting glimpse of a vague human like facial appearance. It had long hair and a mourful face. I felt as if I had seen it before. It startled me to the core, so I rushed downstairs to my mother’s room. I did not tell her what happened, but I checked my blood pressure, my pulse was over 100.
A few weeks later, I shared this incidence with my friend’s dad who is a yoga teacher. He conveniently explained to me, that what I experienced is actually quite common. Some people can even deliberately induce an astral projection. As a matter of fact, Dronacharya, from the Indian epic Mahabharta, leaves his physical body temporarily and travels in his astral form to go see if his son is alive.
Science says “One in ten people have an OBE once, or several times in their lives”, but I haven’t met a single person who has had an experience similar to mine. I have tried inducing an OBE deliberately. I have tried using the point shift approach, the interrupted sleep approach etc, but haven’t had much success so far. I wish to experience an out of body experience on more time.