What exactly is astral traveling? You go to bed, you rem sleep, you dream, you wake up in spirit form? It seems scary but I've heard people talk about quite memorable journeys through the astral world. My friend hill usinojin said something about the devil trying to get his spirit while he was astral traveling once. I didn't believe him so I just looked at him stoned eyed and knocked him out good. But do any of you know what sort of process one goes through in order to successfully travel? Do you believe in it at all? If so, do you have any stories? I'd love to hear!
I don't know much. But I'm pretty sure most people astral travel by accident. Their spirit just leaves their body for a moment, they travel somewhere else, and come back. There are many stories about astral travel. (A quick google search should do the trick.) I don't know the statistics on people who've done it. But I know that a lot of people claim to have seen the afterlife via astral travel. There's one technique (which I've tried) in which you meditate and visualize yourself rising out of your body. You can either pull on a rope hanging above you to pull yourself out or climb a ladder. I've done it before, though I can't say for sure whether it worked or if I just imagined that it did. That's the difficult part of meditation/astral travel. You never really know what's real and what's imagination. But, I do know that if you don't protect yourself properly during an astral travel attempt, it's very likely an angry spirit could track/follow you. And since many people don't know to protect themselves, it's a pretty common occurrence.
My son claimed to have gone astral travelling. His friend came around to check that he was alright, and to protect him - in his naivete - from whatever he might meet up/down there. It was so sweet. My son talks shit.
If people could really do this is would be easy to prove. If you could prove it you could get the James Randi million dollar challenge. No one has.
There is always this somewhat well-known experiment: http://www.psywww.com/asc/obe/missz.html (of course, there was plenty of critique of the study in the scientific community). Some people who believe in astral projection believe that they visit an alternate plane or reality, and that is something you couldn't really prove. If they're visiting places in this world, it would seem to me to be simple to prove. I don't subscribe to the idea of astral projection, personally.
What does that study mean, @Steerpike? Nothing was proved that the woman left her body. And the study was nothing more than monitoring brain waves in a sleep lab. Did her EEG flatline during those experiences? Of course not. The abstract: It's from the '60s, The Men Who Stare at Goats '60s. None of that flakey research ever amounted to anything.
"Science can't prove it" is the worst argument in the history of arguing. Just because science is unable to prove it doesn't mean it isn't real or doesn't exist or hasn't been experienced by thousands of people all the time. There are loads of things science and research can't explain or prove the existence of. Psychics. Aliens. Bigfoot. The Placebo Effect. Science is not all knowing. Sometimes people just need to think for themselves.
I don't mean to sound dismissive, but I will. Astral travelling is as an idea a steaming heap of nonsense. Sorry.
@GingerCoffee I don't think you read the study. They had her report information from her out of body experience, like a random five digit number that she couldn't otherwise have seen. Or so the study claims. It wasn't just measuring EEG.
@Lemex yeah, but without the idea of it and similar phenomena, we'd miss out on some good music. "As I travel through the astral planes...."
Ha! True. I must admit, I find it very difficult to believe in things that are not flatly materialistic. However, I feel somehow kinder disposed to the idea of psychic energies we don't yet understand. I don't believe any exist, but I find it easier to imagine that being real - if that makes sense.
No, I didn't read past the abstract, why was that not in it? You know that paper is a bunch of crap. If someone proved they left their body it wouldn't be in some obscure poorly written journal. It's clearly not a peer reviewed study. Anyone who had an inkling of proper research methodology would have rejected it. This anecdote is meaningless: But what was actually claimed then? So, she calls out a time and the observer decides it was a clock. Then she's upset at being unable to perform the test. How much discussion of this number went on during these sessions? The fact the methodology was so poor should be a clue. Then we get to the supposed breakthrough: It might have sounded impressive until you find out the number wasn't completely out of reach: Is he saying she might have gotten up in the night, no one was watching her? It's possible she saw the number but the observer believes her that she didn't? Do you honestly think had this occurred as claimed that they wouldn't have repeated the tests with multiple observers? Recorded the sessions? Shouted from the rooftops? @Steerpike: "there was plenty of critique of the study in the scientific community" It was for good reason. That supposed study was so flawed it was worthless.
The scientific process is not a collection of facts, nor is it used to prove things don't exist. In the case of astral projection, one only needs to set up a reasonably run experiment (unlike that faulty study in @Steerpike's link) with neither the observer nor the subject seeing the number, with no direct access to the number from the room the person was sleeping in and with a monitor of some kind to prove they did not get out of bed and look at the number. It's a simple test to prove the person left their body. It would be fantastic, scientists would be giddy if such a thing was accomplished. There is a reason it hasn't been. Astral Projection is a fantasy.
Science can't prove it's real. Must be fake. Question! What do you think near-death experiences are? That's a type of astral travel.
Not only that, I don't think anyone was ever able to replicate the claimed results, so that's pretty much the death knell for the study even if there weren't so many other problems.
No evidence whatsoever for something that should be extremely easy to demonstrate, pretty much yeah, it's a fake. NDEs have been replicated and are most likely the result of an hypoxic brain. Again with NDEs, efforts have been made and failed to show anyone leaves their body during these neurological events. If they are real, there should be good evidence. Why is there no evidence?
Also, not all NDE give the experiencer images of either a heaven or hell, they have been images from the past. Sometimes images apparently forgotten. Or, like mine, it was the black void of oblivion - and a warm happy feeling I was slipping away.
Science is not 100% but people are far less reliable. The unreliability of people is the reason why we have science in the first place. Science may not get everything right first time around, (the cutting edge of science is a rough edge) but it does iron out the wrinkles to establish reliable knowledge. People on the other hand, spout all manner of garbage for no apparent reason, and expect to be taken seriously.
It's something I know I'll never forget, and is still so scary because I was so happy, warm, and peaceful. Rather like going to sleep while being dragged backwards down a dark tunnel no light seemed to enter. It honestly was like that. It is totally unlike depressive stages or anything like that. Unless you've been close to it, I imagine you could have difficulty knowing what slipping away is really like. I've led an odd life so far.
Your examples of what science can't explain are... odd. Psychics aren't legitimate. Most use a technique called cold-reading. Aliens haven't been directly observed, but scientific theories have been made to predict their existence. Alien's aren't something you can easily test, it's something that will be discovered gradually as technology advances. There are explanations for bigfoot, but nothing considered fact. I'm sure some time in the future there will be a solid explanation. The Placebo Effect is a better example, but still not really getting the point across. We haven't yet discovered why it exists, but as science advances we will. It all just needs more testing. Science, as an abstract idea, is all knowing. Humans aren't all knowing. Maybe astral traveling is real (I'm highly sceptical), but like @GingerCoffee said, it could easily be tested. The mind is a powerful thing, and I think you underestimate it's ability to deceive. Just because someone believes they can do something, doesn't mean they can. It's all an illusion.
Science is based on evidence and reasoning. A great deal of effort is made to minimize the influence of personal opinions because it's recognized that the beliefs of people can cause judgments to be biased and this can screw up the conclusions.
