Out-of-the-Body Dreams

Have you ever had a dream where you felt that you came out of your body, perhaps in the form of a soul or spirit, and then started to drift through space? These are called out-of-the-body dreams, in which allows the dreamer to go places without a body. What is different about these types of dreams is that we can be fully conscious of the things that happen, letting us observe events, and then remembering them upon waking up.

There is no limit to where an out-of-the-body dream can take us. A sleeper can travel to the ceiling of his or her room or to the other side of the continent. And,whenever he or she is about to wake up, it’s as if an invisible cord snaps them back to their body right before hand. Here is some more information about out-of-the-body dreams:

• Dreamer can project inner self to a predetermined location and reports back information
• Dreamer has no control of where he or she is going and travels to random locations
• Dreamer remembers most or all of the events observed with the same intensity and vivid clarity upon waking up
• Dreamer may feel extremely fatigued upon waking up, even though they have slept many more hours than usual
• Dreamer may feel a sensation of falling down from great heights (e.g a multiple storied building or gargantuan waterfall), spinning of earth, right before they wake up
• Dreamer is able to go through solid walls, see one’s own body below, drift towards the ceiling of the room, or move at lightning speed across landscape
• Dreamer can observe people or scenes, but usually without being able to make voice contact with them

Starting from prophetic dreams, it seems as though the dreams get more interesting as we move forward. Out-of-the-body dreams, I find, differ from the other types of dreams, as they do not always involve a “tragic” experience, but rather feels truly like somebody with psychic ability. Here are some true dreams from Hanz Holzer’s collection of people have had dealing with out-of-the-body experiences in his book, The Psychic Side of Dreams. Pay close attention, as perhaps you might have had a dream where you too, have drifted through space and observed other people where they have felt your presence.

Case Examples of Out-of-the-Body Dreams

1. “I have already mentioned Jane duke of Bakersfield, California, in the previous chapter. Shortly before leaving for the East in 1970, Mrs. Duke dreamt that she was at home in her parent’s bedroom. It was early in the morning and her father was just getting up. He looked up, in the dream, and saw her standing there, and said, ‘What in the hell are you doing here?’ Then he went on to the other room. On awakening, Mrs. Duke recorded the dream.

Two weeks later she actually went East to stay with her parents. At first she did not mention anything about her dream because she knew her parents did not believe in such things and had no interest in the occult. But one day her father took her aside and mentioned that he had seen her standing in their bedroom one morning not long ago, when he knew good and well that she was in California. He said he was so startled when he saw her standing there, that all he could say was, ‘What in the hell are you doing here?’ He had mentioned this experience to his wife at the time when it occurred. Mrs. Duke had actually been seen cross-country in Pennsylvania while she was asleep in Bakersfield, California” (Holzer 116-117).

2. “Elaine F. of Pennsylvania had been mentioned in one of the previous chapters. She has come by her psychic talents through inheritance, it would appear because her mother has recorded a most amazing out-of-the-body experience. In this dream she returned to a town she had been to before in similar dreams. The sun was shining brightly and she met a man she had never seen before and found herself talking to him. He then handed her his sunglasses and she heard herself say something about giving them back to him because he would need them. He advised her that he would be back for them.

The next day, Elaine F. and her mother went shopping. When her mother went to get her coat-the same coat she had been warning in the dream the night before-she found a pair of men’s sunglasses in one of the pockets. Neither woman had ever seen the glasses before and, considerably puzzled by their sudden appearance, they placed them on the stereo set and left the house. When the two returned, they went to look at the glasses again to see if there were any identifying marks on them, but the glasses had disappeared” (Holzer 117-118).

3. “Mrs. Arlene W. of Chicago, Illinois, has had many psychic experiences over the years. One in particular occurred when her stepson John was having surgery on his arm to repair a severed never and tendons. It as a delicate operation and Mrs. W. was justly concerned. During the night of November 11, 1969, when John was already in the hospital, Mrs. W. dreamt that she found herself in his hospital room. She saw him in bed and realized he was in pain, and pushing the call button for a nurse. Mrs. W. was standing behind his bed, looking down. She could see his bandaged arm lying on a pillow on top of the sheets. A nurse came in with a hypodermic needle on a metal tray. Mrs. W. could see her very clearly, the type of cap, color hair, height and build. She watched as the nurse cleaned John’s biceps area and injected him with the needle. Almost immediately she could feel him relax. Then, suddenly, Mrs. W. snapped awake, instantly alert. She had an impulse to grab the clock and check the time; it was 2:05 A.M. The following day she went to see her stepson and casually asked him how he had slept. He informed her that he had had to have a shot at about two in the morning. Mrs. W. described the nurse she had ‘seen’ and the description fit the nurse who had given her stepson the injection. There was no way in which Mrs. W. could have known this, since this particular nurse had come on duty at 11 P.M.” (Holzer 118-119).

4. “Mrs. Esther P. is an organist in the San Francisco area. She has had a number of psychic experiences over the years, but the reason she originally contacted me was to learn more about the mechanics of astral projection. She wanted to know if a return to the physical body occurs smoothly or if there is a jolt in connection with it. The incident which prompted this inquiry happen in the 1960’s. It was just before five o’clock in the morning when Mrs. P. awoke, a short time before her alarm was set to go off. All at once she was aware that she was above her bed, looking down at her body. Then, the alarm went off, and she was on the bed once more, but as she reached out to turn off the alarm, her hand went right through the clock! At almost the same time the jolt occurred, and this time she could shut off the alarm” (Holzer 123-124).

5. “Mrs. Janet J. of Bowling Green, Kentucky, is in her early thirties, the mother of three children and used to ESP incidents through the years. In 1963 she was brought to Lexington Memorial Hospital, having slammed the car door on thumb. She found herself in severe pain, but suddenly, while lying on a stretcher waiting for a doctor, she felt no pain at all and realized she was out of her body, nearly at the ceiling and looking calmly down at herself. The moment she realized what had happened, however, she was jerked back into her body and the pain resumed. Similarly, when she was given anesthetics during childbirth, she found herself both on the bed, as the participant, and watching “herself” at a distance from somewhere else in the room” (Holzer 124).

In the first dream, Mrs. Duke was able to travel across country to meet her father in her dream. Later, her father recalled to her that he had seen her, but he was so astonished that he just walked away. Could it be possible that what the father saw was really her daughter or just a illusion of his daughter. Perhaps there is a link between dreams and ghosts. Could it be possible that some spirits or ghosts actually come in the form of out-of-the-body dreams? Let’s continue.

In the second dream, Elaine dreamt of meeting a man who gives her a pair of sunglasses, telling her that he would need them back in the future. Elaine’s mother went to get the coat – the one in Elaine’s dream – and inside one of the pockets, was a pair of men’s sunglasses. Startled, they left the glasses on a stereo set and left. When they returned, the glasses disappeared, just as the man had said. Have you ever experienced a time where you knew an object was placed somewhere, and you knew no one had touched the object, but the object seem to move by itself? Also, if Elaine was only dreaming of a man giving her sunglasses, how is it is possible that the pair of sunglasses appearing in her coat that she had never seen before, but only know of in her dream? What is more eerie is the next dream…

In the third dream, Mrs. Arlene was able to have a dream about her son going through surgerynot knowing what time he was going to get surgery. She drifted out of her body and into the room where her son was hospitalized. She observed her son in pain, going through the procedure of the nurse injecting him with the needle. The next day, the son told her mother, Mrs. Arlene, that he indeed did go through pain, and was injected with a needle, just as if Mrs. Arlene had dreamt. She was in a dream at the same time she was also in the room of her son. How was it possible that Mrs. Arlene was at the exact same place of her son’s surgery, while dreaming from far, far away in her own room? Could it be possible that out-of-the-body dreams allow us to be at two points in space simultaneously at the same point in time?

In the fourth dream, Mrs. Esther went out her physical body and went above her bed. She looked down, and saw her own body. As the alarm clock went off, she was on the bed, but when reaching the alarm, her hand went through the clock. When she felt another “jolt”, thenshe was able to turn off the alarm clock. Thus, when we do go out of the body, are we able to pass through physical objects? Also, when is the exact time where we return to our bodies? Is it through a sudden jolt? Or is it through a “jerk” of the body such as in the next dream.

In the final dream, Mrs. Janet was injured and found herself at the hospital. But she went out of her own body and saw herself lying on the stretcher. She was up in the ceiling, until she was “jerked” back into the body. Later, she found herself both on the bed as a participant and watching herself at a distance somewhere else in the room, as an observer. Does this mean that out of the body dreams allow us to be in first and third person mode? Again, can we be at two places at the same time? Can we perhaps feel the presence of other people in our space without being able to see them?

All these questions are questions that we should consider when dealing with drifting out of our own bodies. The fascinating nature of these dreams, it it’s unique ability to simultaneously be in different places at one moment in time and going to other areas in space and observing different places. Perhaps there is a link to these experiences with ghosts, and perhaps there isn’t. But if our conscious or our soul has the ability to drift around in space through dreams, and if other people can “feel” this presence, than that unlocks another interesting insight about communication with the “unseen,” or another name for it would be, “communication with the dead”. In the next post, we’ll be talking about these types of dreams, called Survival Dreams.