Tony Crisp Interpretation:
1. Extending awareness to a point distant from the body, to witness events confirmed by other people. This is often called out-of-body experience or OBE. Some of these experiences suggest the nature of consciousness and time may not be dualistic. We do not have to be either here or there. See . 2. Being aware of the death or danger of a member of family. Kinship and love seem to be major factors in the way the unconscious functions. 3. Seeing into the workings of the body and diagnosing an illness before it becomes apparent to waking observation. Dr. Vasily Kasatkin and Professor Medard Boss have specialized in the study of such dreams. 4. Access to a computerlike ability to sort through a massive store of information and experience to solve problems. These dreams are often confused with precognitive ability. Prediction does occur from these dreams, but it arises, as with weather prediction, from a massive gathering of information, most of which we have forgotten consciously. Morton Schatzman, in an article in New Scientist, showed how subjects can produce answers to complex mathematical problems in their dreams.
Because out-of-body experiences occur while the person is apparently asleep, they can be considered as manifestations of sleep phenomena, but they do not have the same characteristics as a typical dream. Dreams are seldom verifiable observations of external events occurring at the same time as the dream. Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) frequently display an accurate observation of external events not available to the sleeping person except by extraordinary means. This suggests that human consciousness is not limited to the smaller range of awareness the body senses give. OBEs have been reported thousands of times in every culture and in every period of history. A general experience of an OBE might include a feeling of floating or rushing along a tunnel, or release from a tight place prior to the awareness of independence from the body. In this first stage some people experience a sense of physical paralysis, which may be frightening. Their awareness then seems to become an observing point outside the body as well as the sense of paralysis. There is usually an intense awareness of oneself and surroundings, unlike dreaming or even lucidity. Some projectors feel they are even more vitally aware and rational than during the waking state. Looking back on one’s body may occur here. At this very first stage of complete independence some people experience intense fear. This is most likely due to the fear that one is dying. I believe there is an unconscious connection between the exteriorization of one’s awareness and death. Example: “Then I looked down on my sleeping body. Suddenly I was terrified. I didn’t at the time understand this terror, but the thought came to me in a flash that this was what I had read about—i.e., people leaving their body in projection. The fear immediately vanished, to be replaced by uncontrollable laughter. Looking back I think the terror arose because I was certain I was dying. The laughter came at the realization this was not so, and was a release of tension brought about by the terror.” (T.C.) Once the awareness is independent of the body, the boundaries of time and space as they are known in the body do not exist. One can easily pass through walls, fly, travel to—or immediately be in—a far distant place, witnessing what may be, or appears to be, physically real there. Sir Auckland Geddes, an eminent British anatomist, describes his own OBE, which contains many of these features. Example: “Becoming suddenly and violently ill with gastroenteritis, I quickly became unable to move, or phone for help. As this was occurring I noticed I had an ‘A’ and a ‘B’ consciousness. The ‘A’ was my normal awareness, and the ‘B’ was external to my body, watching. From the ‘B’ self I could see not only my body, but also the house, garden, and surrounds. I needed only think of a friend or place and immediately I was there and was later able to find confirmation for my observations. In looking at my body, I noticed that the brain was only an end organ, like a condensing plate, upon which memory and awareness played. The mind was not in the brain, the brain was in the mind, like a radio in the play of signals. I then observed my daughter come in and discover my condition, saw her telephone a doctor friend, and saw the doctor also at the same time.” As OBEs often occur at times of stress, a near-death experience, great pain, or indeep withdrawal, they may have a link with such human and animal situations. In other words, OBEs may have developed as an evolutionary or survival method to deal with death, near-death, pain, or stress. For instance, many cases of OBE occur in a near-death situation, where a person has “died” of a heart attack, for instance, and is later revived. Because of this there are attempts to consider the possibility of survival of death through study of these cases. In fact, many people after experiencing an OBE have a very different view of death than prior to their experience. From the opposite point of view, that of the external observer who is not asleep, many OBEs have been witnessed by relatives of people actually dying through war or accident. During the two world wars, many cases were reported, and later corroborated, of seeing the dying person appear, and of them telling of their death, or silently communicating it. I believe this points out the deep connection between an OBE and dying, pain, and stress. I have felt that the OBE is, in fact, the remains of something that existed in primitive animals as a survival mechanism. It was a way of communicating the cause of death to those with genetic bonding. This awareness would help in avoiding the same death.