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Re: Pt 1/2: LDE or OBE?  1/n
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From: ur-valhalla!rbdc.rbdc.com!ivo (John Archer)
Subject: LDE or OBE?  1/n
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Date: Thu, 04 May 1995 11:41:00 -0500 (EDT)
  Trionica #4.1                                  Date: 95/05/05

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                             LDE or OBE?

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  Trionica is an Electronic Journal of PsychoPhiloSophical Inquiry into
  the Phenomenology of Out-of-Body Experiencing in all its forms,
  including disguised forms.

  COPYRIGHT 1995 by John Archer 

  Permission is granted for electronic distribution of intact copies of
  this document.
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  What is the phenomenological difference between LDEs and OBEs?

  This obvious and frequently asked question is hard to resolve because
  perceived differences between Lucid Dream Experiences [LDEs] and
  Out-of-Body Experiences [OBEs] can be due to preconceived definitions
  used to classify experiencer reports before comparing them.

  Fortunately, some reports describe experiences so spectacular that we
  have no trouble recognizing them as Out-of-Body Experiences.

  Could we take such a report, examime its features one by one, delete
  those that seemed non-essential, and thereby arrive at a satisfactory
  definition of the phenomenon in question?

  Setting aside, for the time being, disputes about the reality status
  to be granted to the experience and to the experiencer, let's consider
  the following (greatly abridged) version of the experience report of
  Susan J. Blackmore, then an English college student. Dr Blackmore
  later dropped the use of her middle initial and became a skeptic. She
  is now a Fellow of CSISOP and spends her time trying to prove that
  OBEs are hallucinations. The experience occurred under the influence
  of physical exhaustion and hashish intoxication. It occurred in the
  company of two friends, Vicki and Kevin, and was unusual in that her
  biochemical body remained active and could answer questions put to her
  by Kevin.

          1.      The Experience Report of Susan J. Blackmore

    Vicki put some music on ... If i thought about my own body it did
    not seem to be firmly on the hard floor but rather indistinct, as
    though surrounded by cotton wool. In my tiredness my mind seemed to
    follow the music into a scene of a tree-lined avenue. i was
    thundering along this road as though in a carriage drawn by several
    horses, only i was very close to the ground. Below and very close to
    me were leaves dropped by the autumn trees and strewn by the wheels
    and hooves. Above, and indeed all around, were the multicoloured
    leaves still on their branches. The whole was like a tree-lined
    tunnel and i was hurtling through it. ...

    ... every so often one piece of the scene stood out in quite
    indescribable clarity. It seemed as real - no, more real - than it
    would have appeared had i looked at it with my eyes open. These
    glimpses were only brief, but quite startling. ...

    Kevin asked, 'Sue, where are you?' This simple question baffled me.
    i thought; struggled to reply; saw the road and leaves; tried to see
    my own body; and then did see it. There it was below me. The words
    came out: 'I'm on the ceiling.' With some surprise i watched the
    mouth - my mouth - down below, opening and closing and i marvelled
    at its control. ...

    From the ceiling i could apparently see the room quite clearly, i
    saw the desk, chairs, window, my friends and myself all from above.
    Then i saw a string or cord, silvery, faintly glowing and moving
    gently, running between the neck of my body below and the navel, or
    thereabouts, of a duplicate body above. i thought it would be fun to
    try to move it. i reached out a hand and immediately learned my
    first lesson. i needed no hand to move the cord, thinking it moved
    was sufficient, Also i could have two hands, and number of hands, or
    no hands at all as i chose. And so i learned a little of how to act
    in this thought-responsive world. Much later i learned that i needed
    neither cord nor duplicate body, and when i realized this they
    evaporated.

    With encouragement i moved out of the room, myself and my cord
    moving through the walls, another floor of rooms and the roof with
    ease. i clearly observed the red of the roofs and the row of
    chimneys before flying on to more distant places. What is now
    particularly interesting to me is that my inspection the next
    morning showed the roofs not to be red but grey; no chimneys were to
    be seen there; and i must have been mistaken about where i was,
    because i passed through an extra floor of rooms.

    ... i visited Paris and New York and flew over South America. ... In
    the Mediterranean i visited 'a star-shaped island with 100 trees'.
    It seemed to me then, as now, that this island was more like
    somebody's idea of an island, than an island as it would appear to a
    normal observer. i had fun sinking into the darkness of the trees
    and rising up like a large flat plate above them. i floated on the
    water, rocking with the uncomfortable motion of the waves, and
    struggled unnecessarily, to climb a crumbling cliff. All the while
    the physical 'I' was describing these events ...

    I returned to the room ... without effort, but now all semblance of
    normality, which had been so clear at the start, was gone. My own
    body sat on the same floor but without a head. Yet this did not
    frighten me; i rushed inside the broken-off jagged neck to explore
    the hollow body. i realized i was rather small to fit inside a part
    of my own body, and so i tried to imagine myself larger. This
    attempt overshot and i found myself steadily expanding, like
    something out of Alice in Wonderland. i encompassed, with lesser or
    greater difficulty, the building, the earth below and air above, the
    whole planet, the solar system and finally what i took to be the
    Universe ...

    I glimpsed another place. This final stage i would describe rather
    as a religious than an out-of-the-body experience.  From that place
    my little struggles were being kindly and laughingly watched, and i
    kept repeating to myself, 'however far you reach there's always
    something further'. ... Not only did i have to shrink to normal size
    but i had to readjust to having a physical body. i had to coerce
    myself into remaining in one spot, looking from one angle only, and
    taking that heavy body with me wherever i went. This was not only a
    slow but rather a disheartening process. Nevertheless, at length it
    was achieved. i felt more or less coincident with my body. ...

    Needless to say this experience had a profound effect on me. Most
    important of all was that it forced me into asking many questions
    which received no easy answers. In fact after ten years of research
    these questions still do not receive an easy answer.

  [Source: Blackmore, Susan J. (1983). _Beyond the Body_.  p. 11.]

  From this report it is easily seen that Dr Blackmore's experience was
  unusually complete as well as spectacular. It included a symbolic
  perception of separating, a comparatively rare viewing of the silver
  cord, a very rare experience of dual awareness, a recognition that the
  Out-of-Body World is thought responsive, an exercise of control over
  the course of the experience, an encounter with higher beings and an
  awakening to a search for answers.

  Such reports are rare. If we used it as a model by which to define the
  Out-of-Body Experience, we would exclude a multitude of experience
  reports sharing some (but not all) of its features. Which of these
  other reports would we also want to consider Out-of-Body Experiences?

  What was essential in Dr Blackmore's report? What made this experience
  an Out-of-Body Experience? Was it necessary for her biochemical body
  to be active? Was it necessary for her to notice her biochemical body
  during the experience? Was it necessary for her to be aware of her
  eksomatic state during the experience? Was it necessary ... ?

  Starting with Dr Blackmore's experience, we could delete features
  until we had the set of reports of eksomatic experiences:

          experiences wherein the experiencer seems to perceive from a
          point other than the experiencer's biochemical body.

  This definition would includes ordinary dreams. Lucid Dream researcher
  Stephen LaBerge and associate Lynne Levitan:

    In a sense, all dreams could be considered OBEs, because in them we
    experience ourselves in circumstances and places quite apart from
    the real location and activity of our bodies.

  [Source: Levitan, Lynne & LaBerge, Stephen. (1991). "In the Mind and
  Out- of-Body: Out-of-Body Experiences and Lucid Dreams, Part I." in
  Nightlight. 3(2) p. 2.]

          2.      Frederik van Eeden

  We can do much the same thing by starting with the reports of other
  famous experiencers and deleting features that seem non-essential. For
  the sake of brevity, i will mention only the experiences of van Eeden,
  the originator of the phrase 'lucid dream'.

    In these lucid dreams the reintegration of the psychic functions is
    so complete that the sleeper remembers day-life and his own
    condition, reaches a state of perfect awareness, and is able to
    direct his attention, and to attempt different acts of free volition
    ... The sensation of having a body ... is perfectly distinct; yet I
    know at the same time that the physical body is sleeping and has
    quite a different position.

  [Source: van Eeden. "A Study of Dreams," in Tart's _Altered States of
  Consciousness_ p. 152-3]

  By van Eeden's standards, many of those experiences we take as lucid
  dreams would not qualify. i, for one, very rarely even think about my
  day-life after becoming aware of the eksomatic state (whether, during
  the course of the experience, i label it a dream, an OBE or simply an
  experience)

  Is the sensation of having a body essential or not? Probably not.

  Conversely, van Eeden excludes from the definition of 'lucid dream'
  those that occur at sleep onset (i.e. those that Dr LaBerge would call
  Waking Induced Lucid Dreams [WILDs]). He experienced relatively few of
  these and classified them as 'inital dreams'. However, most people
  reading van Eeden's description of this category would recognize them
  as LDEs:

    In the initial dream type I see and feel as in any other dream. I
    have a nearly complete recollection of day-life, i know that i am
    asleep and where i am sleeping ... usually i have the sensation of
    floating or flying ... i can move and float in all directions; yet i
    know that my body is at the same time dead tired and fast asleep.
    [van Eeden p. 148]


          3.      The Pyramid Structure

  We have in effect constructed a pyramid structure. The class of events
  that share all the features of Susan J Blackmore's experience is very
  tiny and represents the peak of the pyramid. The class of events
  meeting Dr. LaBerge's criteria is large and forms the base of the
  pyramid. Out of this class which i call 'eksomatic experiences,' most
  people will select out one or more categories that have special
  significance.

  A person can come to understand their own point of view by navigating
  up/down the pyramid, starting at either the peak or the base.

  If starting at the peak, delete features until you come to a 'line'
  below which you feel there is a sharp decline in the significance of
  the experience. There may be more than one such division.

  If starting at the base, add features until you come to a 'line'
  beyond which you feel there is a sharp rise in the significance of the
  experience. There may be more than one such division.

  My point:

--- GEcho 1.02+
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