Meaning of a Dream

Astral projection (or astral travel) is an esoteric interpretation of the out of body experience assuming the existence of a spirit.

The symptoms are much the same as an OBE: feelings of floating out of your body, meeting other entities, and experiencing the physical world from an ethereal perspective (ie, being able to float through walls and teleport instantly around the universe).

However, the expectation principle can cause the experience of astral projection to take on a highly spiritual form. Believers in the afterlife expect to see angels, deceased spirits and even gods - and so that is what they do see.

They may travel to different "astral planes"; layers of ethereal realities shaped by energy and light. Yet one key similarity remains: in astral projection, out of body experiences and lucid dreams, your thoughts guide the experience.

So if you imagine a friend's house, you will likely zap there in an instant. If you imagine your body back in bed, you will quickly return to it. And if you expect to see an astral chord connecting you to your body, it will materialize for you.

Scientists do not believe that astral projection is real. It is a spiritual theory, and other than first-hand accounts, we have no physical evidence of the phenomena.

While lucid dreams and OBEs are officially deemed as internally generated experiences, astral projection is the belief that the spirit literally travels outside the body, in real, externally generated spiritual realms.

That is an extraordinary claim - and therefore requires extraordinary proof. Of course, everyone can freely decide what to make of their personal experiences, but if you have not yet experienced out-of-body phenomena for yourself, I do urge you to play down any spiritual interpretation for the time being. Here's precisely why.

For the OBE explorer, is belief in the astral world a help or hindrance?

In general, much of the dogma surrounding astral projection is positive. So-called spirit travelers claim to communicate with deceased loved ones and even entities from alien worlds. Intrepid explorers are rewarded with mind-blowing experiences that may forever convince them of life after death.

However, some astral projection experiences are portrayed as quite frightening, because of the direct implications of mingling with the spirit world. One example is from the lucid dreamer, Erin Pavlina, who described her first astral projection experience as terrifying:

Under the effect of sleep paralysis, Erin sensed three other entities in her bedroom, trying to coax her out of body. She had problems trying to breathe, scream, and free herself from the paralysis. The more she fought it, the more terrified she became, until she eventually woke up and had a nervous breakdown.

Erin believed her spirit was in a literal tug-of-war against the presences in her room (who, incidentally, she could also hear talking about her). This would be a terrifying experience for anyone! However, when we take a scientific perspective, we can rationalize what was actually happening and greatly reduce the element of the unknown - and therefore the fear involved.

What if you knew, without doubt, that your experience was just a dream (or nightmare) while it was happening? Wouldn't that empower you to clear your head and take control? That is what lucid dreamers frequently do when they encounter nightmares. Erin was already an advanced lucid dreamer by this point, yet her powerful belief in the spirit world led her to believe that this out-of-body experience was completely beyond her control.

After that, Erin had many more astral experiences and met many more negative entities in the spirit world. Eventually she learned to fight them (Buffy-The-Vampire-Slayer-style). Yet in lucid dreams, there is no need to run in fear from your nightmare figures - you can embrace and relate to them. If Erin had believed this was possible during her early astral experiences, I'm sure she would have had a lot more positive learning experiences instead of having to fight these twisted spirits.

This is one instance where belief in astral projection can seriously hold back your adventures. Once you realize it is an extension of the lucid dream state, you gain so much more freedom and confidence to explore these worlds in total safety.

For detailed journal accounts of astral projection / OBE phenomena, check out:

Journeys Out of The Body by Robert Monroe - An engaging introduction to out of body experiences, relating how Monroe began having involuntary OBEs in the 1950s and first thought he was going mad. As a doctor, he includes some shocking diary excerpts from a rational scientific perspective, even though he ended up taking a deeply spiritual perspective of his experiences beyond the body. While many now believe his experiences were internal, they were real enough for him to warrant close inspection.

Multidimensional Man by Jurgen Ziewe - Leading a highly demanding professional life Ziewe compensated by practicing intensive meditation to gain balance. He was soon catapulted out of his body into a parallel universe. For nearly forty years he kept a secret diary detailing his excursions, revealing an alternate reality dream world that Ziewe is convinced awaits us once we leave our mortal bodies.

As you read more about out-of-body phenomena and theories of astral projection, you will likely be shocked by personal accounts. I recommend these books not for literal interpretation of a spirit world but to understand more about what's possible in the out-of-body state and just how realistic it can become.

I advise caution with believing in astral projection. If you are on the fence, take a scientific approach - consider the experience a lucid dream, and you will be a lot better equipped to deal with experiences like sleep paralysis (a natural sleep mechanism) and OBE entities (dream characters simulated by your subconscious self).

For a step-by-step guide to astral projection see How to Have an OBE.