7. OBE and Perception

Let's define an objective experience as one in which perceptions are gained directly through the physical body senses, and a subjective experience as perceptions gained or affected by mind or imagination. In those terms, when dealing with out-of-body experience, everything is subjective.

I think it helps to realize that the brain is capable only of receiving bioelectrical signals. It is not capable of receiving direct sensory input. Instead, sense organs break down these perceptions into complex bioelectrical impulses. The brain exists in total darkness and silence, inside a heavy bone box (the skull), isolated from the physical world. It has no nerves and can feel neither pressure nor pain, heat nor cold. It might be said to float in a dark, void-like dimension, receiving sensory input from the real world (physical dimension) only via remotely gathered and transmitted bioelectrical signals.

This is similar to a description of how the brain receives - or remembers receiving - sensory input gained during an OBE.

Keep in mind that every OBE ends up as a memory of an OBE, and there is no memory of OBE (not counting remote-eye experiences) unless the projected double successfully downloads its shadow memories into the physical brain during reintegration. Once this happens, the physical brain then remembers sensory perceptions received during the OBE as if it had received them directly and firsthand.

The only real difference between how the brain perceives the physical universe (objective experience), and how it perceives out-of-body experience (subjective experience), is the way in which the sensory input for each type of experience is gathered and transmitted to it. The brain simply cannot differentiate between physical and nonphysical input sources.

Regardless how sensory input is gathered and received by the brain, it is all interpreted as firsthand sensory input.

The projected double uses the same basic senses as the physical body, albeit at a greatly enhanced level. It can still see and hear and smell and taste and touch, but through direct energetic mind sensing. For example, the projected double can receive light energy directly, without needing physical eyes, although it must of course have experience with sight to translate this energy in a visual way.

Whether the projected double is seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, or tasting, it is perceiving and interpreting the energies associated with these senses directly, completely bypassing the need for physical sense organs or subtle copies of them.
 

Blindness and OBE Perception
Supporting evidence can be found in the study of the dream and projection abilities of blind people.

It is fairly well known that blind people who have experienced sight before they became blind are capable of having fully sighted dreams and projections. Obviously, if the physical condition of the eyes were reflected into the sight capabilities of the projected double, physical blindness would blind the projected double out of its body during an OBE - which is simply not the case.

However, if the physical eyes had nothing to do with OBE perception, then people who have been blind since birth (never experiencing sight) should also be able to see clearly during dreams and projections - which unfortunately is also not the case. Therefore, OBE sensory perception must also be dependent on the learned sensory reception capabilities of the physical brain, not the current functioning or nonfunctioning abilities of the physical sense organs. These principles also apply to profound deafness.

Physical blindness does not prohibit OBE or the ability to project, but it does affect sensory perception abilities. Spatial awareness perception, the sense of touch, hearing and other non-visual sensory perceptions - all very highly developed in blind people - are also greatly enhanced during an OBE. This level of perception allows blind-since-birth projectors to sense and perceive the out-of-body environment very clearly. This level of non-visual sensory ability may, in many ways, even be superior to normal sight during an OBE, as the case history below suggests.

The biggest problem facing blind projectors is that the majority of today's energetic development and projection techniques are heavily reliant upon visualization. Visualization techniques require basic learned sight experience. The techniques given in this book, however, based not on visualization, but on tactile imaging, are eminently suitable for non-sighted projectors. They work well for blind people, and are superior to visualization-based techniques when used by sighted people.

A blind projector gave me the following explanation regarding his perceptions during dreams and OBEs. Being blind since birth and being a successful projector is a fairly unusual combination, to say the least. Over the years, my investigations in this area have unearthed many important clues concerning the nature of perception.

These provided me with further clues as to the nature and dynamics of other aspects of OBE. In the out-of-body environment, perception is absolutely everything. Therefore, understanding the nature of perception is paramount to understanding the dynamics of OBE and the entire range of related phenomena.

My question to CB was "Could you please expound on your non-sighted condition and how you perceive things during your OBEs?"

C.B.: I've been blind since birth. My optic nerves didn't develop while I was in the womb, but I still have vivid OBEs and dreams. It's hard to explain just how I sense things and get around while I'm out of my body, but I'll give it a try. I experience no real difference between my OBE and dream perceptions.

 

When I have a dream or OBE, I am very aware of what is around me, but everything is always three-dimensional. I can't perceive anything as two-dimensional, such as what's on the surface of a picture, but can perceive the canvas and frame as a whole very clearly. The area around me is extremely vivid in my mind, in all directions, and is very detailed.

 

This awareness is much stronger than my normal awake perceptions are in my own home. When I project it's like I can feel everything around me, as if I am continually touching everything with my fingers, with my mind, with my senses reaching out and touching everything around me all at once.

 

My senses extend a long way, much further than usual, and I can feel into the distance around me in probably much the same way as sighted people do with their eyes. I get around fine when I'm out of my body, with no hesitation or doubt about my surroundings at all. I never worry about bumping into things and can sense exactly what is ahead of me and around me at all times. If I meet people during an OBE or dream, I can instantly tell what they look like and what they are wearing, just as if I were running my hands all over them.

 

This isn't really sight, as I have no idea of what color or light is, but my dream and OBE perceptions are about as close to sight as it gets for me.

All this points to the projected double having a far more direct link with the perception of its environment, energetically bypassing the need for physical sense organs or subtle copies of them. The projected double can thus be thought of as a direct mind-sense energetic perceiver.

The learned sensory capabilities of the physical brain are the major limiting factors when it comes to interpreting sensory input gained during OBEs and dreams.
 

Objective Real-Time Perceptions
For the purposes of this book and of dealing more clearly with OBE, objective experience is best extended to include some sensory input gained through real-time OBE. This should include all perceptions of reality that do not appear to be affected by the mind and imagination of a projector, or any other mind or imagination.

During a real-time projection, for example, an objective perception of reality is best thought of as something that is consistent with what a projector knows to be real and true of the physical universe. These perceptions can then be described as being apparently objective, although they were gained remotely from the physical body and its sense organs.

Although the real-time zone appears to be actual reality, and projectors existing in real time feel they are existing as invisible ghosts in the real world, they are not, I believe, actually in the physical dimension, nor are they in the astral dimension proper. They are slightly out of phase with both, at a slightly higher vibration than the physical universe, and at a slightly lower vibration than the astral dimension.

They are existing inside a direct dimensional reflection, or subtle energetic echo, radiating directly from the physical universe as it happens, in real time.

Real-time projectors can be thought of as something like reflections in a mirror. They perceive the real world from inside that mirror and are existing inside a kind of real-time mirror world. A mirror reflects a real time view of actual events happening in the physical world, but in itself the mirror's reflection has no substance and cannot be thought of as real.

Or, real-time projectors can be thought of as being on the other side of an invisible mirror, a mirror capable of moving around in response to the projector's will. This allows the projector to clearly perceive the real world as it happens, without being able to directly affect or interact with the real world in a physical sense.

The real-time projector experiences the real world through perceptions reflected into it through this mirror, from the real world and in real time.
 

Subjective Real-Time Perceptions
A subjective real-time perception is best considered as projectors perceiving something that they know to be incorrect, untrue, or unreal in relation to the real world as they know it.

For example, if projectors find misplaced, altered, missing, or new objects and people in their home that they know are definitely not there in reality, then these are best thought of as being subjective perceptions or, more accurately, reality fluctuations.

The definition of subjective perception here does not strictly include sightings of other projectors or spirit beings as unreal, even if these are seen during an apparently objective real-time projection. The difference between objective and subjective perceptions, in this case, can become blurred and quite difficult to ascertain. Astral or higher experiences, while technically being entirely subjective, are also not included here.

These usually bear no relationship whatsoever with normal objective reality, or with the actual physical universe in real time.

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