From: fofp@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: test that proves obes
Date: 27 Jul 92 18:46:53 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: Edinburgh University

mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu (Robert McGrath) writes:

>In article <1992Jul24.885.18006@dosgate>, "ted trost" <ted.trost@canrem.com> writes in part:
>|> 
>|> RM>Out of Body EXPERIENCES clearly EXIST, just as dreams EXIST.  The question
>|> RM>is how to explain them.
>|> 
>|> How do we know OBE's  *aren't* dreams?

>Phew!  A question I can answer!

>Everyone that has ever reported an OBE also has had dreams.  Most say 
>the two are completely different experiences.  The reports of OBEs
>also differ from reports of dreams in many ways.

>The *primary* difference is that an OBE "feels real" and is remembered
>just like waking experience.  Dreams (including, I think, lucid dreams)
>do not "feel real", they feel, well, dreamy.

I have to disagree with this. There's a type of dream called "false
awakening" which seems to be related to lucid dreaming, or at least
seems mostly to be experienced by those who have frequent lucid dreams.

In false awakening dreams, the dream consists of exactly the normal
waking-up sequence. In mine, I experience getting up, getting dressed,
washing, making up the bed, cycling to work (or to lectures when I was a
student). At some point in the sequence I will wake up extremely
confused to be in bed, and then annoyed that I have to do it all over
again. On a bad day, I then get up, get dressed, wash, make the bed,
cycle to work.....and, you guessed it.... wake up in bed again. I've had
this three deep once and believe me I felt just as tired by then as if I
had done the whole thing three times. I also wasn't entirely sure that I
was awake the fourth time round. How to check?

There's no "dreamy" feel about it at all, believe me.

One thing that might be related to this though. When I get lucid dreams,
about 90% of them are induced by a reality-check in a dream: "hey, this
is too weird, it must be a dream..." For a while, I tried to induce, and
experiment in, lucid dreams by the method of constantly reality-checking
during the day. The idea is that the habit will carry over into a normal
dream and help induce a lucid dream. It worked to some extent for a
while. Later though, my dreams began to get extremely "normal". Nothing
very strange happened, and if it did, it happened in a more normal way.
One example taht I remember was that I was flying. I thought "hmmm, I
can't fly, is this a dream?" Then I answered "nope, I'm flying because
of this hang-glider on my back" (I don't hang-glide, but I did do
gliding around then). I then got a few false awakenings. Finally I had
one dream where I woke up and there was "something" in the room. I hit
the lightswitch and it failed. From that I knew that I was dreaming
(failed light level changes are common in dreams) and forced myself to
struggle to wake up and hit the lightswitch, which failed.....  The
fourth try and it worked and I was awake, terrified. Of course, there
was nothing in the room. I quit inducing lucid dreams for a while though
;-)  Nothing about that seemed very dreamy, though one detail reminded
me of nightmares that I had as a kid: things were kinda lit up by
darkness if you can get the sense of what I mean.

Anyway, unless false awakenings count as OBE's, there are definitely
dreams that are real enough to fool the observer. It gets really
irritating when you get to the point that you aren't sure you're awake,
even when you are.

>-- 
>  Robert E. McGrath

FoFP