Monday, December 21st, 2009
by Lynne Levitan and Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D.
[From NIGHTLIGHT 3(2-3), 1991, © and reprinted with permission of The Lucidity Institute.]
“Out of body” experiences (OBEs) are personal experiences during which people feel as if they are perceiving the physical world from a location outside of their physical bodies. At least 5 and perhaps as many as 35 of every 100 people have had an OBE at least once in their lives (Blackmore, 1982). OBEs are highly arousing; they can be either deeply disturbing or profoundly moving. Understanding the nature of this widespread and potent experience would no doubt help us better understand the experience of being alive and human.
The simplest explanation is that OBEs are exactly what they seem: the human consciousness separating from the human body andtraveling in a discorporate form in the physical world. Another idea is that they are hallucinations, but this requires an explanation of why so many people have the same delusion. Some of our experiments have led us to consider the OBE as a natural phenomenon arising out of normal brain processes. Thus, we believe that the OBE is a mental event that happens to healthy people. In support of this, psychologists Gabbard and Twemlow (1984) have concluded from surveys and psychological tests that the typical OBE experient is “a close approximation of the ‘average healthy American.’” (p. 40)
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Tags: lucid dreams, lucidity, Lucidity Institute, Lynee Levitan, OBE, out-of-body, Stephen LaBerge, WILD
Posted in Research Projects, lucid dreaming | No Comments »
Friday, July 17th, 2009
Mutual Dreaming
by Linda Lane Magallon
Simon & Schuster, 1997
ISBN 0-671-52684-7
Have you ever had the experience of sharing a dream with another person, only to discover that they had a similar dream themselves? Or to read about a stranger’s dream and to recognize it as your own? These are examples of the fascinating phenomena of "mutual dreaming", where two or more dreamers, known or unknown to each other, share the same dream. Through her research, author Linda Lane Magallon, long interested in dream telepathy and other forms of psychic dreaming, has identified two main types of mutual dreams: Meeting Dreams, in which two or more dreamers encounter each other, often taking the form of dream romances, shared nightmares, out-of-body experiences and lucid meetings, and Meshing Dreams, in which people view the world from another’s perspective, actually sharing the same dream. The book is organized into five main parts: "Introduction to Mutual Dreams", "Ways and Whys of Dreaming Together", "How to Dream Together", "New Field Research", and Results of Research". This structure serves to illuminate the author’s research findings; discuss concepts and premises of mutual dreaming and to present workable techniques for deliberate attempts at mutual dreaming. Whether you’re simply interested in the idea of sharing dreams, or you’d like to experiment yourself, Linda Lane Magallon’s new book is sure to delight. For more information on Linda, email CaseyFlyer@aol.com
Tags: couples, Linda Magallon, lucidity, mutual dreaming, out-of-body
Posted in Book Reviews | No Comments »
