How to Have an Out-of-Body Experience Naturally: Complete Beginner's Guide
This post depicts how I have increased my probability of encountering spontaneous, natural OBEs during sleep. For information on how to trigger OBEs intentionally during sleep with lucid dreaming techniques and consciousness discipline stay tuned for Part 2 (coming next week).
To learn more about the science of OBEs and how they occur read my post on the topic here.
Two Bodies, created by the author using Midjourney
I haven’t always been able to leave my body. In fact, for most of my life, I’ve been absolutely terrified of the dark things that haunted my sleep, suffering through two decades’ worth of debilitating nightmares with frequent episodes of fear-based sleep paralysis (demons and all). But after years of putting in the work to understand and heal my nightmares I finally found the joy of dreams again… and the incredibly fulfilling adventures of out-of-body experiences (OBEs).
OBEs are currently defined as a phenomenon in which an individual perceives that they are conscious but are located somewhere outside of their physical body.
These experiences usually lead to an expansion of consciousness and can be used as a tool for deep self-exploration, spiritual awakening, and for seeking knowledge both within and outside of the human experience.
In this post we’ll discuss how to unlock your natural OBE ability and the two-year preparatory training process I personally experienced that led to frequent, comprehensible, and life-changing out-of-body experiences.
Please note that OBEs are completely subjective. What follows are my personal experiences which should only be observed as possibilities for what you may encounter. It’s important to maintain your own sense of self-exploration through OBEs.
Stuck in the Mire of Nightmares, created by the author with Midjourney
Step 1: Heal Your Fears and Traumas to Unlock OBEs
You can’t leave your body if you’re not fully aware of your connection to it in the first place.
For me, this was the most difficult and prolonged step in discovering OBEs. I had some extremely difficult childhood memories of abuse that I had buried for most of my life and spent almost two decades denying the existence of those very real, horrific events.
What I didn’t know at the time was that my denial had almost totally severed me from the trauma and memories stored in my body, my personal history, and the reality of my life. That separation fueled intense, chronic nightmares and terrifying episodes of sleep paralysis that completely consumed my dream space—my subconscious' attempt to expose me to the truth of my life and help me heal into wholeness.
Eventually I sought out help from a therapist, intuitively began to work my nightmares to interpret and understand their wisdom, and made several difficult but beneficial changes to my waking-life habits and relationships.
Over time, my nightmares helped me to accept the facts of my childhood which, in turn, allowed me to finally move forward and do the healing work.
As the nightmares receded I finally began to experience joyful and vivid dreams, lucid dreams and other dreamtime phenomena, including OBEs.
If you’re interested in experiencing OBEs it’s critical to do the healing work first. An out-of-body experience requires a general sense of inner balance, self-understanding or grace, and at least some movement on the road to wholeness.
If you are currently experiencing chronic nightmares, episodes of fear-based sleep paralysis, or struggling with traumatic memories seeking help from a mental or health professional can be extremely beneficial if you’re able to do so.
To learn more about How to Heal Your Nightmares check out my published book on the subject here.
Step 2: Open the Door to Dreamtime Phenomena
After finding yourself in a state of relative balance and wholeness (we all have difficult days, weeks, and months) it’s time to rewire your neurological pathways to explore dreamtime phenomena.
The concept of “rewiring” the brain is rooted in neuroplasticity and habit-building practices. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to reorganize connections based on newly-learned information, environmental changes, and personal willpower or desire. Essentially, it’s how the brain adapts and evolves as life changes around you.
Most naturally-induced OBEs occur during sleep and begin in dreamtime. To increase the probability of having an OBE, it’s helpful to increase the probability of ALL dreamtime phenomena by re-prioritizing how your brain perceives dreaming.
If you’ve never really been interested in your dreams before or rarely recall your dreams, odds are that your neurological pathways don’t value dreams as a worthwhile experience to remember which translates to all other dreamtime phenomena as well.
What you want to do is show your brain that you value the experiences that happen during dreamtime. An increase in perceived value will trigger your brain to put more effort into recalling and experiencing dreamtime phenomena.
The easiest way to show your brain that you’re interested in dreamtime phenomena is to develop a dream practice.
Your dream practice does not have to be elaborate nor does it need to based in dream interpretation—a simple interest in your dreams can suffice. The point is to develop dream recall through habit-building practices. The more time and effort you spend to recall and experience your dreams, the more your neurological pathways will aid you in retrieving that information.
I recommend simply starting a dream log either in a physical journal or text notes on your phone. Sharing or discussing your dreams with a partner or friend can also be beneficial as the social aspect taps into a primitive drive to connect with other human beings.
Check out my post on dream recall for more tips on recall development.
Like any habit-building practice, dream recall can take some time to develop regular occurrence. Don’t give up right away! Keep at it and soon enough you’ll find yourself not only recalling dreams but beginning to see them take on a more vivid texture or elements of lucidity.
My personal experience working with nightmares acted as a dream practice base before I got to experience the joy of dreams again but the principles were the same. As I did the healing work, my nightmares turned into dreams and I kept the practice of dream recall as an important element of my life.
Interesting dreams became vivid dreams which led to lucid dreams. Finally, my dreamtime phenomena began to culminate in a series of preliminary out-of-body experiences that I have since identified as a natural avenue for experiencing OBEs.
The Power of Dreams, image created by the author with Midjourney
Levitation Dreams and the Importance of Paralysis in OBEs
The first part of my OBE training began naturally with a series of what I called “levitation dreams” spanning from July 2022 to January 2023. These dreams always began with the eerily familiar feeling of sleep paralysis but without the dark presence typically associated with those fear-based experiences. Let’s dive into some scientific information real quick…
As I discuss in my post What is an Out-of-Body Experience?, paralysis in sleep is actually a natural part of the REM sleep stage called REM atonia, a chemical process designed to prevent you from physically acting out your dreams.
Most people are not aware of paralysis sensations during their REM sleep stages. However, some individuals can become aware of their temporary paralysis during REM sleep if their consciousness comes back online before the chemicals inducing sleep paralysis clear their systems.
I believe these individuals can be generally split into two groups: those who have unresolved fears and traumas, and those who have accepted their reality but are seeking spiritual expansion.
Those with unresolved fears and traumas have a high probability of encountering the repressed and unprocessed emotional depths of those memories during sleep paralysis. What was repressed may surface in a dream-like experience as demonic beings or other nightmarish figures that seem incredibly real because your conscious self is active. However, what you’re really encountering are your fears personified.
Those who have not experienced repressed traumas or those who are seeking spiritual expansion have a higher probability of engaging their temporoparietal junction in the neocortex (where the brain defines its concept of self, also known as the seat of consciousness).
It is this activation of one’s full, whole self during sleep paralysis (REM atonia) that allows an individual to move beyond the physical body and engage an OBE.
After doing the conscious, waking-life work to heal (with the helpful information stored in my recurring nightmares), I still experienced sleep paralysis but it shifted from encountering my fears to engaging with my soul.
Built on several years of healing work and an already-existent dream practice, my dream space introduced me to the levitation program.
A Levitation Dream, image created by the author with Midjourney
Step 3: The Levitation Program
On July 14th, 2022 I experienced my first “levitation dream” which is exactly what it sounds like: I felt like I was levitating out of my body.
I was in the middle of a dream where I had walked downstairs in our old home to the office and was talking to my husband. Suddenly, I stopped the conversation. I felt gravity shifting beneath my feet and began to rise up, levitating towards the ceiling.
I yelled in the dream for my husband to grab my foot and pull me back down to the floor but his dream persona only smiled at me with encouragement. Fear of the unknown and frustration at my seemingly chill husband in the dream characterized that moment as I repeatedly bounced up against the ceiling. Eventually, I mentally wrestled myself out of the dream and woke up. Not quite sure what to make of it, I recorded it in my journal as a one-off experience with the label “really weird dream.”
But the levitation dreams kept coming.
At least once a week in the nights that followed I’d find myself experiencing a shift or loss in gravity followed by the floating sensation. In some of my experiences I’d be alone, in others there were people around me reciting that old childhood sleepover game “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” (my soul’s way of trying to make sense of what was happening), and in others I’d be with my husband or a group of beings I identified as my soul team (the concept of non-physical guides).
Over time, I tapped into the same reserve of willpower I had used to conquer my nightmares years before and began to welcome and value the levitation dreams. I recognized that nothing negative happened to me in these experiences and I became emboldened, leaning into the levitation dreams with curiosity and excitement.
To begin your version of the Levitation Program it’s beneficial to have a well-established dream practice characterized by regular dream recall (at least one dream per week). Once established, focus your waking attention on any recalled dreams featuring elements of levitation, flying, floating, traveling, or of cosmic origin (dreams that make you say, “WHOA”). Put extra emphasis on writing these dreams down in detail and make a point to discuss them with a friend, share them on a blog, revisit them in meditation or engage any other practice that invites reflection upon them.
This emphasis will indicate to your brain (once again) the type of content and experiences you value most. The more you focus on and talk about these types of dreams specifically, the more effort your mind-body-soul connection will put into seeking out those experiences.
I personally dove into the experiences and practiced lucid dreaming techniques to specifically trigger them. After almost 6 months of weekly levitation dreams I experienced my first OBE.
Soul View of the Physical Body, created by the author with Midjourney
My First OBE
In January of 2023 my husband and I traveled with some friends to the Wilderness Resort in the Wisconsin Dells for a mid-winter getaway. Hanging out in a massive, heated indoor waterpark sounded better than freezing our asses off in the deep end of a Minnesotan snowstorm.
Historically, I have difficulty sleeping anywhere that isn’t my own bed or in the safety of my own home so the first night of our vacation started out exactly as I had predicted: with insomnia. I tossed and turned until I gave up on sleep and got up to sit in a chair to play games on my phone. Around 3am I finally felt exhausted enough to sleep.
As I lay in bed, struggling against the strange noises of hotels, I began to feel my limbs tingling. It started out soft but grew into a steady hum that lulled me to sleep.
SHHHKK!
A loud noise reminiscent of someone dragging a heavy suitcase across rough, gravelly concrete startled me out of sleep and out of my bed. But instead of jumping to my feet I had launched clean out of my body and, for the first time, became aware of the sensation of separating.
It felt like I was literally separating into two people but I didn’t have time to process that because I was suddenly bouncing up against the ceiling and looking down at my very real, very physical body lying asleep on the bed.
This had never happened before. In all of my prior levitation dreams I had only been aware of the part of myself that was levitating and there had still existed an element of dream-like quality.
The experience I currently found myself in, however, was one of complete and total consciousness. I knew I was totally awake and existing in real earth-time. I felt more like myself than I ever had before but… I wasn’t in my body.
My eyes widened as I looked down at my physical body again and the mental gymnastics started tumbling. If that’s my body then… WHAT THE FUCK AM I?!
Panic and curiosity rose up in equal measure, jostling for the top position as questions churned through my mind at a million miles per hour.
Intuitively, with a deep sense of knowing, I understood that the me that was conscious was my very real soul that had somehow separated from my physical body. I also understood that I could move through solid structures and that I could leave this room at any time to go exploring. The possibilities and potential for expansion were suddenly endless.
But then something snapped in my consciousness and panic beat my curiosity into submission as fear flooded my system.
What if I got lost and couldn’t find my way back?
What if I met someone else, some other soul, who was out of their body? What if they were scary?
What if I was locked out of my body forever and DIED?!
With that last thought I immediately tried swimming down through the air to get back to my body.
I struggled to get back inside of myself, trying to force my way in face-first before realizing I just needed to turn around and lay back down into myself.
I woke with a gasp and immediately shook my husband awake before turning on all of the lights.
Soul Expansion, created by the author with Midjourney
Step 4: Continue Your OBE Progression
After my first true OBE in the Wisconsin Dells I didn’t have the levitation dreams nor the experience again for several months—my subconscious needed a hot minute to process what had happened.
Then, in April of 2023 I began to experience a new level of OBE travel that combined my levitation dreams with the sensation of separating in a more gentle and not-nearly-as-jarring manner.
They started out slow with the feeling of tingles radiating down my limbs to indicate what was about to happen without shocking me into the experience. The tingles were sometimes accompanied by a loud, startling noise—usually when I was starting to drift back to sleep in which case they’d “wake” my consciousness back into the experience.
Once I became aware that I was about to OBE I’d repeat a series of affirmations to myself such as, “I am not afraid. This is safe. I accept this experience. I let go of the physical body…” etc. There wasn’t any particular order, I just stated what felt right in the moment to help me conquer my fears and surrender to the OBE.
When my fears subsided I felt my soul body unhinge from my physical body and often would roll out of myself to the left or right, though sometimes I would sit up out of my body or just float up to the ceiling like my old levitation dreams.
In the beginning of this next phase, my soul body would simply float around my bedroom.
Eventually, through trial and error, I figured out how to allow myself to pass through the doors and walls to explore my home from the perspective of my soul body.
Step 4 is really on your own schedule and through your own experience. Your OBEs may sound completely different than my own and that’s ok! The key here is to allow the experience to come to you.
Allow yourself to feel the sensations. Use affirmations or any other fear-conquering practice to help you surrender to the experience. Get curious and test your limits, you’ll find that limits in the OBE space only exist because you have not yet figured out how to move through them.
Soul Floating Over the City, created by the author with Midjourney
Passing Through the Ceiling
In an OBE on October 7, 2023 I felt something tugging me up through the ceiling.
… I felt the levitation happen. I kept saying, “I am not afraid. I allow this to happen. I let this experience happen. I am not afraid.” I felt myself lift off pretty quick and lifted up to the ceiling headfirst. I heard a loud sound like an airport rolling bag moving quickly across the floor… [or] like a giant tent unzippering. It was dark as I passed through the ceiling and I couldn’t see anything. I said I was ready. Instead I found myself back in my body and woke up.
A series of new experiences followed in which I would float up through the ceiling and began to leave my home.
On October 18, 2023 I entered an OBE where I passed through the various layers of my ceiling and roof.
… I could actually feel the difference in substances as I passed through the paint and drywall, then the wood framing of the ceiling into an open space (presumably the attic) before passing through more wood, a layer of some plastic/synthetic material and then the roughness of the shingles. Once I had completely ascended through the roof I shot upwards at an extremely rapid pace and had the sense of knowing that I was exiting the atmosphere.
I repeated to myself over and over again that I accepted this experience but I could also hear a rumbling noise in the background and fear crept into my mind. Suddenly I was back on the planet and levitating over my body, thrashing around trying to get back in.
Upon waking, I realized the rumbling noise was only a train passing by on the tracks a few blocks over. My physical ears had conveyed the sound to my soul out of fear but I was safe. I got up to pee and went back to bed which was immediately followed by a potent dream.
Someone who looked like an old friend of mine stood next to my bed and bent down to tell me, “… [I have] a message for you. You’re depleted. You need to wait to try again [to OBE] until you’re restored. You need to get on a weekly schedule...”
I woke for a second time with a start but knew that this was something I needed (and very much wanted) to practice.
Traversing the Cosmos, created by the author with Midjourney
Step 5: Practice Makes Perfect
Throughout the rest of October and to the end of the year my OBEs seemingly found their own schedule. Perhaps the dream message about weekly restoration had spoken directly to my soul which then knew what it needed to do. In any case, I began to progress my OBE practice without straining or overloading myself through the experiences.
I would leave the body regularly about once per week (sometimes every other week if I had overworked it), and played around the mechanics of my soul body which did have some element of physicality to it, though I cannot name its substance.
The experiences varied between moving through my home, shooting up into the atmosphere, and traveling through various “tubes” that called me to different locations on the planet. Sometimes I would even just hover over the city and enjoy the view from above.
The training period had been successful, I had:
Conquered my fears and nightmares through acceptance of my personal, waking-life reality.
Leaned into my dream practice and dream recall ability.
Allowed myself to experience the transitional period of levitation dreams.
Understood the importance of allowing myself to feel the physical paralysis during REM atonia.
Became aware of how my soul body unhinged from my physical body.
Practiced being within the soul body first in my home and then beyond it.
Through all of these stages I continuously learned to trust myself and my soul.
Expanding Oneself Into the Universe, created by the author using Midjourney
OBEs as an Avenue for Self-Expansion
Eventually, in 2024, my OBEs began to truly expand. I found myself encountering non-human beings, visiting places both within the Earth and beyond, and dove into every experience with excitement and curiosity. With every OBE I began to understand more about the universe and the human experience. Many of my philosophical questions were answered and every answer created more questions.
Never once did my fears come to pass. I have never felt lost in my OBEs and am always able to return home with a simple thought. The other souls and beings I encounter through my expeditions do pose challenges at times but the power of my will has always eased me through those situations. And I have never been cut off from my body, always able to return when I wish.
The more I surrendered to my natural, spontaneous OBEs, the more stamina I held for them. In 2024 I began to experiment with intentionally inducing OBEs through lucid dreaming techniques and consciousness discipline which we’ll talk about in Part 2 (coming next week)…
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