Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between an out of body experience and a lucid dream. Usually, the distinguishing factor is that the dreamer is aware of leaving the body and can look back and see his or her sleeping self, but feel consciously awake and separate. A lucid dream creates the same ‘wakefulness’ and allows the dreamer to control events in the dream. But that dream scenario is usually far different from the waking world, whereas someone who is out of body typically experiences what appears to be the normal familiar settings…unless he or she soars off into the cosmos.
Dale Dassel recently sent me what he called a lucid dream, but it seemed very similar to an OOBE to me.
For background, Dale and his father had just returned home to Georgia from a trip to east Texas when Dale had the dream. They’d been looking for a house near where they lived for 16 years in the Jefferson/Longview area of east Texas. As they headed home, Dale made a detour to take a look at their old family home in a wooded neighborhood. He thinks the visit to the house was a catalyst for the dream.
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“I was standing at the top of the driveway (the house is on a hill), where the concrete pad slopes down towards side yard. Instead of the hedgerow bushes (as seen in the photo), the edge of the concrete was bordered by a wood-textured fence painted in glossy beige paint. That was obviously a dream element, because such a fence has never existed there in real life. I walked over to it, then reached out both hands (fingers wide) and touched the fence. And I could really feel it! I could feel the nubbled surface and thick paint.
“I struggled to maintain my hold on the dream, and the scene quickly re-materialized. I turned around and looked across the driveway at the house. The car port wasn’t there, and I saw the outer screen door side entry (the back door), right beside the brick chimney. Everything looked exactly like it did when we lived there! The sun was shining and the sky was beautiful blue. It was late dawn, probably about 9:30 in the morning.
“A tremendous wave of elation overcame me and I rushed towards the house, opened the door, and stepped inside to the kitchen. The wood-paneled walls, cabinets, bar, wall decor were all exactly like it was before, but it was a blur because I saw the familiar figure of Mom sitting in the chair at the kitchen table. She stood up and turned as I came approached. She was beautiful, younger and cancer-free.
“My heart soared with joy. She smiled at me, and I threw my arms around her in a loving embrace. I think I was crying, but the experience was so powerful that I can’t remember now. But I could feel her – the familiar shape of her body, just as real as touching my own hand right now. It was wonderful – pure elation – the strongest emotion possible. It was so moving and powerful that the dream dissolved and I felt my body as I lay in bed, warmly tucked under the covers.”
Having had only one other lucid dream (in March 2013), I can verify that it was the exact same sensation – I could feel my physical body lying in bed, numb and tingly, vibrating on some low frequency, while my consciousness was ultra-vivid and clear. The dream imagery was incredibly bright and vibrant, like an over-saturated photo exposure, and I could literally, physically feel whatever I touched. It was unbelievably real.
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Dale is convinced it was a lucid dream, because the house is no longer exactly like it was when he lived there. Yet, he also could’ve been out of body and visiting his deceased mother in an after-death reality where she lives or visits a house that is exactly like the one where they’d lived. Would a lucid dream be any less real? When you move into alternate realities, it seems the distinction between those two states blurs.
Dale, I have both of Newton’s books in my personal library. I know from my own personal experience that I created this particular current life as a means of
‘balancing’ a centuries-old situation in a previous incarnation in Japan during one of the early dynasties. I surely hope I have accomplished the intent! Don’t want to do it again!! For me, Karma means ‘balancing’, as opposed to the positive-negative aspects many folks consider it to be. Sometimes, though, it does seem we must endure difficult aspects as we move through our journeys across time and space. I agree: we grow as we learn. I tend to think unconditional love and forgiveness are the ultimate goals, and those are ideals that often seem out of reach, so we just keep plodding along, doing the best we can. It can be challenging, for sure.
Thank you, Dale. As a retired Hospice RN, most of my patients had cancer of one kind or another. I consider the disease to be a living entity….a monstrous beast that devours its hosts. But I also have seen it change the loved ones of patients in a very positive way, often by leading them to a more spiritual path and more empathy toward others. My Dad died of brain cancer at the young age of 42, when I was 18. I worshiped my Dad. He was the best man I’ve ever known, and as I made that seven-month journey with him, I was deeply angry, furious at God, at the doctors, at life. But then….later I learned that medical science had learned a great deal from observing and participating in my dad’s heinous illness, and that because of him, future patients have been able to have better treatment and better, longer lives. I have the conviction that my Dad’s Soul agreed to experience that horrific illness….as a sacrifice….so that others might live. That tells me that he did not suffer and die in vain. And I have come to believe, as I cared for the terminally ill in Hospice, that each patient has a purpose designed in their Soul’s plan for having the unspeakable sufferings of cancer, Without this conviction, I would not have been able to walk with my Hospice patients to their transition and assist in their crossing over. We usually don’t KNOW the reason but I am convinced there IS one. And,I am so terribly empathetic with you in the loss of your beloved Mom, Dale. 52, like 42, is just so terribly young! But she is with you, remember that!
The between life soul plan is cited numerous times in the books written by Michael Newton: Journey of Souls / Destiny of Souls. Evidently, people get to select their future life conditions based on their performance in previous lifetimes, with the ultimate goal of spiritual advancement. Empathy, compassion, and kindness are the foremost tenets of soul evolution. If someone doesn’t quite learn a certain lesson, their next life experience is tailored to help them get the message. For example, an alcoholic wife beater might reincarnate as a woman in an abusive marriage so they can experience the suffering they caused. That’s what karma is all about.
Dale, today would have been my Mom’s 100th birthday if she were still here. She transtioned at 63 from lung cancer. A couple of weeks ago i had s really strange sleeping dream about my Mom. In reality, I had been struggling with a difficult situation, unable to find resolution. In the dream, which was definitely lucid, I was sitting in the middle row of a movie theater, and there was no one else there. I could only see about one-third of the movie on the right side of the screen, and didn’t understand. Something caused me to look behind me, and I saw my Mom sitting several rows back, in the end seat of a row to my left. She said, “Connie, you aren’t seeing the whole picture”. I was instantly awake, and knew my Mom had been there to inform me that I only had a portion of the situation, not the entire situation, and therefore no resolution. I asked, before sleeping the next night, if Mom could come back and show me the whole picture, or the whole situation, but so far she hasn’t come back. It saddens me. Thank you for sharing your experiences!
I’m sorry about your Mom. Cancer really sucks and it serves no useful purpose whatsoever. Hopefully you will find a resolution to your dream soon. I ordered a book about lucid dreaming to learn more about the phenomenon. If I get brave enough, I might try to initiate the process and see what happens. Hopefully I don’t float away or something.
Having had an OBE once in my life at about 11 years of age and a very realistic dream involving my recently (at the time I had the dream) deceased father-in-law, my opinion is that Dale just had a very lucid dream, which may even have been orchestrated by his deceased mother in a dream like communication, much the same way I believe my father-in-law was communicating to me while I slept that night not long after he passed on.
The thing with an OBE is that it is just the same as if you were doing something in the real world in your body, but you aren’t in your body.
Your conscious view point is outside of the body it inhabits in waking life.
In other words, if it feels like you are having a real life experience, but things in the real world have changed (except for the fact that you may be floating above your own body) somewhat like in Dale’s dream he mentions in the above post, then it is NOT an OBE.
An OBE is being in the real world and interacting with it, but without your physical body, if anything it is more real.
It sounds like Dale was just having a lucid dream to me, but maybe it wasn’t just his lucid dream alone, but more like a communication from the other side.
As I mentioned to Rob in my correspondence:
I definitely know that revisiting the actual house after so many years triggered the dream. That’s a fact. I’ve always been a sentimental person, reminiscing fondly on various periods of my life, so it’s not surprising that I traveled to our old house literally 2 days after driving past it. Since I was clearly dreaming, I wouldn’t consider it an out-of-body experience (I had a partial OOBE while conscious back in 1994, and it scared the hell out of me; I swiftly retracted back into my body, sitting at the dining room table).
Reflecting on last night’s dream, once I realized my situation, being at that particular location (beyond the constraints of time and reality), knowing that I was in control, I immediately wished for my strongest desire – to see Mom again – so that’s what I conjured. And, like you suggested, perhaps the state of lucid dreaming is a realm of the afterlife, a place where it is possible to communicate with the deceased.
That’s funny you say that about your 1994 OBE Dale, because that was how I felt, scared that I wasn’t going to get back into my body and probably why I’ve never tried to do it again since, not that I could probably do it again though.
And you probably never conjured that dream, because I know when I had that lucid dream of my father-in-law’s visit it was like he was the one dreaming it into my head and not the other way round, because I never dream like that and haven’t had a dream like that one since.
I’m as good at lucid dreaming as I am at drawing, or blogging, so I don’t think I could create a masterpiece overnight (literally) with my dreaming skill set.
But it’s all very intriguing when it comes to “dreams”.
I just wish I could have more of the meaningful type…and remember them in the morning.
I remember that one clearly because I snapped awake from it and the dream event was fresh in my mind. I typed it down a few minutes later to preserve it.
My semi-out-of-body experience happened while I was sitting at the kitchen table working on a puzzle. My mind was wandering and I began contemplating the infinite expanse of the universe and what may lie beyond it. I looked up and stared into the lightbulb of the chandelier above the table, and suddenly felt myself rising out of my body as it sat in the chair, like I was being drawn upward by some magnetic force. I was about 3 feet above myself when I panicked and snapped back into my body, gripping the arms of the chair. My heart was racing and I was breathless with fright. It was very frightening, and I was totally freaked out. I’m also afraid that I may not be able to return to my body, which is a rather terrifying notion from our earthbound perspective.
I love the feeling of the dream state, or OOBE, or whatever it was. I’ve embraced my mother before, and she was so vivid that although it’s been years, I still remember it like it was yesterday. Love this so much. Thank you, Dale. 🙂
Dale — I feel it’s very possible that you just held your mother in an OOBE. For real. And that she was trying to reassure and cheer you with that OOBE / visitation-in-a-dream.
Trish — I just saw this article, and it’s weird how similar the phenomena are to what happened to that Canadian man whose alien contact story you serialized here —
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4116808/Extraordinary-images-light-pillars-dancing-houses-sunshine-snow-combine-create-rare-effect.html
Will check out the link, Sheila! Thanks.
Update: I finally got to sleep and had a weird dream about Donald Trump (of all people!). Woke up at 11:30 feeling irritable about every little nitpicky thing. Today would have been Mom’s 59th birthday, and she’s not here to enjoy it with us. Nothing to celebrate at the moment. 🙁
I’m up right now at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, trying to stay awake because, ironically, for the past 2 hours I can feel my body start to enter the realm of lucidity. I’m getting the warm, tingly vibrations and the ringing in my ears that herald the event. Whenever I turn over in bed, I seem to shake it for a moment, but its persistent. I woke up earlier tonight, and now I can’t fall asleep completely; semi-conscious while the lucid state is trying to take hold. If this is an OOBE, it’s annoying because I don’t want to go anywhere or astral travel right now. I just want a night of solid, restful sleep. Ugh!