I Can Only Imagine

Are you tired of “physical reality”? Do you wish you could escape that pesky skin? Would you prefer to be on powerful hallucinogens, right now? Did you see the movie Cheaper by the Dozen? Do you still believe you have a soul? Do you ever wonder what lies outside the universe? Do you ever wish you could lie there with it? Would you leave before it woke up, or would you stay and cook breakfast? Are you allowed to use those eggs? What if those are a roommate’s eggs?

If your answer to any of these questions is “yes,” astral projection might be right for you! Have you guys heard about astral projection? Anybody? Okay—raise your hand if you’ve at least heard of astral projection. Okay, a few here—go on, don’t be shy—okay, a few more in the back. Great, great.

Now, you might be wondering, “Who is this guy talking to? He’s not speaking at an assembly; I’m just reading this paper here”—that’s what you’re thinking right? (I knew it was, because you had to think those words when you read them; I own your mind-space right now—that’s kind of weird, right?) Well here’s your answer: astral projection. I was able to separate my astral body (can also be called “spirit,” “life-force,” or “Jennifer”) from my physical, and travel across great distances, outside of the realm of time. From there it was simply a matter of my astral body, which is typically invisible to physical entities, witnessing everyone reading this article, and gauging the responses. And for now, let’s just assume that’s all I gauged.

So how is it possible? If you’re like me when I was a kid, you might think astral projecting is only for shamans and other squares like that. But it’s not! It’s totally cool, totally easy, and a great work-out for your upper thighs, buns, and accountant.

Okay, it’s the fifth paragraph so I’m going to take a little bit of focus-potion and try to give you a semi-serious history of astral projection. I apologize for the abrupt transition, but “astral projection” refers to a certain class of Out-Of-Body Experience (OBE) in which the experiencer wills the experience. So a classic OBE would be a patient in the cardiac arrest unit flat-lining in her hospital bed and then having the experience of floating up, away from her body, and watching doctors operate on her in an attempt at revival. There are many anecdotal cases of patients having been revived from technical death and then being able to describe medical instruments and procedures used on them of which they should have had no knowledge. Such stories were famously reported in Raymond Moody’s 1977 Life After Life. There are varying heights to which these souls have soared, some being content to just hover near the ceiling while others get a little carried away and float out of the building—in a famous case, a woman was resuscitated from a heart attack and immediately asked the doctors why a red shoe was on the roof of the hospital. Supposedly, a curious nurse checked the roof and indeed found a red stiletto, thus prompting her to send out a memo, asking if anyone lost one. Memos about stilettos—surprisingly common.

Astral projection then, is taking this phenomenon and making it a voluntary action. A fraction of people have been at least claiming this ability for about as long as people have been talking about “souls.” The two ideas are perhaps intimately linked: if you believe there’s a ghostly version of you coinciding with your atoms, why wouldn’t that ghost be able to get out of the house every now and then? You and I both know that ghost deserves a goddamn vacation. On the other hand, if you don’t believe in a soul, there’s very little chance you believe that a soul can travel, although you do probably believe a sole can travel, so you’re kinda puttin’ your foot in your mouth, you know? For now, let’s just say that a soul equals consciousness, and that it’s not a theoretical impossibility for it to go places. Where will it go? There’s some disagreement about this. Some astral projectors are out exploring new terrain, that is, not what we see as Earth. Dharmic Buddhist practice includes soul travel to astral planes said to be purer and purer landscapes, until reaching the highest plane, the capital "p" P u r e Land, which is the realm of Buddhahood. You may remember a scene from one of the Ace Ventura movies where he meditates himself up to a pure land to figure something out about bat shit. I think that’s pretty much like what the boddhisattvas are talking about. Conversely, Medieval Western philosophers posited that astral planes were between Heaven and Earth, and contained all the stuff that we now call “Outer Space” (like stars and shit). Personally, I’m not really into any kind of astral projection that puts you in a place that doesn’t look like normal Earth, because if it’s not Earth it’s too much like a dream for me to be sure I’m really getting anywhere (besides mah BED).

So here’s the good stuff. It’s 1863. Mr. Wilmot of Bridgeport, Connecticut, is on a steamer called the City of Limerick. Assumedly he has an awesome moustache because it’s 1863 and he’s on a steamer. There’s a nine-day storm. On the eighth day, he gets some good sleep for the first time, and dreams that his wife (who’s back in the States) comes into his cabin and kisses him on the cheek, which very probably has all kinds of moustachery in the way. Then, just listen to what Wilmot writes in his account:

“Upon waking I was surprised to see my fellow-passenger...leaning upon his elbow and looking fixedly at me. “You’re a pretty fellow,” he said at length, “to have a lady come and visit you this way.” I pressed him for an explanation, and he related what he had seen while wide awake, lying on his berth. It exactly corresponded with my dream....”

A pretty fellow indeed! Frumf frumf frumf! And it gets weirder: as soon as our boy Wilmot gets home, his wife is all anxious and asks if he saw her in his stateroom? He’s like “Uhhh” and she’s like, “I was worried, boo, I was lying in bed sOoOo worried so I straight-up astral projected over to your fyne ass.” And she was able to perfectly describe the stateroom, says Wilmot.

But Mrs. Wilmot never wrote books about how to do it. For that, we turn to Sylvan Muldoon, a somber-looking Midwesterner who began astral projecting at age 12, and went on to have hundreds of experiences separating from “Sylvan Muldoon.” Here’s his three-and-a-half step method from The Projection of the Astral Body:

1. Develop yourself so that you are enabled to hold consciousness up to the very moment of “rising to sleep.” The best way to do this is to hold some member of the physical body in such a position that it will not be at rest, but will be inclined to fall as you enter sleep.

2. Construct a dream which will have the action of Self predominant. The dream must be of the aviation type, in which you move upward and outward, corresponding to the action of the astral body while projecting. It must be a dream of something which you enjoy doing.

3. Hold the dream clearly in mind; visualize it as you are rising to sleep; project yourself right into it and go on dreaming.

Through the use of properly applied suggestion, prior to the dream, you will be able to remember yourself in your dream and bring your dream body-or astral body-to full waking consciousness. This technique may require months of gentle persistence.

So, you might think this just sounds like lucid dreaming, but that’s only because it’s from the lucid-dream state that your astral body can consciously leave the physical. It’s like, if you get lucid enough, your dream-body will realize it’s in a physical body, and will fly out of there. Muldoon’s got real world verification to back up the possibility that he’s not deluded: after a “lonely evening,” he once found his astral body in an unfamiliar house “watching a young woman, who happened to be sewing at the time.” Six weeks later, he happened to see her in his Wisconsin town, and smooth operator that he was, described her living room in precise detail. The woman was apparently quite impressed and they became friends and eventually she began working with him, helping with experiments. Of course, this could have been a joint delusion, a joint lie, or Muldoon’s crafty defense against a breaking and entering charge that he just took way too far.

Regardless, I tried Muldoon’s approach, two nights in a row this weekend. Nothing happened. I have never astral projected. I realized I started off this article with a bombardment of dorky jokes that included the claim, but now that we’ve become better friends, I feel more comfortable being sincere with you. In that vein, I’ll tell you what I really think about astral projection. Now.

I don’t really think we have souls that can leave our bodies. I think that consciousness does not exist outside of biological processes in the brain, which are ultimately reducible to the nature of protons and electrons (maybe neutrons too but I hate to give them any credit). But, I also don’t think astral projection is something you can only try if you’re a nut or have some good drugs. I think that words only survive if they’re referring to something that’s relevant to humans, and so lately I believe that “soul” does mean something, even if it’s just a subjective experience. Subjective experiences are still real to us, or more real, really, because they create the world we actually live in.

I think there really is something that the brain is capable of doing, that results in the experience of “astral projection.” Maybe it’s just internal, but dude, so are colors! Colors aren’t out there. Neither is “music” or “love” or “meaning.” It’s all in your head, tiger. So I invite you, try Muldoon’s method; I’m going to keep at it, with “gentle persistence.” So what if you can’t accurately describe a young woman’s living room, all you’d be doing anyways is naming a bunch of colors.