If you had an out of body experience how do you know it was real and not a dream?

Would it really matter if you couldn’t tell the difference? Would it still not have the same impact on you whether it was a dream or out of body experience?

It depends on how you want to interpret the experience. If it’s real to you or not.

This doesn’t answer your question, but there’s a pretty neat episode of RadioLab about pilots who have out-of-body experiences while flying.

what if it was inception? :O

It’s never real, that’s how you know. Sure, something pretty weird happened in your brain. Something weird happens in my brain every three seconds. Doesn’t mean it’s meaningless either, unless you think any moment of your life can be meaningless.

As others have said in one way or another, real or imagined the event is experienced in your mind and offers lessons to learn and pleasures or fears to reveal.

I’ve never had one but my best friend did this year. She said she was up in the air looking down at herself sitting on the couch. For some reason, she didn’t want to discuss it further with me. Someone said it could have been a reaction to her many heart medicines. It concerns me but there’s nothing I can do.

Yes, when I was giving birth to my daughter.

It was a long, hard, and induced labor, at one point the doctors were on the verge of doing an emergency C-section as my heart rate as well as the babies was erratic due to my exhaustion and low levels of oxygen.

I pushed for 3 hours straight, and vomited between contractions because of the pain.

My daughter would crown and then disappear again as she had a head like a cantalope that never did ‘mold’ in the usual way a babies head does during the birth process. ( Yes, she IS hard headed like her mama, haha )

I remember very clearly hovering above the birthing bed and seeing myself lying there, a feeling of wanting to give up and a terror of realizing that we both might not survive this experience, at the same time I did not care, I just wanted it to be over.

It was real and it was terrifying. I absolutely left my body, no doubt about.

My mother actually had an out-of-body experience that was real either that or her psyche is very good at guessing.

She was driving along in her Jeep on an empty road and suddenly had a feeling of floating above her Jeep and watching the car going along the road. Over the next hill, there was a car coming the other way towards her car. She came back into her body and swerved to avoid the car that would have hit her.

@KatawaGrey : Hey! You co-opted my story! but I must say, you told it much better and more concisely than I would have!

if I don’t get harassed walking downtown… then I know its a dream

There’s no such thing so it must have been a dream. 2+2

You can tell the difference.

Or atleast I would think you would.

There’s Lucid Dreaming which is different from an out of body experience, but it’s kind of complicated to explain which I’m not sure how to articulate…

BUT

I did have an out of body experience one time, and to tell you the truth, I definitely knew that I was not dreaming.

and in my head I knew my soul-spirit self was OUTSIDE of my physical vessel.

All I saw was white light, whiteness everywhere, and my spirit was floating traveling—then the last thing I thought in my mind was ”” OH SHIT IM GOING INTO MY PHYSICAL BODY NOW ! ”” , and then BOOM I woke up.

But I knew it wasn’t a dream. Dreams are different.

I just knew it was an out of body experience, and I haven’t felt that way since. It was something beyond just an intense dream.

ok i was sitting on the couch & i start feeling dizzy, then i close my eyes & i open them, an object flys at me from across the room. was this a dream or an out of body experience?

I know this question is old, but I happened upon it, and I can’t help but think of this quote:

“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”…
...“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”