Observations placeholder

David Scott Rogo - Leaving the Body: A Complete Guide to Astral Projection

At one point, Van Eeden started having OBEs, although the psychologist at first did not quite realize what was happening. For instance, six months after his first lucid dream, he had the following experience :

ln the night of January 19th-20th , I dreamt that I was lying in the garden before the windows of my study, and saw the eyes of my dog through the glass pane, I was lying on my chest and observing the dog very keenly. At the same time, however, I knew with perfect certainty that I was dreaming and lying on my back in my bed. And then I resolved to wake up slowly and carefully and observe how my sensation of lying on my chest would change into the sensation of lying on my back.

And so I did, slowly and deliberately, and the transition- which I have since undergone many times- is most wonderful, it is like the feeling of slipping from one body into another, and there ls distinctly a double recollection of the two bodies, I remembered what I felt in my dream lying on my chest; but returning into the day-life, I remembered also that my physical body had been quietly lying on its back all the while. This observation of a double memory I have had many times since.  It is so indubitable that it leads almost unavoidably to the conception of a dream-body.

…ln a lucid dream the sensation of having a body- having eyes, hands, a mouth that speaks, and so on- is perfectly distinct; yet I know at the same time that the physical body is sleeping and has quite a different position, in waking up, the sensations blend together, so to speak, and I remember as clearly the action of the dream-body as the restfulness of the physical body.

This experience led Van Eeden to wonder if his "dream body" might not be in some sense "real." He even suggested that this body and the "astral" body of the occultists were one and the same-indicating that he was partially aware that he was quite literally out-of-body.