Observations placeholder
Broad, Charlie Dunbar - Lectures on Psychical research 1962
Identifier
002024
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Another observation to show the extraordinary similarity between lucid dreams and out of body experiences, suggesting they are somewhat the same - that we may go out of body when we dream
A description of the experience
Lectures on Psychical research 1962 – C. D. Broad
Not long ago I had a vivid dream in which I was, as it were, present at a magical ceremony, conducted by two adepts of some occult order. After undergoing certain treatment by them, I seemed to myself to be levitated and to be flying round and round the room at a height of about 8 feet. In doing so I repeatedly passed a high shelf over a fireplace, and I noted that a pair of heavy glass vases were standing one at each end of this……….
I decided to catch hold of one of these vases as I passed then in my flight and to bring it to the floor. I argued that, if it were still there afterwards, the levitation would have to be genuine. Soon after I had done this my two adepts decided that I had had as much levitation for one day as was good for a beginner and they brought me gently to the floor. I was delighted to find that one of the two heavy vases was lying where I had set it down in the course of my flight. So I concluded that I had been genuinely levitated.
My conclusion was of course mistaken, for I had been neither levitated nor hypnotised but had been merely asleep and dreaming