Lehal Library

Thus to explain, or explain away, all of the many physical functions we perform without conscious awareness, our culture had to invent nonconscious systems. These are identified as autonomic, subconscious, limbic, and so on, including sleep. Any activity we cannot willfully control is not within consciousness. At The Monroe Institute in the 1960s we began not only historical research into aspects of consciousness but also study of out-of-body events, mine and others’. We discovered that many OBEs have been related to the sleep state and thus dismissed as simply dreams— except that they do not fit the hazy and unreal quality associated with dreaming. Other spontaneous OBEs have occurred under anesthesia during surgery, when the patient found himself six or eight feet above the operating table and later reported accurately what he heard and saw from this vantage point—a physical impossibility. Events such as these happen frequently but for the most part are never publicly reported. Other incidental OBEs occur during what are regarded as unconscious periods caused by accident or injury. Mostly these are categorized as freak events and are tucked away in memory as anomalies—or something that didn’t really happen. Our belief systems would not allow it to be otherwise. Some of the most striking of the spontaneous OBEs are now often identified as near-death experiences. Again, these occur frequently, usually during surgery under anesthesia. Most have the effect of changing completely the belief systems of the patients, providing them with a genuine Different Overview. They return knowing that not only are they more than their physical bodies, but that, without equivocation, they will survive physical death.