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internal life. He has strong defenses against dealing with sexuality, defensive feelings, and especially aggression, all areas of his psyche that he prefers to keep out of his awareness. He has a pervasive tendency to avoid and detach himself from feelings which shows itself in his patterns of thinking, his use of language, and his interpersonal relations. He often simply steers off, away, and tangential to the way others think, feel, perceive, and express themselves. These personality inclinations contribute to the content of what he saw on a particular inkblot, which is often seen as a bat or a bird. Monroe saw this as “a flying unit, with wings, in the shape of a bird or the body of a butterfly or insect, flying upwards toward the top of the card.” Thus, the out-of-body experience in Monroe also serves the function of avoidance of conflict. By transcending the prison of his body, it allows him to steer clear of such potential conflict areas as sexuality, depression, and aggression. Observations of Robert Monroe were made by one of us (SWT) and a colleague, Dr. Fowler Jones of the University of Kansas Medical Center, over a thirty-minute time period when Monroe was monitored by a Beckman polygraph with left and right occipital EEG electrodes. He was observed by us through a one-way window (Twemlow, 1977). Most striking was Monroe’s spasmodic breathing with periods of apnea. After these apneic periods, the breaths were gulping. Simultaneously, Dr. Jones and SWT turned to each other and reported the impression of a heat wavelike distortion beginning at Monroe’s waist, so that it was difficult to get a clearly focused picture of his upper body, although his lower body was in clear focus. Previously, Monroe had stated that he would be able to get out of his body quickly but could not signal it, although he could signal within five seconds of return. This distortion disappeared rather suddenly a little before he roused himself. At that time his EEG showed a shift in high amplitude patterns to the right hemisphere with a low amplitude in the left occipital lead. He seemed to wake without anxiety, although he was moderately disoriented in space for about thirty seconds, with slight slurring of his speech. He could not recapture his experience immediately. His GSR level during the session showed an increase in arousal of approximately 150 microvolts, marked by the total absence of either specific or nonspecific responses during his out-of-body phase. At one point, when a technician entered the room to check electrodes, Monroe appeared to be unaware of his presence, and there was no fluctuation in GSR. The skin of his arm and forearm were dry and warm to the touch. At that time rapid fluttering