<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

An out-of-body experience is an experience that typically involves a sensation of floating outside of one's body and, in some cases, seeing one's physical body from a place outside one's body (autoscopy).

Approximately one in ten people claim to have had an out-of-body experience at some time in their lives. For some, the phenomenon occurs spontaneously, while for others it is linked to dangerous circumstances, a dream-like state, a near-death experience, or use of psychedelic drugs. A few have been able to induce the experience deliberately through visualizations while in a relaxed, meditative state, or through a lucid dream. Relatively little is known with certainty about OBEs.

In some cases, the subject of an OBE has either willed themselves out of their bodies or found themselves being pulled from their bodies (these were usually preceded by the feeling of paralysis). In other cases, the feeling of being outside the body was something suddenly realized after the fact; the subjects saw their bodies almost by accident.

The OBE is not generally long; on the order of a minute or so. Those who experience an OBE may note that the subjective experience is much longer than the objective time passing.

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