How I Induced An Out Of Body Experience Without Substances

Expanding your consciousness can be powerful, but 'trippy' experiences don't replace consistent transformational work.

I want to say right off the top, out of body, and other spiritual experiences, can be immensely profound and helpful in shifting our awareness of who and what we are.

That said, do we need to have these experiences (including through psychedelics) to expand, grow, awaken and reach our potential? Not at all.

Further, they can become ungrounding, an escape, and could potentially create fear and anxiety. This is why I believe these types of experiences should be treated with respect as much as possible. And should be done alongside a consistent lifestyle focused on wellness and transformation.

Our Body’s Innate Ability

I have always been drawn to and fascinated by our innate ability to heal and expand our consciousness as humans. As a result, I have spent almost two decades learning skills and exploring safe and reliable ways to explore human potential.

I first began breath training in 2014. I did this because of my desire and belief in our innate abilities. To me, breath, meditation, presence, bodywork etc, are all ways in which we can learn to explore the subtle cues and energies of our body, and begin to understand what they are saying about our current state of mind and consciousness.

It’s in this space where much healing can occur.

When we talk about spiritual experiences and out of body experiences, inevitably the conversation of psychedelics comes up as well.

Many of my friends over the years have been very into psychedelics, and I can see why. They can provide a profound look beyond our everyday reality, and also have potential to bring about healing - especially in the right settings.

For some folks, psychedelics may even be the right or best approach to moving forward. But, there is a lot that often doesn’t get spoken about when it comes to transformation through psychedelics, and I intend to write a more extensive essay on this topic.

Personally, I’ve not had a large drive to explore psychedelic substances. But I have experimented with psilocybin on a number of occasions. To be honest, and this is just me talking here, it further affirmed my personal affinity to ‘sober’ consciousness expansion and healing.

That said, I am a big believer in the respectful and correct use of these substances, and have been researching their potential since 2008.

As a somatic and nervous system coach, I do love encouraging people to develop their innate abilities as much as possible. And I am also honest with them about the often untold stories of psychedelic experiences didn’t go so well. More on this shortly.

The Experience I Had

Note: I do believe it is important to have a great handle on your own body, mind and nervous system prior to exploring experiences like this.

In 2016 I was in California, attending Wim Hof’s first North American training. It was day two and we were doing a breathing exercise that centered around focusing energy in our body and learning how to control and use it.

It was similar to holotropic breathwork if you are familiar with this.

There were about 60 of us in a beautiful room with 15 foot ceilings. The sun was shining in through huge windows on the side of the building. It was warm and comfortable. I was laying flat on my back on a yoga mat, patiently waiting for the exercise to start.

This would not be the first time I was going to have an out of body experience, but it would be the first time it would happen on command.

The intention of the exercise was not to have an out of body experience, but this is where my experience went.

We began with Wim’s standard method of breathing. Heavy breaths in and out of the mouth. Stomach, chest, head, out.

After about 8 minutes of this, I went into my breath holds (as part of his method) and I began to focus energy from around the base of my spine and brought it up my back, into my brain and ‘pinged’ my pineal gland with it.

This is to say, you imagine directing the energy in a way that will eventually ‘hit’ your pineal gland.

As I brought the energy up toward my pineal gland, I felt something I had felt with other forms of meditation or spiritual experiences. A subtle vibration in my body and being starting to increase and become rather obvious.

With my eyes closed, I began to see the room. I could feel my essence slowly leaving my body, up and into the air. It moved slowly and peacefully. It wasn’t a fast jolt or ‘uncontrollable’ in a sense, it was light.

As I drifted upwards more and more, “I” eventually made it to the ceiling and rested there. What happened next was what you might experience in deep meditation.

My thoughts and emotions were set aside. I began to feel like a massive, massive, massive presence that was far beyond the limits of my physical body. Similar to other forms of meditation, you no longer identified with being just a ‘mind’ or physical body. You became aware that you are a vast consciousness that is pure unconditional love and pure potential.

From this state of being you have the ability to utilize your awareness to look at your life, situations, the planet or whatever it may be from a completely non-judgmental and unconditionally loving way. In some ways, you can sometimes deeply understand the wisdom within so many experiences in your life.

There may even be a sense of clarity and awareness as to how you may move forward with something while in this space. In my view, these experiences help us to get a glimpse at what is beyond the stories and the drama of our minds. This can be quite powerful in gaining a clear perspective on working with fears, worries, or traumas.

As I continued to feel immense at the top of the ceiling, I could see all of the bodies in the room having their own experience. I felt connected to them. I felt connected to the building as well, and everything around us.

The difference between myself and everything else drifted away, and I was simply an essence or consciousness observing.

This, is precisely how I know experientially that consciousness does not originate in the mind, but is our existence. Mainstream science has not caught up to this understanding yet but it’s getting close, and that is very inspiring.

After what could have been 10 or so minutes, I slowly came back down into my physical body and began to “connect” back to it. I opened my eyes and began to feel the desire to go outside and enjoy the sunlight.

I felt slightly emotional at this point as I had gotten a glimpse of the difference between feeling fully clear outside of my body vs. feeling certain emotional pains and mind stories that were in my physical body at those moments.

This right here, is where the magic is. This is how we see more clearly what it is that we are being challenged by, and have a reference point to explore what we may want to work with.

To be clear, these experiences will not simply erase or clear our limitations, pain or traumas, but they can help us integrate them over time.

This is partly why it’s important to have a good sense of how to work with your body and nervous system, and to be able to self-regulate.

Otherwise, it’s possible some will become addicted to experiences like this, and attempt to perform them over and over again looking for that peace and expansion they we want to bring into everyday life.

Instead, it’s important to build that into our lives through lifestyle.

Looking A Bit Deeper

Before I had this experience I was pretty deep into a practice of meditation, breathwork, and embodiment. I was also in a pretty healthy place in my life. I certainly still had my pains and challenges as we all do, there is no such thing as “no more work to do,” but I felt solid and grounded in my being on a daily basis.

As I now know intimately through my somatic training, this is a very important place to be in when exploring these types of experiences, including intense psychedelic experiences, in a meaningful way.

It can also help reduce the chances of having a negative or bad experience - one that might bring about a lot of fear and anxiety.

I am going to save a deeper discussion around psychedelics and my own experiences for an upcoming essay, but I will say a couple of quick things here.

More intense experiences, whether intense breathwork or via psychedelics, can have a negative impact on some people, and it’s hard to know exactly who this may happen to. The challenge right now is, many people who do have bad experiences are often afraid to speak up about them.

Throughout my somatic and nervous system training, I got to connect with many professionals and clients who tell stories of intense fear leading to year long bouts of anxiety, psychosis, and/or depression. Some have even gone as far as committing suicide following ayahuasca ceremonies - that of course is a more extreme scenario.

Bottom line, more people than you may realize are seeking professional treatment after more intense modalities, but are afraid to talk about their experiences because they are often embarrassed. Instead, it’s in professional circles like those I’m connected to that you hear of these stories.

As I said, more soon on this subject in an upcoming piece. I just wanted to put this out there as while I’m a proponent, I also believe people should get a better sense of what people are experiencing out there.

Final Thoughts

I believe we have a deep innate ability to explore our consciousness. I also believe in the power of external substances like psychedelics to explore our consciousness.

But I do think it’s important people are more well informed on the potential dangers and realistic expectations of what these experiences will bring for you long term.

In either scenario, having a good daily or weekly practice to be in tune with your body and develop the skill of self-regulation is important for long term wellness - including if you want to explore these spiritual experiences more effectively.

Whether it’s yoga, martial arts, breathwork, somatic work, or meditation, any practice that teaches interoception is a great place to start if you wish to slowly build towards having an experience like this.

If you’ve been a long time practicer of wellness practices, and have a genuine curiosity to explore, have a look into holotopic breathwork and see if it’s of interest to you.

But keep in mind, nothing beats building a sense of safety, comfort, and connection in your body on a daily basis, vs. a one time trippy experience that comes and goes.

I am a strong believer in not sensationalizing the need to have “out of body” or “out there” experiences, but instead having that same excitement and joy towards creating a heaven like state in your body each day.