What are some of the connections between out-of-body experiences – and similar experiences – and noticing our nature?
MY OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCE
When I was just a few months old, I had an out-of-body experience.
I remember floating maybe 15 meters up in the air, seeing my parents and older brother in nice clothes walking on the road to our house, with a stroller. It seemed to be a beautiful slightly cool early spring day. They walked along the gravel road to the house, and there was something white, big, and rectangular in front of it. As they walked into the house, I floated around in the different rooms. I remember old yellowish floral wallpaper in the big bedroom that someone had started to remove from the walls. I also remember the living room. (Where I am writing this.)
This was a vivid memory for me growing up. When I was in my late teens or early twenties, I decided to mention it to my parents. It turns out that this is exactly how it happened when we moved into this house. I was four or five months old. It was a nice cool spring day. They had walked from our old house (on the other side of the small town) to the new. The big rectangular white thing was the moving van. The wallpaper in the bedroom was there and was removed and replaced shortly after.
There are some things here I am curious about.
A FEW THINGS I AM CURIOUS ABOUT
How can we sense? How can we sense without the senses of the body? In my case, I only remember visual memories, but I know others describe hearing too. The sight in my experience was from several meters up in the air, and from floating around quite high up in the rooms.
Why did I remember it? This is by far my earliest memory, so I wonder if out-of-body memories can be more easily remembered. Maybe because it’s unusual, and there are also other possibilities. If we can sense without bodily senses, maybe we can remember without the physical brain? Maybe memories, or some memories, are (also) stored somewhere else? Maybe that’s why I remembered it through my childhood and even now. (Although now, it seems more like a memory of a memory, if that makes sense.)
Similar to NDEs. An out-of-body experience viscerally shows us that we are not, most fundamentally, this human body. That’s similar to a near-death experience (NDE), and it can profoundly transform our views and life. It may also be one reason I was so fascinated by ghosts, mysteries, ESP, and the unexplained growing up.
Still a center. In an out-of-body experience, there is still a sense of center. We are consciousness, and yet there is also a center that we look out from. What is that center, if there is no physical body? Could it be what some describe as a subtle body, a kind of body made up of more subtle energies?
Not the same as awakening. Maybe for that reason, it’s not the same as awakening. It’s possible to have an out-of-body experience, realize we are not most fundamentally this physical body, and for that to not stick after. That may be because there is still a sense of center there.
Memory from between lives. This out-of-body experience is similar to my memory from before this incarnation. I was consciousness and everything was consciousness, and there was still a kind of center here. There was also a sense of time being very distant.
OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCES AND NOTICING OUR NATURE
These kinds of experiences are not the same as noticing our nature, but they can fuel curiosity and motivation to explore our nature, and they shows us what we are if we only notice.
To ourselves, we are consciousness and the world to us happens within and as the consciousness we are. This does come into the foreground now and then – in out-of-body experiences, near death experiences, in flow states, and so on.
Often, we notice we enjoy it and we notice some things about it while we miss the essence which is that this is our more fundamental notice, and we also don’t keep noticing the essence when these states are no longer here.
In my case, it had to come into the foreground strongly for it to be recognized. I had to go through a year of an apparently observer-observed split where the world – including anything that has to do with this human self – seemed very far away. Then, there was a oneness shift where the oneness and consciousness nature of all was very strongly in the foreground and unmissable.
That lasted for several years, and a part of me associated the essence of it – my nature – with some of the side-effects (bliss, absorption, flow, other states). I knew it wasn’t about those things, and yet apart of me didn’t viscerally know it.
It took some more years – and a lot of changes in states and content of experience including a dark night – to more viscerally get it, and there is still further to go.
HOW TO NOTICE OUR NATURE
None of this – out-of-body experiences, between-lives experiences, near death experiences – are needed for us to notice our nature. It’s far more accessible than that. It’s what’s here and all we have ever known.
What I have found most helpful are…
The Big Mind process, under guidance of an experienced facilitator. Most people seem to notice and get to consciously know their nature within minutes, and it can be explored in a great deal of detail. The Big Mind process is based on Voice Dialog and was developed by Genpo Roshi (my old Zen teacher).
The Headless experiments, which also can help us notice and consciously get familiar with our nature. These are very simple experiments developed by Douglas Harding.
Basic meditation, which can take more time and, for that reason, is often even more viscerally transformative. Notice what’s here in experience. Allow it as it is. Notice it’s already allowed and noticed.
At some level in us, there is also some curiosity and other noticing going on…
All content of experience comes and goes, including any sense of being something within the content of experience – this human self, a me, and I, an observer, a doer, and so on. If it all comes and goes, can it be what I more fundamentally am? If I am not fundamentally anything within content of experience, what am I?
Something is already noticing and allowing what’s here. What is that? Can it be what I more fundamentally am?
I have also found other forms of inquiry very helpful, including sense field explorations (Kiloby Inquiries) and The Work of Byron Katie.
All of this helps me notice, clarify, keep noticing through changing states and experiences, and so on.
INVITING MORE OF MY PSYCHE TO JOIN
A big part of this is also inviting the different parts of my psyche onboard with it.
Many of these still operate from separation consciousness.
How do I relate to them when they come up?
When do I join in with the bubbles of separation consciousness?
How is it to notice them as bubbles of separation consciousness, and notice that their nature is the same as mine and everything else in this field of experience?
The image is created by me and Midjourney and really all of life and existence as everything is.
Note: It’s August 2026 and I read through some notes about her life my mother wrote for me some years ago. She writes that we moved into the house April 11 which fits my memory. I remember it was a cool and sunny day in early spring. I was 2 1/2 months old.