Relaxation Based Methods ("Floating Out")

By: Alfred Ballabene
Copyright © 1995, Alfred Ballabene. All rights reserved. (Revised 1997, 2000)

Fig.: S. Muldoon & H. Carrington: The Phenomena of Astral Projection
S. Weiser, New York, 1974

How it runs

This is a passive, spontaneous way of body separation. Nevertheless it has to be performed by active done deep relaxation. This procedure of autohypnotic relaxation is accompanied and triggered by the attention at body awareness (muscle relaxation, feeling your limbs becoming heavy, feeling warmth and at last cutting off physical body awareness).

These experiences of floating out of the body often are reported to occur spontaneously in deep relaxation, sleep or near-sleep (hypnagogic state) and in NDE's (near-death-experiences). This kind of OBE phenomenon, which is significant in some details, very often is the first encounter to OBEs of persons who never have heard or thought about this field of experiences.

To illustrate how this kind of OBE separation develops you can see below the animated drawing, showing the states of separation:

4 phases:

Floating out of the body belongs to the first experiences I had with OBEs. The first OBE of mine was not intended and a side effect of deep relaxation. From this moment on I started to experiment with OBEs. Later on I found this method much more difficult as several other techniques. To the most preferred methods now belongs the "stepping-out" technique.

However in my first past experiments I only could perform "floating-out". I used to do it in daytime and in trance. I mostly did this on Sunday morning. Currently, having a profession and a family, there is neither space nor time for undisturbed exercises at such day time. Therefore I have to make my OBE exercises during the night and then "stepping-out" methods seems to me to be significantly better.

Hints and how it is to be done

Position: lying on the back and if possible on the floor and not in the bed. The best time is doing a nap in the afternoon.

Method: I used to stretch down on the floor, to relax and to intensify my relaxation by the imagination, that all blood was leaving my head, like fainting. (This method "all blood out of my head" I had trained many years before, when I suffered from frequent nose-bleed.)

Some links to sites dealing with relaxation:

SHORT RELAXATION TECHNIQUES (Sam Houston State University)

RELAXATION TECHNIQUES (Sam Houston State University)

The method of autogenic training from Schulz, an auto-hypnotic relaxation technique, is hardly found in the English written internet sites, though well known in German, Netherlands and other European countries.

Autogenic Training A Practical Guide

As to my opinion the best results are obtained when you direct your awareness at your body, not interfering and not using imaginations.

Some people, however, prefer using imaginations as a kind of auto-hypnotic triggering. These trance inducing imaginations for "floating out" procedures are a special category of imaginations (inductions) belonging to the field of autohypnosis (typically examples: you imagine to feel more and more light and to float up into the air, swaying there).

Regard: these imaginations are used BEFORE falling in deep relaxation (trance) in order to trigger the "floating out" process. When the process has started no imagining will be done, just let it go and observe what will happen without interfering!!!

Some examples when using imagination:

• "Water skiing method of projecting" (Matt Holmes in the "Astral Projection Home Page", tips may 1995).
• Flying in an airplane or balloon
• Lying in a boat and relax
• Being carried away on a cloud
• Sitting in a ski-lift or going upwards in a lift
• Being a leaf and being carried away by the wind
• Sliding up or down an escalator

How to go on and the sensations you have

If you had already some OBE's, the best way to induce new ones is to re-imagine the experienced ones step by step.

Sensations: In the state of deep relaxation I first heard a sound of a kind of rushing, then the sound vanished and I saw colours or mosaics or landscapes. This was very delightful for me and helped to stay alert. Then colours and pictures disappeared in the next state and the eye field became dark. Now the body started to swing, as if lying in a boat. There was no sound, no picture, no thoughts - it was a very peaceful feeling. After a while I suddenly could see the room I was in, or may be an astral replication of the room, and move by will.

Later on the process developed to astral travelling. In this case I stayed floating for a longer time, enveloped in blackness, mostly feeling a wind or even storm by which I seemed to be curried away. Sometimes I could see a source of light like a sun or a shining disc above me in the darkness. After a while, all of a sudden, my sight cleared up and I found myself flying or sliding in an unknown, very real seeming landscape, as if , after passing space, I had landed in another world. My feelings mostly were very euphoric. This was how "floating out" developed later on (the first variation did not happen again).

Theory: As thought in OBE theory the subtle body may separate spontaneously in deep relaxation or in sleep (it is thought that unconscious astral travelling is very common to many people). In this case as described above it is the etheric body which separates (carrying the astral inside). The etheric body is thought to be bound to the physical by means of a cord, the so called "silver cord". This cord is the reason why the subtle body is hold back, pulled down again to the physical (falling sensation) and why the subtle body is swaying above the physical like a balloon. (In astral projection never a cord is felt and that's the reason of many discussion of the fact if a cord does exist or not)

The etheric body lifts from the physical body, keeping the same body-position. Like a balloon, held by a cord, the etheric body is suspended in mid-air and swaying there.

Sometimes OBE-ers report to have experienced rotation in horizontal position (obviously around an axis given by the silver cord origin).

Copyright © 1995, Alfred Ballabene. All rights reserved. (Revised 1997, 2000)
Contact the author: Alfred.Ballabene@univie.ac.at
Visit the Alfred Ballabene website.
[Used with permission from the author.]