'Out of Body' is a term that is denoted to specific experiences of man which involves a feeling of traveling or floating outside one's own body. Commonly known as OBE, short for out of body experiences, the concept is synonymous to 'autoscopy', which refers to watching one's own body and the world from a separate location and 'astral projection', referring to leaving one's body and traveling to another astral plane.

The various stages through which any out of body experience occur are those of withdrawal, paralysis, progression, freedom and re-entry. In the withdrawal stage, the physical body ceases to interact with the external environment, that is, it withdraws itself from the world. Your mind assumes a focused state while your body sleeps.

The second comatose stage of any out of body experience involves total paralysis. That is, no kind of movement of body takes place and all body muscles turn rigid. However, other extra sensory perceptions take place and you might experience shivering and tingling sensations primarily and then intense vibrations, loud noises or even sight through closed eyes.

Thirdly, the most crucial stage of progression involves the actual separation of your conscience from the bonding of your physical body. Remember that if your mind is not hundred percent free, then even the slightest of fears regarding safely coming back will not let you move out of your body and keep you tied within it. Visualizing yourself floating away or even climbing out of your body usually helps in progression.

After your aura, spirit, soul or perceptual existence whatever term you wish to call it with, has separated from your physical body, you will still feel a strong pull back which will ultimately cease beyond a certain distance allowing free movement without any restriction. Thus, progression has taken place out of body, where you can view your body from outside while you travel to other astral planes and realms. Your spirit is free and your mind focused and in control.

Lastly, your perceptual existence slowly meshes with your physical one and you return to reality, gradually awakening from a deep trance like condition. However, in case you become suddenly anxious about traveling too far out, which is usually the case, the re-entry would be quite sudden with a sensation of being sucked in or pulled in within the body.

An out of body experience, most often than not, is seen to occur in relation to sleeping or a near death experience. Most of the time OBE takes place before, after or during sleep, especially while lucid dreaming when the body sleeps but the mind is wakeful, focused and in control of the dreams. This is an extremely rare phenomenon but is highly conducive to out of body experiences. Moreover, near death experiences like drowning or road accidents also results in an OBE with the individual being able to watch the accident as if from a distance.

If you want to induce out of body experience then the two best techniques would either be mental or technological. The first instance includes meditation in increasing one's self awareness, control over conscious and development of the power to channel one's energy and control the mind in order to achieve whatever desired. Going to the technological perspective, the use of binaural beats have become quite popular in recent times. This consists of hearing two different sound vibrations in each ear which synchronizes in the brain to create a mental condition that is conducive to an out of body experience. It can be concluded that whatever the technique is, out of body sensation induction is difficult and requires heightened suggestibility of mind. However, once gone through with it, it is something that is unexplainable and an experience of a lifetime.