Out of body experiences, and the wonder of the universe

There are many fascinating experiences which occur in sleep or on the verge of sleep - I've only had one real out of body experience (oobie), but it felt extremely real - nothing like a dream or a nightmare.

So I was interested in the recent research which has managed to simulate an oobie.

Anyway, in the interests of science, here is my report.

I was eighteen years old, and it was my first night back at home after the end of the university term. I had not taken any alcohol, drugs or medication, and I have no history of hallucinations or psychotic behaviour.

I was lying on my back, drifting to sleep, when I slowly started to rise up above my body in a horizontal position, until I was about 5-6 feet above it. I could look down and around, and there was a feeling of elation, and I wondered where I would be able to go or do.

I looked down at the end of my bed, and there was some kind of androgynous figure sat there. It was shorter and thinner than the average human adult, and with very angular facial features. At first, I had no sense of what this being was like, but then it rose up, and started attacking my "astral" self by biting my leg, and I had a sense of great malevolence about it. I was absolutely terrified, yet I was completely paralysed. I couldn't move any part of my body except for my tongue, which wasn't much help. I tried to will myself back into my body, and I somehow managed to snap back into it. The figure appeared to zoom away out of the window.
I have rarely been so scared, and it took me a while to get to sleep again. I believed it to be a "real" experience.

Although I have had other experiences of rising or dropping on the verge of sleep, as well as sleep paralysis, which I understand are very common, this was quite different. There was nothing dreamlike about it. I was able to think clearly and logically - which isn't normal in a dream - and my perception of events was also normal, not dreamlike. I was clearly able to perceive my room from a perspective 6 feet above my head. Quite why it happened as a freak event, I have no idea. Nothing like this has happened before or since

I offer no conclusion on the mechanics of this. The age-old human explanation would be that my soul or astral self departed my body, and came into contact with a malevolent spirit. My guess is that physics and neuroscience will eventually offer a more detailed explanation from the relationship between consciousness and physical space.

I wonder whether life is enhanced or diminished by dissecting the universe and discovering its secrets. I'm torn on this one. Half of me yearns for a world which is mysterious and sacred - where the sun is a great God which brings life to the world, the night sky is a great theatre of cosmic forces, and the dreamworld is a gateway to other dimensions. And yet the other half of me is fascinated by the scientific quest to explain all.
When I go to see a magic show, I am less entertained by the tricks, than by working out in my head the secrets behind them.

I guess ultimately we live in a culture which is led by the scientific method and the banishing of superstition. We know what the sun is, and it is futile to try and believe otherwise - however appealing that might be.

However conducive to human contentment it might be to maintain a mystical view of the cosmos, to do so is like an Amazonian tribe living on the edge of an expanding city. Your world is being encroached on everyday, and there is nowhere to retreat to.

So it is necessary to rush headlong with the exhiliration of scientific progress - to uncover as much as we can about the myriad mysteries which surround us and are within us. Lord knows where this will end, and it may end badly, but it is something inevitable and compelling which must be done.

And always, whatever we find out about the universe, there is always a further mystery - in the gaps between or behind matter. So at least science will one day be able to show us the difference between that which is simply unknown, and that which is absolutely unknowable - where perhaps mysticism and wonder can creep back in.