Here's what happened to a friend of mine. She was about 35 at the time.
She told me that her husband had just finished painting the bedroom. She made the nearly fatal error of taking a nap in that room, not realizing that it was full of toxic paint fumes.
When she woke up maybe an hour or so later, she was puzzled to discover that she was standing in the corner of the bedroom. Yet, when she looked over at the bed she saw herself still lying there. Was she in two places at once?"
Then she realized that she had departed her body and that it was dead or dying. "Actually," she said, "there was no fear. I was glad to be out of my body, which seemed to me an unnecessary, bothersome encumbrance in my existence.
"It seemed the natural thing to do would be to simply leave and be free once more. Still, something in the back of my mind kept bothering me. There was some reason why I couldn't leave, couldn't be free. What was it? Oh, the children!"
Then my friend laughed and told me, "I solved the problem by saying to myself, Oh, the hell with them!
"Just then," she continued, "my husband came in the room, smelled the fumes and saw my body lying there unconscious, near death. He realized what had happened and threw open the windows to let in the fresh air."
My friend finished her story by saying, "In the fresh air my body recovered rather quickly, although I must admit now that I felt disappointed because I'd had my big chance to escape and didn't make it."
So my friend's story was a description of one way of getting out of the body by having a near death experience. There must be many other ways.
In my own experience I found out that you don't have to be near death to escape from your self-imposed prison of flesh and bones.
The one time I escaped my body was back In 1974. It happened while I was working at my usual job in a snack bar, pouring coffee, toasting bagels, spreading on cream cheese. All quite ordinary, you see. I was, fully conscious and aware, not sick, and certainly not poisoned.
This episode of being exterior to the body was not entirely accidental; it was an experience I was actually working toward without really expecting it to happen. The method I used was as follows:
First I turned the inside of my head white -- merely an idea, you see, a mere postulate. I just commanded the whiteness to be there inside my skull. Whether this step was necessary in accomplishing the desired result I do not know.
Then while postulating that the inside of my skull was white, dispelling all the blackness, I alternately used my imagination to create two or three golden balls and mentally, in my mind's eye, place them in the air behind my head, just floating there, you see.
If my concentration weakened and the balls disappeared. I simply created some more golden balls and placed them in the air behind my head.
I was surprised -- not particularly astonished -- just pleasantly surprised when I suddenly found myself out of my body and -- from across the room -- watching that body pour coffee. I, myself, was occupying a space about six feet away from the person I had always thought was me.
My first thought about the person I had been unknowingly operating as myself for forty years was, "No wonder nobody likes that son of a bitch, I don't like him either."
You see the complete separation of spirit from body? I had an opinion about myself as a body, and I did not want anything more to do with such an unlikable character.
My second thought was, "Well, what do you know? Now I remember. This is my normal condition, being free outside of a body."
But then for no reason I could determine, I suddenly popped back inside my head and became the same old human person once more. The party was over. But in that short time my life had been changed forever. Now I knew who I was and I knew who I had always been, no matter which incarnations I might have assumed over the centuries.
Since that time I know I have existed for eons without needing a body -- without needing a physical form to be in a state of awareness; and especially without needing a body to think
Now once again being stuck in a body I was of course subjected to all the ailments and discomforts common to bodies. The first ailment that hit me immediately was a terrific headache, which lasted for about 24 hours.
Since that episode of being outside and free, I occasionally over the years have tried to get outside and experience once more that timeless feeling of always having existed as myself, not needing a body. So far, no luck. But of course I no longer fear death. I know that I am immortal.
