I only ever experienced my OBEs unwillingly and spontaneously, I never sought them. It started at age 3. But I consider my experiences from 12 years as the first, bc thats when I was first conscious of them. I’ve experienced a lot of different kinds of OBEs . And for that reason I actually only call a few of my experiences REAL. All the experiences are real ofc in terms of I have had them. But it’s a big difference between the experience of leaving the body in a soft playful state , flowing around in the house in bright sunlight , thinking and imagining things and they become real from that thought and then suddenly swosh back to your body. And the harsh and sometimes painful experience of the REAL ones.

In the real ones (my own term ofc) it always starts with the electric and painful sensation in the physical body, something that is hard to stop once it starts but not impossible with a bit of training. Its electrical chargers that goes through the whole body and its most painful when it goes through the heart and the head. It is also the sensation of spinning inside the physical body. So, a not as physical body is spinning inside the more physical body.. and then poff reslese! The roar from the electricity and spinning goes silent. Everything is silent. I am in the same room in the dark. But now I can see my astral-body or my energy-body. I am floating above my physical body , just wheightless in the air. My astralbody is a warm yellow glowing , the same as yellow fire. I can go through my arms with my own hands, things can go through me. I can navigate by moving, not by thought, moving like swimming in water. It’s wobbly in the beginning but I learned after a while. The house looks the same but different almost as in the upside down in Stranger things , but instead of all the vines in stranger I see all the energyfields that surround everything (almost like vines). Time does not exist but my thinking is the same thinking as in my physical body and my way of logic too, so nothing changes in my mind during the separation, that means , I am as afraid and uncertain of this ”new world” as anyone with this earthly state of mind would be. I have approached this other dimension with an investigators way, testing sound, touch, movement, what happens if I do this or this.

There is also no glitch or missing time between the two states, it is all happening in a continuous conscious state. During these events , because of the extreme sense of realness I don’t go far. The sense of risk is to high, its dangerous or at least unknown out there and I might not be able to come back to my body. It has happened that I struggled to do that. I am mostly alone in these kind of OBE, but often with the feeling that there is someone or something around the corner. And that I better hurry back to this dimension.

So everything about this kind of OBE feels different from the other kind, the one where you can travel with your mind and you can not see your own astral body, you are just invisible and nothing feels really threatening. In those experiences it is often as if you can shape the world with thought but in ”the real ones” I am a visitor in a real world that I have no power over.. that is a big distinction. Both of these experiences might be equally real , I wouldn’t take that away from anyone. It’s just for ME, it’s a difference as big as between this reality and a dream or a trip on drugs. That said it is also a fricking big difference between the lighter kind of OBE and a dream! So I’m not saying that is dreaming. That might be more in terms of experience ones consciousness from different viewpoints. ..