Astral projection is a type of out-of-body experience (OBE) in which the astral body leaves its other six bodies and goes out into the ether.

It is said that we humans have seven bodies (one for each of the seven planes of reality).

On trips, the astral body perceives other astral bodies rather than their physical, etheric, emotional, spiritual bodies. In an ordinary OBE, such as remote viewing or the out-of-body near-death experience, there is a separation of a person's consciousness from his or her body. In the near-death out-of-body experience, there may be the experience of hovering above and perceiving one's body and enviroment, hearing conversations from doctors, surgeons or rescue services.

Astral projection, it is the astral body, not the soul or consciousness, that leaves the body.

The astral body, according to some is the one that has an aura. It is also the seat of feeling and desire, and is generally described as being connected to the physical body during astral projection by an infinitely elastic or a very fine silver cord, a kind of cosmic umbilical cord or Ariadne's thread.

There is not much evidence to support the claims that anyone can project their minds or soul's, psyche, spirit, astral body, etheric body, or any other entity to somewhere else on this or any other planet. The main evidence is in the form of testimonials, but there is on going reserch by meny groups in this area.

Near-death experience (NDE)

One study found that 8 to 12 percent of 344 patients resuscitated after suffering cardiac arrest had NDEs and about 18% remembered some part of what happened when they were clinically dead (Lancet, December 15, 2001).*

An out-of-body experience (OBE) is characterized by a feeling of departing from one’s physical body and observing both one’s self and the world from outside of one’s body. The experience is quite common in dreams, daydreams, and memories, where we quite often take the external perspective. Some people experience an OBE while under the influence of an anesthetic or while semi-conscious due to trauma.

Some people have an OBE while under the influence of drugs. OBEs have been induced by electrically stimulating the right angular gyrus (located at the juncture of the temporal and parietal lobes).* Finally, some people experience an OBE when they are near death (near-death experiences or NDEs).

One explanation of the OBE is that consciousness is a separate entity from the body (dualism) and can exist without the body and the body without it. The disembodied consciousness can ‘see,’ ‘hear,’ ‘feel,’ ‘taste’ and ‘smell’. Some speculate that 'mind', 'spirit', or 'consciousness' can operate over vast distances and perceive objects by some mysterious power not yet discovered. Others think that they are due to brain states triggered by disease or stress.

What little research there has been in this field indicates that the experiences Moody lists as typical of the NDE may be due to brain states triggered by cardiac arrest and anesthesia (Blackmore 1993). Furthermore, many people who have not been near death have had experiences that seem identical to NDEs. These mimicking experiences are often the result of psychosis (due to severe neurochemical imbalance) or drug usage, such as hashish, LSD, or DMT.

A 13-year Dutch study led by Pim van Lommel and published in Lancet found that 12 percent (or 18 percent, depending on how NDE is defined) of 344 resuscitated patients who had experienced cessation of their heart and/or breathing function reported an NDE. If the cause of the NDE were purely physiological, the researchers reasoned that all of the patients should have had one because of their similar plight. Psychological factors were also ruled out by the researchers, as were the medications taken by the patients. However, the researchers believe that

neurophysiological processes must play some part in NDE. Similar experiences can be induced through electrical stimulation of the temporal lobe (and hence of the hippocampus) during neurosurgery for epilepsy, with high carbon dioxide levels (hypercarbia), and in decreased cerebral perfusion resulting in local cerebral hypoxia as in rapid acceleration during training of fighter pilots, or as in hyperventilation followed by valsalva manoeuvre. Ketamine-induced experiences resulting from blockage of the NMDA receptor, and the role of endorphin, serotonin, and enkephalin have also been mentioned, as have near-death-like experiences after the use of LSD, psilocarpine, and mescaline. These induced experiences can consist of unconsciousness, out-of-body experiences, and perception of light or flashes of recollection from the past. These recollections, however, consist of fragmented and random memories unlike the panoramic life-review that can occur in NDE. Further, transformational processes with changing life-insight and disappearance of fear of death are rarely reported after induced experiences.

Thus, induced experiences are not identical to NDE.

Dr. Karl Jansen has reproduced NDEs with ketamine, a short-acting, hallucinogenic, dissociative anaesthetic.

The anaesthesia is the result of the patient being so 'dissociated' and 'removed from their body' that it is possible to carry out surgical procedures. This is wholly different from the 'unconsciousness' produced by conventional anesthetics, although ketamine is also an excellent analgesic (pain killer) by a different route (i.e. not due to dissociation). Ketamine is related to phencyclidine (PCP). Both drugs are arylcyclohexylamines - they are not opioids and are not related to LSD. In contrast to PCP, ketamine is relatively safe, is much shorter acting, is an uncontrolled drug in most countries, and remains in use as an anaesthetic for children in industrialised countries and all ages in the third world as it is cheap and easy to use. Anaesthetists prevent patients from having NDE's ('emergence phenomena') by the co-administration of sedatives which produce 'true' unconsciousness rather than dissociation.

exerts taken from http://skepdic.com