Lehal Library

single laboratory session under much more comfortable circumstances: a normal bed was available, rather than a cot, and we used a different type of electrode for measuring brain waves which was not physically uncomfortable. Under these conditions, Mr. Monroe was able to produce two brief OOBEs, He awoke almost immediately after the first OOBE had ended, and estimated that it had lasted eight to ten seconds. The brain-wave record just before he awoke again showed a Stage 1 pattern, with possibly a single rapid eye movement occurring during that time. His blood pressure showed a sudden drop, a steady low lasting eight seconds, and a sudden resurgence to normal. In terms of Mr. Monoe's experience (see his description of this technique on p. 70), he reported that he "rolled out" of his body, found himself in the hallway separating his room from the recording room for a few seconds, and then felt a need to get back into his body because of a difficulty in breathing. An assistant, Joan Crawford, and I had been watching him on a closed-circuit television set during this time and we saw him move his arm slightly away from his throat just before he awoke and reported. Mr. Monroe tried again to produce another OOBE that would be evidential in terms of ESP, coming over and seeing the recording room and reading a target number on a shelf in that room. His brain-wave pattern showed much light sleep, so after three quarters of an hour, I called out to him over the intercom to remind him that we wanted him to try to produce an OOBE. A while later, he reported having produced an OOBE, but being unsure of his orientation, he followed a wire which he thought led to the recording room, and instead found himself outside in a strange area that he never recalled seeing before. He decided he was hopelessly disoriented and came back to his body. His description of that area matched an interior courtyard of the building that he would indeed have found himself in during an OOBE if he had inadvertently gone in exactly the opposite direction he should have. It is not absolutely certain that he had never seen this courtyard while visiting my office earlier in the day, so this experience is not in itself good evidence for a paranormal component to the OOBE. In terms of physiological changes, he again showed a Stage 1 dreaming pattern, with only two rapid eye movements in the whole period and no clearcut blood pressure drop on this occasion. Mr. Monroe's experiences, those of many prominent mystics throughout the ages, and all the data of ESP indicate that our current physical view of the world is a very limited one, that the dimensions of reality are much wider than our current concepts. My attempts and those of other investigators to make