From: janice@mailinator.com   
      
   In article , laura@nospam.me says...   
      
   >My point was only that once you've had the experience, you no longer need to   
   >ask if other, i.e. hypnagogic, experiences are OBEs.   
      
   Even that can vary from person to person.  I remember a poster from   
   several years ago who considered experiences that she induced by   
   developing hypnagogic imagery into complete scenes to be a type of OBE.   
   She said that she didn't like all the classifying and just called 'em all   
   OBEs. :-)  Also, it's possible to have hypnagogic stuff going on while   
   experiencing the typical sensations of sleep paralysis, or to have OBEs   
   under conditions other than sleep paralysis.  And of course sometimes   
   beginners wonder if a certain experience was an OBE or if it was a lucid   
   dream instead, and depending on who they talk to, they may be told that   
   if it had been an OBE there would be no doubt of it, or they may be told   
   that there's no great distinction to make.  It's just very individual,   
   and what may be seen as highly discrete categories of experience for some   
   are less discrete for others.   
      
   >I agree completely that the question of what the OBE really *is*, is not so   
   >easily answered.   
      
   Yep, I know how you feel about that.  However, the "you'll know it when   
   you have it" idea comes up here from time to time, usually with the   
   implications that I was addressing, and I think we owe it to newcomers to   
   make it clear that there is a spectrum of opinion on the matter.   
      
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   For the alt.out-of-body group website and my other sites, visit:   
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)