But OBE isn't achieved only thru death but it can also fulfilled thru dreaming or by mentally concentration. Many cultures interpret dreams, as OBEs and many don't. Many people have argued that the OBE itself is some kind of dream and involves nothing but imagination. However an ordinary dream does not have those important features of the experients seeming to leave the body and being conscious of perceiving things as they occur. In this sense OBEs are better compared with lucid dreams, which are dreams in which the sleeper realizes that he or she is dreaming. Often some special cast of people like shamans or yogis can achieve OBEs from the use of special drugs or methods for inducing a trance.
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The experience of seeing one's own self has been called "autoscopy" or "autoscopic hallucinations." It has been argued that the OBEs are a hallucination, and any other body or double is likewise hallucinatory. There are in fact many similarities between some kinds of hallucinations and OBEs.
As I said earlier whey to explain death was and through religion so among other experiences difficult to separate from OBEs are a variety of religious and experiences. People may feel that they have grown very large or very small, becoming one with the universe or god. It is very difficult to draw a line between a religious experience and an OBE and any line one does draw may seem artificial.
The oldest surviving report of an OBE is Plato's legend of Er, a soldier who awoke on his funeral pyre. But this story is not the only one from Plato. He integrated at least three elements of an OBEs into his philosophy: the departure of the soul from the cave of shadows to see the light of truth, (which it's and my favorite) the flight of the soul to a vision of pure celestial being and its recollection of the vision of light, which is the very purpose of philosophy. But I will not stand to the historical facts but I will proceed forward to the explanation or the try of OBEs.