Interesting reading - does it get you thinking?

Projectors claim that during an astral voyage, communication with other projectors or spirits is possible. Sometimes the projector reported being attached to his/her physical body by a silver cord analogous to the umbilical cord. Pets have been said to react in a frightened manner when encountering a projector, and some people claim to have seen an astrally projecting person’s spirit as a colored beam or shot of light darting around the room.

In addition to anecdotal evidence, laboratory experiments have shown that a sleeping person can be aware that they are dreaming (often referred to as lucid dreaming), and some of these subjects claim to have had out-of-body experiences. Modern science generally interprets this as a purely physiological occurrence within the human body, explained by subconscious ideas that have been inflated by an imaginative retelling. Astral projectors find their firsthand experiences compelling enough to validate the dualism of body and spirit, and believe they have visited another world.

Robert Monroe, founder of the Monroe Institute, published several accounts of his experiences of astral projection, including Far Journeys (ISBN 0385231822). Monroe developed a method he calls Hemisync to induce mental states that are favorable for projection. Hemisync is a synchronization of the brainwaves of both of the brains’ hemispheres or lobes. This is said to work by altering brain waves using sounds, together with meditative instruction, listened to on headphones. The process based on a concept referred to as binaural beats.

An exhaustive reference, which includes techniques and types of out-of-body experiences and related phenomena, is the 1,200+ page Projectiology by Dr. Waldo Vieira, MD (ISBN 8586019585), which has over 1,907 bibliographic entries from sources in 18 languages on the topic.