Holistic explanation of an out-of-body experience produced by sounds

I am publishing an e-mail (below) that I received from the sound shaman about Chris’s out-of-body experience while undergoing sound therapy. It is interesting how postively this is viewed by practitioners and adherents of “mysticism” (for lack of a better word) in comparison to traditional psychiatry, for which out-of-body experiences are thought to be destabilizing, particularly for someone with a mental illness diagnosis. I broached the subject last night at dinner with my dream analyst friend Val. She was very enthusiastic about Chris’s OBE and felt that it was absolutely healing.

Long ago I identified the body/mind integration as essential for Chris’s healing, but have been frustrated by not being able to find enough therapies that address this so directly. The assemblage point shift was important in this respect. Tomatis also is directed to integrating the person with the environment. I have been looking for something that potentially works faster than psychotherapy, which can take years. The goal is to feel emotionally integrated with the environment. In this respect, the Family Constellation Therapy that we undertook with Dr. Stern also fills the bill emotionally.

Note from the sound shaman
“Chris had a very interesting experience. I am very pleased as this is exactly the purpose and effect of the sounds – to expand our perception of the body and who we really are. The mind (thoughts) and the body (movement and emotions) produce changes in our electric field. The sounds – which have no specific reference in our mind (sounds that we have never heard before and so have no link to specific memories) – are perceived in the moment. Each sound is the actual vibration of light (i.e. specific colours). Our emotional system is not disturbed as the information contained in these sounds, and thus the processing work load required by the brain, is based on the natural vibration of light – slowed down by many octaves.”

Some sing low and some sing higher

I continue to mull over the events of the last few days. Chris and I both underwent sound therapy last Thursday, but my experience wasn’t nearly so dramatic. I could tell from the new way the sound was mixed, that I was being coaxed towards a deep meditative state. I almost got there, I could see how close I was to leaving my earthly baggage behind, but I got scared and refused to go any further. Maybe next time. Probably next time. I see the logic of release.

Recalling Dr. Stern’s clear alarm about Chris’s out-of-body experience and lucid dreaming, I have to smile. While I fumbled around to try to convince her that this was an all round good experience, I brought up the fact that Chris was also in the church choir, which so far nobody has questioned as being detrimental to his mental health. I told Dr. Stern that high church music whips people into a passion of ecstasy and abandonment to the Holy Spirit. This seems to me to be the opposite of grounding. “You know, Dr. Stern, I always say that the closer to the altar you get, the higher strung the people are. Who’s closest to the altar? The priest, the rabbi or the minister and the choir. In my experience, there is a higher proportion of “not regular folk” in this population compared to the population at large. I sometimes think it would be a good idea if Chris had more opportunities to split rocks and less time to spend hanging around the choir. ”

Dr. Stern looked rather stunned at my layman’s view of things. But think of it. In many ways it might be a good idea if Chris didn’t spend so much time hanging around the church, reading his Bible, and wearing choir robes. It mimics the psychotic behavior that we are trying to eliminate. Going to church may exacerbate mental illness!

I am not about to suggest to Chris that he drop choir, as it’s the first activity that he chose to resume after he got out of hospital. Playing the ball as it lies I assume that choir must be good for Chris, despite all of the reservations I have expressed. He is who he is, and he’s all about music. The church choir is a counter-intuitive activity to engage in, just as having an out-of-body experience is counter-intuitive to becoming grounded as most of us understand the concept – More African drums – less Mozart! Maybe, there is another way to look at it. Maybe we have been looking in all the wrong places, telling people to do certain things for good mental health, when we should have been telling them the opposite. I recently heard about a study on sugar’s effect on children, and guess what – the study concluded that sugar does not increase hyperactivity in children. I give up. How does anyone know what to do for good health when faced with contradictory evidence?

You go with your intuition and ignore all the noise.

Chris’s second visit to the sound shaman

“I was in a good mood that day and was happy to head out into the country. I was well rested and alert, but was slightly irritable, perhaps at the memory of our first trip out where we were delayed and nearly had to turn back. Having already undergone the therapy once before, I knew how it mattered that I be attentive but relaxed, to keep my body open, because this time around I had the tendency to become somewhat passive, which spoils the therapy as it works on the mind especially, and I think partly through the mind then the body.

The therapy lasted less than one hour, but I felt many changes. I tried to dissociate better my feelings about a color, red or green say, and allow the color to dominate my perception with as little judgment as possible. There were flies in the room, which at first I found irritating but later I found this a silly reaction to have, after I became more present in the room. The “sound/colors” themselves aren’t like anything else you’re likely to hear, because they’re pure sounds, they’re as natural as breathing. Once you hear them they take up the room. Listening to a color is much different from listening to Mozart; it’s the difference that having an author makes to the sound, as you follow music in Mozart but hearing the color red for example is like a mosquito bite and not “interesting” per se.

However, I began to fall into a sort of trance, which wasn’t quite sleep, or it was rather an aware sort of sleep that instead of relaxing into my body and dreaming I left my body and begun to experience the room while my body “powered down.” First I began to say to myself, this is just a sound, a basic unrefined sound but just a noise really and then my head refused to make any noise, any comment or utter any “thoughts” as I was released into the space or “aura” around me. I could see my body lying down from four feet away in any direction, and it was the best impression or image of myself that I’ve found in a long time, better than any mirror image can give. Those flies which I found irritating I realized were in harmony with my feelings of irritability which I had carried in with me, and I could fly around the room as if the flies were part of me. The only pain I felt was at the head level, when I could see that a big dark block at my head masked or obstructed this free flow of energy I experienced. To stand up in that state would have been impossible. Just as I was about to fall asleep the music stopped and it was time to go.

The sound technician explained that adepts at yoga, monks or shaman masters train for years to enter such a state, and that I was very lucky to enjoy it so early. That night I slept soundly and experienced a lucid dream in the morning, but this one was much clearer and longer than any I had previously experienced. The dream was pure fantasy or very close; actually it took the form of an episode of The Simpsons! I had been thinking about skiing the night before, and in this dream the Simpson family went skiing high up in the mountains, and Bart and Lisa got involved in the dangers and thrills of racing and jumping. When I felt scared at the outcome, and the dangers posed to the characters was too great, the story changed, based on my emotions. I suddenly had the power to create a dream and change it based on my emotions. The next day as I was reading on my bed in the afternoon I saw a woman wearing white enter the room and tap me on the shoulder, I could feel the touch but the woman I didn’t know, it was still a dream. My head was telling me to get off the bed and do something else, and here was this woman who appeared also compelling me to get up.

However, I don’t believe that this “awareness” the therapy opens within me should be relied on as a permanent change. There are many habits built into me that must be recognized first if I want to avoid becoming a “ghost” that just reacts to every little breeze or stimulus. From a personal point of view, emotion is more important or as important for a person, but mind can increase awareness and therefore enrich the emotional experience. The therapy has made me more aware of the physical manifestations of mental blocks: My head was quite unwilling to leave this form and it stayed there, while my body which has been through countless ordeals was more flexible. It’s interesting to know just how much my body has priority over my head, the sounds reaching all my cells without interference from my mind. The next step would be to train my mind to listen to my body first before the noise of the outside world, and to calm the tensions existing in the body which cause the mind to have fear and to shut down.”