Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by origin-unknown 4106 days ago
The environment is practically identical to your physical location. You have the same level of awareness that you have here, only you can walk through solid objects and fly, etc.

However, you will often project things onto the environment subconsciously, so it may not be exactly in line with the physical world.

It's like there is a description of the world there that we can access, but we can also overlay our own constructs on top of that description. An unbridled mind fills the environment with seemingly random imagery and we experience dreams, but a concentrated mind sees the environment itself.

It's really not much different from being awake actually - sometimes you're fully aware of your concrete surroundings and other times you're lost in abstract daydreams, completely oblivious to what's going on around you.

As for "looking" at yourself, I usually wouldn't see my body, but I'd feel a strong magnetic pull coming from that area of the room. If I got too close, I'd get sucked into my body and wake up.

I believe data about the physical world is available during an out of body experience, but it's impossible to be entirely objective about it since, whether in the body or "outside" of it, we have no choice but to access that data through a mental construct, i.e., an experience.