I guess everyone picks and chooses what they're willing to be open-minded about. It also requires a bit of open-mindedness to consider the possibility that OBE are exactly that... experiences in which the consciousness is not in the body. (Carol)

Carol, you go there really to the heart of the matter, the very reason I came posting to this thread in my first post. When you peruse this and similar threads you will never find that I only follow one hypothesis or ever claim to know for sure what the correct theory is. What has bothered me here from the very beginning (and in other threads as well) are people who follow only one interpretation and have the hubris to claim that they know for sure. That's why I cited Kendall's good thought and cited who it was here to claim certain knowledge instead of uncertain interpretation.

If people here posted that they had this or that experience and their interpretation was that..., I would not have posted my first post and not this one. I have no problems at all with people coming to a different interpretation.

The 'experiences in which the consciousness is not in the body' is nothing I have any problems with. In most of my dreams my center of consciousness is not in the body (often I see myself in a bird perspective). That the 'I' of personal experience in the awake person is usually behind the 'eye' (or somewhere below but mostly within the confines of the body) makes a lot of sense, for motor control is much more easy that way. But the point of the subjective 'I' can shift (by several methods and exercises). I can easily (well, not that easy with open eyes) transfer my 'I' in thought to a point where my body is not (phantasies, daydreaming, etc). The experience part is open to me too. Only the interpretation of that experience that's where I differ.

Wolfgang