Astral Projection, Does It Exist?

                JOURANAL CRITICAL THINKIG: DEVELOP A RESEARCH DESIGN

My question I am interested in knowing is, are out of body experiences, some call it astral projection, real or hoax?

What is astral projection? Astral projection is the ability to separate one’s physical body from their spiritual one. Astral projection sounds fun- but is it real?  I would like to think so. From what I have read, the idea of out of body experiences has been around pretty much since the beginning of time itself. The idea that it is possible to commune with cosmic intelligence through visions and vivid dreams experienced during astral projection has always fascinated me. An old Blackfoot Indian once told me that many people experience astral projection, or out of body experiences, more than once in their lifetime, but don’t realize that is exactly what it is, or don’t want to believe that is what is happening. A lot of time its due to the fact of their strong religious beliefs and that they “must be possessed by evil” for something like that and don’t want shamed by their religious community. It would seem the problem is that there's really no way to scientifically measure whether or not a person's spirit "leaves" or "enters" the body up to this point.  The simplest and best explanation for out-of-body experiences is that the person is merely fantasizing and dreaming. Because there has been no scientific evidence that consciousness can exist outside of the brain, astral projection is rejected by most scientists. 

So how would I scientifically go about proving that it does indeed exist? Scientifically testing the how valid astral projection or travel is you would think to be quite simple; for example, maybe we could hide a few objects at different locations. Then ask several volunteers to project their consciousness to these different locations and describe exactly what they see there. Either the descriptions match, or they don't. Right? Easy peasy? Perhaps. Or perhaps, you have an extraneous variable where they could “travel” and the objects could have been moved in your absence and then you’re back at square one.

Of course, I would have to ensure that my volunteers are not under the influence of alcohol or drugs. I would not need any other circumstances to taint the experiment. I would also want to have a parapsychologist in place during the experiment in order to help me study want is going on during the experiment. I would like to have approximately 10 volunteers. 5 who would be subjected to an Independent Variable. For this part of the experiment I would have the 5 volunteers sit in a darkened room, in a relaxed position, say a recliner. I would place headphones on them and play relaxing music for them to relax and be prepared for “travel”. However, mixed in the relaxing music would be subliminal messages intertwined. Sort of like a type of hypnotism to influence them and the results. During the experiment with these 5 volunteers, they will be asked to project their consciousness to a specific location. All along these subliminal messages are being played, telling them what they will see, what they will feel and how they will react while “traveling”. While they are in full experience, they will be asked what they see, hear, feel and how they are reacting to each.