VERIDICAL OOBE

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An interesting example of a veridical out-of-body experience in a near death situation involves Ted, a twenty-six-year-old African American teacher suffering from inoperable cancer. In the course of his disease, Ted had three high-dose LSD sessions that he found very useful in helping him to cope with his cancer and his fear of death. Later, his condition deteriorated, and one of the metastatic tumors obstructed his ureter. This caused dangerous stagnation of urine in the calyx of his kidney, resulting in accumulation of toxic metabolic products in his blood. After Ted had spent eight days in progressively worsening uremia, we received an urgent telephone call from his wife, Lilly. Ted asked to see me and Joan, who was my wife and cotherapist at the time, to discuss an issue that he considered to be of utmost importance. By the time we arrived at the intensive care unit of Sinai Hospital, Ted’s condition had deteriorated considerably, and he appeared to be in a coma. He was surrounded by several of his relatives, who tried to communicate with him. Ted did not respond, except for occasional quite incomprehensible mumbling. It was apparent that his death was imminent. While I was comforting Lilly and the other family members, trying to help them accept the situation, Joan sat down by Ted’s side and talked to him gently, using her own Westernized version of the instructions from the Bardo Thödol. In essence, she was suggesting that he move toward light and merge with it, unafraid of its brilliance. At the time when everybody in the room seemed to have accepted Ted’s imminent death, a very unexpected thing happened. In the last moment, the surgical team decided to operate after all. Without forewarning, two male attendants suddenly entered the room, transferred Ted to a gurney, and took him to the operating room. All the people in the room were shocked by what appeared to be a brutal intrusion into an intimate and special situation. We later found out that, during the operation, Ted had two cardiac arrests resulting in clinical death and was resuscitated on both occasions. We went home to take a shower and change our clothes because we had plans to go out that evening. On the way to the downtown area, we decided to stop by the hospital once more to see how Ted was doing. When we arrived, he was in the intensive care unit recovering from anesthesia. This time, he was conscious and able to talk. “Hi. Thank you for stopping by twice in a single day,” he greeted us. He looked at Joan and surprised her with an unexpected, yet accurate, comment: “You changed your clothes; are you going somewhere tonight?” He then proceeded to tell us that he saw us come earlier that day, but was unable to communicate with us because his consciousness was high up at the ceiling, and he could not connect with his body.

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Veridical OOBE (Out-of-Body Experience)

Definition

• A veridical OBE is an out-of-body experience in which a person reports accurate, independently verifiable perceptions of events or objects they could not have sensed normally.

Key Characteristics

• Occurs during clinical death, cardiac arrest, anesthesia, trauma, or deep altered states.

• The experiencer perceives the environment from a vantage point outside the physical body.

• Information is later confirmed as factually correct.

• Perceptions often include:

  • Medical procedures

  • Conversations

  • Objects hidden or out of sight

  • Events in distant locations

Why “Veridical” Matters

• “Veridical” = truthful / accurate

• Distinguishes these cases from:

  • Hallucinations

  • Dreams

  • Confabulations

• Central challenge to the idea that consciousness is produced solely by the brain.

Classic Examples

• Patients accurately describing:

  • Surgical instruments used while unconscious

  • Actions of doctors and nurses during resuscitation

  • Specific sounds or statements made in the room

• Some reports include correct details from outside the hospital room.

Scientific & Philosophical Implications

• Suggests perception without sensory input.

• Supports models where consciousness may be:

  • Nonlocal

  • Not fully dependent on neural activity

• Frequently cited by:

  • Near-Death Experience (NDE) researchers

  • Transpersonal psychologists (e.g., Grof)

  • Consciousness studies scholars

Skeptical Explanations

• Residual brain activity

• Reconstruction from memory

• Chance coincidence

• Information leakage
  (None fully explain the strongest cases)

Relation to Jung & Grof

• Jung: aligns with psyche transcending space

• Grof: evidence for consciousness beyond the brain

• Complements synchronicity and nonlocal mind theories

One-Line Summary

A veridical OBE is a verified perception without a body—posing a direct challenge to materialist models of consciousness.

If you want, I can add:

• Famous documented cases

• Comparison with astral projection

• Neuroscience vs transpersonal interpretations

• Short quotes or a presentation slide version

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In Christianity, the relics of the saints, the weeping or bleeding statues of the Virgin Mary, and the shroud of Turin, a centuries-old linen cloth that bears the image of a crucified man, are seen as objects with miraculous properties. The tombs of the martyrs are said to be places where allegedly “the blind and cripples are restored to health, the dead recalled to life, and devils expelled from the bodies of men.” According to legend, the “Spear of Destiny,” the weapon that Gaius Cassius Longinus allegedly used to pierce the body of the crucified Jesus, brought its owner the power to conquer the world, but its loss would cause immediate death. Mythological examples of objects with supernatural powers are King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, and the Holy Grail.

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