Just a Dream or an Out-of-Body Experience?

By: Tony John

Exploring Dreams, Consciousness, and the Question of the Soul During Sleep

Have you ever had a dream where you thought your soul left your body, or perhaps you experienced what some people call an out-of-body experience (OBE)? Throughout my life, I have had dreams of flying, teleporting, walking through walls, and even having telekinetic abilities. I have also been able to end dreams that I no longer wanted to be part of.

Over the past ten years or so, I have experienced dreams that made me wonder if my soul had actually left my body on several occasions. Is it possible for your soul to leave your body while sleeping or unconscious? That question has remained with me for years.

---

The Neighborhood Flight

On January 26, 2015, I may have experienced what I believed could have been an out-of-body experience while dreaming.

In the dream, I was flying around a neighborhood and came upon a one-story house. As I approached, I peeked through a window and noticed a little girl with long brown hair. I knocked on the window, waved, and smiled. She looked directly at me, smiled, and waved back.

Next, I arrived at another one-story house where I saw a young woman with short blonde hair. I knocked on the window, smiled, and waved. Unlike the little girl, this young woman appeared to look right through me as if she could not see me at all. She wore a confused expression on her face.

After that, I traveled to a different house and saw an elderly man. Once again, I knocked on the window, smiled, and waved. He smiled and waved back at me.

I eventually decided to return home to the apartment building where I was living at the time. The building had three levels. I lived on the basement level. As I floated alongside it, I knocked on several windows and waved to some of the tenants from outside.

I then floated up to the roof and entered the apartment on the third floor. As I descended headfirst through the apartment, I noticed an older woman with short blonde hair sitting on a couch. She was on the third level, directly above my apartment. As I floated by, I smiled and waved. She turned her head toward me, though I could never tell if she actually saw me.

What makes this experience interesting is that there really was an older woman with short blonde hair living directly above my apartment at that time.

As I approached my own apartment, I could feel myself slowly falling toward my bed. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Moments later, the dream ended.

To this day, I still wonder if that experience was simply a dream or something more. Was it possible that I had an out-of-body experience? Is there a reason why the little girl and the elderly man seemed able to see me while the young woman did not?

Over the years, I have heard stories suggesting that small children and elderly individuals may be more sensitive to spiritual or unexplained phenomena. Whether there is any truth to those claims, I do not know. Still, the experience left me with questions that remain unanswered.

---

The Soldier in the Field

On May 14, 2015, I had another experience that made me question whether I had encountered an out-of-body experience.

This dream began with me flying over an open field. In the distance, I noticed a man standing alone. As I descended toward him, I realized he appeared to be a soldier from a war that had taken place in the past. He looked as though he could have been from World War I, World War II, or perhaps even the Vietnam War.

The soldier was crouched down, and at first all I could see was a helmet and what appeared to be a green cape or military covering.

I swooped down in front of him, waved, and greeted him with a friendly, “Hi.”

The soldier immediately stood up in surprise and asked, “Whoa, whoa, where did you come from? Are you dead?”

I shook my head and answered, “No.”

He then asked, “Are you alive?”

This time I nodded and replied, “Yes.”

The soldier stared at me and responded, “But that’s impossible. Your body seems so light.”

At that point, I told him, “Well, sorry, I have to go.”

He quickly replied, “Wait, wait!”

During our conversation, I noticed that he appeared young, with reddish-blond curly hair and freckles on his face. I also noticed that I was hovering in front of him and that my feet never touched the ground.

When I later reflected on the experience, I wondered what exactly had happened. Was it another out-of-body experience? Had I somehow entered another dimension? Or was it simply a vivid dream?

---

Understanding Out-of-Body Experiences

For those unfamiliar with the term “out-of-body experience,” what exactly does it mean?

An out-of-body experience, often referred to as an OBE, is the sensation of one’s consciousness existing outside of the physical body. Some people report experiencing OBEs during sleep, lucid dreaming, near-death experiences, medical procedures, or periods of extreme stress and trauma. Others associate them with conditions such as migraines, epilepsy, anxiety, depression, or certain sleep-related phenomena.

Researchers who have studied OBEs have found that many reported experiences occur during the transition between wakefulness and sleep, just before falling asleep, while resting, or shortly before waking up.

---

Leaving the Body While Sleeping

Within the last five years leading up to 2026, I have experienced multiple dreams that made me wonder whether my soul or consciousness had actually left my body while I was sleeping.

Every now and then, I will wake up during the night and then try to fall back asleep. At the exact moment I drift off, my body begins to feel weightless and calm. It is a sensation unlike anything I experience while fully awake. During these moments, I can sometimes see myself getting up or standing.

On several occasions, I have been aware that I had just fallen asleep because I could still hear the television playing in the background. I often fall asleep with the TV on and set a timer for it to shut off after a couple of hours. Sometimes I wake up and turn it back on, though not always.

Once I enter this dream state, I find myself getting up and walking around. Other times, I leave through a window and venture outside. One thing I often do is attempt to touch a nearby wall before getting up. If my arm passes through the wall, I know I am no longer awake and have entered a dream state.

At times, I can actually feel my arms moving beneath the covers as I reach out toward the wall beside my bed. Most of the time, my room looks exactly as it does in real life. When I go outside, the surroundings may initially seem familiar, but then the scenery suddenly changes into a place I do not recognize.

Whenever this happens, I often approach people and ask them where I am or what year it is. There have been occasions when it felt as though I had somehow traveled back in time.

I have experienced similar events while falling asleep in my recliner while watching television. During those moments, I can still hear the TV playing in the background. I can feel my light body getting out of the chair and walking around the room. I look around and recognize my living room, yet something feels different. Despite all of these experiences, I have never actually seen my physical body sleeping.

That leaves me with the same question I have asked for years: Was it simply a dream, or was it an out-of-body experience?

Have you ever experienced dreams like these or wondered if they were something more? If so, you are certainly not alone.

---

Dreams of Another Time

Over the last three years leading into 2026, I have also experienced recurring dreams about living in an unfamiliar city that appeared to exist sometime during the 1970s or 1980s.

In one particular dream, I was a teenage boy spending time with a group of friends. I left what seemed to be either a house or an apartment and met up with several other boys outside. I remember seeing older model vehicles parked along the streets, giving the entire area a distinct feeling from another era.

As we walked through the neighborhood, we encountered a rival group of boys around our age. Without warning, a large fight broke out.

I found myself fighting another boy. During the struggle, I began hitting him with what appeared to be a stick or a bat. The confrontation became increasingly violent. At some point, I pulled out a knife and repeatedly stabbed him. Then I suddenly woke up.

The dream was disturbing and left me wondering why it felt so real.

On another occasion, I dreamed that I was an older man attending a meeting with several Mafia members. The gathering appeared to take place inside a pizza restaurant. The room contained individuals who seemed to be bosses and made men from various crime families.

I do not remember much of what was discussed during the meeting, but the atmosphere felt serious and important.

In a different dream, I found myself once again among the same group of Mafia members. This time, there was discussion about setting me up to carry out a hit so that I could become a made man. Later in the dream, I encountered another Mafia member from a different family. I drew a gun and pulled the trigger.

After experiencing these dreams, I began to wonder why organized crime and Mafia-related scenarios kept appearing in my sleep. Was my mind simply creating fictional stories? Was I witnessing events from another time period? Could I have somehow traveled into the past? Or could these experiences suggest that my soul lived another life before this one?

Again, I found myself returning to the same question:

Was it just a dream, or was it something more?

---

Accounts Shared by Others

The following two accounts were shared by individuals discussing their experiences with out-of-body experiences and lucid dreaming. After reading them, I found several similarities between their experiences and my own, so I thought they were worth sharing.

The first account came from a person who described becoming aware that they were falling asleep. As they drifted off, they experienced a heavy sinking sensation while everything around them became dark. Suddenly, they felt intense vibrations throughout their entire body.

Rather than panic, they chose to remain calm and allow the experience to continue. Shortly afterward, they found themselves in what they described as a lucid dream inside their own home. They reported difficulty moving and felt as if gravity was pulling them in multiple directions. Their surroundings appeared in shades of black and gray.

When the experience ended, they woke up feeling as though they had been asleep for an extremely long time. Although only a short period had passed, the experience itself seemed to last for hours. The individual stated that they felt fully conscious and emotionally aware throughout the event and noted that they had experienced similar incidents in the past, including episodes involving sleep paralysis.

The second account came from a woman who worked as a nanny. One day, after the children had gone to school, she lay down for a nap in a spare bedroom.

As she drifted to sleep, she experienced an overwhelming sense of peace and calm unlike anything she had felt before or since. She then felt her body slowly rising from the bed and floating toward the ceiling.

As the sensation continued, she found herself pressed against the ceiling and slowly being pulled toward the doorway. She described the feeling as though some powerful force or magnet was drawing her toward an unknown destination.

Eventually, fear set in. She tried to scream, but no sound came out. Although she could feel the muscles in her jaw attempting to move, her mouth remained closed. She began struggling and attempting to kick away from the ceiling in an effort to stop the experience.

Moments later, she woke up on the floor beside the bed.

Stories like these raise interesting questions about dreams, consciousness, sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, and out-of-body experiences. While science has offered several theories to explain these events, many people continue to report experiences that leave them searching for answers.

---

Conclusion: Questions Without Answers

In the end, I still do not know whether any of these experiences were true out-of-body experiences, lucid dreams, vivid creations of the mind, or something else entirely. What I do know is that they felt real enough to stay with me long after I woke up. Some of these experiences happened more than a decade ago, yet I can still remember many of the details as if they occurred yesterday.

Throughout history, people have reported dreams, visions, and experiences that challenged their understanding of reality. Some believe these events are simply the mind at work during sleep, while others believe they may represent something deeper that science has yet to fully explain. I am not claiming to know which explanation is correct.

Perhaps there are answers that will eventually be discovered, and perhaps some mysteries will always remain unanswered. Until then, I can only share what I experienced and continue asking the same questions that have followed me for years.

Were they just dreams?

Were they out-of-body experiences?

Or was I experiencing something entirely different?

Whatever the answer may be, the experiences were real to me, and they continue to make me wonder about the true nature of consciousness, reality, and the possibility that there is far more to existence than we currently understand.

---

---

References:

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-happens-when-you-have-an-out-of-body-experience-6823474

https://www.healthline.com/health/out-of-body-experience#symptoms

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-body_experience

https://www.out-of-the-body.com/post/is-time-travel-possible-during-out-of-body-experiences-facts-and-fiction-of-the-flash-effect

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sleepless-in-america/201712/can-we-travel-out-of-our-bodies-when-we-sleep?msockid=11148e6af4776dc8355298aaf5096cb5

https://www.reddit.com/r/outofbodyexperiences

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

🔥 NOW AVAILABLE! 🔥

‎👉 Eclipsera – Apple Music

---

---

---

---

---