A very young girl, about seven years old, lies asleep. Though her body rests, her mind is wide awake in a shadowy realm. This feels different—the dreams before didn’t feel like this. She can’t find herself. She’s present, but where?

As she looks around, realization dawns—she’s floating in midair. Not exactly flying, more like gently gliding upwards away from the ground. Just as she prepares to explore, her attention halts at a house ahead. Or rather, what remains of it.

This isn’t some random dream scene—it’s the home she once grew up in.

Without hesitation, driven only by desire, she drifts closer, rising just a little higher.

Inside, there are people. So many people. Who are they? Why are they here? Firefighters! About nine of them. They’re finishing draining water from a hose. There’s no fire, only ash. She watches as the men go about their ordinary tasks. Nothing surreal.

This dream doesn’t feel like the others. It seems real—except for the floating.

She tries calling out, but no one notices. She’s invisible to them.

Suddenly, her eyes snap open.

It’s strange. The feeling won’t leave her.

“I had a strange dream,” she says.
Her mother asks what happened.
“I was floating above the old house, watching firemen putting out a fire. The house was gone. It all felt so real.”

Her mother’s face stiffens.
“What?” the girl asks.

“How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“The firemen were just here, using the hose for training. They set the house on fire and put it out.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. The house is gone.”

Both faces remain expressionless.

“I went out of my body!”

But she didn’t only astral travel—she time traveled.

“It felt real. They couldn’t see or hear me, but I watched them walking around. It wasn’t a dream.”

“Because it wasn’t.”

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That girl was me. This is true. It wasn't the only time that I astral traveled. I didn't understand what I was doing. It happened very little.

I remember gazing in a trance outside my bedroom window. It was only many years later that I realized it was impossible for me to see some things that I saw. Impossible, from my bed inside my bedroom. No wonder I felt floaty.

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Growing up, I went back and forth about belief in out of body experiences. Back and forth, until I looked back on those two adventures.

I don't understand it, but know it's real.

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What is Astral Projection and CIA research

Most people dismiss out-of-body experiences (OBEs) as vivid dreams or strange hallucinations. Yet for centuries, people across the globe have reported the same thing: floating above their own bodies, traveling to distant locations, or viewing events from an elevated, disembodied perspective — all while fully conscious.

What’s more surprising? Some of these accounts are documented. Some were studied under controlled conditions. And yes — the CIA took an interest, too.

Here are some of the most intriguing real case studies of OBEs, alongside a look at the declassified U.S. government documents that reveal just how seriously this phenomenon was taken behind closed doors.

1. The CIA and the Gateway Experience

In 2003, the CIA quietly declassified a document titled “Analysis and Assessment of Gateway Process”, a 29-page report originally written in 1983 by Army Lieutenant Colonel Wayne M. McDonnell. It was part of a broader investigation into a program called the Gateway Experience, developed by the Monroe Institute, which claimed to use sound frequencies to induce altered states of consciousness — including OBEs.

McDonnell's analysis describes how specific audio techniques (called Hemi-Sync) could bring the brain into a highly receptive “theta” state, which could lead to an out-of-body shift. He referenced multiple sessions where participants described leaving their bodies, floating, and even traveling across dimensions or meeting entities.

What’s most striking about this CIA document isn’t the sensational content — it’s the dry, methodical tone. This wasn’t a New Age blog post; it was an official military report assessing whether human consciousness could be trained to move beyond the body.

🔗 Where to find it: CIA.gov Reading Room – Gateway Process Report (CIA-RDP96-00788R001700210016-5)

1. The Case of “Miss Z” – Studied by Dr. Charles Tart

In the late 1960s, psychologist Dr. Charles Tart conducted sleep studies on a woman known only as “Miss Z.” She claimed she could induce OBEs at will. Tart devised a simple test: he placed a five-digit number on a high shelf that Miss Z could only see if her awareness actually floated above her body.

After several nights of testing, Miss Z accurately reported the number — which had been placed where she could not see it from her bed. Tart published this finding in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

While skeptics have pointed out that the controls weren’t airtight (she wasn’t monitored continuously), no one has been able to prove cheating, and the case remains one of the few semi-controlled lab attempts to document an OBE.

🔗 Where to find it: Look up Charles Tart Miss Z OBE Study — it’s widely cited in academic and parapsychological circles. Link to case summary

1. Ingo Swann – The CIA’s “Psychic Spy”

Ingo Swann wasn’t just your average OBE enthusiast. He became the backbone of the CIA’s Stargate Project, a decades-long classified initiative to explore psychic phenomena like remote viewing (a cousin of OBE).

Swann claimed he could project his consciousness not only outside his body, but across vast distances — even to the Moon. In tests conducted at Stanford Research Institute, Swann described locations and objects with eerie accuracy. One famous example: he described Jupiter’s rings — before NASA's Pioneer 10 probe confirmed them in 1979.

While remote viewing is slightly different than astral projection, Swann described the experience as a split from his body where he traveled in a “non-physical vehicle of awareness.”

🔗 Where to find it: The full Stargate files were declassified in the mid-1990s and can be found here: CIA Stargate Collection

1. Robert Monroe – Father of Modern Astral Projection

If you've ever searched for how to “astral project,” you've probably come across Robert Monroe. A successful radio executive, Monroe began having spontaneous OBEs in the 1950s. Disturbed but curious, he began documenting his journeys — which included visits to other realms, out-of-body travel across the Earth, and contact with non-human beings.

He went on to found the Monroe Institute, a Virginia-based research and training center that developed the “Hemi-Sync” technique — the same one later tested by the CIA.

Monroe’s books, especially Journeys Out of the Body, are considered essential reading by both scientists and spiritual seekers interested in OBEs.

🔗 Where to find it: monroeinstitute.org

Final Thoughts

Skeptics are right to raise eyebrows. None of these cases meet the gold standard of repeatable, double-blind scientific evidence. But that doesn’t mean they’re not worth paying attention to. When the CIA spends years training psychic spies, when trained scientists record accurate number readings from sleepers, and when thousands of people describe the same floating sensations with eerie consistency — it may be time to stop laughing and start listening.

Whether OBEs are purely mental projections, glitches in consciousness, or genuine slips into another dimension, one thing is clear: people are experiencing something real to them. I was never fully sure if I briefed obe's were real until I experienced it.

*This world is far more than we comprehend. Strange enigmas.

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