Speaker 1: Doesn't matter if it's the longest day of the year
Speaker 1: or the shortest day of the year. We do the
Speaker 1: Paranormal Show and we do this every Friday morning because
Speaker 1: we thought, what can we do during the week that
Speaker 1: we think would keep you entertained. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that Brian Wiltche used to do on two GB Overnight,
Speaker 1: the King of the Overnight Show, was he used to
Speaker 1: do a lot of the paranormal staff, the UFO staff,
Speaker 1: and we thought, well, that's really great. I wonder if
Speaker 1: our listeners will be interested in that. So we scour
Speaker 1: the internet to find people who are really interesting and
Speaker 1: have really interesting experiences and stories to tell. One of
Speaker 1: my favorites, of course, is Moira on the Central Coast,
Speaker 1: who's written books about UFOs and she's always good for
Speaker 1: a chat. But we've had white witches, we've had ghost hunters,
Speaker 1: and our guess this morning is in the UK. He's
Speaker 1: an author and specialist on astral projection and out of
Speaker 1: body experiences and he's got a book about this and
Speaker 1: his name is Graham Nichols. Good morning to you. So
Speaker 1: how did you get involved in this? When did this first?
Speaker 2: Well, I initially had some experiences when I was around
Speaker 2: eleven or twelve years old and basically was curious what
Speaker 2: this strange experience was and started to look into it,
Speaker 2: and I found a scientific book on the topic and
Speaker 2: basically then went from there, started to teach myself how
Speaker 2: to do it, and developed an interest in the whole area.
Speaker 1: Basically, So you were eleven years of age when you
Speaker 1: decided to look into this.
Speaker 2: I had the first experiences when I was eleven. I
Speaker 2: was about thirteen when I got the book and started
Speaker 2: to look into it more deeply.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what was the experience that set you off
Speaker 1: on this journey?
Speaker 2: Well, basically, I found myself floating out of my body.
Speaker 2: Like it's actually not that uncommon an experience percent or
Speaker 2: so if people have them. But I found myself not
Speaker 2: in the room that I was physically in, but I
Speaker 2: found myself at a distance down the road essentially and
Speaker 2: was sort of a few feet off the ground. It
Speaker 2: was intensely vivid and real. I wasn't asleep, so I
Speaker 2: wasn't dreaming or anything like that. I was just kind
Speaker 2: of relaxing. I just got back from school, was just relaxing,
Speaker 2: and then I kind of went into this altered state
Speaker 2: which is now I understand a precursor. Often people get
Speaker 2: a vibrational sensation, which is also what happened with me.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure it happened on that occasion, but it
Speaker 2: does happen usually, and then found myself in another location.
Speaker 3: Essentially, I've had.
Speaker 1: This happen to me twice, and I looked into it
Speaker 1: and somebody said to me that this often happens when
Speaker 1: you were under extreme stress or you're in a situation
Speaker 1: of duress and you tried to escape your body, which
Speaker 1: is different to what you said to me. But what
Speaker 1: happened to me was on both occasions petrified me, absolutely
Speaker 1: petrified me. And I was asleep, fast asleep, but felt
Speaker 1: myself lifting up out of my body. And then I
Speaker 1: remember trying to turn to my girlfriend and shake her
Speaker 1: arm to wake her up and say, you know what
Speaker 1: was going on, but my body wasn't reacting to that
Speaker 1: at all. And then I came crashing back with a thud,
Speaker 1: and I had all kinds of pins and needles going
Speaker 1: through me. And I know for a fact this happened
Speaker 1: because it happened twice, and I know for a fact
Speaker 1: I wasn't dreaming, because it was I was so petrified
Speaker 1: by the whole experience. Is that similar to what we're
Speaker 1: talking about here.
Speaker 3: It might be a slightly different thing.
Speaker 2: A lot of people tend to have fear responses and
Speaker 2: wake up in the middle of the night and have
Speaker 2: similar type experiences related to sleep paralysis, which is where
Speaker 2: like a waking nightmare, you wake up in the middle
Speaker 2: of the night terrified. Usually you can't move physically, and
Speaker 2: often there's a sense of presence in the room. But
Speaker 2: a lot of people do also have sensations of leaving
Speaker 2: the body and things like that. So I think that's
Speaker 2: a slightly different category of experience, maybe related. We don't
Speaker 2: know enough yet in terms of the science of what's
Speaker 2: going on to really know how related different types of
Speaker 2: experience are, but I think they're all on a kind
Speaker 2: of continuum of different forms of spiritual or paranormal or
Speaker 2: psychological experience, depending on how you look at it.
Speaker 1: Well, I didn't think paranormal, and even as I get
Speaker 1: further on in life, I still look at it as
Speaker 1: being somewhat of a spiritual experience. But you know, I
Speaker 1: know that I wasn't dreaming. I know for a fact
Speaker 1: that this actually happened, because there's no doubt in my mind.
Speaker 1: I can still remember it now, and this was forty
Speaker 1: odd years ago, the first time it's only happened to us,
Speaker 1: And you know, I can exactly remember the experience in
Speaker 1: remembering how terrified I was of this me after you'd
Speaker 1: done some study what happened then.
Speaker 2: Well, I basically started to have the experiences regularly. I
Speaker 2: got interested in the science on the topic. So now
Speaker 2: I'm involved in different parapsychological experiments and also organizations. I
Speaker 2: work with the Rhine Research Center in the US, which
Speaker 2: is the oldest organization of that type in the US,
Speaker 2: and I basically do research to try and find out
Speaker 2: what might be really going on. And I'm really interested
Speaker 2: in both what actually is happening, because there's how it
Speaker 2: feels to us, and then there's what might really be
Speaker 2: going on. So those two things are different, I think.
Speaker 2: And then also on top of that, I'm interested in
Speaker 2: how I can help other people have.
Speaker 3: The experiences as well.
Speaker 2: So that's the thing that a lot of people are
Speaker 2: curious and interested to have their own experiences.
Speaker 3: So those are the sort of things I focus on. Now.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of awareness of our physical bodies and
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. Their physical body is all
Speaker 1: there is. You know, they never ever think about the
Speaker 1: spiritual side of it. I never ever dip their toe
Speaker 1: in that. Other people go to the periphery I guess
Speaker 1: of the spiritual world, where they go to transcendental meditation
Speaker 1: or some kind of meditation. I take it that this
Speaker 1: is the next step beyond that, or three or four
Speaker 1: steps beyond that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I mean, I think it's a way
Speaker 2: to I guess, ask those questions or experience those things
Speaker 2: more directly. I think with meditation you get that sense
Speaker 2: of calm. It can lead to a feeling of non
Speaker 2: duality or a higher spiritual sense. But then there's also
Speaker 2: going beyond that kind of situation where you actually experience
Speaker 2: your whole reality or a whole sensory self, as being
Speaker 2: separate from your physical body. I don't know that that's
Speaker 2: really what happens. I do take quite a scientific angle
Speaker 2: on it. But at the same time, I think we
Speaker 2: can only really explore it by having the experience directly
Speaker 2: and learning what we can about it.
Speaker 1: So when you're having this experience, could you talk us
Speaker 1: through what happens?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: With me, now, it tends to be that I will
Speaker 2: find myself at another location sort of instantaneously, So there's
Speaker 2: a kind of trance process that.
Speaker 3: I go through.
Speaker 2: So it's almost like something like self hypnosis or meditation.
Speaker 3: Even so I'll sit down, I'll.
Speaker 2: Lay down, go through a sort of mental process a
Speaker 2: bit like hypnosis, and then I start.
Speaker 3: To go into an altered state.
Speaker 2: And then usually we'll feel something like waves of energy
Speaker 2: that feel very electrical, which is a form of the
Speaker 2: vibrational state that is commonly described.
Speaker 3: With our body experiences.
Speaker 2: And then I'll find myself. Usually it's almost like I
Speaker 2: shift from one place to another, and I'll find myself
Speaker 2: in another location.
Speaker 3: It will be very vivid.
Speaker 2: Sometimes different forms of color and lights, and my visual
Speaker 2: field will be different to how it is physically. Other
Speaker 2: times it will look very similar, and I'll be able
Speaker 2: to kind of move around, drift around, you interact with
Speaker 2: the environment to some degree.
Speaker 3: Then there are experiences that seem.
Speaker 2: To be on other levels of reality altogether, which go
Speaker 2: into the more spiritual levels that it's very hard to
Speaker 2: know objectively whether that's all completely real or whether it's
Speaker 2: partially real. I think there's a good argument for there's
Speaker 2: a combination of factors going on without our body experiences.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so there's a whole kind of range.
Speaker 2: And then I've had very powerful experiences, like precognitive experiences
Speaker 2: that seem to allow me to see something before it happens.
Speaker 2: That one was of the so Hope bombing that happened
Speaker 2: in ninety nine in London, and I had an experience
Speaker 2: of that five days before it happened. And that out
Speaker 2: of body experience that was for other people in the
Speaker 2: room with me when it happened. So it's a really
Speaker 2: interesting experience because it was sort of could be verified
Speaker 2: by others as having happened before the event happened.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about what goes on when this happens.
Speaker 1: I mean, are you aware of what's actually happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's often a very physical sense. You can move
Speaker 2: through objects sometimes and there's a you almost like feel
Speaker 2: the object. There's a sense of movement. Wind would be present,
Speaker 2: not usually, smell interestingly sometimes sound not always. But the
Speaker 2: main experience is more visual and sort of kinetic and
Speaker 2: physical sort of like sensations. Those are the main ones.
Speaker 1: There's been parallels drawn between this and near death experiences.
Speaker 1: Are they related? Do you think this kind of experience.
Speaker 2: I think that an our body experience is an aspect
Speaker 2: of a near death experience. Often people when they have
Speaker 2: a NEAREDIF experience, will have the same sensation of lifting
Speaker 2: out of their physical body, going to a different location,
Speaker 2: sometimes traveling along a tunnel. Things like that can often
Speaker 2: happen as part of a near DEIF experience. But with
Speaker 2: a NEAREDIF experiences often other elements like coming to another world,
Speaker 2: seeing relatives who've passed over, that kind of thing. So
Speaker 2: it can have other elements that are not present in
Speaker 2: the outer body experience, but the outer body experience is
Speaker 2: often a component of the near death experience.
Speaker 1: It's funny, isn't it, because people who would be cynical
Speaker 1: about this would actually believe in other body experiences from
Speaker 1: a near death experience, maybe because that's got more publicity.
Speaker 3: What do you think, Yeah, that could be the case.
Speaker 2: I think that our body experiences can happen under all
Speaker 2: different types of conditions. And I think that when someone
Speaker 2: has an accident or there some kind of like you
Speaker 2: mentioned at the beginning, some kind of stress or some
Speaker 2: intense experience happens that can cause an our body experience
Speaker 2: an illness as well, for example. But then there's also
Speaker 2: situations where it happens from a very healthy, very sort
Speaker 2: of natural type situation as well, maybe like physical exhaustion
Speaker 2: or an altered state of some description, or you know,
Speaker 2: lack of sleep. Things like that can also cause the experience.
Speaker 2: So it's when there's something that kind of pushes the
Speaker 2: body and the mind beyond the normal limits of what
Speaker 2: it's used to. I guess that it often happens naturally.
Speaker 1: From the books that I've read and the articles that
Speaker 1: I've read about people who've had near death experiences, is
Speaker 1: it's almost always epiphanous for them. They come back to
Speaker 1: their body and then their life has a completely different trajectory,
Speaker 1: usually a really good trajectory, because they look at the
Speaker 1: things that they were doing before and they've decided that
Speaker 1: that wasn't for them bad health, bad job, whatever, and
Speaker 1: it's a spiritual experience for them as well. Do you
Speaker 1: find that similar things happen with your experience and with
Speaker 1: the people that you've talked to, that it has a
Speaker 1: sort of epiphanus or euphoric experience to it.
Speaker 2: I think so for sure. I think it's definitely had
Speaker 2: a big impact on my own life. I think I've
Speaker 2: I came from quite a rough, working class background, but
Speaker 2: I think that it's led me to a much more
Speaker 2: sort of peaceful way of being in my life, and
Speaker 2: much more positive and health focused and lots of things
Speaker 2: like that. So and I see that in a lot
Speaker 2: of the students and people I work with that they
Speaker 2: described to me that they've had like a change in
Speaker 2: their life where they feel happier or healthier or calmer.
Speaker 2: Those kinds of things to tend to be the effects,
Speaker 2: I would say, So, yeah, it does seem to have
Speaker 2: a positive effect for sure.
Speaker 1: Would you classify this as being more of a mental
Speaker 1: experience or more of a spiritual experience?
Speaker 2: Well, that's that's where it gets tricky, I would say,
Speaker 2: because I think it is, we have to sort of
Speaker 2: define those terms of it. But I guess how I
Speaker 2: see it is. I think it's I think it's a
Speaker 2: degree of both. I would say, I think that I
Speaker 2: think that what we're experiencing is a kind of extension
Speaker 2: of consciousness. If you think about the brain or the
Speaker 2: mind and how the activity of the brain happens, we
Speaker 2: usually understand that to be electrical in nature.
Speaker 3: For example.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not saying this is how it works. But
Speaker 2: this is just an example. But for example, electricity is
Speaker 2: not confined necessarily to the boundaries of your brain or
Speaker 2: to the boundaries of your skull, for example, So if
Speaker 2: you have electrical activity and things like that, it could
Speaker 2: potentially extend beyond. This is sort of where the science
Speaker 2: starts to come in. And Brian Josson, for example, won
Speaker 2: the Nobel Prize for physics, so we were in the slices.
Speaker 2: He feels that there may be a quantum entanglement effect
Speaker 2: going on, a non locality effect going on within the brain.
Speaker 2: So possibly this is how these kinds of pie or
Speaker 2: psychic experiences might happen. We don't know yet, but I
Speaker 2: think there's strong evidence from the science I've been involved
Speaker 2: with that many many other people have done. So I
Speaker 2: think that what we're kind of dealing with is a
Speaker 2: bit of a mixture between our psychology and maybe this
Speaker 2: extension of the mind, this extension of consciousness beyond the brain.
Speaker 2: I think it's probably a mixture of the two. So
Speaker 2: depends how we look.
Speaker 3: At the spiritual.
Speaker 2: But I guess if we see the spiritual as something
Speaker 2: that has a positive or a beneficial effect through a
Speaker 2: sort of expansion.
Speaker 3: Of the mind.
Speaker 2: Then I would say, yes, there's a combination of the.
Speaker 1: Two, and of course you would find it hard to
Speaker 1: get science to cross into the spiritual world. But when
Speaker 1: they've done tests with people who've been doing meditation on
Speaker 1: the electrical energy from the brain, they've got verifiable proof
Speaker 1: there that something's going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think I think actually science parapsychology, which
Speaker 2: is a proper field of science, is.
Speaker 3: Very open to these things.
Speaker 2: It's just that unfortunately mainstream scientists are not very aware
Speaker 2: of parapsychology, or they dismiss it because of very vocal
Speaker 2: skeptics in the media and things like that. But I
Speaker 2: think if you actually look at the research that's been
Speaker 2: done for the last one hundred and forty years or more,
Speaker 2: there's very good, repeatable experiments that have shown evidence for
Speaker 2: especially things like telepathy, but also precognition, often in the
Speaker 2: form of presentiment, which means like feeling a sense of
Speaker 2: something going to happen. So that's foreboding that a lot
Speaker 2: of people might get before they and they maybe decide
Speaker 2: not to go around a corner and then two cars
Speaker 2: crash or you know, we've all heard stories of that
Speaker 2: kind of scenario. Where you get that gut feeling. Well,
Speaker 2: there's been research looking at that, the sense of being
Speaker 2: stared at. I worked with Rupertshaw Drake, who was a
Speaker 2: scientist in the UK who looks at the idea of
Speaker 2: the sense of being stared at. So when you get
Speaker 2: that feeling kind of on the back of your neck
Speaker 2: that someone's looking at you, when you turn around and
Speaker 2: they're looking at you, that's often dismissed as oh, it's
Speaker 2: just chance, But when you actually look at the research
Speaker 2: that's been done, you find that actually it's above what
Speaker 2: you would expect by chance, and people do seem to
Speaker 2: be able to have a sense of when someone's looking
Speaker 2: at them.
Speaker 1: Well, that's right if you break it down to that,
Speaker 1: it's inherent in everybody. Everybody has that ability within them.
Speaker 1: Could you suggest one of your books for people to read.
Speaker 2: Well, I've just released a special edition, updated version of
Speaker 2: my classic book which is Navigating the Outer Body Experience,
Speaker 2: So that goes into all of the things I'm talking about,
Speaker 2: and lots of techniques and methods for people to have
Speaker 2: their own experiences as well.
Speaker 1: Great, an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: You're very welcome.