"How common are OBEs?"


Two surveys have used properly balanced samples drawn from specified populations. The first was conducted by Palmer and Dennis [PD75, Pal79b]. They chose the inhabitants of Charlottesville, Virginia, a town of some 35,000 people and selected 1,000 of these as their sample. The question on OBEs was worded as follows: 'Have you ever had an experience in which you felt that "you" were located "outside of" or "away from" your physical body; that is the feeling that your consciousness, mind, or center of awareness was at a different place than your physical body? (If in doubt, please answer "no".)' To this 25% of students and 14% of the townspeople said 'yes.'

Further data from this survey reveals that no relationship between age and reported OBEs was found. Palmer found a significant positive relationship between drug use and OBEs and concluded that this could account for the higher prevalence of OBEs in students. This relationship receives confirmation from work by Tart [Tar71]. In a survey of 150 marijuana users he found that 44% claimed to have OBEs. It seems possible that the use of this drug facilitate OBEs.

The second survey using a properly constructed sample was carried out by Erlendur Haraldsson, an Icelandic researcher, and his colleagues [HGRLJ76]. For the survey a questionnaire was sent to a random sample of 1157 persons between ages of 30 and 70 years. There were 53 questions on various psychic and psi-related experiences including a translation of Palmer's question. To this, only 8% of the Icelanders replied yes.


TABLE: Surveys of the OBE [Bla82]

Author	Year	Respondents	Size of Sample	# 'YES'	% 'YES'
Hart	1954	Sociology students	113	28	25
		Sociology students	42	14	33
Green	1966	Southampton University students	115	22	19
	1967	Oxford University students	380	131	34
Palmer	1975	Charlottesville
		Townspeople	-	-	14
		Students	-	-	25
Tart	1971	Marijuana users	150	66	44
Haraldsson	1977	Icelanders	-	-	8
Blackmore	1980	Surrey University students	216	28	13
		Bristol University students	115	16	14
Irwin	1980	Australian students	177	36	20
Bierman & Blackmore	1980	Amsterdam students	191	34	18
Kohr	1980	Members of Association for Research and Enlightenment	-	-	50

Those vague statements about OBEs being 'common' are now backed up by a variety of figures. Blackmore gives a personal estimate of the incidence of OBEs, based on all the available evidence, putting it at around 10%. She thinks we can say with more conviction that the OBE is a fairly common experience.

The surveys show that if a person has had one OBE he or she is more likely to have another. All these figures are far higher than you would expect if OBEs were distributed at random in the population.

Green went on to compare different groups to see whether they had had different numbers of OBEs. Her only finding was that OBEers were more likely to report experiences which they thought could only be attributed to ESP. Palmer and Kohr found that subjects who reported one type of 'psychic' or 'psi-related' experience also tended to report others.

Palmer also, like Green, found that many simple variables were irrelevant. Sex, age, race, birth order, political views, religion, religiosity, education, occupation and income were all unrelated to OBEs.

Palmer found significant relationships between OBEs and practising meditation, mystical experiences and, as we have already seen, drug experiences. Palmer had over 100 people reporting one or more OBEs, and asked them various questions about the experience. They were asked whether they had seen their physical body from 'outside' and this was reported for 44% of the experiences and by nearly 60% of the OBEers. Fewer than 20% of experiences involved 'traveling' and fewer than 30% of OBEers reported it. Still fewer reported that they had acquired information by ESP while 'out- of-the-body,' about 14% of people and 5% of experiences, or had appeared as an apparition to someone else (less than 10% or OBEers). These results confirm the findings of the case collections: that few OBEs include all the features of a classical astral projection.

Overall the OBE seemed to have had a highly beneficial effect on its experiencers. Many claimed their fear of death was reduced, and their mental health and social relationships improved. Ninety-five per cent said they would like to have another OBE.