OUTER-BODY EXPERIENCES & IMAGINATION [#17696]

QUESTION: There’s something called “astral journey” in which a person can be hypnotized and have an outer-body experience and explore his fantasies. Since I practiced all kinds of spirituality, I was imbalanced and my spiritual experiences were not aligned with Torah. I would have these “astral journeys” when I was sleeping and also when I was awake, and my entire body would go limp and I would lose control over my body, and my focus would change, and there were all kinds of phenomenon that I experienced in connection with this. Can the Rav direct me to any Torah sources about this phenomenon, which can guide me properly on this subject, and can the Rav explain what causes this phenomenon to take place?

: “There are some people who can experience this due to impure spirituality or because they are not balanced properly. There are also those who are able to do these things since they were born, who have a space they can go to between their soul and their body, which causes them to have this outer-body experience. I do not know of any sefarim that speak about this subject. Generally, the way to repair this issue is through developing the power of our intellect, to make our thinking mind more active, and especially by using the mind to think more about Torah, by learning Gemara. The mind needs to be used both analytically as well as for the sake of action. One also needs to become more connected with keeping halachah. Along with this, one also needs to purify the imagination and sift out the bad from the good in it, as explained in “Getting To Know Your Imagination.”