Out of body experiences and the Hanged Man Tarot Card
Out of body experiences or dreaming of getting out of our body are an overwhelming phenomenon.
Dreams of this kind belong to extra-corporeal experiences (OOB or “out of body experience”). We can experiment Out of Body experiences with different degrees of lucidity (when we are aware that we are dreaming).
In the most upsetting cases they are traumatic experiences and at the limits of the mystic. Our mind is aware and clearly perceives the body as immobile, as if it were a separate entity from which we are slipping away.
At more nuanced levels, the experience remains confined to the context of a dream. In this case it is interesting to examine their symbolic connotations.
Tarot images can be used to interpret dreams of leaving the body or Out of Body experiences. There are two Tarot cards in particular that can represent the idea of dreams with extra-corporeal experiences.
Hanged Man Tarot Card and the Out of Body experiences
The first Tarot is the Hanged Man and can describe the phenomenology of the Out Of Body experiences.
This image lends itself to the general idea of an extra-corporeal experience. In the Hanged Man of the Tarot is in fact represented a man with his body immobilized. However the Hanged Man has its eyes open, so he is aware, conscious.
The Tarot Tower card and OOB
The other Tarot card with a meaning which may be related to OOB experiences is the Tower or “House-God”. This Major Arcanum helps to understand the symbolism of extra-corporeal experience.
The Arcanum of the Tower conveys the idea of a solid construction that collapses. The tower is a metaphor for our body or our jungian “Persona“.
Two people come out of the tower, and at the height of the battlements (our head) you can see a subtle element, a sort of lightning that hits the tower. Or alternatively an energy released from the inside of the Tower that rejoins the solar disk.
The idea is that of a shattering of our conscious one-sidedness. Two separate entities emerge, a symbolism connected to duality. We note in fact two characters “freed” from the tower. We are not that mask with whom we identify ourselves, but rather we are an entity of a spiritual nature enclosed in a material envelope.
Meaning of OOB Experiences
This kind of experiences can bear different meanings, depending on the conscious attitude on which we are unbalanced.
It is an invitation to reduce the power of our Ego, recognizing that in our home we are not the only inhabitants!
OOB experiences are also a hint to accept a more spiritual vision of life, by stopping identifying merely with the shell of our body.
On the contrary, these experiences can suggest us that we live too separated from our physical body. In other words, we prefer mental and spiritual aspects to the detriment of material and sensorial aspects.
OniroTarologia 