One of the most famous, and often-told, incidents of out-of-body experience was that of Dr. A.S. Wiltse, an American doctor who was deemed to have died in Skiddy, Kansas, in 1889, but who “woke up” a few hours later.

The doctor apparently died of typhoid after saying goodbye to family and friends. He “woke up” feeling unconnected with his body, though still inside it. He was able to examine the connection between the body and his soul ~ which he now seemed to be. “I learned that the [skin] was the outside boundary of the ultimate tissues, so to speak, of the soul.”

With a kind of rocking movement, he separated from his body feeling the “innumerable snapping of small cords”.

“As I emerged from the head I floated up and down like a soap bubble until at last I broke loose from the body and fell lightly to the floor, where I slowly rose and expanded to the full stature of a man.” As he turned to make for the door his elbow brushed against a man in the room and passed right through him.

He walked out of the door and noticed a thin cord, “like a spider’s web”, running from his shoulders back to his body on the bed.

He then started to walk down the road and saw three rocks ahead of him. A voice that seemed to speak from within him said that if he passed the rocks he would go into the “eternal world”, but that he had the choice to return. As he looked through an archway, he saw a small black cloud and felt he would be stopped.

Suddenly, he awoke, still lying on the bed. He told everyone what had happened, but they merely urged him to rest, no doubt astonished by his recovery.

For a fuller version of this experience, see Colin Wilson’s “Afterlife”. Check here for the latest price.