Meditation is the first element that the ancient Egyptians used for out of body travel. They recorded this as concentrating on nothing more than the visions they would see with their eyes closed and being nearly asleep. The flashes of patterns and lights that they would see represented the beginning of their journey to another plane in space and time while traveling in their astral body.

Upon passing through this meditative state, the astral body would reach a phase of emergence, which would create a tingling and humming within the physical body. Then they would experience the feeling of heaviness. The ancients believed that the feelings of tingling, humming and then heaviness was a sign of the astral body pulling away from their physical body. This would then initiate the journey of the astral body to unknown planes of existence.

This could be accomplished in various ways. However, the most common practice was that of simply walking out of ones physical body. This would begin through the minds eye, then followed by the shoulders, chest, hips, legs, knees and then the feet until two entities of a astral body and physical body appeared.

This separating of bodies, then allowed the astral body to pass freely through solid objects, it could also hover and fly about without being effected by the lack of oxygen or changes in the atmosphere.

The ancient Greeks also recorded instances of out of body travel, and expanded on the strictly meditatively-induced state of the ancient Egyptians to include out of body travel by way of physical or mental trauma. The ancient historian Plutarch of Queroneia, for example, cited the case of Arisdeu who, after suffering blunt trauma to his head after a fall slipped into a coma for three days.

At this time, Arisdeu tells of the ability to see his physical body laying on the ground yet he was free to move around without it. In astral form he tells of his ability of out of body travel to go to places that were not conceivable. He was met by his spirit guide while in astral form. His spirit guide assisted and advised him concerning astral travel in other existing astral planes.

While in this altered state he was able to explore and learn, although he was forcibly pulled back into his physical body. There he spent the rest of his life applying what he had learned during his out of body experience.

The ancient Egyptians and ancient Greeks aren't the only ones with recorded history of out of body travel. Native American history is also full of several accounts of similar experiences, often featuring spirit animals and/or guides meeting and advising an individual's astral body. For centuries, Native Americans have burned certain plants and inhaled their smoke in order to ease the mind into the state necessary to begin out of body travel.

The human body has the ability to explore different horizons of time and space. This has been recorded since the beginning of time. We are able to channel our consciousness into a spiritual body. However, many modern individuals have forgotten this wonderfully natural gift. Many have forgotten how to alter our consciousness to the point that we can release it from the confines of our physical limitations. However, with practice we can join with our spiritual guides and self on the higher planes of existence.

The door is there, and it is within us. We simply need to reconnect with our spiritual selves in order to once again journey out of body and into the infinite. The process is inherent to who we are as human beings, and there are no limitations once we rediscover our potential for higher understanding.