Astral projection

Astral projection is the claimed experience of consciousness leaving the physical body and traveling in a nonphysical astral body. It is reported in spiritual traditions and contemporary accounts, but has not been established as literal separation.

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Out-of-body experience: An experience in which a person seems to perceive the world from a location outside their physical body. Astral projection is commonly treated as a spiritual interpretation of this broader experience.
Ancient Egyptian conceptions of the soul: A set of ancient Egyptian ideas about distinct aspects of personhood, including the ka and ba. These concepts provide historical parallels, though they are not identical to modern astral projection.
Meditation: A family of practices that train attention and awareness through sustained mental exercises. Some practitioners use meditation to induce the detachment and vivid imagery associated with projection.
Bilocation: The claimed presence of a person in two places at the same time. Unlike astral projection, bilocation centers on simultaneous presence rather than a departing consciousness.
Parapsychology: The study of alleged psychic phenomena, including telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition. Astral projection is sometimes investigated as a claim of perception beyond ordinary sensory access.
Sleep paralysis: A brief inability to move or speak while falling asleep or waking, sometimes accompanied by vivid hallucinations. Its sensed presence and floating sensations can resemble reports of astral departure.
Neoplatonism: A philosophical tradition deriving from Plato that describes reality as ordered levels emanating from the One. Its layered accounts of soul and cosmos influenced later ideas about nonphysical travel.
Visualization: The deliberate creation or manipulation of mental images. Projection instructions often use imagined movement or a distant scene to initiate the experience.
Near-death experience: A vivid experience reported around a life-threatening crisis, often involving altered perception or a sense of leaving the body. It can include apparent bodily separation, but is tied to a crisis rather than intentional practice.
Anomalous cognition: A proposed form of information acquisition that cannot be explained by known sensory channels. Verifiable details reported during projection would bear on this disputed claim.