"In 1958, Robert Monroe floated out of his body for the first time. It began “without any apparent cause,” he wrote. His doctor, finding no physical ailment, prescribed tranquilizers. A psychologist friend, meanwhile, told me him to try leaving his body again. After all, the friend said, “some of the fellows who practice yoga and those Eastern religions claim they can do it whenever they want to.” Monroe did try it again—and again and again. He recalls these experiences in his classic 1971 book Journeys out of the Body, which launched the phrase “out-of-body experiences” into the public conversation. Monroe died in 1995, but the fascination with out-of-body experiences endures."

“It was an interesting experience, to say the least.. The publication of the book quite thoroughly “blew my cover” as a reasonably orthodox business executive. However, a good many of the results were totally unexpected, and some of the serious trepidations were unfounded... I was greatly concerned about the reaction to the book of the board of directors of the corporation of which I was president... At the first board meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after the book publication, no one mentioned it... However, as we cruised up the canal in the board chairman's yacht, on our way to dinner at the country club, the chairman's wife came up from below deck with a copy of Journeys in her hand, “Bob, will you autograph this for me?” she asked. I complied, more than a little self-conscious and surprised. I should not have been. “Interesting stuff,” the chairman called over his shoulder as he steered for the yacht club dock. “My wife is a real psychic. I never make a major business deal without a reading from her. It works, too”... I was not asked to resign. Actually, I found little or no adverse effect on my business relationships as a result of the public disclosure of this “private” side of my life. Instead, many broad new avenues opened up to me, totally unexpected. Who could have guessed that I would speak on out-of-body experiences at such an august and conservative body as the Smithsonian Institution!”

“Gradually I became more accustomed to this strange addition in my life. More and more, I was slowly able to control its movements. In a few ways it had actually become helpful. I had become reluctant to part with it. The mystery of its very presence had aroused my curiosity.”

“Each of the three times I went There, I did not return voluntarily. I came back sadly, reluctantly. Someone helped me return. Each time after I returned, I suffered intense nostalgia and loneliness for days. I felt as an alien might among strangers in a land where things were not "right," where everything and everyone was so different and so "wrong" when compared with where you belonged. Acute loneliness, nostalgia, and something akin to homesickness. So great was it that I have not tried to go There again. Was this heaven?”

“First and most obvious, there is no evidence of the male-female interpenetration. Attempts to express the need in such a functional manner become pathetic in retrospect. One discovers in frustration that it just doesn't happen that way in the Second State. Next, sensuality produced by the physical form of the sex counterpart is entirely absent. There is no distinct pattern of physical shape, either visually or by touch.”

“In non-physical trips to Locale II, often there is a "layer" or area which one must pass through...It is a gray-black hungry ocean where the slightest motion attracts nibbling and tormenting beings... If you move slowly and do not react to the curious "fish" who come to investigate, you pass through without much incident. Move violently and fight back, then more excited denizens come rushing in to bite, pull, push, shove.Could this be the borders of hell? It is easy to conclude that a momentary penetration of this nearby layer would bring "demons" and "devils" to mind as the chief inhabitants. They seem subhuman, yet have an evident ability to act and think independently. Who and what are they? I don't know. I haven't taken the trouble to stay there long enough to find out. Only by terrified trial and error did I find the method to pass through in reasonable peace.”

“The most difficult mental process of all is to consider objectively any concept which, if accepted as fact, will toss into discard a lifetime of training and experience. Yet much has already been accepted as fact on far less direct evidence than that presented here, and is now "accepted.”