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Nov. 9, 2011 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes
01:01:51
Edition 71 - Graham Nicholls

This Edition features British Out of the Body Experience expert Graham Nicholls – who livesand works in Estonia. If you have ever wanted to know more about OBE phenomena be sure to check out hiswebsite...

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Across the UK, across continental North America and around the world by webcast and by podcast, my name is Howard Hughes and this is The Unexplained.
Thank you for returning to the show.
Thank you for the loads of emails I've had lately.
A lot of new listeners in places like Minneapolis, right across the United States and in Canada.
Many emails from regular listeners in the UK.
We seem to be doing all right.
Thank you very much for the good response to the show with Gerard Arts and literally that was a bit of a walk on the wild side.
I didn't know what to expect, but you liked that and that's good.
And you really did enjoy the show that we did direct from Hampton Court Palace back on that very hot day at the beginning of October when the temperature was about 28 degrees Celsius.
That's in the 80s Fahrenheit here.
Very unusual for this time of year in the northern hemisphere, but we had a good time there and talked about ghosts.
And I can tell you that Hampton Court, because a friend of mine recently went on the ghost walk there, is doing one of its seasons of winter ghost walks at the moment.
I think that's what they call them.
And she had a really good time there going around some of the supposedly haunted locations.
So as I've said before, if you've never been to Hampton Court Palace in London, got to come here and got to see it.
If only for the history, but certainly for the ghosts, I would say.
As I say, thank you to you for all the emails.
I'm going to give you some shout-outs and mention what you've been saying in the next edition of The Unexplained, if that's okay.
Life has just been so ridiculously busy and I just haven't had time to catch up with things lately, but I promise you I will.
And a few people asking me, please, will you do more shows?
That's the plan.
That's still where we want to be.
I want to be able to do more regular updates to the shows and I need to get more time to do those.
But life is a lot about just making a living these days.
Maybe it is for you too.
Just paying the bills and trying to eat one way or another is a bit of a challenge, isn't it, these days?
It's something that a lot of us are confronting and how the world seems to have changed during this year of 2011.
We still, as I record these words, have the demonstrators against capitalism, the bankers outside St. Paul's Cathedral.
Those kind of demonstrations are happening across the United States and even in places like Cape Town, South Africa, different places around the world.
There seems to be some kind of movement going on.
And with the best will in the world, there are many people who come from very ordinary and very level-headed backgrounds who are saying there is stuff going on now that has to be addressed.
There are unfairnesses that have gone on over the years.
And there are things in this world that have to change.
And I've got to tell you, as somebody who comes from the mainstream media and hopefully has his feet reasonably on the ground, although as Casey Kasim used to say, I do keep reaching for the stars, some things have got to change because those of us down at the bottom of the stack haven't had much of a fair shake and we're in the first world.
Imagine what life must be like if you're in the third world where you really haven't had a fair deal.
There are people who've done really well and the disparities of wealth in our society seem to be getting greater.
Or do they?
You know, I do listen to arguments from all sides, but I am fascinated by all the stuff that's going on and maybe you are too.
And if you'd like me to do more of this sort of stuff on this show, let me know.
If you want me to stick to the ghosts and the aliens and the UFOs, all the rest of it, that's fine too.
You let me know what you like, and hopefully I will deliver.
Thank you to Adam Cornwell, a creative hotspot in Liverpool, for getting the show out to you, Adam.
Great work.
If you want to contact me about the show, if you'd like to make a donation to it, thank you.
Please go to the website, www.theunexplained.tv.
This time, we're going to cross to a guest who contacted me about his new book and about his work in general.
And it just so happened that he contacted me at the right time because he's been doing research and getting involved in out-of-the-body experiences for quite a few years.
I've wanted to talk about those on the show, but I had to find the right person.
So let's do it right now.
This man's name is Graham Nichols.
He is a Brit and he researches out-of-the-body experiences and Graham Nichols.
Thank you for coming on The Unexplained.
Thank you for having me on.
Now, I see, I didn't know this until we've talked just now.
I thought you were in the UK, but you're not in the UK.
You're from the UK and you're in a place that I've always wanted to go because people tell me it's really cool.
Tallinn in Estonia.
So before we talk about anything, what's Tallinn like?
Well, Tallinn is very beautiful, very historic.
There's a strong spiritual community here.
Lots of people are drawn to esoteric ideas and all sorts of spiritual practices from healing through to raw veganism and all sorts of things.
So yeah, there's a real vibrant community here.
And here comes the stupid question then.
I might as well ask one at least.
Is that what took you there?
It's part of what brought me here, yeah.
I initially came here actually to finish writing my first book because I did a trip through Europe and I just thought the place was the perfect environment to write a book, really.
So I came back planning to be here for two months to get my head down and finish writing the book.
And then just now I've been here two years.
That's how it happens.
If you find a place fits you, then, you know, don't knock it.
Stay there.
Now, listen, we're recording these words at the beginning, actually, into the second week, really, of November.
And here in London, it's a little bit, well, it's kind of, we have an English word, muggy, it's sort of dampish, but it's not desperately cold.
It can be at night.
But I imagine Tallinn, because it's sort of Eastern Europe, isn't it, is freezing, is it?
It's getting that way, yeah.
It's very close to Finland.
We're just south of Helsinki, Finland.
So, yeah, it's very Nordic, Scandinavian feeling up here.
Now I understand exactly where you are.
I remember doing a radio show from north of Finland, so right up close to the Arctic Circle.
It was actually a Chris Tarrant show of Capital Radio, where we took a bunch of kids right up towards the Arctic Circle at Christmas time, and we had a great time.
Such lovely people up there.
So it is a really nice, and even though it's cold, it's a warm place to be, I would guess.
Exactly.
The people here, they've got a very special quality, I think, for sure.
Right, that's the place, that's the people.
Out-of-the-body experiences, that's your thing.
Why?
Why?
It wasn't so much a choice, I'd say.
It started to happen to me when I was around 12.
I'd had a lot of experiences, not out-of-body experiences, but strange experiences of seeing an apparition when I was a small child and other things like that that happened to me during my growing up.
What kind of childhood did you have?
Very, very ordinary, working-class environment in London.
Grew up in a tower block in central London.
My mum and dad are very simple, cockney sort of Londoners.
There's no particular paranormal or spiritual or religious ideas in them.
You know, they're not particularly drawn to those things.
So, yeah, it was very normal, really, other than the fact that I started to have these experiences.
Tell me about them.
Then, so you're age 12, you started to have experiences.
What happened?
I started to find myself floating vertically, so as if I was standing up, but just a few feet above the ground.
I was basically floating in the air.
And I just started to have these momentary experiences.
They didn't last very long, but I would just have this sensation of being in mid-air.
And then I'd look around and see the room around me.
And then almost as quickly as they'd started, they would end again.
And I would be back in my body thinking, what just happened?
What was that?
So hang on, you go to bed and you'd fall asleep and this would happen or this would happen in consciousness?
As far as my memory serves me, I was still consciously awake.
I would be in a relaxed state, often on the point of going to sleep, like that sort of in-between state.
That would often be when it would happen.
But yeah, I was definitely not asleep.
Nearly none of my experiences really, I think maybe two or three have ever happened while I was asleep.
They've always happened from a relapsed conscious state.
I'm not a psychologist.
I don't know anything about that.
But I would imagine if you were five years of age and things like that happen to you, you probably start to think that that's normal.
If you're 12 years of age, you know a lot more about what's going on around you and it might scare you.
Well, like I said, I had had some early experiences when I was very young, like an apparition that I saw standing in the doorway of my apartment.
That was an unusual occurrence, obviously.
I'd imagine so.
What kind of apparition?
What was it?
A cloaked figure?
What were we talking about?
It was a tall figure.
It didn't have...
But it was a dark figure standing almost the full height of the doorway.
So it was very tall.
And it seemed to be wearing sort of rags or very torn clothing.
But like I say, my memory is very shaky on it because it was such a long time ago.
And did you think at the time, because often we remember the way we feel about things more than we remember what we actually saw and experienced, did you think perhaps you'd seen a ghost?
Oh, I definitely saw it as a ghost initially.
I mean, now I maybe think that there might have been more to it or that it might have been some kind of, I don't know, some kind of connection to some other level or a vision of something to do with my own development or however you want to see it.
But at the time, I think that was the only category that I could put it into, that it was some kind of ghost.
And yeah, it seemed to be standing at the threshold of something.
There seemed to be a sense that there was almost something behind it as well, like it was at some kind of portal.
So it was almost beckoning you into something.
Yeah, it felt very much almost like some kind of initiation in a way, like it was saying to me, you know, look, there's more to the world than maybe you've imagined so far or something like that.
Did you tell anybody?
I did, yeah.
But my description, because I was so scared when that initially happened, I remember we were actually at an airport and I was with some relatives.
My mum and dad were seeing off the relatives and I think my dad had driven the family there.
And we were sitting in the airport waiting for the flight.
And I just, they were talking about being scared.
I remember this quite vividly.
They were describing how they've been scared at certain points.
And I, in my childhood naivety, just went, I've been really, really terrified like that too.
And they all looked at me, obviously with concern, because this is a child saying, I've been very, very, very terrified in my life.
And they looked at me and I immediately realized that I'd said something that was a bit, you know, that had thrown them a little bit.
Well, kind of profound, really, for a kid.
Well, yeah, exactly.
And then I described how I'd felt this intense fear when I'd seen this apparition.
And I could tell that this was probably not the sort of thing I should be saying all the time.
So I think from that point on, I kept it quieter and didn't talk about it so much until I reached my teens and the out-of-body experience started to come through.
Are you talking, what, 1980s here?
What era?
Well, I was a small child in the 80s and then I was a teenager in the 90s.
I'm 36 now.
All right.
So these things are happening to you.
And there is a risk, isn't there, when things happen to a young person like that, that people around them, they'll say, our kid is disturbed.
Got to get him some help.
And I think if anything motivates you to not talking about it, maybe that thought would motivate you more than anything else.
Is that right?
Yeah, sure.
There was an element of that, I suppose.
But I was always quite grounded and rational considering these kinds of things, and was always very interested in science and technology and things like that.
So, I was very I didn't come across, I don't think, in general life as being someone who was particularly in need of that kind of help or whatever.
Um, so when I when I got into my teens and had the initial experiences at 12, and then there was a bit of a gap, and then I heard about this concept of outer body experiences, or it might have been astral projection, I don't recall exactly.
But I then found a book on the subject, and that was really when the whole thing started opening up.
So did you say to yourself at that point, hey, that's exactly what's been happening to me?
Well, yeah, exactly.
I was like, wow, this is this is it.
This is what's been described.
And the way the information that I got, I remember it was quite positive.
It was quite, you know, this is something that's real.
It's not just a hallucination or insanity or whatever.
So I was very excited by that possibility.
But you're bound to ask, you get to 12, 13, 14 upwards, why me?
I would have thought, you say, you know, why would this happen to me?
Of all the people, all my friends, I guess, are not having these experiences.
Why am I?
I don't actually remember specifically asking that.
I was just interested in what it was.
I suppose when I did start to learn about the subject, I heard statistics like one in 10 people will have one or two of these occurrences in their life and things like that.
So I was starting to think that actually maybe these things are more common than people initially believe they are.
So that was something that seemed to be in my mind early on.
But I don't really recall thinking that this is that unusual in a sense, because I suppose it had always been there.
And although people around me hadn't had the same things, when you are talking to people about these things, they will often say, oh, well, I saw a ghost when I was such and such.
Or, you know, they will start to relay experiences that they've had, a premonition in a dream or things like that.
And you start to think, well, actually, I'm not alone.
There are a lot of people who are going through these kinds of things.
So you're having these experiences.
Did you reach a time when there was a sort of tipping point?
Was there an experience that made you think, okay, I have to do something about this now?
Like I said, there was the initial few experiences and then there was a bit of a gap.
And then I heard about them and I got this book.
And then from that point, I spent the next six months in a really disciplined way.
It's quite funny to think about it now.
But I mean, every night I was doing this disciplined, doing at least half an hour of visualizing these different techniques and trying to get into an out-of-body state or a trance state at least, and trying to get these vibrations that you often hear described when it comes to out-of-body experiences, which are often precursors to the full out-of-body experience.
So you were almost meditating?
Yeah, I was laying down on my bed and I was doing these visual techniques that I picked up from the book.
I sort of pieced them together.
And I was going through this process over and over every night.
And it took me six months.
But then after six months, I had this first induced experience where it just felt like a jolt of energy, like almost like I've been hit by a bolt of lightning or something, shot through my body.
And I came out of the shock of the jolt that I just experienced, looked around and realized that I was floating horizontally over my body in the middle of my room, looking, I could move side to side, but I couldn't move in any other direction.
I was just sort of fixed in this position.
But it was extremely vivid.
It was as vivid as everyday life.
To those of us who haven't done it and may never do it, is it like flying?
It can be.
In that particular experience, it just felt like I was almost like fixed with a pole running through my body.
That's how I would describe it.
It was a very strange sensation.
I felt like I could rotate, but that was it.
I couldn't move in any other way.
So it didn't really feel like flying, maybe floating, but not flying.
It was this fixed state.
So there was a, yeah, there was that kind of sense.
Why did you want to do more of it?
You knew this thing happened to you.
What was it that motivated you to want to study it and learn how to produce these things to order?
I think just fascination, wanting to know if there is such a thing as these spiritual levels and if there are other types of reality or if, you know, if it like a lot of us, if psychic abilities and things like that really exist.
I think I was just fascinated by those questions.
And this seemed the most direct way to answer those things.
And did you think and do you think that when you were doing those things and when you are doing those things, you're exploring an aspect of yourself or you're tapping into an aspect of something beyond you?
I tend to think that it's beyond or me now.
I think it has, it reaches a point where I don't know whether something literally leaves the body like a soul or a spirit.
I'm still undecided on that and I still explore a lot of the research and evidence to try and piece together what might be happening there.
But what I think at the very least is the idea that our consciousness might be entangled, that our awareness might be able to extend beyond the brain, beyond our immediate surroundings.
So I see it almost like some sense of a larger consciousness or a collective unconscious, like what Jung described, something on that kind of level.
But I think when it goes deep enough, when that psychic perception goes deep enough, there's a complete separation, an experience of being almost physically in another location.
It feels like physically you're at another location.
And is it a good feeling to know that there's more?
Sure, I think so.
I think, I mean, these experiences have been some of the most amazing things that I can imagine, really.
I remember even as a child saying, if I had to give everything up, the one thing I wouldn't want to is exploring these kinds of areas because it was just, you know, and it is just, I've never lost the drive and the fascination with it after 25 years nearly now.
So I think that speaks for itself, really.
I'm one of these people, maybe you are too, sounds like you are, with an artistic temperament.
I like to think that there's more to the world that we see.
That's why I'm doing this, really.
But there are in the world many, many practical people, and sometimes they frustrate me.
Maybe they frustrate you too, who would say to you, well, it's a nice party trick to be able to do, but what's it for?
And if it isn't for anything, then why bother doing it?
Well, I think there's research now that's beginning to suggest that maybe there might be applications for these kinds of things.
I mean, there's a researcher in Canada called Michael Persinger who considers psychic abilities are something at the moment like a weak signal.
And what he believes is as we develop more and we understand what these things are more, we'll get to a point where like the early days of the telephone or the early days of radio or whatever, we'll slowly be able to improve the signal and improve the technology that works through these kinds of things.
And then potentially, there'll be a point when we can utilize this as a completely new form of technology.
There are three things here that get confused, I think.
You mentioned astral projection at the beginning, and I was thinking of near-death experiences and out-of-the-body experiences.
Are they all parts of the same thing or are they different?
Well, astral projection is just an esoteric term, generally drawn from occult and theosophy and different areas like that.
I generally go with out-of-body experience as the term I like to use because I feel that that's the most scientific, most neutral as a term.
And also people deride the phrase astral projection, don't they?
People, yeah, I've seen comedy movies from the 60s and 70s where they've said, I do astral projection and somebody's laughed.
And at least out-of-body experience doesn't have as much baggage, perhaps.
Yeah, I think once you start to use terms like astral projection, you're connecting what you're doing with a long history and a long lineage of these particular belief systems and ideologies.
And because I try to approach this from a scientific point of view, and I try to work more and more with that and try to uncover what might be really going on, I can't start from that assumption.
I can't start from an assumption, for example, that there's an astral body or an ephoric body or all these different beliefs that are common in the literature.
For me, I have to start from an open perspective and say, well, what seems to be happening and what does the evidence suggest and really look into that.
So that's my approach.
And the near-death experience, is that related?
Yeah, well, I think it does.
And the near-death experience is a near-death experience encapsulates the outer body experience.
The outer body experience fits into a set of phenomena that's usually described as the near-death experience.
So the near-death experience doesn't always include an outer body experience, but it usually does.
So it's often seeing the operation from above that the person's undergoing at the point of cardiac arrest, or it might be the sense of going down a dark tunnel towards a point of light, things like that.
I mean, I have experienced a tunnel, which is quite similar to the descriptions in near-death experiences, but I've never actually had a near-death experience.
Because you learned to bring these things on, have you learned to be able to take yourself to different places beyond yourself?
And if I said to you, you're in a room now, are you able to float down into, just assuming you've got a square near you in Tallinn, can you float down to that square and go and explore it and float around it?
Is that possible?
It's funny you should mention the square because actually...
Yeah, last Christmas I had an experience where I saw them hoisting the fir tree for Christmas into place around this kind of year, time of year, sorry.
So yeah, it can happen from time to time.
It's not something I can always do, but there are experiences throughout my life where I have been able to verify it.
So that's the time when you really get this sense of, yes, there is something objective going on here.
That's an absolute wow, isn't it?
There's a phrase that Edgar Mitchell, the Apollo astronaut, used when I talked to him earlier this year.
He said, that's a wow.
That's a wow.
Was that in real time or was that something that happened the next day?
That was in total real time.
Yeah.
I literally came back to my body, got straight up, got dressed, went straight out and walked into the square.
It was night time.
They were doing it during the night, ready for the next morning festivities, I suppose.
And I just walked in there and they were all exactly as I'd seen it, like 10 minutes earlier, something like that.
So that was a really, yeah, really great verification.
But there's been a lot over the years through my experiences where I've had things like that.
And even not in real time, as you mentioned, seeing things before they happen as well, which really, that really I struggled with that for a long time, how such a thing could be possible.
You sound somebody who's very motivated to learn clearly about this thing that you do and that's the process that we're talking about right now.
What would be the ultimate end of that refinement of understanding it?
What would you like to be able to do with this?
I think I would like to get to a point where it could be improved upon and these abilities could become usable for a much wider percentage of the population.
I think another area that's been of key interest for me for a long time is methods and ways to show other people how to have these experiences.
That's something that's really important to me.
So I've created structures, installations that are specifically designed for the person to get into and then it takes them through hypnotic inductions and uses virtual reality in all sorts of different technology.
So I've worked in an artistic and a very creative way to try and make approaches that will work for people so they can experience it for themselves.
Do you have other abilities?
Are you psychic?
Well, I often have sensations and awareness of different things.
So I consider psychic abilities, if you like, on a spectrum.
We have different focus points within psychic ability.
And for me, it's more with the outer body experience, or maybe it's more on the clairvoyant or the visual level.
Whereas for other people, they might be more telepathic or they might be more of a medium or something like that.
So it's, I think, yeah, I mean, these things are part of the psychic spectrum.
I was going to ask you, do you think they're all parts of the same thing?
Because, you know, I don't do out-of-the-body experiences, but I have been quite psychic over the years and can quite often know what a person is thinking or going to do or just know what a situation is all about in ways that you really shouldn't rationally be able to know.
I'm interested to hear you say you think it's all part of the same thing.
Yeah, I do.
I think, well, we often say psychic meaning some form of empathic connection with other people, the type of person who does readings or picks things up in a very human way.
I think that's often what people mean when they say psychic, but really that it's any form of extra sensory awareness or any form of being able to perceive things at a distance, that kind of stuff.
So I think the out-of-body experience obviously fits into that.
I know for the new book, you've been researching experiences and from what you were telling me, a lot of experiences you have researched.
Can you tell me about some of them?
Oh, well, over the years, when I've been teaching people how to do these things and been working with people one-on-one, I've slowly refined down what kind of things people generally have.
There's many people encountering other relatives whilst in an out-of-body state.
That's quite common where they get drawn to somebody.
I think when there's an emotional link, when there's another person involved, they can often be drawn in quite a powerful way to that person, especially if they're in some kind of stress or the opposite, if they're in a very heightened emotional sort of loving state where they've maybe just met someone and they're in love with them and it's a new relationship, that kind of thing.
So that's quite a common one that I hear.
And people just coming out of their body in their bedroom and thinking they've died for a moment and the kind of fear associated with that.
And then me sort of coaching them through the whole thing that they don't really need to fear that kind of thing and they can slowly develop it and move to a point where it actually becomes life enhancing.
But you would get medics and you do get medics these days.
I watched a guy talking, some doctor somewhere, talking about near-death experiences, for example, and saying that these days they've mostly been discredited and we know that they're perfectly rational physiological processes to do with the body and the mind.
I'm guessing you wouldn't buy into that explanation necessarily.
No.
Well, the main people who have put that idea across are Olaf Blank in Switzerland, who he did some research where he showed that you can induce things that seem quite similar to an out-of-body experience.
If you believe the media and you read the general reports in magazines like New Scientist and whatever, they give the impression that he induced full out-of-body experiences and that it's all been disproven.
The truth is actually not quite like that.
He's actually never induced an out-of-body experience.
He's only induced elements that are in common with out-of-body experiences.
And some of them are quite distinct from out-of-body experiences.
People like Janice Holden, for example, a near-deaf experience researcher, was very critical of Blank's conclusions.
And so were many others.
Jeff Long, a best-selling author on near-deaf experiences, and he's also a doctor.
He was also very critical.
So the mainstream media, I think, has a bias, especially the so-called quality mainstream media, has a bias against research that supports these kinds of things.
So they'll generally put a lot of focus on Olaf Blank or Jason Braithwaite was a recent one that came out where he was saying that out-of-body experiences are just to do with misfirings or distortions in the brain or whatever.
But then when you actually looked at his study, it was based on a very loose definition of an out-of-body experience that dated back to 1982 and a sceptic called Sue Blackmore, who's also said a lot of stuff against these types of experiences.
So when you really dig into these things, you suddenly start to find that actually it's not quite as cut and dry as a lot of the media tries to portray.
And I guess you would say that those people who diss out-of-the-body experiences and experiences like this are people who've never had them themselves.
That's often the case, but more importantly than that, is they overlook the veridical or objective factual evidence that comes through these experiences.
They'll say that you can induce something that appears to be an out-of-body experience, but then they'll ignore all of the factual evidence and all of the data that has come through through hundreds of experiences, thousands of experiences.
And the other interesting thing as well is they're putting this across as a scientific perspective.
But at the end of the day, I think the argument that you can induce something through artificial stimulation does not disprove that the thing itself that you're describing isn't real.
For example, if I make you hallucinate or have a visual distortion that makes you think that you're actually standing in another part of the room, that doesn't mean that being in another part of the room is a hallucination, if you see what I mean.
Or if you see a car go past the window as a hallucination, does that mean that cars don't exist?
It's a really mangled form of logic that I think they willfully ignore that fact that it's that I'm sure they're well aware that it's not a very strong logical position.
Well, listen, I took you down this path right now because I think we needed to, but I did ask you about the experiences that you've collated through dealing with people as you do deal with people.
So tell me about some of those.
Well, there's many, many different types of experience that people have.
I mean, I haven't focused on collating experiences because my approach with the second book especially has been more in developing ways for people to have their own experiences.
So it's been more focused on that, more techniques and methodologies and different things like that.
But I mean, there's some interesting ones like people who actually didn't realize they were out of the body.
I always find those kinds of experiences very interesting.
So, for example, one woman described to me waking up in the middle of the night, jumping out of bed, running across the room and going to grab the door handle to go out of her bedroom.
And her hand just went straight through the door and she almost fell through the door.
Because she believed it was for real.
She thought she was physical.
And I find those types of experiences particularly interesting.
And I've had similar things myself as well.
It is strange, isn't it?
And that brings me to, I've never mentioned this to anybody, but when I was a kid, probably about seven, I had a wonderful auntie, Amy.
That's what we called her in Liverpool.
It was my nan, my grandmother's sister.
And she was really lovely.
And she came and read me a story one night for me to fall asleep to.
And I've never forgotten this because I swear even now, all these years later, that it was for real.
It was absolutely a real experience.
Now, I woke up.
It was probably about two o'clock in the morning.
And she'd gone home hours ago, but she was still there in front of me.
And I was awake and I was conscious and I was aware of everything.
And I was aware that she was still there for a few seconds.
And I've never quite understood what that was or how it happened.
It sounds to me like some of that taps into some of what you're talking about.
Sure.
Yeah.
I mean, it's probably on that spectrum.
I mean, for example, when my grandmother died, I remember waking up, sitting bolt upright in my bed.
And I think lots of people have had this kind of thing.
I sat bolt upright in the bed.
And as I did, the phone started ringing.
And I knew it was my mother phoning to tell me that my grandmother had died.
So I think a lot of people have had that kind of thing as well, where they're just somehow aware of some major emotional thing that's happened.
I think emotion is key in a lot of these things.
I think that's why we often have visions of disasters or dreams of those kinds of things or, you know, or it will be someone that we're very close to.
The phone will ring and we'll think, oh, that's that person because we have a strong emotional link with them.
Or you'll think of calling them or emailing them and they'll say, that's funny you called now because I was just about to hit send on an email to you.
That happened to me only a few days ago.
It happens all the time, doesn't it?
I guess in our lives.
And I've helped Rupert Sheldrake.
I've worked on some of his research and he's actually confirmed this by doing scientific research.
And we did some work in London where we got lots of people and put them in a room that was all shielded from signals so they couldn't cheat or anything.
And then they had to tell who was calling them.
And overall, all of the statistics of all the work that he's done over a five-year period or whatever for that particular work showed that people, especially when there was an emotional connection, could in some cases get sort of, I think it was up to about 70%, the really strong ones.
And the average was around 45% when only about 30% would be expected by chance.
So it was far more than is hugely significant statistically.
What do you think the future of all of this research is?
What do you think we'll be able to do, say, 20, 30, 40 years down the track as people that you're training come on stream, learn to refine these techniques, do it better?
What do you think we're heading towards?
I think we're heading towards a natural progression for human beings in a way.
I think these kinds of experiences on a more spiritual level, I think they remind us of our connectedness to all life and everything that's around us and to each other, they remind us that we're not as separate and we're not as different as we might think we are.
And the more we connect to those interconnected levels, if you like, those that collective unconscious type level, the more we go into that, the more we break down this selfish, ego, self-centered sort of perspective that can be quite focused on in our culture.
So I think the more we can move in that direction, but not in a religious context, but driven by a scientific methodology, the more we're going to get to a point where we're going to get some real value and a new type of spirituality that's much more useful and doesn't justify harm and negative actions and things like that.
Do you think that any of this ties into what's happening in the world this year?
It's been a quite extraordinary year, one way or another.
We've had the falling of some tyrants and we've had people turning against the bankers and people who they think are ripping them off.
And what seems to be, from what people are telling me, some kind of new consciousness coming out there.
I don't want to sound too new agey about this because I've got to keep my feet firmly on the ground, but it does seem that a lot of people think that things are changing.
It does seem so.
And I do genuinely hope so.
It's very hard to say 100% because I suppose right down through history, there's always been talk of, oh, there's a new something about to happen.
It's been repeated throughout every age, I would say, that something new is going to happen.
So I try to, as you say, keep my feet on the ground and be cautious in getting too convinced of that.
But it is an amazing time for sure.
I mean, all of this things like WikiLeaks and all of this movement that's happening everywhere, the Occupy movement and things like that.
It just, it does seem like this awareness is growing.
And possibly a lot of it's to do with the internet and to do with this ease of sharing information and connecting with people now, which in a way is almost like a technological form of what I'm talking about.
Well, great for you, really, because these people who are having experiences like the ones that you train people in and you do yourself, they can contact you and tell them, hey, yes, I've done this or have you ever tried that, I suppose.
Yeah, well, I do online coaching where I help people learn these things so they can contact me and I can work with them one-on-one in that way.
That's something I really, I think there's a lot of value to because even when I do workshops and retreats and things like that that I do as well, that's a great way of working too.
But I really like to just work one-on-one with people because you get so much deeper with them and you can really you can really help them and deal with their needs directly that way, I think.
You sound enormously relaxed.
You know, I'm talking to you from London where you know what London's like.
And I came home by train today and I was coming home to do this interview and I thought, I'm not going to make it.
I'm not going to make it.
And there are loads of stressed people on this train because it was delayed, delayed, delayed.
And we didn't know how long it'd be delayed for.
You entallin' doing what you do sound very relaxed.
Does the fact that you do what you do and have experienced what you've experienced lead to that relaxation that you're radiating down the line to me?
I'm assuming you are like that, but is it all about it?
I am like that, yeah.
Sometimes I wish people didn't say that about me because sometimes.
Hey, don't knock it.
It's good.
It's good.
Yeah, sure.
But yeah, I think it does.
I think it just, I suppose even fears and things like that, I think even the idea, the sense of fear of death and things like that, even that seemed to dissolve really early on for me.
That's very interesting.
You're not afraid of dying, then?
No, I mean, I'm afraid of the idea of suffering and pain, obviously, but the actual thing of death doesn't hold fear for me.
So do you believe you're going on to something else?
I do.
I'm not 100% what that is exactly.
I think it's probably a slow transition into that expanded consciousness that I was talking about.
I think that we can tune into this interconnected level.
And I think that when we die, we maybe initially hold on to our sense of identity and our sense of self and all of those traits.
But I think then through time, I think you become a part of something bigger.
And maybe that leads on to reincarnation or something else.
I mean, I think there's some strong evidence for that too.
But the exact process and what exactly is going on, I don't claim to know.
And I don't think anyone knows.
But I think there's a lot of interesting evidence out there for those kinds of things.
If I got in touch with you today and we'd never spoken, we'd never met, we didn't know each other, and I said, hi, I'm in London, one of these people, you know, I suppose high-pressure lifestyle, very, very busy, getting up early in the morning, but I believe there's more to life than meets the eye.
Please teach me how to do out-of-the-body experiences because I think they'll help me.
Where would you start?
I'd start with your personal needs.
I mean, that's a particular approach that I take.
I try to look at the person, look at the time they have in their life, look at the strengths that they have, look at the weaknesses they have, any fears, any things that might be holding them back.
And then I design a program based on that.
I also look at whether they're a day, sort of a nighttime person or a daytime person when they're at their optimum.
I look at what kind of diet they have.
I try to look at every aspect of the person.
And then from that, I advise them and I give them pointers and I say, we can work in that direction and we can try to improve on this and we can try a technique that's designed for you if you're more of a visual person or more of a you enjoy sound or music or if you're more Physical athletic type person.
So I take these traits that an individual has and then I use that to give them the techniques that will work most effectively for them.
So that's how I approach things.
But you know, say I wanted to do this fairly soon, if I wanted to be doing it by Christmas or early in the new year, perhaps.
Where would you start me off?
Would I have to sort of go and lie in bed and turn off the TV and turn off everything electrical and relax and see if I could get myself into some kind of state?
Well, that's quite a classic way of doing it.
But like I said, I try to look at the individual and I try to say, well, some people are not very comfortable with, for example, laying down and doing visualization techniques or whatever.
So for someone who's not particularly good with that, I might give them a breathing technique, quite an intense breathing technique, which I call the G technique that I've developed.
So that uses physical, the physical body and breathing combined in order to help get to the vibrational state.
So if they can get to the vibrational state, then the step to get to an out-of-body state is quite easy.
So I'll cater it to them.
And then some people are very good with sound.
So maybe I've got some sound recordings I've developed that they can listen to and they can work with those if they're more inclined towards sound.
And this stuff is anchored to the kind of person, as you say.
You know, somebody like me, well, I'm very much connected to the modern world and, you know, technology and life is pretty busy one way or another.
I don't really think I could see myself cross-legged on the floor going, um, it's not my kind of thing.
No, exactly.
So I wouldn't give you that kind of approach.
Whereas whereas someone who is drawn to that, I would give them that kind of approach.
So it's, I don't have a set like, oh, this is my way of doing it.
I have lots of techniques I've developed over the years and I cater them specifically to the person.
So you told me.
Graham, you told me when you started this conversation that this began for you because you confronted something that looked like some kind of cloaked or hooded figure.
What do you think that was and have you had any more contact and connection with that sort of thing?
I don't know what it was, but how I tend to look at it now is that it was some kind of opening in my own awareness, in my own consciousness.
I really don't know why that happened to me specifically.
I tend to think maybe it was just a combination of events in the way that anything can happen to anyone.
I try not to get too profound about it and put too much emphasis on it, but it did open the whole area up for me and take me on a different direction.
And as far as have I experienced other things like that, well, when I was 16, I was meditating with a close friend in my bedroom in the same tower block that I grew up in.
It was amazing what we did in that small room, actually.
It was a tiny little room in a tower block.
And we managed to do meditation and all different practices and, you know, read and learn about all these kinds of things.
And your parents were okay with all this?
Yeah, they were quite bemused by it, I think, originally.
Yeah, no, I can imagine they might have been.
Mine would have been.
Yeah, but now I think they're really supportive of it.
And they're just, you know, I think they're very happy with the direction I've gone and that they can see that it's been so positive for me.
And considering my background wasn't exactly Roses, they're overjoyed, I think, really, that it's taken me in this direction.
I don't want to go into any kind of detail at all, really, but, you know, I'm trying to find a phrase for it, but as a kid, you said that your background, you know, was not perfect.
I mean, how do I put this?
Were you a troubled child?
I wouldn't say troubled, but there was a lot of problems around me.
I mean, as I'm sure you know, council estates in London can be quite volatile places.
Yes, from what I've experienced, yes.
Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of, you know, drugs around me and things like that.
But interestingly, I even had, I had some kind of awareness even with that, because I remember, this sounds bizarre, but at 10 years old, I made a choice that I was going to stay away from drugs and alcohol and things like that.
Well, that was the other question that I was trying to work up to.
And I'm thinking, I did it with a guy in Holland in the last, but it was easier to do with a guy in Holland.
But to ask you, there will be people who say, well, the stuff you're talking about is what happens to you if you do drugs.
But you don't do drugs.
No, I've never done any drugs, including alcohol.
So, yeah, that explanation is definitely out of the window.
And I think it is good for me to make that point because, yeah, I think that is often something that people assume that that must be in the equation somewhere.
Oh, well, thank you for making it easy for me because we had to get around to it.
And people will have said to me, why didn't you ask him that?
I'm glad we dealt with that subject.
Because from what I understand and what I hear, those are the sorts of things that happen to people.
You know, they think they're floating in the air, but you're doing this the natural way.
It's a natural high, literally.
Yeah, sure.
I mean, sometimes I think people describe similar things, but I'm not sure it's exactly the same experience.
I mean, people describe it on certain drugs, but it's, yeah, I think it's a slightly different thing that people are experiencing in general.
People you've taught to do this, or people you haven't taught to do this but still do it, and you know them, how are their lives better because they do?
I think...
I think it just gives people a sense of peace and a sense that there's more to the world and that there's, I mean, there's, it's very hard to put your finger on it because it's quite a subjective thing to describe how it improves your life.
But I think it's a bit like saying, you know, how does love improve your life?
You know, it's incontifiable.
Exactly.
It's a thing that's very hard to put into words.
But I think that the people I know who do do these things, they do have that greater sense of the importance of things maybe.
And they tend to have more focus on things like their health and being more active in their society often and things like that.
So I get a sense that there's just more engagement maybe or a different level of awareness that seems very positive to me.
But that's obviously coming from the perspective that I live in a similar way and I value the things that I value.
So maybe if I was talking to a banker or something, they wouldn't value the things I'm talking about so much.
Or increasingly they might.
You never know these days.
Do you see yourself being in Tallinn doing this in 10 years from now?
I see myself doing this in 10 years from now.
I don't know if I'll be in Tallinn, but I do really love Tallinn.
And I do think for sure this is the direction for my life.
I think all of these things have just been such an amazing area and have given me so many insights.
I mean, really, when I talk about my background and the problems and the type of person I was, you know, I didn't...
I mean, I'm sure my teachers at school would have just expected me, like every other kid in my community school, that I would have just moved on and done a very uninteresting job and not really looked into anything much, you know.
But because of my experiences, it's taken me into literature and science and art and just expanded my whole way of looking at the world.
All right.
I want to do you justice.
You got in touch with me, told me that you had this new book out about out-of-the-body experiences and you thought we ought to talk about it and certainly persuaded me that we should, and I'm glad that we did.
Anything I haven't asked you about it?
Anything you want to say?
I think we've covered that basically the first book is a journey, really.
It describes my early life and those experiences that I had early on.
And then it really talks about some of these things like the problems in London, the violence and the issues that arise from being in these big cities and things like that, and it really talks about that and how a change in our spiritual awareness and things like that can make us explore those things and maybe come out the other end, move more towards compassion and non-violence and those kinds of...
And what did you think when you watched parts of London, as I did, because I was covering this for news on radio here, when you watched parts of London go up in flames in August this year, how did that make you feel?
Well, I suppose what I realised from my own life in terms of the social side of things and growing up on the council estate and all of that stuff, it made me realise the real frustration and boredom and lack of any sense of direction and future in many ways.
And I felt that very early on, before I started having these experiences, before maybe 14 or something like that, I felt very much like that, especially around the year before.
I felt that sense of frustration and that sense of, what am I going to do with my life?
What is the direction of life?
What is the point, in a way?
And do you think that those people who, for example, torched a family-owned furniture store in Croydon during it all, and those pictures went round the world, do you think that you and these techniques could have helped those people carrying the petrol cans to see that that really ain't the way to go?
I think so, yeah.
I think because for people like me, and it's not just me, because other people who I grew up around on my estate and on other estates around London, friends of mine, I've got a close friend who always says to me that I opened the door for him.
He began to look into these same kinds of areas, and now he's an English teacher, and he's doing all different things, and he's completely changed his life in a similar way to what would have been expected of him.
So I think there's a sense that these things do slowly have this kind of impact.
They make people look at their lives more closely.
And I think as well they make, the more important thing, they make people aware of other people.
And I think one of the things with these kids who are maybe burning things down and whatever, they're not really in that awareness of other people.
It's more just it's meaningless.
You know, they don't see the value or the meaning in another human being, really.
So I think the fact that I came from that background and I've been in that kind of situation, I think that just shows all the more the power that these experiences and these effects can have on people.
I've got to be honest, I'm a professional cynic.
That's what they paid me to do.
And they don't pay me very much to do it.
But that's what all my career I've been paid to do.
And, you know, I have to say, and you've got to answer this question honestly, there is a kind of calmness that you radiate.
Now, this is the question and you've got to answer it honestly.
Have people said to you down the years that you radiate something?
Because I think you do.
And I can't believe I'm saying this, but there's a kind of calmness.
I came in frazzled today and I don't feel that way anymore.
So have you heard that before?
I have, yeah.
Honestly?
Honestly, yes.
Well, I don't know what that is.
I get it quite a lot, actually.
had a feeling that you probably did um very very strange and um i'll try out my psychic thing now okay and it's probably complete rubbish but as we talked i saw a mental image of somebody wearing something in bright yellow that looked like like a sack almost and almost like a jester's costume but in in bright yellow that That's silly.
Is there anything around you like that now?
Has there been?
Well, funny you should say, well, there is a painting of a kind of clown or jester next to me.
It was done by my girlfriend, but it's not yellow, but she's actually dressed in yellow.
She's got a yellow jumper on.
Okay, then maybe that's what confused me.
But I saw this picture of like a jester or a harlequin type character, but there was also this person in this big yellow thing.
So maybe that's it.
I'm not making it up.
There's a clown.
Well, there's actually three clowns.
There's a sort of puppet.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like exactly what I saw.
Almost like something that's being held up by strings, but is a clown type character.
How weird is that, eh?
Send it to you.
Yeah, that's very good.
So you see, professional cynic, I might be, but sometimes those things happen.
And that's the stuff that I can't explain.
That's part of my quest, I suppose.
Now I'm rambling.
It's been a long day.
Hey, listen, good to talk with you.
People are going to want to know about you, so go ahead.
How do they find out about you?
And it's two books now, isn't it?
Yeah, the first book is called Avenues of the Human Spirit.
And the second one's out in 8th Pro.
And it's called Navigating the Outer Body Experience.
And that one's all the practical stuff.
And the first one's more the philosophy and story.
And they can find me at my website, which is Graham Nichols.
And nichols is with2Ls.com.
Graham Nichols, a real pleasure to talk with you in Tallinn, Estonia, a place that I really must make a point of going.
And I'd like to see it in the wintertime.
I get a feeling it'd be much nicer then.
It's very beautiful.
Graeme Nichols, thank you very much.
Please take care.
Let me know if you get any feedback on this conversation.
Graeme Nichols, they're talking about OBE's out-of-the-body experiences.
My name is Howard Hughes.
This has been the latest edition of The Unexplained.
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