My out of body experience.

I have had many of the above checked experiences, but one of them stands out as truly incredible. I had just gone to bed and was just drifting off to sleep. All of a sudden I became aware of myself leaving my body. I floated up above my bod y and immediately turned to look back at my body laying on my bed. The astonishi ng thing to me was the fact that it seemed so natural and so matter-of-fact. I w as not surprised. Now I had been a lucid dreamer for many years, almost always a ware of myself dreaming and nearly always in control of my dreams if I so desire d. But this was ABSOLUTELY different. It was as real, actually more real, than a nything else I had ever experienced. I have nothing to compare it to, and if you have never had the experience there is no way I could really convince you. I ca n't find the words to describe it that would do justice to the experience. Anywa y, Within seconds of seeing my body lying on the bed I decided it would be fun t o go outside. Now I lived on the top (8th) floor of a high rise apartment buildi ng in Arlington, VA. on top of the hill behind Arlington Cemetery. I turned to t he outside wall willfully proceeded through it to get outside. As I flew over my neighborhood I saw thing I could never see from the usual perspectives. I saw t he church steeple and schoolyard from above, I saw the back alleys to some of th e stores in the local shopping center, I saw the plastic owls on the roof of my building and the gravel and tar roof as well. Many things I had never noticed be fore became apparent. I later confirmed these items existed as I saw them. So I continued down Arlington Blvd. trying to decide where to go next. It was then th at I looked up and noticed the full moon. I am an amateur astronomer and at that point it was an obvious choice. With the mere though of going to the moon I acc elerated at incredible speed toward the moon, within seconds I had left the eart h's atmosphere and was progressing toward the moon. I began to feel something pu lling me from behind, at the time I described it as the feeling of having a rubb er band that I was stretching, and the further I went away from the earth (or my body) the stronger I felt the pulling. I thought that if I continued toward the moon I may never get back. With that thought I felt as if the rubber band had s napped me back to my body with great speed and I found myself back in my body in bed. There is no question in my mind that I had left my body, I mean really lef t my physical body behind. It seemed even more real than "reality". It was many years later that I first read about OBE's and the descriptions of the "silver co rd" and such. I have many other extraordinary experiences in my life,