Of course it’s real. Have a wander through the Reddit astral projection subreddit (I’d point you to the Lemmy one but it’s not populated well).
It’s a deep topic, with various theories how it works however it’s not lucid dreaming, which is also real, of coursez and anyone can do both. There are many guides how to, if you read the faqs on the subreedits.
It’s as though you told someone from an undeveloped country that electric cars are on the roads and they said, “what? Electric cars?”
Reality is a lot stranger than you think.
I’d recommend you listen to Mark Gober’s podcast “where is mine” - start with the NDE one (NDEs are also, very, very real, and have been documented since Roman times)
Ehhh, looking into this a bit it seems like “Astral Projection” and “Near Death Experiences” are paranormal explanations for a category of ‘Out of Body Experiences’ that aren’t very well understood. I guess it’s fine to say that those experiences are real, but those specific terms seem rooted in esotericism rather than science.
