Wiktionary
n. (context parapsychology theosophy English) A ghost-like replica of one's physical body which supposedly inhabits or is somehow associated with the physical body, conceived as composed of some sort of ethereal material or as being non-physical and capable of sometimes separating from the physical body to travel to other places or to other realms of existence.
Wikipedia
The astral body is a subtle body posited by many philosophers, intermediate between the intelligent soul and the mental body, composed of a subtle material. The concept ultimately derives from the philosophy of Plato: it is related to an astral plane, which consists of the planetary heavens of astrology. The term was adopted by nineteenth-century Theosophists and neo-Rosicrucians.
The idea is rooted in common worldwide religious accounts of the afterlife in which the soul's journey or "ascent" is described in such terms as "an ecstatic.., mystical or out-of body experience, wherein the spiritual traveller leaves the physical body and travels in his/her subtle body (or dreambody or astral body) into ‘higher’ realms". Hence "the "many kinds of 'heavens', 'hells' and purgatorial existences believed in by followers of innumerable religions" may also be understood as astral phenomena, as may the various "phenomena of the séance room". The phenomenon of apparitional experience is therefore related, as is made explicit in Cicero's Dream of Scipio.
The astral body is sometimes said to be visible as an aura of swirling colours. It is widely linked today with out-of-body experiences or astral projection. Where this refers to a supposed movement around the real world, as in Muldoon and Carrington's book The Projection of the Astral Body, it conforms to Madame Blavatsky's usage of the term. Elsewhere this latter is termed "etheric", while "astral" denotes an experience of dream-symbols, archetypes, memories, spiritual beings and visionary landscapes.
Usage examples of "astral body".
In truth, we describe man in his entirety only if we ascribe to him, in addition to a physical, etheric and astral body, the possession of an I (Ego).
In the planes of astral, the astral body is composed of substances picked up from the planes of astral, are dissipated, and return to the parent body.
It is also described as playing the part of the brain in the astral body.
It recoiled sharply into his astral body with a psychic force that plucked at Halisstra's very soul, and Tzirik was gone, as if he had never existed.
His long sleep during the daytime had refreshed him and, as was usually the case, the activities of his astral body had in no way tired him.
She shifted suddenly and he took a defensive step backward, having forgotten that his astral body was impervious to physical harm.
If you don't return to your physical body by then, your astral body becomes disconnected and you eventually die.
He wants us to believe that Hitler could project his astral body - that's what Astralleib means, presumably, or something equally foolish.
Even if the girl's astral body did not finish with Boothe and Uhlander for a few minutes, it would no doubt return to that Westwood theater well ahead of Dan.
He wished he could tell her that he was there to protect her, but while in his astral body, he couldn't speak.
Unlike the Montrose woman, however, his astral body had actually been seen!
Unconsciously the knotted muscles of his astral body relaxed, and Tarod began to sway.
He could, had he chosen, have transported his astral body on to the astral plane, left behind a useless body impervious to pain - but that would not have served his purpose.
Per these beliefs, the astral body accompanies the individual through life, is able to leave the human body at will, and survives the individual after death.
Small Dave would argue in favour of the latter, because by some strange freak of chance, while his physical self sat in a state of complete ignorance regarding its imminent cremation, his astral body now stood upon a mysterious cloudy plane confronting the slightly transparent figure of a man in a Victorian garb with an oversized head and narrow bow tie.