Hi!
I'm not so sure about this straightforward way to interpret, not to mention explain, historical phenomena using modern concepts, but as the "phase" seems to be a universal phenomenon based on physiological structure of the human brain, it seems quite legit to make some connections. Deeper analysis can take place later, if ever.
I think one quite obviously phase-related phenomenon is the so-called
benandanti.
"The Benandanti ("Good Walkers") were an agrarian visionary tradition in the Friuli district of Northern Italy in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Benandanti claimed to travel out of their bodies while asleep to struggle against malevolent witches (streghe) in order to ensure good crops for the season to come."
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benandanti, italics mine.)
I don't know much about this. It's just something I've picked up from some books I've read. Italian historian named Carlo Ginzburg has written about it: see
The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1966, English translation 1983). But, if I remember correctly, there is some outdated interpretations about witchcraft in his book. For example, he argues, I think - haven't read the book -, that those who were persecuted of witchcraft in the early modern witch trials were really surviving members of an old, pre-christian fertility cult, which is a popular misconception based mostly on writings of Margaret Murray. (See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Murray.) However, Ginzburg - again, if I remember correctly - has admitted this and corrected himself in his later publications. But this discussion is perhaps not relevant here - just read the book, if you are interested.
By the way, check the "Related traditions" -section in the wikipedia article quoted above. There you can find a few more possibly historical, phase-related phenomena. But, again, I think we must be careful when making this kind of historical connections.