One MCU fan posed an interesting question regarding astral projection and how sorcerers like Doctor Strange could have used it to save themselves from Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet snap.
Posted in the Marvel Studios subreddit, Redditor Realistic_Analyst_26 suggested that the sorcerers of the MCU could maybe have survived the Snap if they had been in their astral form. It’s an interesting idea — if they could enter the astral plane in time then would they be disconnected from their body and thus unaffected by Thanos’s finger snap? Of course, if that was actually an option, Doctor Strange would have to be pretty stupid not to have used it.
However most fans were pretty skeptical of the idea, citing examples where characters who are astral projecting have died in the real world and also died in the astral plane. In the first Doctor Strange movie, The Ancient One dies whilst astral projecting and her soul disappears after her body dies. There’s plenty of other cases throughout the MCU that demonstrate that astral projecting would have done nothing during the Snap.
“Based on that scene, if the body dies the projection dies so…there’s your answer.”
“Strange kills the follower of Kaecilius in his astral form when Christine uses the defibrillator panels and he died in real life so I assume it works both ways.”
“Interesting thought
The astral projection is a projection of the body, they even wear the same clothes when they do it. If the connection is broken the Astral form cannot exist , it too would perish.”
Considering everything we know about astral projection in the MCU and the Snap, it’s safe to say that there probably wasn’t anything the sorcerers could do to survive it. Besides, Doctor Strange memorably saw 14,000,605 different universes and never mentioned astral projection as a solution. Don’t you think he would have used his power if it would have had a chance of working?