Astral projection and The Matrix

Randomly I wondered, could you astral/etheric project out of the Matrix? I mean if the machines didn't have reason to believe that would be possible they probably wouldn't have put in any safe guards against it or written it out of the Matrix world. Additionally, someone would have to have tried it out of curiosity. Do you think it would work and that person would see the real world, or would the fact that they are already in VR effect them?