In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker violently escapes from the lair of a wampa ice creature, finds himself in the middle of a life-threatening snowstorm on an inhospitable planet, collapses from cold and fatigue, and will likely be dead in a few minutes. As described in the script:
Luke lies face down in the snow, nearly unconscious. Slowly he looks up and sees Ben Kenobi, barely visible through the blowing snow. It is hard to tell if Kenobi is real or a hallucination.
Why did Obi-Wan Kenobi choose this moment to appear to Luke and deliver rather important instructions concerning next steps in his Jedi training?
It seems lucky that Luke remembered anything of the encounter at all. He probably thought he was hallucinating.
Answer
I don't think there's a canon explanation, but 3 possibilities come to mind:
It takes time and effort to master the whole Force Spirit routine. Obi-Wan appeared as soon as he was able to
Luke was in a particularly vulnerable state, and thus somehow more receptive to hearing Obi-Wan's Force Spirit (alternately, especially attuned to Force due to trying to survive)
Luke was collapsing and therefore wouldn't have been as likely to reject Ben's voice as a "can't happen" (e.g. he may have thought "well, i'm hallucinating from the cold. Might as well listen".
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