Scientist discover the science of out of body experience

Get ready to see yourself in a new light. Two papers released this week by the journal Science describe what seem to be the first lab-induced out-of-body experiences in healthy people. Using goggles hooked up to video cameras, and sticks to poke and stroke, researchers subjected study participants to a variety of visual and physical cues to confuse their brain about their body's location. Sound a bit impractical? Consider, then, how the studies relate to humankind's most enduring question: what makes us ourselves in the first place? "I'm not really interested in out-of-body experiences," says Henrik Ehrsson, one of the study's authors and an assistant professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. "I'm really interested in in-body experiences: how the brain keeps and updates a model of the world and the body. To have a perception of your own body is the foundation of self-consciousness."

That is, of course, why out-of-body experiences have always been, well, out-of-body. People report such experiences after returning from the "brink of death," or being under the influence of mind-altering drugs — no doubt why the sensation has long been equated with spiritual awakening (and with crackpots). But, today, with new advances in neurology, scientists are better able than ever to locate the physical roots of these bizarre perceptions of self. For example, neurologists have studied amputees who can feel sensation where their missing limbs used to be; researchers think this phantom limb phenomenon has to do with rewiring in the brain's somatosensory cortex. And, in the lab, researchers have been able to make people feel that fake rubber hands are attached to their own bodies. (This was done simply enough, by touching the participants' real hands while having them watch the rubber hands be touched in the same way and the same time.) Now, there are the current Science experiments: the first where volunteers have relocated their entire "selves" — their minds, as it were — outside of their bodies.

In both studies, participants wore goggles hooked up to cameras planted behind them, so that participants had a view of their own backs. Then they were physically stimulated in ways that would enhance or reduce the feeling that their selves were located outside their bodies. For his paper, Ehrsson used a stick to poke the chest of each participant (out of view of the person being poked) while also poking the area below the camera where a chest would have been (which the person could see through the goggles). Sure enough, the participants reported that it felt like their vantage point was exactly the same as that of the camera. "You feel quite clearly that you are sitting in the corner of the room, and you see yourself sitting elsewhere. But it's not you," Ehrsson says. To be certain — and to get some harder data — he hooked up his participants to stress-monitoring devices, and then swung a hammer at the space where the illusory chest would have been. The readings showed signs of stress all right. Many participants also visibly flinched.

The second experiment was conducted at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland, by a team including neurologist Olaf Blanke, whose work with out-of-body experiences suggests that their neural underpinnings reside in the brain's temporo-parietal junction. Blanke and his colleagues had participants watch their own backs being stroked — either through a video feed coming live to their eyes or through one coming slightly out of synch. Afterward, the participants were blindfolded and asked to return to their original place in the room; on average, those who had had the in-synch physical stimuli — and, thus, the real feeling of an out-of-body experience — "drifted" toward where the illusion had been.

So, do these lab experiments really feel like a true out-of-body experience? "It's very vivid," says Ehrsson of his test. Participants say they really did feel like they were outside of their bodies. People in both sets of studies found the experience "weird." Some of Ehrsson's subjects described the experiment as "cool" and giggled, while some in Blanke's study called it "irritating." But the extent to which the experiments succeeded "depends what you mean by the full-blown out-of-body experience," says Ehrsson. "Of course you know that it's not real, that it's all due to the goggles. But you can't just think it away."

www.time.com...

Although the participants consciousness may have been temporarily viewing from a different perspective, .... this is not a full out of body experience.

although I am happy to hear they are breaking new ground on the subject, most people cannot fathom what it is to be outside of what they have identified with their whole lives.

If scientists were able to initiate their own out of body experiences, .... they would have much more insight into the inner workings of the universe and alterior dimensions.

To theorize is one thing, .... to see is another.

The pioneers of the future will do so without body.

The farthest star, and deepest dimensions are already within reach.

This is a revolution of the mind.

I have always said that scientists say this leads to ..... are blah blah blah

But this looks promising.

I will reserve judgement.

If you cut a ping pong ball in half, put it over your eyes while lying down so you see pure white and nothing else, and have a radio playing static in the background, you'll start hallucinating within minutes.

It's just like a sensory deprivation tank, except there you're literally floating in a liquid that makes you buoyant and is the exact same temperature as your skin, it' pitch dark, and once the water stops sloshing around it's SILENT. Not for the claustrophobic! lol

Both of these methods, and MANY more have been in books for YEARS.

It seems to me that their method is just another off-shoot of sensory deprivation/sensory overload.

Very interesting and about time none the less.

That's interesting.
As a young witch, I was taught to imagine myself looking at myself from another vantage point. IE if I am sitting in the bath, I will often 'imagine' that I am standing beside the bath looking at myself as I am bathing. It's good for giving oneself a perspective of nonlocality. I do it all the time now without thinking too much about it.

I am starting equate "Scientists Discover..." with "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain". It is getting to the point where I am starting to look down on someone just because they are a scientist. Like they are a data box packed with all the approved facts to dispense as needed. And somewhere down inside a secret voice reminds them what would happen if they ever deviated from the party line. Loss of career, loss of peer respect and cast out...

Here is an interesting trick done without the cameras at Stanford Research Institute:
Link
If remote perception is possible without the tricky cameras and pokey sticks maybe an OBE is possible.

And now quite ashamed of this read what SRI says about this type of thing:
Hide The Shame

I think scientists mean well it is just that they all seem to think that if they don't know it, it must not be true... Or at least the ones that get good media coverage

This only proves that people can be fooled into thinking they are nearby their body when precise stimulus is applied to purposely create the False Perception.

Out of Body experience is different in that there is no stimulus required, only focus of the mind and one's Intention without the need for electronic and stick trickery.

lol i have had an obe i doubt they have the tech to truly understand what its like. while its a step in the right direction its also down right disrespectful to the people who have had one like putting on glasses and being poked with a stick could induce it to happen. I think this is a kind of false obe. And to the OP its ok if your doubt it, a lot of people who claim to have had one are looking for attention i found it to be very very scary. I didn't fly to places i have never known didn't see a silver string and i didn't talk to aliens. what i felt was how the hell do i get back to my body and im i dead? which to say is a fear only few have known. there was no fluid i wasn't doing drugs just laying in my bed looking at the ceiling

While interesting, I feel this is just another attempt to discredit genuine experiences and keep us trapped in a materialistic world view.
It looks more like some kind of hypnosis or autosuggestion to me.

Originally posted by Illegal Alien
While interesting, I feel this is just another attempt to discredit genuine experiences and keep us trapped in a materialistic world view.

No it's not. It's an attempt to understand the neurological phenomena that may create the sensation within people.

IRM

reply to post by InfaRedMan


You could be correct in this case, but I do feel that scientists do have a tendency to try to discredit anything that cannot be categorised within their own model of reality.
It's always a good thing, in my opinion, to have a healthy degree of skepticism where these things are concerned, but the goalposts change so often, and the needle swings so wildly in so many directions it's sometimes difficult to know what to think when all we have to go on is the 'official authorised version' of how things should be perceived.

Originally posted by pcrobotwolf
lol i have had an obe i doubt they have the tech to truly understand what its like. while its a step in the right direction its also down right disrespectful to the people who have had one like putting on glasses and being poked with a stick could induce it to happen. I think this is a kind of false obe. And to the OP its ok if your doubt it, a lot of people who claim to have had one are looking for attention i found it to be very very scary. I didn't fly to places i have never known didn't see a silver string and i didn't talk to aliens. what i felt was how the hell do i get back to my body and im i dead? which to say is a fear only few have known. there was no fluid i wasn't doing drugs just laying in my bed looking at the ceiling

I agree with you on this,I too suffered a O.B.E when young and for 4minutes went somewhere and saw myself below,then the street I lived in ,the sky, then blackness then tension,fear and a voice that was determined to get me to go somewhere,I was terrified.
Without understanding how I returned and when they ran a rerun of the first moon landing age 5 I said to my parents I`d been there,I was even hypnotised to reveal anxiety problems about my behaviour at school,when really it was a problem of perception and fear off.
Nothing will ever answer O.B.E not unless you can come back and physically take someone else there with you which is impossible?

i have seen experiments like this before, one even recalled that being sat on by incubus/aliens feeling when you are asleep. science [angry atheists] are always trying to shoo away peoples experiences by using science. its like magicians who try and recreat the same effects as remote viewing through suggestion etc. 4/10.

Originally posted by InfaRedMan
No it's not. It's an attempt to understand the neurological phenomena that may create the sensation within people.

IRM

Well said IRM.. especially leaving a judgement open with the word "may".

I do think the experiment itself is worthy to explore different avenues to learn what can instigate the perception of separation from the body, and, which may have virtual world applications down the track.

In this case I also think as the experimental phase progresses they will discover that any sense of being in 2nd person perception of their-self is limited to the placement and use of applied stimulus only. And with that limitation being known researchers would then seek to find other means to instigate and quantify the Out of Body Experience.

Hope that came out right

I don`t negate the fact of experimentation to understand extremes of perception,but all things considered even scientists don`t know how they are conscious if they did they would`nt be needing to do the experiment.
According to scientists our brain percieves reality as a hologram,whether this is true or not,yet again is down to perspective,where our eyes see it from,but where does the brain see it from.

This isn't true out of body, and nothing new. That experiment has been around for a long time. Like the classic gag where you get a fake arm and put it on arm of a chair where a person is sitting. You then stroke the fake arm, while someone else strokes their real arm in the same manner. After doing this for a little while, you then pull out a hammer and smash the fake arm. Scares the living crap outta people.

Well, the articles title is misleading... and thats all.
The experiment demonstrates how easy perception is deceived... nothing more, nothing less.
Old news really.

"depends what you mean by the full-blown out-of-body experience," says Ehrsson. "Of course you know that it's not real, that it's all due to the goggles. But you can't just think it away."

Ehrsson says it himself... what a douche.

Title should be "how to discredit yourself"

Originally postet by: RedPill
It is getting to the point where I am starting to look down on someone just because they are a scientist.

There are Geologists running around who still believe in the flat-earth-theory and Biologists who believe in Creationism... sure, they are a disgrace to their profession, but please dont start to generalize just because some idiots sneaked a degree

I would say more along the lines of inception myself but that's my opinion.
Avatar
Inception
Matrix
All involve the same scenario?

Originally posted by jazz10
I would say more along the lines of inception myself but that's my opinion.
Avatar
Inception
Matrix
All involve the same scenario?

Matrix is based more on the brain in a Vat thought experiment
Inception is based more on Descartes's Dream Argument

So I would guess this experiment seems to reflect more on the movie Avatar in the sense that the subject is seeing himself projected in front of himself. The movie wasn't based on any psychological or philosophical idea but rather just cheese about tolerance and acceptance. Both fail from my perspective since I fail to see the relevance of such a study... and such a movie. They both just seem like fireworks to me.

I'd like to hear some arguments on how this can be beneficial.

Yet again mainstream science is WAY behind. Plenty of experimentation was done in the 70s at the Monroe Institute by real world physicists.

Read 'Journey's Out of Body' by Robert Monroe, the experience told from a person that had been on the other side thousands of times.

Then read 'My Big TOE', by Thomas Campbell, the physicist who helped prove the OBE's, and eventually began experiencing it himself. A true scientist that actually experienced it, and still does to this day. His 'theory of everything' is profound and far reaching, more so than any theory I've ever come across, including Einstein. This is because of the inclusion of one thing that almost no other scientist takes into account: Consciousness.

Thomas Campbell lecture