Out-of-Body Experience on Demand

GT_Alias writes "CNN has an article reporting that some neurology researchers in Switzerland have triggered repeated out-of-body experiences by firing certain electrodes in the patient's brain. It seems that a part of the brain called the angular gyrus, responsible for logic and spatial awareness, triggers the sensation."

Comments

Hmmmm

[zpengo]

That soundly debunks decades of pseudoscientists who claimed that they actually *were* leaving their bodies....

Funny how those decades happened to coincide with eras of particularly heavy drug use!

Re:Hmmmm

[dameron]

If all paranormal investigators claimed is that people sometimes imagine themselves floating outside their bodies, nobody would have called that "lies, hoaxes, or intentional self deceptions" (I'm sure it could be caused by drugs in some cases, though).

Several paranormal investigators have claimed exactly this, but the subject has, despite plenty of research, been laughed out of "serious" academic circles. A good summary on this flavor of research can be found here:

link

When people like Michael Persinger do serious research in "paranormal" areas (and it looks like he came pretty damn close to nailing this neurological/OOBE phenomenon on the head) they get tossed into the "kook" bin.

The typical reaction from skeptics to people reporting OOBEs is to a priori refute the claim, usually stating the subject simply imagined it, or was dreaming, or offering other less satisfying explanations. The reasoning never gets to the point of examining whether the subjects have actually extra-located their consciousnesses or only sincerely believe they have done so, because OOBE's don't exist.

But apparently now they do.

-dameron

I wonder...

[cornice]

I wonder if this is what ketamine does.

What does this prove:

[dotslash]

Here's an interesting discussion I had with my wife:

"What if stimulating that part of the brain causes *actual* out-of-body experiences rather than just the perception. What if you consciousness is disengaged from your body? How can the researchers tell the difference between *real* and *perceived* out-of-body? Did they ask the subjects to perform a task (such as observe something outside their field of view) that would only be possible in an *actual* out-of-body? Essentially they have proved an causal link between stimulation of this area of the brain and out-of-body experiences. They have not proved that the experience was perceived and not real."

Of course this doesn't mean it's real any more than it means it's just perception. Simply put, the experiement has only shown a causal link, without accurately examining the "effect" that follows the cause. Just because you can trigger it, doesn't mean it's fake. I would like to see them follow up with some tests of the "experience" to determine whether it is a perceptual recreation of the scene from different perspective.

Once they prove this, they will also have only proven that you can trigger "fake" out-of-body. That still does not prove that there is no "real" out-of-body that can occur under other circumstances.

By the way, I don't have any reason to believe in out-of-body being anything more than a perceptual issue, but the science here doesn't address that question.

Re:What does this prove:

[scaryjohn]

How can the researchers tell the difference between *real* and *perceived* out-of-body?

One's brain mediates everything, every experience, every perception. That is a relatively obvious, but pretty important theory (as in supported by evidence) of cognitive science. You're right; there is no difference between a "real" out-of-body experience or a "percieved" one. The scientists claim not to want to "explain out-of-body experiences away" but they're persistant in pop culture precisely because in the first few cases counselors were either unwilling, or not well-enough versed in cognitive theory to tell the person having the experience that it was their brain going nuts (and sometimes, these patients would go to therapist after therapist until they found such an enabler).

I imagine this finding, if re-tested in a systematic way (which will be damn hard, because the number of people one could ethically stick electrodes into is miniscule) will go a long way towards debunking out-of-body experience as somehow paranormal.

It's just like UFO's. A pannel of scientists back in the late 80's or early 90's (after the Condon report came out) were left to sift through a huge stack of UFO reports... and everyone was waiting for them to come out with a conclusion that these people were all on drugs, or that they were reporting bona fide encounters with aliens. They're conclusion: there was a small kernel of cases where the Flying Objects were indeed Unexplainable... but that these incidents represented an opportunity for physicists and atmospheric scientists to learn new things about Life, the Universe and Everything.