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

[sydb]

So why doesn't it demonstrate that the experience is real, and that there are other triggers besides drugs, meditiation and spiritual experiences?

This doesn't 'debunk' anything.

Re:Hmmmm

[jareds]

The news here is that the "real" scientists, who for years have claimed out of body experiences were either lies, hoaxes, drug induced hallucinations or intentional self deceptions, have verified an experience paranormal investigators have been describing for a long time.

You're confused. Imagining or hallucinating that you're floating outside your body is not paranormal. It's only paranormal if the subject is literally able to see what is going on while their eyes are closed or something. This article did not describe the verification of anything like that. They were able to cause out-of-body experiences, but nothing indicated that they were anything more than hallucinations.

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).

Re:Hmmmm

[jareds]

You're contradicting yourself, so it's difficult to argue with you.

I wrote: "If all paranormal investigators claimed is that people sometimes imagine themselves floating outside their bodies..."

You wrote: "Several paranormal investigators have claimed exactly this, but the subject has, despite plenty of research, been laughed out of "serious" academic circles." and "The typical reaction from skeptics to people reporting OOBEs is to a priori refute the claim, usually stating the subject simply imagined it.... because OOBE's don't exist"

If stating that the subject imagined it is the reaction from skeptics, why would claims that people imagine it be laughed out of academic circles?

I'm afraid I don't understand what you're saying. One cannot say, and I doubt anyone does, that an experience does not exist because it was merely imagined. One can deny that the experience corresponded to reality: the person may have been dreaming, imagining, or hallucinating. However, making such a claim does not deny that the person experienced what they did.

Also, who has called Persinger a kook? I thought his work was well-regarded by skeptics.

Re:Hmmmm

[dameron]

If stating that the subject imagined it is the reaction from skeptics, why would claims that people imagine it be laughed out of academic circles?

I don't know why, but it happens. It's circular logic and probably springs from a prejudice on the part of skeptics (or in Persinger's case because he has expanded his theories to include explanations of UFO sightings, and having anything to do with UFOs will get you branded a kook).

To skeptics 1) OOBE aren't real, thus 2) reports of OOBE must be imagined or faked. 3) Trying to fit OOBE into a traditional scientific framework (even if the claims are that OOBE are imagined, not what Persinger claims btw) the research is discounted because 1)OOBE aren't real.

I know it doesn't make sense, but it happens alarmingly frequently on the fringes of science. That Persinger's research has gone essentially unnoticed but a chance discovery by "legitimate" scientists gets CNN's attention is typical.

I could go on about this for hours, but sorry to be less than clear earlier. If I find an article that better sums up my position I'll either post it here or post a link.

-dameron

I wonder...

[cornice]

I wonder if this is what ketamine does.

Re:all the time

[littlerubberfeet]

My favorite for out-of-body experiances remains MDMA. Shame it was banned, many psychiatrists found valid use for it

Now you too

[Ratso Baggins]

Can enjoy the "Moderator" experience, in the safety of your own home....

Been there, done that... again

[Mazzaroth]

This has been done before. Wired magazine published an article in november 1999 on this. The reshercher (Michael Persinger, neuropsychologist at Canada's Laurentian University in Sudbury) is doing research on using electromagnetic fields to induce feelings directly in the brain. Induced feelings include sensatgion of God's presence, sensation of out of body experiences, etc.

I remember when I read this article, I was blown away. Something to really make you think... :-)

Obligatory Connie Willis - Passage - reference

[dpilot]

Good book, too.

Deals with chemically-induced near-death experiences, I suppose in the same realm as out-of-body. One researcher studying the chemical/neurotransmitter side, one studying the meaning of the experience.

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.

Re:What does this prove:

[Tackhead]

> And what if, following a long philosophical tradition, the perception is in fact the actual reality? What if there is no actual world and all we have is our pont of view on them? There is something like this in Dostoievski's Karamazov, when he says that it doesn't matter if God exists or not, provided you can feel him. Nietszche also said that we build our reality in the same way when we are sleeping and when we are awake. I could quote many other writers and post-structuralists that deal with this problem in the same way, but [...]

...in the meantime, what if there was an actual reality? What if there was an actual world, and all we silly hairless apes had to go on is the evidence of our senses, and the ability of our intelligence to interpret the data passed back to us by our senses?

There's something like this in Schrodinger's and Einstein's and Pauli's theories, where you can't tell if the cat's alive or not, provided you don't observe it, and that matter and energy are interchangeable, and that electrons can't occupy any energy state they bloody feel like, but that they exist only in one of a finite number of discrete states at one time, and that you can make 'em jump from one state to another, but you can never shove 'em halfway in between these states.

> I know it is not a popular scientific tradition among americans and, specially, among computer scientists, but it is a pretty interesting line of thought.

I know it is not a popular poststructuralist tradition among academics, and, specifically, among philosophers, but the notion that there exists an objective reality, whose nature can be determined through the scientific method, is also a pretty interesting line of thought.

> It will sure be difficult to show he who had an out-of-body experience that what he saw is an illusion.

A lot of people tried the "objective reality" idea, built devices like transistors, cathode ray tubes, radio and X-ray telescopes, nuclear weapons, and laser keychain pointers based on those principles.

In the meantime, what have postmodernist and poststructuralist theorists brought us, other than graduate papers on postmodernism?

I think the scientist denying the OBE-believer's claim as mere illusion has a much easier time of it than a poststructuralist philosophy student's attempted denial of everything from the 15-kiloton explosion over Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the 0.5 milliwatt HeNe laser reflecting annoyingly off his computer's display after having been aimed there by a couple of wise-ass geeks in the engineering lab across campus.

I can't speak for Dostoevsky, but I think Nietzsche would have been embarassed at you. Who, since Nietzsche's day, has done more to completely redefine our understanding of reality than the scientist? Will to Power, indeed.

Re:What does this prove:

[SanLouBlues]

Or just change the environment outside of the patients field of view, but not outside of their fov if they were looking down. Their inability to change the point from whence they perceive themselves does not indicate that they are not perceiving themselves.

It'd also be interesting to see what happens if you put a mirror in front of them: "I see me seeing me!". Or a two way mirror, reflective side up: "I see the ceiling! This is so cool!"

from the wish-it-was-me dept.

[Dannon]

Now, how's about getting those scientists to work on Out Of Work/School/Chores On Demand Experiences? Preferably without those annoying Out Of Money Experience side effects. ;-)

Like most things in science

[bill_mcgonigle]

You're right, it cannot be proven at this time with absolute moral certitude.

However, if you apply Occam's Razor to the situation, "people experience out of body experiences," you have two options:

1) a certain part of the brain is being abnormally stimulated. Stimulating this part of the brain is proven to produce the perception of out-of-body experiences.
2) the subject's soul, which cannot be detected, is leaving his body, and moving about the room.

Option 2 is exceedingly more complex, and therefore far less likely to be the correct choice. Your confidence level is still not 100%, but it approaches it.

Like you, I'm not trying to deliver an anti-spiritual viewpoint (I happen to have an irrational belief in a soul for some reason) but you *can* apply scientific thinking to this situation.

Re:Like most things in science

[Mazzaroth]

We have to be very carefull with Occam's Razor. This discriminator must be used to order hypothesis, not to rule them out. Moreover, the ordering is highly dependant on the technological level of the observer. And too often, we don't go beyong the first hypothesis in the ordered list.
Let me give you an example: I have a clock on the wall behind me. Here are some hypothesis:
1. A quartz is oscillating by feeding it using white noise generated by a device composed of chemical stuff (battery). The white noise triggers the quartz's natural resonnance frequency. The time is then indicated by a complex set of electronics dividing a quartz oscilation and driving a step motor to which is attached the hands we see.
2. Someone is hiding behing the wall and turning the handles.

Occam's Razor would put the second explanation as the simplest. I don't think it is the right explanation though.

It is not because an explanation is satisfactory that it is the right one. We have to keep an open mind.

Re:Like most things in science

[pla]

In most cases, I would agree with you. In this specific case, however, consider the cause of such a brain region *existing* in the first place...

1) Contrary to the popular "we only use 10% of our brain" myth, our wetware counts as the single most expensive tissue in our bodies. Any neurons not used for *something* vanish very quickly, both evolutionarily (selection) *and* over the course of our lives (atrophy).

2) Direct electrical stimulation of the brain can also make the subject experience visual effects, vivid recollection of old memories, even orgasm. That does not mean the evoked experience cannot occur in the first place, just that we can artificially makes someone *feel* that experience at will.

Thus, it seems more likely that the existance of this brain region must have some use, either critical to our long-term well-being, or used reasonably often. I wouldn't say we can claim what purpose it serves yet, but now that we've located it, futher studies of what conditions activate it aught to *greatly* increase our knowledge about the entire "out of body experience" phenomena in general.

Re:Like most things in science

[Doctor Fishboy]

You could rephrase the two statements like this:

1. It's an electronic clock based on well-known electronic processes and principles

2. A quiet introvert who enjoys people having an accurate sense of time placed a clock on a wall and hid himself behind it, and keeps himself supplied with food from an unknown source whilst twiddling the hands using another time reference.

Now it's the first explanation that's the simplest.

I don't like Occam's razor for this reason - I think you can phrase the choices according to your own biased viewpoint. It is only effective when there is a bare minimum of testable information present - lifting the clock off the wall is a simple experiment, whilst OBE's are all about human-percieved experiences, very hard to dispassionately test.

Dr Fish

Re:out of body experiences...not Godly

[Tackhead]

> http://www.layhands.com/HowToBeCertainOfSalvation. htm
> http://www.layhands.com/HowToCastOutSpirits.htm

1) Gentoo. Build from source.
2) FDISK and install Linux instead.