Aug. 23, 2007
Out-Of-Body Experiences Put To The Test
Scientists Use Virtual Reality To Bend The Body's Borders
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Scientists may have figured out how out-of-body experiences happen. Turns out, it's all about the eyes. (AP / CBS)
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Interactive The Wiring Of The Brain Find out what each part of the brain does, and when in a person’s life these areas are developed.
Scientists may have figured out how out-of-body experiences happen. Turns out, it's all about the eyes.
Two new studies — both published in tomorrow's edition of the journal Science — put a state-of-the-art spin on out-of-body research.
In one experiment, 14 healthy, young adults wore virtual-reality goggles as they stood in the researchers' lab. A few feet behind them, a video camera filmed their backs and projected that image, in real time, into a hologram a few feet in front of the participants.
The researchers stroked the participants' real and virtual back at the same time. Afterward, they only stroked the participants' virtual back — but even so, participants said they had the sensation that their real backs were being touched.
Participants didn't lose all sense of themselves. They didn't report feeling like they had left their bodies. But they did describe the sensation as weird or strange, according to Olaf Blanke, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues. Blanke directs the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Blanke's team did similar tests on 14 other participants to confirm the findings.
The other study also used virtual reality and video cameras to simulate out-of-body experiences. But neuroscientist H. Henrik Ehrsson, M.D., Ph.D., pushed the envelope a little farther.
Ehrsson works at University College London and the Karolinksa Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. In a series of experiments, Ehrsson found that participants "felt" touch applied to virtual-reality versions of their bodies.
What's more, when Ehrsson pretended to strike participants' virtual bodies — not their true selves — with a hammer, participants were scared for their actual flesh and blood, though they had been promised that they weren't in any danger whatsoever.
"This experiment suggests that the first-person visual perspective is critically important for the in-body experience," Ehrsson says in a news release. "In other words, we feel that our self is located where the eyes are."
By Miranda Hitti
Reviewed by Louise Chang, M.D.
© 2007, WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
Pray for Peace, and God Bless You.
Lancet Study on NDEs
These two articles from IANDS'' newsletter Vital Signs (2002, Number 1) provide an introduction in layman''s terms to the Dutch study. The original study is available on-line.
Dutch NDE Study Attracts Worldwide Attention
Comments about the Dutch Study From a Family Doctor Who is also a Near-Death Experiencer
Dutch NDE Study Attracts Worldwide Attention
by Jeffrey Long, MD & Paul Bernstein, PhD.
just type these into your search..
ABOUT THE CONTINUITY OF OUR CONSCIOUSNESS
Pim van Lommel
In: Brain Death and Disorders of Consciousness. Machado, C. and Shewmon, D.A., Eds. New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow: Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Publishers, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology Adv Exp Med Biol. 2004; 550: 115-132.
Besides evolution is man just trying to make a monkey of himself..
As the imprint is in the DNA, life can only change if it is already in the DNA, and I gather that mutations go back to the original after so many generations IF they are able to multiply at all, and the chances of finding another mutant to multiply with is very very unlikely.. There is much out there to show that the evolution that we have believed in for a few years now is just not correct, as is seen by what many scientists are now saying, funny how much of the media wont print it..
Besides formrusmcsgt if these people are wrong in what they believe, when they die they have nothing to loose but if you are wrong????
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when I accessed what you posted. It seems that you pretty much dismissed the whole thing based on how humanity had abused religion. an ideal religion is suppose to guide a human towards a more grand state of existance AND towards total belief in GOD. Now I think I would move from the name GOD into ''entity'' just for the sake of our does not lean towards a more religious one. This entity might not really care if you believe or not. why would it? Would it matter?
What does matter is how you live your life, speaking of negativity..you live with a negative aura, you would die and you would carry it with you..hence bringing that unsteady transition.
"There are more things ''twixt heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, ...."
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if you would actually do a study..most who had an nde or out of body experience becomes more spiritiual and less religious. at time totally seperating themselves from franchised religion.
The "believers" will ignore this science as they do all which shows time and time again that their dogma is nothing but a fairy tale.
The archeological record, the human genome, and geology all receive a blind eye because they prove truths that shatter the myth, magic, and mysticism that feeds "faith".....
Posted by formrusmcsgt at 07:31 AM : Aug 24, 2007
I pray that you will be blessed and that you in turn will have your deep spiritual experience%u2026
Though I have not had a near death experience, I have had out of the body experiences. And have even been able to describe surroundings of locales to friends at that locale without ever being there.
Please tell me how would you explain this? The descriptions were done without provocation and no input by friends%u2026.
Ever been there?
Experience can be flawed, for sure. But experience of one''s own mid is not the same a virtual reality...not at all.
Nice try for the mechanists...but only close.
Also the writer extrapolates one kind of forced experiment onto experience that comes with through much more vividly and poignently...often providing real insights to present reality and predicting furture experience.
Sprinkling water is not the same as swimming.
The "believers" will ignore this science as they do all which shows time and time again that their dogma is nothing but a fairy tale.
The archeological record, the human genome, and geology all receive a blind eye because they prove truths that shatter the myth, magic, and mysticism that feeds "faith".....
MAYBE THAT''S WHAT HAPPEN TO BUSH?
STAY THE COURSE & SURGE ON
As far as NDE, here''s a site with a lot;
www.near-death.com/evidence.html .
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I will not fight science, because I know its futile. However, the experience gave me new energy to go on with life with desire. I cherish every morsel of life. Personally, it did not convert me to a more relgious person (I was catholic turned atheist turned..??) but a more spiritial human being. I know that there is a prupose for everything. I am sorry to be too corney...but I believe in a grand design for each and everyone of us. Most important, now I understand that it is not who you believe but how you lead your life.
I agree with you. My experience was similar. I experienced total lack of fear, knew I would exist forever (although not as who I was/still am in the flesh, of course), and knew I might or might not get back into my human form I had temporarily left. I saw the doctor, the nurses, everything around me and also in other rooms, as well as saw my own human body. As a result I am not at all afraid of death (maybe afraid of how I die, though). I did see a massive light / energy source and knew even the sun receives its energy from that. They can run all the experiments they want to; I don''t see what difference it makes. The experience left me aware that people are all running around in circles, intent on so many things that really don''t matter one tinker''s cuss in the grand scheme of things.
- by xzavierbrown August 23, 2007 9:30 PM EDT
- "In one experiment, 14 healthy, young adults wore virtual-reality goggles as they stood in the researchers'' lab. A few feet behind them, a video camera filmed their backs and projected that image, in real time, into a hologram a few feet in front of the participants."
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See all 19 CommentsI dont think anybody would have that as they are dying in an operating table. I had an NDE and what I felt is..*no words can describe it* I am NOT leaning toward a more religious aspect but more or on a spiritual. There is a sense of peace and delight. I did not see jesus nor did I see allah or whatever franchised religion is selling these days, but I sense an entity of power. The most important thing that I learned from it????....LIFE IS TOO PRECIOUS TO WASTE. LIVE IT LIKE YOU ARE GOING TO DIE IN AN HOUR. I can go ahead with this but I am afraid I am going to open myself to the preceeding post to taunts and hollers from both religious and athiest zealots.