Inside Out-Of-Body Experiences

Study Shows Stimulating Certain Areas Of The Brain Can Induce Feelings Of Disembodiment

(WebMD)  Scientists may be one step closer to understanding what happens in the brain when someone has an out-of-body experience.

A certain spot in the brain shows increased activity during out-of-body experiences, Belgian researchers report in The New England Journal of Medicine.

That part of the brain is where the angular gyrus, a brain region involved in self-awareness, meets the supramarginal gyrus, a brain area that affects the body's spatial orientation.

The Belgian scientists studied a 63-year-old man who had had an electrode implanted in his brain to treat tinnitus, in which people experience ringing or other unusual sounds in their ears.

Before getting the electrode implanted in his brain, the man had tried other tinnitus treatments, with no success.

The implant was supposed to use electrical stimulation to suppress tinnitus. But that didn't work.

Besides still having tinnitus, the man had out-of-body experiences during the electrical stimulation.

"His perception of disembodiment always involved a location about 50 cm behind his body and off to the left," write the scientists, who included Dirk De Ridder, MD, PhD, of University Hospital Antwerp.

The man didn't have near-death experiences and he couldn't "see" himself from outside his body during his out-of-body experiences, which lasted for an average of 17 seconds.

De Ridder's team stimulated the man's brain via the implanted electrode.

The man pressed a button with his right hand to indicate when his out-of-body experience began. Meanwhile, he got a brain scan using positron emission tomography (PET).

The scientists noticed a spike in activity in the junction of the angular gyrus and the supramarginal gyrus during the man's out-of-body experiences. But the researchers don't claim to understand everything about out-of-body experiences.

For instance, they don't know if the brain behaves differently when people when people have out-of-body sensations during near-death experiences or in other cases that aren't induced by electrical stimulation. And the findings are just a window on brain activity, not what people feel during out-of-body-experiences.

[rf36]

More research is needed, especially in the near-death experience area. Let''s get the Bush Whitehouse lined up and induce near-death states. We may lose a few, but is that really and loss?

[rf36]

Sorry, I meant "any loss?"

[p-syrus]

Strictly speaking this study reflects on physiological effects associated with certain types of oob experiences. It doesn''t itself address the topic of oob phenomena.

All this study discusses is the association of amygdala stimulation with occasional perception of self as separate from a body. Reasons for such a correlation are not addressed and may not be limited to physiological phenomena.

This represents a very limited view of the oob phenomena and doesn''t remotely begin to address the question of self-perception as separate from a physical incarnation.

[tastyburp]

With more than a half-century of research on such phenomena, this is a very half-hearted attempt to understand OOBEs. We have better knowledge and access to better technology.

Once again, the scientists are trying to play God, but coming up short of understanding the disproportionate correlations of spiritual concerns and physical manifestations of such.

Nice try in measuring a burp after a spiritual meal though.

We''ll see all of you in DisneyWorld 2010 once they have their synthetic version of OOBEs made available to the general public.

[spenyc]

I''ve always thought the way to verify or negate the OOB experiences reported in hospitals -- in which people report floating above their body and observing the doctors -- would be to place simple messages above light fixtures or whatever, where you could only see them from above. Skeptics invalidate accurate reports of what''s said and done as unconscious memories, but you''d really have to be outside your body to read the messages. Researchers, feel free to do it!