Scientists recreate out-of-body experiences (no drugs)

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Scientists recreate out-of-body experiences (no drugs)

Bizarro, to say the least.

Fascinating.

Fascinating. Maybe that will put a stop to some silly magical notions.

That was bizarre.

Happens once in a blue moon.

Yeah, I flunked the psychic test.

We all did.

Luckily.

No question out of body experiences are merely based on some internal neurological mechanisms but this study in no way explains that. This study is so frivolous you could do a similar study playing a tape recorder of a ghostly voice in a creepy old house and send the test subject in for some pointless reason. Then later quiz them on who thought it was a ghost. Some would say yes. But this again proves nothing.

Indeed!

Psh! You're even worse!

Yeah my telepathy has been fuzzy lately..

I don't know how this lame study got all this attention. It's nothing miraculous. There have been studies similar to that
going on for decades. Has anyone tried the goggles that make everything upsidedown?
It's a neat trick, kind of like how people feel like they are moving at an imax movie, but I dont think it has anything to do with
what people describe as "out of body experiences". There are too many differences to call it that.
This guy is just using a clever marketing scheme to make himself look important and get a crapload of grant money.

Hmm. "Participants confirmed they had experienced sitting behind their physical body and looking at it." Sounds exactly like an out of body experience to me (and I've had them).

The point is that if the human brain can be fooled into projecting its awareness to another location, we simply cannot trust that the naturally occurring variant of this experience is mystical or spiritual in origin.

clinical trials suck. they couldnt pay me a kings salery to participate in anything like out of body experaments. what is wrong with people? they should put the money to better use i think. you know there are alot of starving people in the world that im shure are so facinated with scientists creating a out of body expeirament thingy

Because it's an optical illusion. They are seeing it so it seems real. Of course when people have out of body experiences, they arent wearing virtual reality goggles, and they often report having their eyes shut and "hovering" around their body when watching themselves, and the ability to control their ectoplasm movements and etc. To say it's reproducing an out of body experience is silly. A more correct way is to say the visual field overwhelmed participants understanding of bodily position. It's not like we have GPS receivers in our heads. Our brain believes what the eyes see. Of course you are experiencing sitting behind your body and looking at it, because you actually are! Your field of vision has been altered. Of course you are going to feel like you are in the place where your eyes are directed, because the human brain is designed to rely on visual perception and for most of us it's the predominant means of placing ourselves in the environment.

We also don't experience things like this often. Part of it is probably the novelty of the experience. After repeated exposure people would not notice the same effect. The physiological reactions they commented on are not surprising either.
People also react similarly if they are watching a horror movie. The brain reacts to visual stimuli. It's a mechanism to save us from potentially dangerous things. That is what is expected to happen. If you are in virtual reality goggles and you see what looks like someone stabbing you, you'll react. If people DIDN'T react, that would actually be something interesting.

Our visual system can also create the perception of moving, for example when people are at an IMAX film and become "sea sick". But people don't run out and say "we've discovered a revolutionary understanding of sea sickness!"

There are many other optical illusions that trick the senses. It's certainly a neat trick, but not something that deserves the attention people are giving it. All it proves is that the brain is easily tricked by optical illusion. Which we already know.

And it still doesn't explain ANYTHING about reported out of body experiences, because this setup is not something people encounter. You have to fool around with peoples brains to do that.

Actually, there is another study that I remember where people mildly electrically stimulated the frontal lobe, and participants
reported feelings of being out of their body. That one was far more "groundbreaking", and yet it wasn't all over the news.
It tells us a little bit about what possibly could be happening with the brain when people experience it naturally. However, I doubt that any amount of scientific study on this subject will convince people that there is no mystical origin.