Science of out of body experience

[Sunnybayes]

The Science of Out-of-Body Experiences - TIME

Get ready to see yourself in a new light. Two papers released this week by the journal Science describe what seem to be the first lab-induced out-of-body experiences in healthy people.

Just stumbled on this. Thought people might find this interesting.

[Erki]

Shouldn't this be in the Psychic/Paranormal forum?

[Blueskied]

An OBE is an altered state of consciousness, so i think it fits in this forum.

[Niki]

I think many people are going to use this to say " See, out of body experiences arent real!" but when you read the article, they admit that they dont know how out of body experiences happen in real life situations. I think its funny because nobody walks around with virtual glasses or what that thing calls. It's just sience trying to beat something they cant beat.


Nice try

[mysterygal]

What is an out of body experience? I know that it's the feeling of being outside of one's body, but could someone please explain it in more depth?

[Mark Lapierre]

Niki: The research papers themselves don't make any claims about the validity of full out of body experiences. It's just a step towards greater understanding. Is that such a bad thing? Are we wrong to try to understand self-awareness?

Mysterygal: That's about it. You feel as if your 'self' is outside your body. In some OBE's during surgery, patients have reported feeling as if they were floating near the ceiling, looking down on their own body, hearing the doctors talking. Others have reported similar experiences in different settings, but the common theme is the very strong perception of being outside your body (though not necessarily being able to see your body).

That's what people experience, but if you're after an explanation of why, well, this is as far as science has gone. There are plenty of ideas to be found, but none that I've come across offers anything to validate them.

[beautyscientist]

I think that the great beauty of science is its ability to explain things that our intuitive brains just can't get. Out of body experiences have bothered me for years because they seem to imply the existance of a soul. If we have a soul than that implies all sorts of other things which are very hard to understand. I didn't think that OBEs would ever be something that could be studied objectively - not in my lifetime at any rate.

But now it turns out that they can be produced at will in the laboratory.

This pleases me immensely. Another area that had seemed beyond the power of reason and rationality has been explored, and found to comply with the rules that apply elsewhere.

[Calculusaurus]

Originally Posted by beautyscientist

I think that the great beauty of science is its ability to explain things that our intuitive brains just can't get. Out of body experiences have bothered me for years because they seem to imply the existance of a soul.

But saying that OBE's imply the existence of a soul is itself bad science. If science is supposed to transcend human intuition (which is notoriously faulty), then I wouldn't trust your own intuition that OBE = souls.

Lots of research has been done on OBEs. And to date, there has been nothing but inconclusive results regarding whether or not anything actually goes outside the body. Not that any of us really know what goes on during an OBE, but the current research doesn't suggest anything beyond OBE's being experiences created and experienced entirely within the mind, similar to how dreams are experienced.

[Calculusaurus]

Get ready to see yourself in a new light. Two papers released this week by the journal Science describe what seem to be the first lab-induced out-of-body experiences in healthy people.

This is why journalists shouldn't be trusted. Lab-induced OBE's have been going on in research laboratories for several years now. e.g. read something by Susan Blackmore.