Scientists unlock mystery of out-of-body experiences (aka astral trips)

[The Straight Story]

Some people claim that they have experienced out-of-body experiences—aka "astral trips"—floating outside of their bodies and watching themselves from the outside. A team of scientists found someone who says she can do this at will and put her into a brain scanner. What they discovered was surprisingly strange.

Andra M. Smith and Claude Messierwere from the University of Ottawa described this subject's ability in their paper, published in Frontiers of Human Neuroscience:

She was able to see herself rotating in the air above her body, lying flat, and rolling along with the horizontal plane. She reported sometimes watching herself move from above but remained aware of her unmoving "real" body. The participant reported no particular emotions linked to the experience.

How the hell is this possible? Can it be real? The researchers found that something dramatic, and consistent with her account, was happening in her brain: The fMRI showed a "strong deactivation of the visual cortex" while "activating the left side of several areas associated with kinesthetic imagery," which includes mental imagery of bodily movement. This is the part of the brain that makes it possible for us to interact with the world. It's what makes you feel where your body is in relation to the world.

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/scientists-unlock-mystery-of-woman-who-sees-herself-out-1538196076

[RKP5637]

1. Similar to those IMO that see tunnels, bright lights and all in near death experiences. n/t

[FSogol]

3. Lay on the table in an operating theater and look up. What do you see?

A bright light! Oooohh how mystical!

[RKP5637]

5. Yep! I think many people long for something more to life. I see it pretty much as

life and death. I have a heavy scientific background, maybe that makes me biased. I'm always open to all explanations, but so far I see nothing to support the claims in a mystical or spiritual sense.

[TlalocW]

9. It's not just that

It's your body reacting to a near-death experience with your eyes and brain not getting enough blood, etc. Astronauts and jet pilots experience the same, "Bright light," effect when doing high-g training in those large centrifuges. Once they reach their threshold and start to pass out, it's pretty much the same experience as everyone else having near-death experiences.

TlalocW

[lunatica]

10. What about people who claim this happened to them and they weren't on the operating table?

LOL! But some people still think they have all the answers!!

[REP]

23. How about people who did come near death on an operating table but had no "near death" hallucination

I did die during surgery once - there was a big drama about resuscitating me and I was on a zillion machines when I woke up (I was also tied to the bed, but that's another story). I had no "near death" experience of white lights, dead relatives or religious figures, etc. I can only surmise why that was because I was not brought up with any particular fears/anxieties about religion or death; my age at the time (early 20s) and because the surgery was so damn early I had fallen asleep (general anesthesia does not induce sleep but unconsciousness, which is another state).

[Cleita]

2. I have an acquaintance who claims he can do this.

He even claims he can go to other dimensions where he encounters places that are out of this world so to speak.

Hallucinations or not, our government believed in it enough back during the Cold War that they created a "remote viewing" program to spy on the Soviets through people trained to project their astral bodies into Russia and finding out their secrets.

[RKP5637]

6. Yep, and I believe the Soviets had similar programs. I think they were all abandoned? ... because

Last edited Fri Mar 7, 2014, 01:15 PM - Edit history (1)

they did not produce statistically significant results.

[TlalocW]

11. Maybe, maybe not

The Soviets were first with their program, and Americans were worried about a "psi-gap" so started one as well. Here in America it was kept alive by various lawmakers who had personal belief in ESP, etc. until Clinton, who killed it. It was resurrected again under W. Not sure about now. And who knows about Russia. James Randi did a NOVA episode in 1993 where in part of it he traveled to Russia to test various claimants, etc.

In a round-about way, this was one of the reasons I was looking forward to the 4th Indiana Jones movie. In the 30s and 40s, he was dealing with mystic things in the movies because Hitler and Germany had an interest in mysticism. Ultimate victory though was in the form of science - terrible though it was - which took us into the 50s with the cold war and a renewed interest math and science, and the "woo" changed to keep up - ESP, telekinetic powers, etc. The untapped power of the mind and so on. So while I don't believe in either, I thought they were being clever, taking beliefs of the time to a far-out conclusion and having Indy have to deal with them...

And then I saw it. Spielberg had to put his daddy issues into yet another movie; Lucas his damn aliens, and the whole pre-Colombian civilizations were created by aliens is another form of woo and a racist one at that.

TlalocW

[lunatica]

12. Are you sure? Do you have proof all was abandoned?

Do you believe everything you're told?

[RKP5637]

13. With all respect, one could apply the converse to your questioning!

[lunatica]

16. I didn't assert anything

I just asked if you were sure. What I am sure of is that I simply don't know enough to claim whether everything is true or not.

[RKP5637]

21. I have no idea either. That's why the ? was in my post. Yes, quite true, it is often

Last edited Fri Mar 7, 2014, 06:33 PM - Edit history (2)

difficult to tell what one should believe there is so much misinformation!

[RussBLib]

4. i sometimes go beyond astral projection

sometimes I can gain awareness that I am dreaming while dreaming and when I do, I can do all sorts of things: fly, walk through walls, conjure up women for, uh, certain acts...I wonder how different my brain is functioning while doing this vs simple dreaming?

[NuttyFluffers]

8. that's lucid dreaming.

and a skill pretty much anyone can develop. often practiced by dream journaling and conscientious integration from dream to wake state at the end of sleep. there are even a few tech aids to assist lucidity during REM.

[unblock]

7. i can project to the astral plane, but only if i roll a 0 on a 20-sided die.

[NoodleyAppendage]

14. N=1. Absolutely NO generalizability to population is possible.

Interesting, but the study tells us nothing more than how this particular person responded. You cannot apply the results to explain the larger phenomenon across the population.

[mike_c]

15. the brain models the world we perceive...

...so this is entirely consistent with expectations, i.e. if stories of out-of-body experiences are credible, it's because from the perceiver's point of view what their brains model IS the world they experience. So if the brain models astral traveling, that's what they experience. If it models a dark tunnel with a bright light and a chorus of angels at the end, that's what they experience. Everything we experience is modeled within our central nervous system-- we live in the world that it creates for us.

[Catherina]

17. Well said n/t

[seveneyes]

18. As John Prine said...

You are what you are, and you ain't what you ain't.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. Chuang Tzu

"What if I am dreaming right now? This conversation I am having with you seems real in every way, but so did my dream. I thought I was Chuang Tzu who had a dream of being a butterfly. What if I am a butterfly who, at this very moment, is dreaming of being Chuang Tzu?"

"Well, I can tell you that you are actually Chuang Tzu, not a butterfly."

Chuang Tzu smiled: "You may simply be part of my dream, no more or less real than anything else. Thus, there is nothing you can do to help me identify the distinction between Chuang Tzu and the butterfly. This, my friend, is the essential question about the transformation of existence."

[Rex]

20. The brain is a highly advanced, quantum machine.

nt.

[me b zola]

22. This would "happen" to me quite often as a child

I rather enjoyed it.