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

[William Seger]

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

[eShirl]

1. so it was all in her mind, literally.

[aristocles]

2. No woo, just science. nt

[Tobin S.]

3. I've been thinking about this, lately.

I had an out of body experience when I was 23 years old. The seeming reality of the experience has been one of the things that has made me wonder over the years about the existence of the soul. I describe myself as an agnostic.

But the circumstances under which I had the experience make it more likely to be attributed to a hallucination, or something like what is described in the article. I was suffering from the symptoms of untreated bipolar disorder at the time and had been for three years.

[skepticscott]

4. And, as usual, the more we learn

the better the natural explanation looks, and the more useless the religious, supernatural, woo-woo explanation looks.