First out-of-body experience induced in laboratory setting

[C1ay]

A neuroscientist working at UCL (University College London) has devised the first experimental method to induce an out-of-body experience in healthy participants. In a paper published today in Science, Dr Henrik Ehrsson, UCL Institute of Neurology, outlines the unique method by which the illusion is created and the implications of its discovery.

 

An out-of-body experience (OBE) is defined as the experience in which a person who is awake sees his or her own body from a location outside the physical body. OBEs have been reported in clinical conditions where brain function is compromised, such as stroke, epilepsy and drug abuse. They have also been reported in association with traumatic experiences such as car accidents. Around one in ten people claim to have had an OBE at some time in their lives.

 

Dr Ehrsson said: "Out-of-body experiences have fascinated mankind for millennia. Their existence has raised fundamental questions about the relationship between human consciousness and the body, and has been much discussed in theology, philosophy and psychology. Although out-of-body experiences have been reported in a number of clinical conditions, the neuro-scientific basis of this phenomenon remains unclear.

 

"The invention of this illusion is important because it reveals the basic mechanism that produces the feeling of being inside the physical body. This represents a significant advance because the experience of one's own body as the centre of awareness is a fundamental aspect of self-consciousness."

 

Discovering this means of inducing an OBE could also have industrial applications, as Dr Ehrsson explains: "This is essentially a means of projecting yourself, a form of teleportation. If we can project people into a virtual character, so they feel and respond as if they were really in a virtual version of themselves, just imagine the implications. The experience of playing video games could reach a whole new level, but it could go much beyond that. For example, a surgeon could perform remote surgery, by controlling their virtual self from a different location."

 

The set-up of the illusion is as follows: the study participant sits in a chair wearing a pair of head-mounted video displays. These have two small screens over each eye, which show a live film recorded by two video cameras placed beside each other two metres behind the participant's head. The image from the left video camera is presented on the left-eye display and the image from the right camera on the right-eye display. The participant sees these as one 'stereoscopic' (3D) image, so they see their own back displayed from the perspective of someone sitting behind them.

 

The researcher then stands just beside the participant (in their view) and uses two plastic rods to simultaneously touch the participant's actual chest out-of-view and the chest of the illusory body, moving this second rod towards where the illusory chest would be located, just below the camera's view.

 

The participants confirmed that they had experienced sitting behind their physical body and looking at it from that location. Dr Ehrsson said: "This was a bizarre, fascinating experience for the participants - it felt absolutely real for them and was not scary. Many of them giggled and said 'Wow, this is so weird!'".

 

To test the illusion further and provide objective evidence, Dr Ehrsson then performed an additional experiment to measure the participants' physiological response - specifically the level of perspiration on the skin - in a scenario where they felt the illusory body was threatened. Their bodily response strongly indicated that they thought the threat was real.

 

The creation of this perceptual illusion stems from an idea Dr Ehrsson had as a medical student, when he wondered what would happen to the 'self' if you could effectively move your eyes to another part of the room, just a few metres away, so you could observe yourself from an outside perspective. Would the self 'follow' the eyes or stay in the body?

 

Dr Ehrsson added: "The illusion is different from anything published previously. It is the first to involve a change in the perceived location of the self, relative to the physical body. It is also different from any virtual reality set-up because it examines what happens when you look at yourself, and there is also multisensory information that triggers the illusion. There has been no way of inducing an OBE in healthy people before, apart from unsubstantiated reports in occult literature. It's a very exciting development, and has implications for a range of disciplines from neuroscience to theology."

 

Source: University College London

[Qfwfq]

I'd say these results are pretty much what I would expect. I don't see the implications being so great.

[Turtle]

I see great implications inasmuch as this is a start at deconstructing the myths of religion that I see as stumbling blocks to human advancement.

 

Inspite of the author's claim that no one has done this in a lab setting, it is not the case.

 

neurotheology article

The helmet creates a weak magnetic field, no stronger than that produced by a computer monitor. The field triggers bursts of electrical activity in the temporal lobes, Persinger finds, producing sensations that volunteers describe as supernatural or spiritual: an out-of-body experience, a sense of the divine. He suspects that religious experiences are evoked by mini electrical storms in the temporal lobes, and that such storms can be triggered by anxiety, personal crisis, lack of oxygen, low blood sugar and simple fatigue-suggesting a reason that some people "find God" in such moments. Why the temporal lobes? Persinger speculates that our left temporal lobe maintains our sense of self. When that region is stimulated but the right stays quiescent, the left interprets this as a sensed presence, as the self departing the body, or of God.

 

Here is a thread for more: >> :) :hyper:

http://hypography.com/forums/theology-forum/9410-biotheology.html?highlight=biotheology

[CraigD]

Inspite of the author's claim that no one has done this in a lab setting, it is not the case.

 

neurotheology article

The helmet creates a weak magnetic field, no stronger than that produced by a computer monitor. The field triggers bursts of electrical activity in the temporal lobes, Persinger finds, producing sensations that volunteers describe as supernatural or spiritual: an out-of-body experience, a sense of the divine. He suspects that religious experiences are evoked by mini electrical storms in the temporal lobes, and that such storms can be triggered by anxiety, personal crisis, lack of oxygen, low blood sugar and simple fatigue-suggesting a reason that some people "find God" in such moments. Why the temporal lobes? Persinger speculates that our left temporal lobe maintains our sense of self. When that region is stimulated but the right stays quiescent, the left interprets this as a sensed presence, as the self departing the body, or of God.

Ehrsson’s experiment is very different than Persinger’s – Ehrsson demonstrates that a person who’s sense of sight causes them to perceive their body other than where it actually is has a stronger sense of being in that location than where there body actually is. Ehrsson used video cameras and small display screens placed in front of each eye, but in principle, could have accomplished the same thing with pure optics – lenses and mirrors or fiberoptic bundles.

 

Persinger’s experiment involved magnetic stimulation of the brain.

 

Perhaps more importantly, We’re reasonable to expect that Ehrsson’s experiment will prove reproducible by other experimenters. Persinger’s has not, leading most people who’ve followed the literature (including people who were very enthusiastic about his results, such as myself and author Robert J. Sawyer, who described the experiment in a fictional setting in his IMHO excelent Neanderthal Parallax series of novels) to conclude that the effect he measured was due to poor experimental control.

 

In short, Persinger shared openly with his experimental subjects what he expected them to experience, possibly causing them to experience it due to suggestion and a desire to please the researcher. When the experiment was rigorously “blinded” by other experimenters, the effect was not detected more often in the group actually subjected to the magnetic field than in the “control” group that was not.

 

Persinger has responded that these other researchers failed to subject the subjects’ brains to the necessary magnetic fields for a long enough period. He has not, to the best of my knowledge, subsequently repeated his experiments using acceptable blinding and published the results. As it stands now, I’m forced to conclude that the “god” effect in question has not been experimentally demonstrated – though the ideas underlying it remain reasonable.

 

Source: wikipedia article “God helmet”

 

Like Qfwfq, my first reaction to Ehrsson’s experiment is a lack of surprise. I’ve personally experienced such effects as flinching from a blow seen through binoculars that would have hit me had I been viewing the scene close-up with my naked eyes (though I’ve not had much experience with viewing scenes in which my body was visible, the setup of Ehrsson’s experiment), and have long assumed that such experience would be even more pronounced with high-quality VR/telepresence systems. We humans have, I think, great facility at “getting out of our bodies”, commonly experiencing physical reactions from such indirect sources of perception as reading a book, while at the same time becoming so unaware of our actual bodies that we may ignore minor pains and injuries suffered while reading.

 

Ehrsson’s experiments, however, are still very valuable, because expectations and experiences like mine are mere anecdotes. “Hard” science progresses when well-controlled experiments are performed and documented, even when their results are unsurprising, confirming our anecdotes.

 

Experiments of this kind are especially important, since the extent to which people are actually able to have “telepresent out-of-body experience” serves to define the ultimate capability and limitations of these systems. My anecdotal expectation is that the limitations of telepresence may be minimized, but that it’ll be a long, difficult process. I wonder, for example, if a telepresent system will be, in the near future, capable of allowing a human to control an anatomically human robot in the performance of as ordinary an activity as simple, bipedal walking.

[Turtle]

...Perhaps more importantly, We’re reasonable to expect that Ehrsson’s experiment will prove reproducible by other experimenters. Persinger’s has not, leading most people who’ve followed the literature (including people who were very enthusiastic about his results, such as myself and author Robert J. Sawyer, who described the experiment in a fictional setting in his IMHO excelent Neanderthal Parallax series of novels) to conclude that the effect he measured was due to poor experimental control. ...

 

OK. I was only engaged to the magnetic helmut deal, not married. :doh: I have dropped it like a hot rock. :hihi:

 

Still, I'm engaged to the idea that this OBE business is more rooted in brain structure than not. The illusion experiment only enhances my fixation. :P

[CraigD]

Still, I'm engaged to the idea that this OBE business is more rooted in brain structure than not. The illusion experiment only enhances my fixation.

I agree. More, I believe that all experience, ordinary or bizarre, is rooted in brain structure and chemistry.

 

Most reports of Out-of-Body Experiences (other than ones like those intentionally produced by setups such as Ehrsson’s) are, I believe, conscious or unconscious fabrications resulting from their popularization in television programs and movies. The remaining ones have, I think, neurological explanations.

 

I find interesting a anecdotal folk tales of specific psychotropic drugs and environmental trigger conditions producing OBEs. One of which I’m aware involves the popular illicit anesthetic PCP and hot showers taken in a cold room. Other’s appear in the lore of religious and magical traditions, appearing to date back many centuries or even millennia. In this context, the experience is sometimes referred to as Astral projection.

 

Despite keeping a watchful eye on the literature and having been involved in a study of my own creation, I’ve seen absolutely no credible evidence that suggests these experience are other than a special kind of imagining or halucination.

[Queso]

the way I see it,

this seratonin worldview of ours when we wake up is like a channel on a television.

certain chemical reactions cause us to view other channels,

and now it can be induced in a lab.

 

sign me up

[patagao]

I would like to offer some criticism on the study’s interpretation by the scientists and the coverage in the media.

 

The OBE moved into the laboratory in 1966 with Dr. Charles Tart's experiments at University of California - Davis, so these are not the first experiments with OBE's induced in a laboratory as reported in Science News and elsewhere. Are these experiments even studying the altered state of consciousness commonly known as out-of-body experience?

 

The OBE involves a visceral feeling of being embodied in a more subtle body away from the physical body itself, often with exotic "energetic," "take-off" and "re-interiorization" sensations. The VR experiment volunteers did not feel they were no longer present in their body and did not report these other characteristics of the OBE (much more numerous than the 3 selected by the researchers).

 

In an OBE, the individual is not always looking back at the physical body at a few feet of distance (although this can occur in some cases). OBEs are not always a visual phenomena either, as there are OBEs without sight and blind people may have OBE's. The majority of OBEs also occur mainly when the eyes are closed and when the body is in a more vegetative state with brain wave patterns distinct from even lucid dreaming -- let alone the normal waking state of the volunteers. The reported studies seem to reveal interesting things about dissociated perceptions under virtual reality conditions, but this does not say much about the OBE.

 

As far as these studies with brain stimulation, etc. it's important to remember that the OBE is possible under normal conditions through simple techniques and relaxation with enough practice (I have had dozens and I am far from a veteran). Also, just because something is triggered physically (EMF, shock, drowning, physical trauma, chemical...) it does not follow that the experience is physical or that it is imaginary. Sight and other senses can be produced by EMF stimulation and that does not make them illusory.

 

You can find an out-of-body experience research lit review and also comments on PhysOrg by Googling:

Brief Research Summary Nelson Abreu

 

Cheers,

 

Nelson Abreu

Miami, Florida

International Academy of Consciousness

501©3 non-profit * research & education

[CraigD]

The OBE moved into the laboratory in 1966 with Dr. Charles Tart's experiments at University of California - Davis, so these are not the first experiments with OBE's induced in a laboratory as reported in Science News and elsewhere. Are these experiments even studying the altered state of consciousness commonly known as out-of-body experience?

They are not.

 

IMHO, a better title of the story would be something like “Best experimental demonstration to date that telepresence can work as well as many hope”. The techniques used and measured in the experiment are those of telepresence – 3-d video viewing devices – and the significance of the experiment primarily in this field. This title is much less catchy, however, than “First out-of-body experience induced in laboratory setting”, which brings to mind experiments such as Persinger’s still unconfirmed “God Helmet” experiments in the 1980s. I suspect this is not lost on Ehrsson, and that he intentionally chose a less accurate but more provocative title under which to popularize his work, in order to attract attention, which for a researcher, can often equate to continued and/or increased support.

 

Although at first glance, Ehrsson’s experiment seems terribly subjective, and I’ve not read enough to know how well-controlled the experiment was, to its credit, it did measure one objectively quantifiable characteristic: the galvanic skin response of the participants in reaction to “threats” to the “illusory body”. The linked to article does not say how this data compared to that of threats to the physical body, only that an appropriate, detectable, response resulted from threats to the illusory one. Although Ehrsson, his reviewers, and I could be mistaken, I believe this is the first such objective data gathered for an experiment of this kind.

As far as these studies with brain stimulation, etc. it's important to remember that the OBE is possible under normal conditions through simple techniques and relaxation with enough practice (I have had dozens and I am far from a veteran).

To assess this claim, I believe its critical to define what is meant by “out-of-body experience”. Does it mean

1. The subject believes that they are viewing of otherwise sensing stimuli from a location their physical body is unable to sense (eg: seeing something in a room you aren’t in)
   
2. The subject actually is doing so
   

Though it’s difficult to reach a clear conclusion about what a person believes (#1), it’s trivial to test if he is actually perceiving a specific stimulus (#2). For example, if you claim to be able to “project” yourself out-of-body to a desired location, I can have someone in that location present a randomly selected card bearing, say, a 10-digit number, and have the person recite that number to me, either as they see it with their subtle body, or after they return to their physical one. Reciting or memorizing a random 10-digit number is a task an ordinary person can almost always perform flawlessly, while guessing one is nearly impossible, so if the OBE being tested is an instance of #2, the subject will be able to perform this task many times flawlessly. If they can not, it is an instance either of #1, or that the subject is just making it up. As noted above, distinguishing between honest belief and dishonest fabrication is difficult, but unnecessary in determining if a test is an instance of #2 – and, more importantly, doing so repeatedly, regardless of who or what is performing the test.

 

Out-of-body Experience: a brief research summary describes a test performed by Charles Tart in 1966 that closely resembling the one I describe. In it, the subject (“Miss Z”) correctly identify a 5-digit number placed nearby but out of her sight 1.5. This article, extracted from a 1968 article by Charles Tart, describes the experiment in more detail. In particular, the card was written and placed 1 time per night, and the subject attempted to view it in an out-of-body manner while sleeping during the night, and was successful on the fourth attempt.

 

As reported, this is evidence of #1. The probability of guessing a 5 digit number at random in 4 attempts is very small: [math]1 -0.99999^4 < .00003[/math] (to guess a true random 5-digit decimal number requires on average [math]\frac{\log 0.5}{\log 0.99999} \dot= 69314[/math] attempts – at one guess per second, about 19 hours 15 minutes of continuous guessing). Although not as capable as a person viewing the card in an ordinary manner, Miss Z appears from Tart’s description to have sensed something from a location her physical body was unable to sense in the usual way.

 

I am skeptical, however, that this test took place as described. The only observer present was Tart. Were the results as easily producible as described, I’m at a loss to explain why he would not have had the experiment reproduced by as many people as possible, including people openly skeptical of his results. Tart’s failure to obtain independent verification of his results makes me doubt them, and suspect that he is either dishonest, or was duped. I personally do not think I could watch a person, in the setup Tart describes for an entire night, diligently enough to ensure that she didn’t move physically to glimpse the concealed card.

 

Fortunately, present-day video-recorders makes repeating such a test much easier, and skeptical observers to perform the test are readily available (I’m one, and others can be obtained in a manner I’ll describe as soon as I have obtained permission from them) I’d recommend that anyone seeking acceptance of claims such as patagao’s reproduce a test like Tart’s using such controls.

[Qfwfq]

I think Craig puts it pretty well, by saying that our sense of where we are is predominantly based on sight. Although we consider our toes as part of ourselves, we at the same time think of them as "down there", even when something is hurting them. It would be interesting if you could ask a dog its impressions, after a similar trial in which it could see itself smelling something; a dog's world is what it smells, at least as much as what it sees.

 

In the end however it's pretty much a matter of altering, actually falsifying, our perception of position by physical means and it doesn't give much insight into how certain reports of odd experiences could be explained.