New virtual-reality experiments show the brain can be tricked into believing it's outside the body, lending credence to the strange claims of some patients and shedding light on how the brain might generate its "self-image."

“We have decades of intense research on visual perception, but not very much yet on body perception," said Henrik Ehrsson of University College London.

"But that may change, now [that] virtual reality offers a way to manipulate full-body perception more systematically and probe out-of-body experiences,” said Olaf Blanke, a Swiss Federal Institute of Technology neuroscientist

The researchers worked on separate studies, which are detailed Thursday in the online edition of the journal Science.

Researchers equipped subjects with virtual-reality goggles that showed images from a stereoscopic video camera setup — two cameras spaced like a pair of eyes. When placed behind the person wearing the goggles, the cameras acted as a "virtual self" that looked at the subject's back.

As subjects watched themselves from behind, an experimenter prodded their chests with one hand while prodding the air just below the cameras at the same time. Because subjects could see the experimenter's hand but not the spot it was poking, researchers said subjects felt as if they were being poked in the chest — outside their bodies.

“This was a bizarre, fascinating experience for the participants," Ehrsson said. "It felt absolutely real for them and was not scary. Many of them giggled and said ‘Wow, this is so weird.’”

Where's my body?
But the researchers didn't stop there. They also performed the experiment with cameras behind a wigged mannequin to test the brain's limits of self-perception.

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"When they saw a bodily shape, they still felt it was them," said Bigna Lenggenhager, a psychologist also with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. She explained that touching both the fake body and the real body at the same time tricked many of the subjects.

"They felt a touch was there but couldn't pinpoint it," Lenggenhager said, noting that some felt as if the mannequin was their own body.

Going even further to test the effect, researchers removed subjects' goggles and asked them to move to where they believed they were standing during the experiment. Almost every time, she said, they overshot and walked back to their virtual self's location — and not where their real or simulated body was situated.

"They didn't localize themselves where their real body was," Lenggenhager told LiveScience.com. "Where the camera was is where they believed they were."

Ehrsson's group also tested the technique's limits by swinging a hammer just below the camera setup, or virtual self. By measuring how much subjects sweated — a bodily response to fear — Ehrsson said he showed that subjects felt threatened by the hammer swings.

Lenggenhager noted that the setup, while an extremely useful tool for testing the limits of self-perception, is only the beginning of better research on the brain.

"We've shown the body and self is somehow separate in the brain, even though we didn't invoke a completely realistic [out-of-body experience]," she said. Lenggenhager thinks the next step is to monitor the brain's activity with special electrodes during similar experiments. By doing so, the researcher and her colleagues hope to better understand which regions of the brain are responsible for self-perception.

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May your awareness be perfection

Separate....?

Foolish idea.


The same experiments are covered here: http://www.nature.com/news/2007/0708.../070820-9.html with an instant negative remark:.... but the writer completely fails to explain how the patients actually witnessed the operation when they were unconscious - indeed, in some cases when they were actually dead.


Peace, Love, & Light

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"An object is perceived, or not perceived, according as the mind is, or is not, tinged with the colour of the object. "
Patanjali - Sutra 4:17

You are joking right????? : )


It's not a foolish Idea, at least not in my opinion. I too believe that we can experience ourselves outside the body, therefore it only makes sense to me that my mind is only in a state of being tricked when I identify my Self being the body or even one with the body.

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May your awareness be perfection

.... it's called "irony".

It is possible to experience being not in one's own body.

The reason there is so little proof of it is - in my opinion - because very little research is carried out into the subject, possibly because if it is scientifically proven to happen, many scientific theories and beliefs will have to be re-examined.

De-bunkers would be out of business.


Peace, Love, & Light

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The Peaceful Place: http://www.agedhippy.plus.com/

"An object is perceived, or not perceived, according as the mind is, or is not, tinged with the colour of the object. "
Patanjali - Sutra 4:17

Thank you for setting that straight. Yes, I agree that there is little research done, but I think this article is a start. I am very excited to see that science is now tapping into the knowledge, that our spiritual teachers have known for a long time.

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May your awareness be perfection

Another waste of a scientific grant.

So they sort of simulated an out of body experience, but not really. All they really proved was that the brain has difficulty sorting out conflicting stimuli, something familiar to anyone who has ever used a hot compress on an aching joint.

"Be seeing you..."

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Grassaf, Eolas

"Scientists simulate OBE"

In their dreams.

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Only Love Prevails,
Don

Self is different from Body. Self is a Neurocognitive brain function like consciousness. Self is generated by one's brain. It is your brain's recognition of its domain within your body, whose parts are merely brain accessories. Self defines the boundaries of our bodies, the location of our bodies, and perception of everything outside of the body as outside of the body.

OBE's are the result of inhibition of signals from the Pre-Frontal area to the Parietal lobules. Those regions process data that defines our body's boundaries and our body’s orientation in space. The parietal lobules can be inhibited by conscious meditation, prayer, or emotionally purging charismatic experiences. Healthy brains can do this. It also occurs if the parietal lobules are inhibited by hypoxia, ischemia (lack of blood flow or perfusion), concussive trauma, Complex Partial Epilepsy (in which firing of neurons in the Ammon's Horn, hippocampus, Cingulate and pre-frontal inhibitory region turns off or inhibits the parietal lobules), and psychoactive drugs can also produce this kind of very strange event.

The results can be loss of body boundaries. One feels "one with the universe," united with God, or connected to the entire cosmos. It can also involve the orientation in space, which can result in the illusion of being outside of one's own body. This also initiates a form of hallucination in which we generate a picture of our body apart from which we are standing or floating.

The cultural significance is of immense importance. I think that OBE's to pre-scientific tribal people gave a powerful suggestion of a soul or spirit. I think it, the OBE, sleeping dreams, and our fear of real death combined to inspire humans to invent religions. I realise that Theism also was fostered by our inquiry into mysterious natural events for which we could see no obvious cause. This led to spirits which led to gods.

Amergin

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Militant Agnostic: I don't know, and neither do you. There is no evidence of God so belief is optional.

That is true in that particular study. It was bad study design. I think Newberg's and Ramachandran's recording of OBE's and NDE's along with fMRI, SPECT, Magnetic Cortical Stimulation, and TDI (Single Fibre mapping in the brain) was a much more informative set of studies and many others have done very similar function and imaging studies. The best studies in this area of inquiry have been done in the USA. We are not putting more effort into it over here.

Amergin

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Militant Agnostic: I don't know, and neither do you. There is no evidence of God so belief is optional.

President George Bush had an out of body experience. He found himself out of his body and out of his own brain.

And he couldn't get back in. He not only cannot get back in, but he has no idea of where his brain and body are located.

Amergin

__________________
Militant Agnostic: I don't know, and neither do you. There is no evidence of God so belief is optional.