Myth 22: During “Out-of-Body” Experiences, People’s Consciousness Leaves Their Bodies

People have speculated that out-of-body experiences (OBEs) provide conclusive evidence that consciousness can leave the body. Consider the following example of an OBE reported by a woman who had an internal hemorrhage after an operation:. I was awake and aware of my surroundings.

A nurse came in to take my blood pressure every half hour. On one occasion I remember her taking my blood pressure and then running out of the room, which I thought was unusual. I don’t remember anything more after that consciously, but I was then aware of being above my body as if I was floating on the ceiling and looking down at myself in the hospital bed with a crowd of doctors and nurses around me. (Parnia, 2006, p. 54)

Or take this description from a woman on the operating table: … while I was being operated on I saw some very odd lights flashing and heard a loud keening noise. Then I was in the operating theatre above everyone else but just high enough to see over everyone’s shoulders. I was surprised to see everyone dressed in green … I looked down and wondered what they were all looking at and what was under the cover on the long table. I saw a square of flesh, and I thought, “I wonder who it is and what they are doing.” I then realized it was me. (Blackmore, 1993, p. 1)

Similar experiences were reported in history. Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and others who experienced OBEs in the past concluded that consciousness can be independent of the physical body. About 25% of college students and 10% of members of the general population report having experienced one or more of them. They’re surprisingly common: about 10% of people in the U.S. say they’ve had an OBE. And contrary to popular opinion, they don’t occur most frequently in situations that are near death. While some do occur in near death situations, most occur when the subject is relaxed.

Some people report being able to create OBEs on command (also known as “astral travel”), and to mentally visit distant places or “spiritual realms” during their journeys out of body. Most occur when people are relaxed, asleep, dreaming, medicated, using psychedelic drugs, anesthetized, or experiencing seizures or migraine headaches (Blackmore, 1982, 1984; Green, 1968; Poynton, 1975). People who often fantasize in their everyday lives to the extent that they lose an awareness of their bodies are prone to OBE’s.

One Internet site claims that the projection of consciousness is an experience that takes place in a dimension other than the physical. Instructions for producing OBEs to achieve spiritual enlightenment and to remotely view far-away places, including alien worlds, are widely available on the Internet. Believers in “Eckankar” claim that their senses are enhanced and that they experience ecstatic states of spiritual awareness.

People who claim to be able to produce OBEs at will are almost always inaccurate, researchers have found. Scientists can determine the accuracy of their descriptions because they know what’s physically at the site. At best what they describe could just be a “good guess” in the rare cases that they’ve been accurate.

If people don’t actually leave their bodies during an OBE, what explains their dramatic alterations in consciousness? Our sense of “self” depends on a complex interplay of sensory information. One hypothesis is that OBEs reflect a disconnection between individuals’ sense of their bodies and their sensations. When we reach for a knife and feel its sharp edges, we have a strong sense not only of reality, but of ourselves as active agents.

Two studies suggest that when our senses of touch and vision are scrambled, our usual experience of our physical body becomes disrupted too. In Henrik Ehrsson’s research, participants donned goggles that permitted them to view a video display of themselves relayed by a camera placed behind them. Participants reported the eerie sensation that their video double was also being touched, thus sensing they were at a location outside their physical bodies.

Many researchers have tried to pin down the brain location of OBEs. One can certainly question the relevance of lab findings to everyday life. It’s possible that the latter stem from different causes than the former. Still, fact that scientists can produce experiences that closely resemble spontaneously occurring OBE suggests that our consciousness doesn’t actually leave our bodies during an OBE.

Source: 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior, Scott O. Lilienfeld

If you are interested in reading books about unmasking human nature, consider reading The Dichotomy of the Self, a book that explores the great psychoanalytic and philosophical ideas of our time, and what they can reveal to us about the nature of the self.

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