Why being out of the body is all in the mind

[suchandra]

Why being out of the body is all in the mind

 

 

Mark Henderson – The Times August 24, 2007

 

To many people who have had an out-of-body experience, they are profoundly spiritual events that reveal how the mind extends beyond the material confines of the body and strengthen beliefs in religion or the paranormal.

 

The sensation of watching your own body from a distance, however, need owe nothing to the supernatural, research has proved.

 

Scientists have recreated such out-of-body experiences in the laboratory successfully for the first time, in a pair of experiments that show them to be nothing more than tricks of the mind.

 

With a combination of virtual-reality goggles and tactile stimulation, researchers in Britain and Switzerland induced volunteers to feel that they have left their bodies to view themselves from a few metres away. The illusion is said to feel as if the subject’s consciousness has been “teleported” elsewhere.

 

The results could eventually have commercial, medical, scientific and military applications. Similar virtual-reality technology could help surgeons to operate on patients in distant hospitals, and scientists to control hu-manoid robots on the Moon or Mars. Though scientists behind the experiments said they had no ties to military research, the work could be used to improve remote-controlled weaponry.

 

Henrik Ehrsson, of University College London, who performed one of the two studies published in the journal Science, said they shed important light on the nature of consciousness.

 

“Out-of-body experiences have fascinated mankind for millennia,” he said. They raised fundamental questions about the relationship between human consciousness and the body, and had been much discussed in theology, philosophy and psychology. “Although out-of-body experiences have been reported in 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 . . . the experience of one’s own body as the centre of awareness is a fundamental aspect of self-consciousness,” Dr Ehrsson said. “If we can project people so they feel and respond as if they were really in a virtual version of themselves, just imagine the implications.”

 

In his study, volunteers wore goggles, and cameras were placed 2m (6ft) behind the subject, with the feeds connected to the subject’s eyes. The participant thus saw an image of his or her back. Dr Ehrsson stood behind the subject and held two rods. He used one to prod the subject and the other to jab underneath the camera. The participants said they felt they were sitting where the cameras were placed, and that the figure they were watching was another person or a dummy.

 

“This was a bizarre, fascinating experience for the participants - it felt absolutely real for them and was not scary. Many giggled and said, ‘Wow, this is so weird’.” He said that when he took part, he felt himself move suddenly out of his body. “I see the object coming towards me, feel the touch, then ‘boof!’, I feel a striking sensation that I’m over there looking at myself.”

 

Out-of-body experiences are often associated with neurological conditions such as migraines and epilepsy, as well as with drug abuse and serious injuries, particularly to the head. They probably come about because the brain is misled by circuits that are not working properly. Dr Ehrsson said: “The brain is always trying to interpret sensory information. If the information is flawed, it can come up with an illusory interpretation.”

 

In the second experiment, a team at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne fitted volunteers with similar goggles, then trained the cameras on a mannequin. The backs of the subject and the mannequin were stroked - though the subject could see only the mannequin. They were blindfolded and moved away, then asked to walk to return to their position. They tended to move towards where they had seen their “virtual bodies”.

 

Susan Blackmore, of the University of the West of England, said: “Out-of-body experiences should be understood not as evidence for the supernatural, but as a fascinating experience that potentially we can all have.”

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2317316.ece

 

 

 

Comment – August 24, 2007

 

Having undergone several out of body experiences I’m very cynical about the above report because it omits to answer one crucial question.

 

In one particular out of body experience I was able to see what was happening when to all appearances I was oblivious to the world.

 

Our six-man reconnaissance team was returning from a mission deep inside enemy territory when we bedded down for the night.

 

I was exhausted after days trekking through what was still virtual wilderness and enemy territory too. Just after midnight, shortly before I was due to be woken for guard duty, I suddenly found myself looking down on my sleeping form. It was a classic out of body experience but there was more.

 

Not only could I see myself sleeping below but I was also able to see the guy who I was due to relieve on guard duty. He was sitting beneath a small tree about 20 metres away and I could see him and sensed very clearly his thoughts and feelings. Only later was I to learn that esoteric Christian teacher Rudolph Steiner taught that thoughts and feelings become tangible realities in after death states.

 

At the time I was made painfully aware of this. His impatience as he neared the end of his guard duty and prepared to wake me was quite tangible.

 

Unsurprisingly he was bored and ready to go back to sleep. So how come I sensed this with absolute clarity? How come I watched above him as he got up and walked over to wake me?

 

It was all quite clear and brings to mind the old injunction of not thinking ill of the dead. Quite simply they will sense all your thoughts and feelings, good or bad, more acutely than you realise.

 

However, the above study doesn’t answer any of this but it does underline the fact that modern science and its laws are entirely limited to the physical world. A teacher of mine later warned me that modern science was becoming “Ahrimanic” in that it increasingly served to confine men and their perceptions within the boundaries of the physical world.

 

Anything beyond that, say scientists, is an illusion and doesn’t exist because it cannot be measured. Yet a century ago sub atomic physics did not exist because science had yet to recognise the existence of such refined matter. Quite simply it did not have the equipment with which to measure it.

 

Now however advances in science and technology have brought into being the field of sub-atomic physics and who is to say the same won’t happen with after death/out of body experiences?

[harerama]

Wow, I typed up a long response and unfortunately something happened and I couldn't send it properly.

 

In any case, I guess I'll give a more succinct response here, though this cannot convey how disheartened I am by the increasingly few reasons to believe in God.

 

Your OBE doesn't sound that specific to me to warrant any faith in as an "authentic" OBE, IMHO. I'm sorry, I wish that weren't true, but any skeptic would claim that while you were having the OBE sensation, another part of your brain was imagining what your fellow soldier was doing, feeling and where he was at the time, and that was integrated into the OBE. There didn't seem to be any remarkable incident in your recounting of the OBE that would give any credence to the idea that you were truly witnessing an event apart from your body. As you said, "unsurprisingly", is pretty clearly an indication that what you expected was felt, done, and where the soldier was situated was in accord with what occurred.

 

However, I will note that I don't think all cases OBE's and NDE's have been explained away: For instance, OBE's/NDE's where a loved one witnesses the same OBE/NDE that the patient experiences when he/she is at the person's bedside; or OBE's/NDE's that are shared by a group and have the same characteristics. I don't believe these have been explained, and I would hope there is no rational explanation for such OBE's/NDE's, but I fear there is some explanation that is completely rational, or at least there will be some explanation that is completely rational.

 

Even meditative experiences of "God" have been scrutinized and it seems they are reproducible within the lab. Scientists can induce people to see "God" so what is the worth of these meditative experiences of "God"? Most meditative experiences of "God" can no longer be propped up as proof of "God" at all, and it seems to me that there is not much room left for any reasonable faith in God, deity or no deity. Even Mother Teresa apparently lost her faith and couldn't recover from it! This just became recently public, but apparently Mother Teresa lost her faith a long time ago and clung to appearances of that faith while struggling to regain it for real. I think her struggle to regain her faith was admirable, but it disheartens me the most to find out that even she was susceptible to the loss of faith in God. If a saint like her can lose faith in God, then what hope do normal people have? What sense does it make for a saint like her, an ardent devotee of God for so many years, to be deprived of that faith in God, if a God actually exists?

[Nrsinghadev]

The way I see it, it would be better for you to contemplate why the posting of your very long initial response went wrong.

 

If your faith in the existence of God is diminished by reading this sort of scientific stool, it is not proof against the existence of God, rather it is proof of your dwindling faith. Better to find the cause behind that.

Science is playing a bit of bluffpoker and immediately you are folding. Tell me what has science done to make us really happy?

Recently, a professor Gene Cooperman employed a supercomputer to calculate how many rotations it took to solve a Rubik's Cube. So they have all this material knowledge but they haven't a clue of how to put it to good use. They're basically just boys with toys. Think about it.

 

Haribol!

[theist]

There are a multitude of experiences where people on operating tables and under anethesthia left their bodies and watched the whole operation from above the operating team and recounted the details after the operation was over and their bodies were again functionable.

 

However, the above study doesn’t answer any of this but it does underline the fact that modern science and its laws are entirely limited to the physical world. A teacher of mine later warned me that modern science was becoming “Ahrimanic” in that it increasingly served to confine men and their perceptions within the boundaries of the physical world.

 

Ahrimanic- a new word for me but I totally agree with the idea of increased confinment. Virtually another layer of maya is being overlaid over the consciousness by these "boys with toys". Fools with tools is another way to describe them.

[mohankrishna]

Jai Sriman Narayana!

Actually accounts exist where the out of body experiencer has given specific detailed accounts of unreachable places. For example in one case the subject described a shoe present on a specific part of a hospital roof - this was later confirmed.

 

The problem is these fools(the above scientists and their kind) have no proper realisations or experiences of their own. So how are they able to compare?! There is no logic in that. Now if I am able to leave my body at will (or otherwise) and travel places; then I try this scientific illusion of theirs - I'd be able to compare. But how can they compare having not known BOTH cases?!

 

Nevertheless scientists cleverly show you only what they think they can reproduce. They will never tell you about the things they cannot. Documented OBEs have occured when persons are clinically dead - meaning NO brainwave activity registering on the measuring devices.

How do they explain those? Or what about ones where persons are able to give accurate descriptions of complex surgical procedures with surgical precision? Or where persons are able to describe the environment in a remote area? THE list goes on and on. I'd like to see them include that in their article: "We have scientifically been able to reproduces these effects but we can't yet reproduce this and this and this and this"

 

Conclusion - they want to view the world with tinted glasses so Krsna will happily hand them whatever shade!

 

mohankrsna

[theist]

Another point we need to stay aware of is that when these gross materialists speak of mind they refer to the action of the brain which they call the mind. Therefore they are gross materialists because they don't even accept the existence of subtle energy of mind & intelligence separate from brain matter.

 

They also claim to have found the God spot in the brain that is responsible for "religious experiences". They claim they can duplicate such experiences also.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

This study in no way proves that previous accounts of OBE's were not genuine. All it proves is that OBE's can be effectively simulated.

 

Yawn!!

[Them]

I experienced OBE after operation and it was not in my imagination.

I was lucid and awake moving around the room seeing things from different perspective. I actually saw the nurse from the behind while she was trying to calm down little boy lying in the bed. That boy was me. He was crying and waving his hands violently. I've seen all that standing above and behind the nurse.

Pehaps that would be not much of a proof for the scientist but once during a traumatic event I felt intense fear and projected myself to the safe place in the small city mile ahead and person standing there saw me clearly appearing at the exact place I was trying to get to.

Now if I never talked to him I would never knew I actually managed to project myself.

It was not sensation of flying to the distant place like in some fairytale. It was more like losing the centre of ego within the body but at the same time retaining the full awareness as the witness beyond the mind and senses.

My OBE experience happened in waking consciousness.It wasn't imagination or hallucination ( I experienced hallucinations and it was nothing like this) but quite normal waking state. Actually It felt more real then this inside the body consciousness, there was sense of freedom and detachment from worldly worries in this subtle body.

OBE is actualy not spiritual but subtle physical experience.

You can read about subtle physical realm in many Sri Aurobindo's books.

I also have a friend who experienced OBE while he was walking down the street. It was absolutely real and quite similar to the one Suchandra describes.

I know many can't stand c/p passages from the e-books but the following are of tremenodus value for understanding subtle physical realm.

" No doubt, the subtle physical is closest to the physical, and most like it.

But yet the conditions are different and the thing too different.

For instance, the subtle physical has a freedom, plasticity, intensi-

ty, power, colour, wide and manifold play (there are thousands of

things there that are not here) of which, as yet, we have no possibi-

lity on earth."

"The vision was seen through the physical eyes but by the subtle

physical consciousness; in other words, there was an imposition of one

consciousness upon another. After a certain stage of development, this

capacity of living in the ordinary physical consciousness and yet

having superadded to it another and more subtle sense, vision,

experience becomes quite normal. A little concentration is enough to

bring it; or, even, it happens automatically without any

concentration.

As the flower was a subtle physical object, not entirely material

in the ordinary sense of the word (though quite substantial and

material in its own plane, not an illusion), a camera, would not be

able to detect it - except in the case of one of those abnormal

interventions by which a subtle form has been thrown upon the material

plate.

It could be sensed in a dark room, though not so easily, and it

would not then have so vivid an appearance - unless you are able to

bring out something of the light of the subtle physical plane to

surround it and give it its natural medium.

If seen with the eyes shut, it would be no longer a subtle

physical form, but an object or formation of the vital, mental or

other plane - unless, indeed, the inner consciousness had progressed

so far as to be able to project itself into the physical planes; but

this is a rare and, in most cases, a late development.

2. It is not, usually, the object that vanishes, it is the

consciousness that changes. Owing to lack of sustained capacity or

lack of training, one is not able to keep the subtle physical vision

which is what was really seeing the object. This subtle physical

vision comes easiest in the moment between light sleep and

waking-either when one just comes out of the sleep or when one is just

going into it. But one can train oneself to have it when one is quite wide awake."

 

Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Yoga

[Avinash]

Hi Them,

You have cited your personal experiences. Did you try to have these experiences by doing yoga or some other way? Did these just happen?

[Them]

Hi Avinash.

When first experience occured I wasn't practicing any form of sadhana. Others happened much later while I was doing some really hardcore combination of traditional Sankhya and Kundalini yoga. I stopped after Kundalini awakening and God knows what would have happened to me if I continued with such an extreme practice without guidance.

[gHari]

This article reminded me of the pamphlet the Presbyterian Church of Canada printed for the Hare Krishna Movement. They had some psychologist write it. I read it and after two years of working for them, I was gone in two weeks.

 

There was not one word of truth in it, except the first sentence "ISKCON, the Hare Krishna Movement was founded by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada".. They had to resort to getting a demonic scientist to write it, for no clergyman no matter how twisted he was could write such drivel without being struck down by lightning.

 

I remain ashamed of them to this day.

[Them]

What they actually achieved by this experiment is nothing but simulated autoscopy.

When you are out of material body you naturally see your body and surroundings and by simulating autoscopy you experience something quite similar and thus there is sensation of detachment from the body.

Depersonalization and derealization are felt during long virtual reality sessions or even after playing video games for many hours. I can't see how these experiments are revolutionary.

Every person playing some realistic first person video game for 12 hours every day experienced sensation of detachment from the body, dimmed perception of outside world and numbness of senses.

It naturally occurs when you identify through sugestion with some other person especially in such realistic enviroment with first person perspective.

 

So called scientist observe reactions in brain during some experiences trying to prove that consciuosness is product of mere chemistry while this "chemistry" never existed anywhere else except in their own consciuousness.

They start from the the premise that their brains are wired properly and ours are defective and thus we hallucinate.

But we could say that their brains are actually defective ones and by accepting their standpoint humanity globally induces brain patterns that reuslt in halucinatory experience of matter as the sole reality and losing the sight of subtle spiritual truths.

This is quite valid standpoint. Who actually decided that speculative mental activity is natural state of mind or the brain?

We are forced to accept this to survive in their world and this way we follow the rules of their game.

Even on a most basic materialistic level scientific outlook is just one possibility enforced upon all ther others.

Spiritual people are accused by materialistic scientist of being hallucinating liars, primitives living in illusion and we are supposed to hang our heads in shame and not strike back. These are the most severe accusations.

Even if we have a proof it won't metter because if they can't use their materialistic method then it is as good as nothing.

 

Every being is striving for happiness and shaping it's surrouding accordingly so the fundamental rule for the "human-animal" of the science would be creating a world in which we interact only with those with similar brain patterns and destroying or enslaving all the others.

Therefore, religious "human -animals" must wipe out scientific "human animals" because they cannot achieve their ideal while those are present and dominating the world.

They would have no right to complain because that is how the species survive and evolve . By destroying their opponents and shaping the environment according to their desires and ideals.

If there is no God and soul then all morality is artificial , we can create our own code to seccure our survival and wellbeing.

If we adopt scientific approach then radical Muslims have every right to wipe out all the others opposing entities to secure happy life for their community.

They would have perfect right to choose their own method for achieving their ideal.

[mohankrishna]

Well said! (tears of joy)

 

 

What they actually achieved by this experiment is nothing but simulated autoscopy.

When you are out of material body you naturally see your body and surroundings and by simulating autoscopy you experience something quite similar and thus there is sensation of detachment from the body.

Depersonalization and derealization are felt during long virtual reality sessions or even after playing video games for many hours. I can't see how these experiments are revolutionary.

Every person playing some realistic first person video game for 12 hours every day experienced sensation of detachment from the body, dimmed perception of outside world and numbness of senses.

It naturally occurs when you identify through sugestion with some other person especially in such realistic enviroment with first person perspective.

 

So called scientist observe reactions in brain during some experiences trying to prove that consciuosness is product of mere chemistry while this "chemistry" never existed anywhere else except in their own consciuousness.

They start from the the premise that their brains are wired properly and ours are defective and thus we hallucinate.

 

But we could say that their brains are actually defective ones and by accepting their standpoint humanity globally induces brain patterns that reuslt in halucinatory experience of matter as the sole reality and losing the sight of subtle spiritual truths.

This is quite valid standpoint. Who actually decided that speculative mental activity is natural state of mind or the brain?

We are forced to accept this to survive in their world and this way we follow the rules of their game.

Even on a most basic materialistic level scientific outlook is just one possibility enforced upon all ther others.

 

Spiritual people are accused by materialistic scientist of being hallucinating liars, primitives living in illusion and we are supposed to hang our heads in shame and not strike back. These are the most severe accusations.

Even if we have a proof it won't metter because if they can't use their materialistic method then it is as good as nothing.

 

 

Every being is striving for happiness and shaping it's surrouding accordingly so the fundamental rule for the "human-animal" of the science would be creating a world in which we interact only with those with similar brain patterns and destroying or enslaving all the others.

Therefore, religious "human -animals" must wipe out scientific "human animals" because they cannot achieve their ideal while those are present and dominating the world.

They would have no right to complain because that is how the species survive and evolve . By destroying their opponents and shaping the environment according to their desires and ideals.

If there is no God and soul then all morality is artificial , we can create our own code to seccure our survival and wellbeing.

If we adopt scientific approach then radical Muslims have every right to wipe out all the others opposing entities to secure happy life for their community.

They would have perfect right to choose their own method for achieving their ideal.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

 

Therefore, religious "human -animals" must wipe out scientific "human animals" because they cannot achieve their ideal while those are present and dominating the world.

 

Most of your points are interesting and valid.

 

Your conclusion, however, is alarming and does not reflect a Vaishnava (assuming that was your intention) perspective.

 

The Vaishnava does not seek to quarrel with the environment. Rather, the Vaishnava makes internal adjustments to harmonize with the environment. In fact, the pure Vaishnava can even harmonize the environment.

 

The Uttama Adhikari realizes that he/she is not the doer any more than the 'scientific "human animals"' are the doer. Ultimately, there is one doer--the Supreme Lord, and we are all here for His pleasure.

[Them]

 

Most of your points are interesting and valid.

 

Your conclusion, however, is alarming and does not reflect a Vaishnava (assuming that was your intention) perspective.

 

The Vaishnava does not seek to quarrel with the environment. Rather, the Vaishnava makes internal adjustments to harmonize with the environment. In fact, the pure Vaishnava can even harmonize the environment.

 

The Uttama Adhikari realizes that he/she is not the doer any more than the 'scientific "human animals"' are the doer. Ultimately, there is one doer--the Supreme Lord, and we are all here for His pleasure.

This was not my conclusion but only an example which ilustrates absurdity of purely materialistic philosophy.

Scientists allways speak of survival and conquering the nature as the ultimate goals but claim that at the same time their philosophy includes some high humanistic moral code.

This moral code however will work only in community which is willing to adopt it from which naturally follows that others will be percieved as threat.Human beings are also part of the nature and thus if one group manage to conquer , enslave or destroy the other it should be regarded as successull.

Therefore , the moral code or the law can only be established by being outside of the system , by God.

If not , then the only way to harmony is creating the society of identical clones which will lack any motivation and dynamism and will not last long.

Regarding pure Vaishnava's power of harmonization we can clearly see from many examples in scriptures that with some atheistic personalities such as Hiranyakashipu it does not work.

Even some far less powerfull atheist can create much disturbance for sincere bhaktas and our duty is to fight them with logic or in extreme cases with "sword".