Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Your brain can put your body wherever it likes....

Increasingly there seems to be little point in hanging on to new age spiritual, paranormal, or esoteric fantasies about altered mental states in which we seem to leave our bodies. We're actually not going anywhere... our brains are just making it up. We can, readily alter our sense of body ownership, as in the well known "rubber hand" illusion.

A nice graphic in today's New York Times prompts me to go ahead and mention a recent report from Blanke and coworkers in Nature that I was going to pass by, because it has received wide notice in the press and other blogs. This paper adds to a growing literature whose bottom line is that perturbation of nerve firing in brain areas near where the temporal and parietal lobes meet can cause a variety of distortions of our subjective sense of our body in space. Most commonly this is felt as an "out of body experience" where we are looking at ourselves from some external perspective or experiencing a 'shadow' version of ourselves. Here is the graphic from the New York Times based on work from the Blanke laboratory:


(Click to enlarge)

26 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:08 PM

    i understand what you are trying to show by using science but it just doesnt fit into Echenkars beleifs, such as... out of body experiences have happend to people declared dead... as well as people who have unlocked many other worlds that may exist.. i dont find it right that your trying to dumb down an entire religion by saying its not spiritual and its just a science...many people who have had these out of body experiences have unlocked future content by meeting others before physically meeting, so if you have a scientifical explanation for meeting someone in an experience like this please post it.

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  2. Anonymous3:59 PM

    i do understand that it is possible that out of body experiences can be triggered by a part of your brain, but honestly i have had an OBE and i have travelled to rooms in a friends house where i have never physically seen, and in the morning i checked these places and they were exactly as they were when I travelled in soul,so are you saying our brain is so powerful it can move us into different places that physically we have not experienced yet? or is it our soul as i believe. as well as this, I do not think it is right you are contredicting things that well established guru's of this art have said and done, for they have inspired many to unlock these keys to life and you'v thrown their words and books in the mud by not fully explaining your self.( i dont normally post blogs but this truly frustrated me when i read it.)

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  3. Anonymous10:03 PM

    when a person is having OBE without the lab observation , whose finger is stimulating his left or right brain hemisphere. LOL. you can create a similar sensation but how can you say that both experiences are smiliar. LOL. you have failed to achieve perceive the different states of conciousnes, thats why you put these silly experiments. :P:P

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  4. Anonymous6:17 PM

    Sorry, but your explanation doesn't work. I've had several OBEs, but one in particular, comes to mind. First of all, when I have these, they tend to be in black and white, and reversed. However, the one OBE that convinced me that my mind wasn't simply playing tricks, is as follows:

    I took a nap, while on my lunch break, one afternoon. At that time, I was working at the Grove Park Inn, in Asheville, North Carolina, and drove a van. I was stretched out across the front seats, with my back to the driver side window. At a certain point, I was aware of being asleep, but I couldn't move. I fought against it, and felt my body rise up, turn around, and look out of the window. I saw a person walking towards the hotel, dressed in a way that doesn't fit the average guest. Suddenly, I snapped back... and found myself, still stretched out across the seats. I sat up, turned around, and saw exactly the same scene... the same person... the same clothes. Go ahead, and try to explain that with science. It just doesn't work...

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  5. Anonymous9:44 PM

    I think one of the problems id that even now today we are so backward that we still refer to this as a religion. There is a seperation between "religion" and science that makes us lame as a species. I find it disturbing that "new age" gurus have far surpassed most any scientist we have on this planet in terms of presenting information and facts about the truth,history and reality of our origins and universe.I would also like to present a challenge to the author....make it your goal to disprove obe's. Disprove the entire "theory"! Induce the state for yourself successfully 12X. One more funny thing, how are we ever going to teach our civilization the truth with this sort of arrogant, I dare say ignorant yet oh so scholarly denial?

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  6. Anonymous10:05 PM

    ive had a pretty cool one after a weekend of partying and doing drugs i hadnt slept for a couple of days and was realllly tired well i was lying backwards n went into sleep paralysis but was too tired to fight it and as i went with it i thought i got up talked to my friend walked and fell face first into the floor because i was really drowsy i could of sworn it happoend but when i woke up after i hit the floor i was on the couch still n my friend said i had fallen asleep for a minute or to

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  7. Check out www.wakeupinyourdreams.com for to learn all about OBEs for free. I am setting up an OBE community and exploring some of the more esoteric possibilities with an experiment in consciousness. I remain pretty impartial on both fronts (science vs spirit) but look to prove the latter

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  8. Anonymous11:40 AM

    This is an IMPORTANT QUESTION that I must have answered. When someone has the Right Angular Gyrus stimulated they have an out of body experience. My question is what happens if during the out of body experience the Right Angular Gyrus stops being stimulated??? Do you go back to your body???

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  9. Anonymous5:28 PM

    Remember the words from Isac Newton when he became old and wise. Life has been like walking on a beach - I may have found one stone prettier than the other but now it seems that like the ocean the greatest truef lies in front of me.

    Best Regards
    Mr Mullback

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  10. hi there , i have about 8 or 9 times out of body exprience , and i wanna tell u it's just reallity, the first time i just experince that and 2nd time try to test what happen when i be out of my body !! i remember anything i want and i test which thing i like to test after first exprience ! i try to fly and i see i can fly and u can't open doors in this mod and u can't go to wall and go out of other wall and u can't touch anybody , in this mod everything is exacly in the place that are in reallity and human's are like the same but when u go and close to any human they scare of u and they run ! i don't know why !?!! but u can see anything exacly the place they r human's and thing too ! u can thinking about somthing in this mod u can do anything u want but u can fly and u feel naked ! this not all i know about OBE but this is can be helpfull sorry for my bad english because i learn it by my self ...

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  11. Anonymous1:49 PM

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KMqOPeCgoT0/S7EZA68VLVI/AAAAAAAAFEs/H6y0kyl7DY0/s1600/Duane+Michals-2.jpg

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  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  13. You are a deceiver. People, don't buy into these lies saying out of body in not real. Out of body is real and is confirmed, though not explained 100% per science because most scientist these days come out of institutions of controlled studies and controlled thoughts, like minds being trapped in a box.

    Thousands of people in this century have left their bodies during operations, moments of death or while sleeping, to return later, but during the time it happened witnessed things that could not be explained unless they where awake, which they were not.

    Robert Monroe of the Robert Monroe institute studied the out of body experience for decades with total proof it is real. http://www.monroeinstitute.org/.

    National Geographic did a show called "National Geographic: Moment of Death" which can not be disputed especially concerning the last 45 minutes of the episode about 'Al Sullivan' who left his body during an operation and watched it from above the scene. His head was behind a curtain in which he could not see the doctors or the rest of his body below his neck, and his eyes where covered with cotton and tape. He watch the surgeons strange arm movements, what he was wearing along with all the other nurses and doctors. When he latter woke up, he explained this to the doctor and nurses. The doctors have no clue how he knew what happened during the operation.

    Drugs, Drinking, Dreams or false lies in science will not explain this away. And if anyone in science tries, they also believe in Evolution.

    Why is this important to understand that evil loves Evolution, because many scientist are part of an order which is trying to make people feel like they are just a bag of meat with no meaning in life, so in turn life then means nothing to them, not even there own, which makes them more easy to control and kill off.

    Hitler was a Eugenesist and believed in Darwin's theory of Evolution which he used it in propaganda against Jews.

    Darwinism is also the center core of eugenics (the elimination of races - babies, children, men, women, old and young.) Study it people. Most of the scientist and people funding evolution institutes and their scientist are sick eugenesist.

    Most people I know believe we have a soul and some have experienced out of body or know someone who has. I my self have left my body on 3 occasions man years apart from each and it was real, no one will tell me different.

    People, don't buy into these lies saying out of body in not real and you have no spirit. Yes you do! Your thoughts, your sight, your hearing, your smelling, your taste, your feelings and your dreams are all real and so is your spirit. Those things work together, and work well if you eat right, exercise, read and watch good things concerning love, peace and enlightenment.

    You are not a bag of soulless meat and don't let anyone sell you that lie.

    Here is an example of how the lies work. Read or watch Plato's “The Allegory of the Cave ”

    Read...
    http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/platoscave.html

    Watch...
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQfRdl3GTw4

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous6:55 PM

      You just mixed chaotically lots of stuff. In fact your first paragraph speaks of what in science is called the empirical method. If it can be replicated, than that's scientifically true... My friend not only OBE has set itself as a concrete phenomena thanks to science but Monroe's big job has been realized by two very good assistant: An electrical engineer and a theoretical physicist, Tom Campbell. So you see it's science. Because scienctific method is the way to get knowledge whether in reality or metareality. I just dislike easy fooled people following Mr. Guru. About Hitler, Darwinism and the other delirium, I am not going to get trolled.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous6:58 PM

      If Plato could rise back from ancient Greek, he would slap you in the face for exactly watching the shadow and mumbling at them.

      Delete
  14. You are a deciever. People, don't buy into these lies saying out of body in not real. Out of body is real and is confirmed, though not explained 100% per science because most scientist these days come out of institutions of controlled studies and controlled thought. Thousands of people in this century have left their bodies during operations, moments of death and while sleeping, to return later, but during the time it happend, witnessed things that could not be explained unless they where awake, which they were not.

    Robert Monroe of the Robert Monroe institute studied the out of body experience for decades with total proof it is real. http://www.monroeinstitute.org/.

    National Geographic did a show called "National Geographic Moment of Death" which can not be disputed especially concerning the last 45 minutes of the episode concerning Al Sullivan who left his body during an operation and watched it from above the scene. His head was behind a curtain in which he could not see the doctors or the rest of his body below his neck, and his eye where covered with cotton and tape. He watch the surgeons strange arm movements, what he was wearing along with all the other nurses and doctors. When he latter woke up, he explained this to the doctor and nurses. The doctors have no clue how he knew what was doing on in the opperation room.

    Drugs, Drinking, Dreams or false lies in science will not explain this away. And if anyone in science tries, they also believe in Evolution. Why is this important to understand, because those scientist are part of an order which is trying to make people feel like they are just a bag of meat with no meaning in life, so in turn, life means nothing to them, not even there own, which makes them more easy to control.

    Most people are know believe it, have experience it or know someone who has. I my self have on 3 occations years apart from each time experienced out of body and it was real.

    You are not a bag of souless meat, and don't let anyone sell you at that lie.

    Here is an example of how the lies work. Read or watch Plato's “The Allegory of the Cave ”

    Read...
    http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/platoscave.html

    Watch...
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQfRdl3GTw4

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous12:41 AM

    If Science is to full-fill its duty as the rational inquiry into the actual nature of things, it must examine, thouroughly, all the evidence; especially, in the case of the human experience, where said experience provides evidence for a transcendent, progressional nature to reality.
    Let's examine, in the spirit of discovery all that would provide such irrefutable evidence.

    It's no accident that the prevailing paradigm has limited such research in these areas, as there are so few cases encountered which truly merit further inquiry and study.
    Not because they don't exist; they certainly do, [eg. psi research] but because the conditioned filters and assumptions prevent recognition.

    Let these cases be known. This is The 21st Century after all. The Military budget would cover the advancement a thousandfold if our species was not so obsessed with war and power. Granted, the species has a need to feel secure, but would that security not be increased immensely with a broader view of the context in which we conduct our experience?

    just an observation.
    -T

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  16. Anonymous11:05 PM

    http://www.irva.org/remote-viewing/definition.html

    For your information/education
    -T

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  17. I agree that controlled experiments often remain limited to prove a restricted hypothesis and the experiment has to be repeatable. Where traditional science is not so good is in studying human and psychological phenomena, because human beings are very complex biologically, chemically, psychologically. And in an OOBE case in particular we are talking about a subjective experience, it's even more difficult. For example, you could do an experiment where you show a certain picture or even movie to people before sleep in order to get a certain response and influence their dreams. Even if you followed strict scientific experimental protocols to the letter, you would still get different responses from different individuals, and you would get different responses from the same individual over time, even if repeating the exact same protocol. At the same time, as technology improves and scientific knowledge advances, we are more likely to understand complex neurological phenomena. The problem remains however that unless you can bring about repeatability in a controlled environment (like a lab experiment) scientists will not tend spend time on this.

    I think we have to remain open both ways. Because something cannot be explained it does not mean it does not exist, but even if we experience something, we should not jump to conclusions without researching it further.

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    1. Anonymous7:02 PM

      Jeesh... Thanks. I facepalm so many times I was getting blind before to get to your comment.

      Delete
  18. You make very reasonable points.

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  19. Anonymous9:03 PM

    _______________________________________________
    everyone above this line experienced complications and additions to an 'out of body experience' such as experiencing something while asleep that theyre fairly sure they couldnt have known otherwise. all of you take occams razor and ask, is it more likely that theres a soul, hanging outside of your body, preforming tasks the brain already does, or that you forgot the rooms in the house and only remembered them while dreaming?

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  20. Anonymous2:21 PM

    If the "brain can put the body wherever it likes" how do you then know that the body actually exists? How can you verify the existance of a brain if your brain is only making up reality? How can you, through you perception, say whats real and what not when at the same time you can "make up" your body at any place?

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  21. You can only say that what you think is real seems to get you through the day, your perception normally "works" to insure your survival. What is going on inside your brain is a completely alien process inaccessible to your consciousness, which it generates.

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  22. Anonymous12:12 PM

    But how do we know that it is the brain generating conciousness or maybe conciousness generating the brain and reality?

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  23. That's one line of speculation which is written about, but I'm not versed in it.

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