Brain stimulation sparks out-of-body experience

I read this today.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Electrodes implanted into the brain to treat a man with a stubborn case of ringing in the ear instead sparked an out-of-body sensation, doctors in Belgium reported on Wednesday.

Stimulating the electrodes made the 63-year-old patient feel like he was outside his body twice, for 15 and 21 seconds, and allowed the doctors to use a PET scanner to track which parts of the brain became active during the experience.

I find this interesting, could it be that what people feel is just the result of a malfunction or out-of-sync functioning of part of our brain?

It looks possible that that brain area, responsible for the processing of information from the inner ear to detect head movement and position, when not working as it should be could send the wrong information to the brain.

Another step closer to the understanding of how our body works is always welcome.

Aye, lots of interesting research on this issue in the last few years. Olaf Blanke's research group has been doing some good stuff, many of his papers on this issue are available on his departmental website:

lnco.epfl.ch...

It could also be the exact locations that, when properly stimulated, unlock the consciousness from the body allowing for consciousness travel.

Interesting

[edit on 5-11-2007 by dominicus]

Wow that's some wierd stuff right there. I'd actually like to try it just one time to feel that sensation or whatever it might be. Makes you wonder if we are indeed wired a specific way and if we change it with electroids, we can see a different demension or something like that.
Here's another report about out of body experiences.

Your Brain Is To Blame

Leads me to another question. Can we indeed be brainwashed?

Originally posted by ArMaP

I find this interesting, could it be that what people feel is just the result of a malfunction or out-of-sync functioning of part of our brain?

why do you assume it's a malfunction?

perhaps this is how our brains are supposed to function but we have forgotten how to trigger it at will.

Originally posted by ArMaP
sparked an out-of-body sensation

The difference between feeling the sensation of an OBE, and actually experiencing your consciousness disconnected from the body, is paramount.

Are we dismissing the multitude of cases where the victims of this malfunction could relate things they had seen during the experience that would have been impossible? i.e witnessing events in another room. etc.

[edit on 5-11-2007 by Cloak and Dagger]

Originally posted by Cloak and Dagger

Originally posted by ArMaP
sparked an out-of-body sensation

The difference between feeling the sensation of an OBE, and actually experiencing your consciousness disconnected from the body, is paramount.

Are we dismissing the multitude of cases where the victims of this malfunction could relate things they had seen during the experience that would have been impossible? i.e witnessing events in another room. etc.

[edit on 5-11-2007 by Cloak and Dagger]

A while back ago I remember reading a story how an emergency operating room had a page on top of a cabinet with a word written on it. After years and many out of body reports where people supposedly saw and heard people operating on them not a single person mentioned the paper. OBE is all in your mind, a hallucination generated by your brain.

A while back ago I remember reading a story how an emergency operating room had a page on top of a cabinet with a word written on it. After years and many out of body reports where people supposedly saw and heard people operating on them not a single person mentioned the paper. OBE is all in your mind, a hallucination generated by your brain.

Well...the story you "remember reading somewhere along the way" is in direct contradiction to my personal experience and that of thousands of other OBE practitioners who CAN read, hear, see things outside of the room or beyond the body senses.

Just because you read something somewhere doesnt make it so.

reply to post by RogerT


I didn't assume that it is a malfunction, I assumed the possibility of being a malfunction of the area of the brain that they noticed were activated and that is responsible for the processing of the information from the inner ear designed to detect head movement and position.

PS: I noticed when I was going to write this answer that I haven't posted the source for this news.

I am very sorry, this is the original article.

reply to post by Cloak and Dagger


Witnessing events is also a sensation, all things that our senses detect are sensations, right?

And I don't think that they are dismissing those cases, just adding this information as something that could help find the origin of the OBE in the brain or as something completely independent from the brain.

Edit: In the only case that I know personally, the person who had the OBE did not witnessed anything outside the room where she was, she only saw the same scene she was seeing at the time but from a different, higher, point of view. This happened when she had a worsening of a strange anaemia for which the doctors never found an origin, even after three months studying the case in a hospital that also functions as a medical school.

[edit on 5/11/2007 by ArMaP]