Talk:Out-of-body experience

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[edit] Old talk

Edited this page to NPOV it - it was a hodgepodge of some denying even the subjective experience of OBEs, accompanied by alternating paragraphs claiming verification of observation local events. Chas zzz brown 22:54 Jan 23, 2003 (UTC)

Hmm? I disagree sincerely; this revision, far from neutralizing it, seems to have stripped all mentions of supporting evidence. I'm rewriting it.
However, I do agree with the formatting changes made. However, the information in the article has been changed to be dead wrong- I believe we're having contrasting definitions of "lucid dreaming." My definition is simply that of being aware one is dreaming, while still within the dream. Most lucid dream induction methods involve making a habit of checking throughout the day if a situation is actually a dream; this habit carries over to dreams, and the checks come up somewhat differently. There are NOT the parallels described in the rewrite. Kistaro 00:14 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

Edit away mercilessly at the lucid dreaming parts - the techniques listed are reminiscent of at least one person I know who uses them for lucid dreaming (in terms of imagery); but I'm not a practitioner, so I bow to your expertise.

Taken out. Again. While I can see such methods working to induce lucid dreams, they are not the standard methods.

Evidence of the subjective experience which we can call an OBE is plentiful; evidence of the objective reality of actually "being out of your body" is pretty slim.

The only "evidence" originally given in the article was in these two paragraphs:

Evidence is heavy on both sides of the fence. The phenomenon simply defies logic and science; it almost demands the existance of a soul. It is also a rather erratic event, which makes it difficult to study; the difficulty involved in recreating such an event causes many experimenters to doubt that such a phenomenon actually exists.

Not much "heavy" evidence cited here (on either side). The fact that it "defies logic and science" is not evidence, nor is the fact that it "demands the existance (sic)" of a human soul - those are observations of how actual evidence would challenge other theories (one could include this as an argument regarding why some consider that there is no evidence forthcoming, but it is not truly evidence itself).

Most certainly. You took it out of context. That paragraph was for points in the perspective against the phenomenon! Kistaro

The idea that it is an erratic event making it difficult to study (notwithstanding that this directly contradicts the statement in the final paragraph about "'Projectors', who can induce this state at will, ...") is a challenge to providing evidence, not evidence in and of itself that the phenomenon exists.

On the other front, a rather large number of people have claimed to experience such a phenomenon. Recent experiments with electric brain stimulation have produced interesting results, and recent news has covered events where some hospital patients who go completely brain-dead and are later revived are able to accurately reconstruct events that occured while the patient was legally dead. "Projectors" who can induce this phenomenon at will frequently show knowledge of situations that they could not know by other means.

I have no quibble with the fact that people claim to have the experience. No idea where the "electrical stimulation" comes from - I didn't see any examples of this as an OBE technique in a web search;

I confess I lost the link. I found what looks like a promising headline on nytimes.com, but I don't feel like paying the money. I don't have a credit card; I'm only a high school student! -- Kistaro
Google - it's the Wikipedian's best friend! (... and I can't believe it's still free!) Try a search on "OBE electrical brain" Chas zzz brown 21:19 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

and in any case, I see no examples of using this technique to demonstrate real evidence that the experience is other than subjective. See changes at near death experience for some discussion of NDEs as a class of out of body experience. The final sentence can hardly be called evidence; we need to say who these "projectors" are, and describe the evidence they give that they shows knowledge of situations that cannot be explained by natural means.

Evidence needs to be evidence - not just claims. Cheers - Chas zzz brown 01:04 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

I'd consider a full debate to be somewhat beyond the scope of the article, although massive quantities of links would not be.
My real problem with the article as it stands is that it has a severe slant against the phenomenon. I agree with the concept of a neutral POV- in fact, that's what I was shooting for- but apparently, you didn't like that I mentioned something not supported by current scientific thought. Stripping out the sections even remarking on the possible validity of the non-scientific, less accepted approach does not neutralize the article, it biases it. Badly. -- Kistaro 03:30 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)
What is there then to report, in order to "balance" the article, about those who believe that the subjective experience is also an objective one, except that there are those who believe that the subjective experience is also an objective one? That they really, really do believe it? Chas zzz brown 05:20 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

As regards electrical stimulation:

Researchers from the University Hospitals of Geneva and Lausanne (Switzerland) have found that OBEs can be produced by direct electrical stimulation of a specific part of the brain. Dr. Olaf Blanke and his colleagues worked with a 43-year-old female patient who suffered from right temporal lobe epilepsy. In order to identify the location where the seizures occurred, the researchers implanted electrodes on the brain under the patient's dura. While the patient was awake, the researchers could pass electrical current through the electrodes to identify the function of the brain area under each electrode.

Nowhere is it stated that the (easily performed) experiment of verifying whether or not the subject was actually floating above the bed gave results which would be of tremendous signifiance. Chas zzz brown 01:28 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

I concede the point. I mentioned it only for completeness, not as evidence. This is not an attempt to prove the phenomenon, it's an attempt to get all angles of it! Why must you strip out the remarks on the admittedly less-scientific viewpoints and call it neutral? I'm missing something here.

-- Kistaro 03:30 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

If y'all hadn't guessed, I've got some disagreements with how this article is being rewritten. I don't consider it neutral; I consider it very biased against any pro-OBE point of view. I fail to see how stripping out all mentions of one view and not of another makes the information in any way neutral. However, I am refraining from returning the information, as it's obviously futile to try to get an NPOV here; I'll settle for accurate for what's in it. Why did the re-rewrite insist on stripping out the somewhat wrong information on lucid dreaming? -- Kistaro 03:30 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

I'll add my POV here (it is the talk page, after all) - which is that "it's good to have an open mind; but not so open that your brains fall out". NPOV doesn't mean we have to throw out our critical faculties. If some people believe the moon is made of green cheese, we can state that belief - but we would be doing our readers (and the encyclopedic concept) a disservice if we didn't state that not only is there no particular factual basis for this belief, but instead there is considerable evidence to the contrary.
NPOV, in my opinion, is far more applicable in areas where there is no possibility of a "right" answer - there is no way to prove (in the scientific sense) that Mohammed was "really" the chosen prophet of Allah or not; or whether abortion is really killing babies, etc. etc.
The pro-OBE point of view (as I assume you are defining it) is that the experience is "real", and that their consciousness is in some way actually leaving their bodies. Aside from stating that some people adhere to this point of view, what else can be said of it? That they believe it because... they've had the experience and it seems real to them?
In an article on OBEs, I'm willing to say that it is without a doubt true that many people have had experiences which subjectively appear to be that their center of consciousness has moved outside of their body. It is natural then to wonder whether this is what actually occurs or whether this is "just" a subjective experience. There is no evidence that the former occurs; and to state otherwise without some kind of backup is to turn an encyclopedia into a rumor mill. That's not POV, it's just reporting that there is no evidence supporting the belief that OBEs have an objective component, except that people believe it to be so. Chas zzz brown 05:20 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)
Which makes it a very difficult subject to approach.
How about doing something never seen before (okay, I haven't seen it before) in a Wikipedia article: two renditions, separated by a divider. The first rendition is the article almost as it stands; all mentions are written with subjectivity in mind. This may involve the heavy modification (or removal of) the description of the experience. The second rendition, after the divider, would be of what is experienced, with no judgements mentioned or evidence given.
Perhaps a third section would be appropriate for evidence, but would that be more than a little overboard? -- Kistaro, wanting a peaceful comprimize to this whole edit war
IMO, it's not necessary. It could be structured differently, though -- a paragraph on the subjective experience, then a paragraph on the scientific view and (lack of) evidence, and then a paragraph "Some people think that...". Zocky 10:19 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)
Isn't that pretty much what we have now? A few paragraphs on what can be unambiguously agreed upon as facts regarding the subjective experience of an OBE (as distinct from other subjective experiences); along with methods for achieving this state; a paragraph saying that many people believe that the experience is real; and a paragraph saying that skeptics believe it's not real due to lack of evidence otherwise.
I don't mean for this to be an "edit war"; but I feel rather strongly about how one should go about applying NPOV in areas like this. I'm in process of trying to work out how to approach these issues myself, so please don't take any of what I say as personal! I'm assuming that we're all trying to live up to the noble precepts of forefathers :) - as outlined at NPOV - and my arguments are really an attempt to answer these questions in the larger context.
What I would object to in the current situation is, for example, rewriting the first sentence to read, instead of :
An out-of-body experience (or OBE) is the subjective perception that one is no longer in one's body, while (generally) being able to perceive it from the outside
as
An out-of-body experience (or OBE) is the phenomenon of being no longer in one's body, while (generally) being able to perceive it from the outside.
In the former, we assert that there is the feeling of really being outside of one's body. It is a fact (in the sense of NPOV) that people have this experience - a lot of people! In the latter sentence, we assert during an OBE one is actually outside of one's body. But this is exactly what is in contention between differing viewpoints; the objective reality of the experience. So I would consider the latter sentence does not express a fact - it is an opinion (again, in the strict sense of NPOV).
A critical difference- and I agree with use of the top version. If "subjective perception" was replaced with "delusion," however, I'd have a problem. Kistaro
My impression (I could be wrong!) is that Kistaro would prefer the latter sentence as being less biased;
Surprise. Kistaro
but to my mind, that introduces the bias of asserting what is under contention. Both a skeptic and a non-skeptic could agree that Joe Blow is having an OBE if they define it as the experience - but if they define it as the reality, then they would disagree.
On the other hand, the article prior to this series of edits seemed to throw out the baby with the bathwater and claim that skeptics believed that "there is no such thing as an OBE".
And that's the version I have a problem with. I have no problem with calling it subjective; my beef is with calling it invalid. Kistaro
But there really is a phenomenon we can call OBE, whose definition we can agree on, and which people really do experience (and experience as subjectively real). That's why I felt like I was actually making the article more NPOV - stress what can be agreed on as a fact, rather than presenting the whole article as reporting on opinions.
I see our problem here. What you're seeing as "neutralizing" to note as more of a subjectively experienced thing comes off more as calling it, in its entirety, invalid.
The problem at hand: How to avoid doing that? I agree that I'm pro-OBE biased; you're obviously skeptical of the whole thing- and that's okay!- which tilts the article slightly.
There really is no such thing as an unbiased perspective, in my experience. Kistaro
Obviously I come from a more skeptical headset than most
Not that far off from normal, actually. I'm the weird Otherkin paranormalist here; I'd say I'm the one several miles from the mainstream! Kistaro
- so, again, please don't take my comments as in any way personal!! There are a lot of topics in which this same issue arises (see New Age, pseudo-science, etc., etc.) and I'm groping towards what seems like the right approach. Chas zzz brown 21:19 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)
We'll figure something out. Kistaro 00:44 Jan 25, 2003 (UTC)

A personal insight (not related to the debate, but what the hell!) Someone I know claimed an outer-body experience while being operated on. The doctors were high dubious until she was able to tell them that (a) one of the doctors had been called to the back of the operating theatre (where there was a glass wall) and shown a note written in felt-tip pen; (b) she knew and could recite word for word what that message was. No-one had spoken the words, so she couldn't have heard them. Nor even if she was awake from her position could she have possibly seen them. Nor indeed, given that there was it was a complicated operation, was she likely even to have known that one of the many surgeons there had left the operation, walked to a specific corner of a window, looked out, been shown the note, read it, smiled and shook his head, before returning. Let alone known at what time he had done this. (A small clock was just about visible through the window in the small room beyond. The surgeons challenged her, saying there was no clock. One went to check and found that, yes, there was one, on a shelf; he'd never noticed it there himself!)

Some younger surgeons were shocked at all the information she could describe. The oldest surgeon there said, however, that he wasn't surprised at all. He had witnessed a number of such incidents, including someone who claimed to have left an operating theatre and was able to recount a conversation, including describing the three people who had it (she knew one was called 'John' because he'd been called that!) and what they were talking about, that took place two rooms away, all while being operated on and out for the count on an operating table. Another doctor left a note on the top of a press, challenging anyone who claimed to have an experience to know what it said. One man not only told him of the note, but corrected his grammar, and in particular his split infinitive in the note! Spooky! JTD 01:22 Jan 25, 2003 (UTC)

A wonderful personal account, but the point remains: we have to stay neutral. The trick is figuring out what "neutral" actually is: how to present the information at hand without biasing it one way or another, since it is still a contested matter of debate? Kistaro 02:30 Jan 25, 2003 (UTC)

I know. I was just making an observation of general interest. The point I was making is that the issue has to be covered treating the claim with respect. This is no 'X-Files' garbage but a serious issue that must not dismiss the idea as if it was some sort of nutty micronations stuff (of which we have so much on Wiki that it gives one the creeps!). JTD 05:21 Jan 25, 2003 (UTC)

Stories like those above alert my "urban legend" meter a bit. In particular, note how the evidence of actual dis-embodiment gets more compelling the further away from the original source we get - the most compelling evidence in terms of "really" out of body (reading a note in a normally "impossible" way) is actually fourth hand: JTD <- his friend <- the older surgeon <- another doctor. It is reasonable to ask if this type of account is really a kind of urban legend - tantamount to the story of Dan Quayle thinking that people in Latin America spoke Latin.

On the other hand, the only way to describe the phenomenon is via someone's firsthand experience. The story clearly had an effect on JTD; and I assume an even stronger one on his/her friend!

When in doubt - go to original sources! Here's a new take on the article, which stresses reporting of the experience; hopefully this is a more "balanced" view. Cheers - Chas zzz brown 18:51 Jan 31, 2003 (UTC)

As someone who's just come across the article, I have to say it's a mess. I appreciate the work you've all put into it, but it is definitely suffering versionitis. It's badly organized, incoherent, and changes tone several times. Ick. At the very least, I recommend actually breaking it into sections (instead of all those bullet points) and cutting down the number of examples (they're pretty redundant). And what's a detailed analysis of a case study doing in there, anyway? That really belongs in a link or on a separate page. Well, good luck. -Pat

[edit] NPOV

I just did a few little copyedits to this, but it seems to me to be suffering from POV issues, and I don't know enough about the subject to start rewriting it. The tone of the article seems to me rather to err on the side of saying that OBEs are a real experience. The problem is that for a purely subjective phenomenon, we can't make any verifiable claims about these experiences. For example, however many first-hand accounts we read, there's no way we can say for sure that they are not made up. There's too much reliance on these accounts - they make up the bulk of the article. Efortune 15:36, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

having read this article, I must agree, scientific consensus states this is likely a false perception. That point needs to be addressed more clearly. i kan reed 17:36, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other topics... courtesy of http://www.lucidity.com/NL32.OBEandLD.html

Deleted this whole section. It's entirely inappropriate to quote entire articles on the talk page, even if you do have copyright and however relevant to the subject. Loxlie 06:04, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 66

In the article, in the section "Aspects", under similar properties of OBE there is a sentence: In the great majority (55+) of these 66 cases, the subject reported being asleep, on the verge of sleep, or having been asleep shortly before.. Where is this figure of 66 coming from? It was not referred to earlier in the article, and is not coming from the site 'Spiritual Spectrum Stories (which sites 109). Can we get a clarification on this please? 7Munkys 10:40, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Astral projection vs OOBE

It is written : Astral projection is an interpretation of forced out-of-body experiences achieved either consciously or via lucid dreaming or deep meditation. Proponents of astral projection maintain that their consciousness or soul has transferred into an astral body (or "double"), which moves free of the physical body in a parallel world known as the "astral plane," which is said to exist via the "collective conscious." Unlike the typical OBE, astral projection does not typically posit that one's consciousness or soul actually travels through the day-to-day physical realm. Now who here is supporting this ? The two words actually mean the same thing. An astral projection is in the day-do-day physical realm but proponents claim that by raising one's enegies you can go to higuer planes of existence (by shifting your counsciouness). So why is there such a disctinction in wikipedia while outside there is none ?Bragador 16:59, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Ok I found a good source explaining the distinction so everything is fine. For those who also wonder go there http://brain.web-us.com/oobe/oobe.htm#What%20is%20an%20astral%20projection?

[edit] Conclusions

Not to be a stickler, but... the conclusion states that:

OBEs can neither be proven nor disproven.

which I find akwardly worded. What cannot be proven is that the consciousness is in reality "somewhere else". There is no argument that some people actually have OBE's, or that some drugs and physical processes induce OBE's.

The "skepticism" section also employs some faulty logical reasoning (or quotes those who make faulty deductions): just because OBE's may be induced by electrical stimulation, and associated to one particular region of the brain, does not imply that some "soul" was not "in reality" ins some "different place". See Logical fallacy; I'm not sure which logical fallacies are exhibited here, but a simple reading seems to exhibit several. (If you're going to be a skeptic, you should at least not make obvious logical and deductive faults). linas 19:27, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I totally agree. I had an idea and changed the sentences so they would be more "to the point" and logical. Bragador 03:57, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Perceptional mapping

18feb06 Everything one perceives is mapped into the brain. When parts of the map are activated, they appear in consciousness. The quality of their appearance can be either like an idea, a memory or a physical object depending on the level of neural activity. The only world anyone ever experiences is always some activated part of the map, never the world directly. Meditation, drugs and bodily changes such as sleep, can alter the activity levels of the map as a whole and cause visions, hallucinations, dreams, etc. when the map is activated internally but is not being compared to external stimuli. When a person seems to be "out of body" he can actually be just altering his normal body centered point of view to a completely different point of view within the activated map without ever leaving his actual body as he has never known his actual body other then the map activations. Just as we "seem" to have a body in dreams, our point of view dislocation will give the sense of having a body as well. While dreams are often a mix of emotional hot spots left over in the map, joined together in ways never seen in waking life, the out of body expeirence is an activation of the world maps we normally live and work in and so they seem qualitatively different from dreams. When it is seen that normal waking life is another case of map activations informed by the senses, it can be understood how this unique state is the same map activated without being informed by the senses, but from within.

This theory is based on a combination of the following
Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge Howard Rheingold
Phantom limb pain http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/pain/microsite/medicine2.html
blind spot [why dont we notice it] http://student.biology.arizona.edu/sciconn/Neuroscience/blind_spot.html
Jiohdi 18feb06

Your sources would be interesting if we were doing an article on the "phantom limbs" but then again they are not scientific articles. The real problem is, like you said, that your text is based on a combination of the two articles. Wikipedia doesn't accept original research.Bragador 12:53, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

well excuse me, but just about everything about obe is speculation an

[edit] Is there any connection between it all

Hi, I am really interested in this topic and wonder if a number of other sleep related subjects can be linked together. Have there ever been any cases of someone trying to posses another person via Out-of-Body-Experiences. It may sound farfetched but I am just curious. And is their any cases where Out-of-Body Experiences relates to Dream sharing, Remote Viewing, Telepathy, and other paranormal phenomena, this would completely flop our idea of science around (Tigerghost 16:27, 17 July 2006 (UTC))

Hello, I know its been a while since you posted this, and I don't know if this helps you any, but here is my story. About 30 years ago, I was running in my High School P.E. class, and I got to thinking about something, I don't remember what it was, but I got distracted. I went to look up, and I found myself standing where I had been when I got distracted. I was watching myself run back and forth along the gym. I wasn't telling my body to run, I wasn't breathing, and I didn't think to try to move. I felt like I was in a body, but I had no other sensations. My real body was running in a perfectly straight line, and when it ran into me I was back in control and everything was normal again. This happened right after lunch, and I was completely awake. The only thing that I can think of that caused it was I was so completely distracted my body kept sending the signals to my limbs to run on its own, and I entered a "lucid daydream." How I was watching myself run down the gym is a mystery to me. I don't believe in the paranormal, seeing as there is so mutch about the human brain that we don't know, but that was deffinatly unusual. Hybrid 06:06, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is this OBE experience?

When you sleep, and then suddenly you felt like you fell hard on your bed and then someone beside you will just ask you... Whats the matter with you? is that OBE? cuz it happened to me too many times before. 06:36, September 15, 2006 82.148.113.168

No, that's just a twitch that happens as your muscles relax while you are falling asleep, called a myoclonic twitch (only the lead really discusses the common sleep onset forms, but there are some good external links at the bottom). It happens to pretty much everyone as they fall asleep, but whoever has been asking you about it probably falls asleep after you. Edhubbard 17:55, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neuroscientific research

There is now an ongoing research project into the neuroscience of OBEs. This line of research starts by taking the experiences as reported by the subjects as valid. That is, people really do *feel* like they have left their body. However, it rejects the explanation for these experiences offered by people. In much the same way that phantom limbs, synesthesia and other unusual experiences are beginning to be understood as products of our brain, Olaf Blanke and his collaborators in Switzerland [1] have begun to use a series of neuroscientific techniques, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and transcranial magnetic stimulation to demonstrate that body image and OOBs are associated with regions of the right temporal-parietal cortex, and that it is possible to reliable elicit these experiences. They thus propose that this region is important for the most important aspects of the OBE, and that although the experiences are real, they do not constitute paranormal phenomena, but rather anomalous experiences generated by normal brain processes gone awry. To put it baldly, since these experiences can be reliably elicited by stimulating brain regions, they must be products of the brain, not due to some sort of ethereal body leaving the corporal one. This view should be included in the article. However, since the article is currently POV in favor of the paranormal explanation, working in the neuroscientific explanation will require a major rewrite to make it clear that the paranormal explanation has not been tested by science. This would be a big rewrite, so I wanted to bring it up for discussion before changing the whole page. Comments? Edhubbard 20:44, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the neuroscience explanation should definitely be included, some mention of the work of Michael Persinger would also be of interest here. However, there are two points that need to be clarified, firstly, the argument that OBEs are purely hallucinations does not account for factual information often gained through these experiences. This can include details of a location outside of the subjects sensory range, as well as details of surgical procedures (usually reported in NDEs). This type of information is widely reported and IMHO cannot simply be ignored or explained away by arguments such as poor memory etc. You also state that "since these experiences can be reliably elicited by stimulating brain regions, they must be products of the brain, not due to some sort of ethereal body leaving the corporal one". While it may be true that these experiences are brain produced on some level this does not mean that they are simply hallucinations and that there is no psi factor involved. Being able to reproduce a hallucination of something through brain stimulation does not prove the thing itself is not real. Brain stimulation has produced all manner of sensory hallucinations, most often based upon things that are very real and verifiable. If I stimulate your brain so that you believe you are eating an apple, does that prove apples don't exist, or that the act of eating is not real? - Solar 13:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Hi Solar. Well, I have a few comments, some of which are general and some of which apply to the article itself. First the general point, which is regarding brain stimulation. You correctly note that brain stimulation does not "prove apples don't exist, or that the act of eating is not real?" However, simply creating the brain activation that leads to the experience that you are eating an apple would do nothing to alleviate the very real hunger that also would be slaked by eating a real apple. That is, just because you experience something that doesn't make it real. The experience itself can be quite real without the object of that experience being real. The reality of apples, and of eating them is not solely proven by the experience of one person, at one time, eating an apple, but by their repeated observation, measurement, etc, etc.
The neuroscientific view assumes two realms of experience 1) the internal subjective world, and 2) the objective external world. For the most part these two realms agree quite well, and our subjective internal experience of red, for example, matches well with objects and events in the external world. However, we know that the brain actively constructs an internal model, or representation, of the external world. Thus, for example, somebody who has a limb amputated will continue to experience their missing limb, a phenomenon called a phantom limb. The experience that the amputated limb is still there is quite real, and we can now explain how this arises in the brain. However, the amputated limb is not still there in the objective, external world. Similarly, neuroscientists like Blanke who would approach OBEs, would approach them with this perspective. The experiences themselves are real, but *unless* they can be shown to match up well with external validation, neuroscientists would conclude that they do not exist in the external world.
Having stressed this distinction, I want to return more closely to the OBE article. Given this emphasis on evidence, and external validation, we have to look and see what external validation there is that something (spirit, soul, mind, whatever you choose to call it) has left the body. As the article itself notes:
"Only 2 of the 66 spontaneous cases (from the previously mentioned study) involved attempts to verify the experience as being "really" out-of-body by checking the positions of people or objects in another room. The basis for the subject's belief that the experiences was real was not primarily the external evidence. Very few of the 66 cases considered it needful to verify for themselves they were physically out-of-body by checking on events at other locations. This type of verification was not what caused them to believe the experience was "real" in the first place. Instead, it was the quality of the experience that drove their perception of its reality, and made it different from a dreaming or illusory experience."
And even then, there is no mention in the article as to whether the external validation was successful. That is, did the person reporting the experience report something that they could not have known otherwise (the "factual information often gained through these experiences" you spoke of). "There were doctors in the hall" won't cut it, since this would be pretty obvious to anyone in a hospital. Saying "There were doctors to the right of the door" might be a bit better, but even that might only be a 50/50 guess (or even better, if the person reporting the experience saw which way the door opened, since people don't stand behind the door normally). As far as details of surgical procedures, there is a growing literature showing that anesthesia is not always completely effective, and some information may come into the senses through the normal chanels, even if the subject is not consciously aware of it. Thus, from a neuroscientific perspective, external validation is lacking. That is, although there is every reason to believe that the experiences themselves are real, the article presents no evidence that some sort of mental force has left the body and is seeing the world around them. If there is additional evidence, please integrate it into the article.
In general, the article seems to present the psi view as truth, rather than a point of view. I've been tempted to tag the article with a POV tag, but thought that it would be better to bring this up on the discussion page, rather than just tagging things. One of the important things, from my perspective as a neuroscientist, is to present the emerging neuroscientific explanation as an alternative point of view. An article can be POV either by actively arguing for something, but it can also be POV by simply ignoring alternative explanations. Edhubbard 10:14, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Hello Edhubbard, sorry for the late reply, but I've been busy with other things. I have read through your addition and while it is well presented it still gives the impression that there is no contradictory evidence or research. For example here is some information from a short web search, this research is based around NDE as this area is harder to explain due to lake of activity in the brain:

Dr. Pim van Lommel of the Rijnstate Hospital in the Netherlands presented a paper in the respected British Medical Journal, The Lancet, on the first large-scale study of NDEs which he conducted.

His study began in 1988 and lasted 13 years. It included 344 survivors of cardiac arrest from 10 Dutch hospitals. Of these 344 survivors, 18 percent experienced a NDE. And because Lommel and his staff conducted follow-up interviews with these patients over many years, they were able to rule out such factors as apoxia, seizures, medication, etc. Lommel's findings confirmed prior research findings conducted by other near-death researchers. It confirmed that NDEs are real and they cannot be explained by physiological or psychological causes alone.

Lommel noted that only 10 seconds after the heart stops beating, the electroencephalogram goes dead. At this point, there is no activity in the brain cortex and the brain cannot manufacture visions. Within 10 minutes, brain stem activity ceases and irreparable brain damage can occur. However, Lommel notes that some patients still reported being conscious at this point. One particular example cited by Lommel is a man who came into the hospital already blue from a lack of oxygen. The hospital staff spent 90 minutes trying to resuscitate him, using artificial respiration, heart massage and defibrillation, before they could move him to intensive care where he was remained in a coma for a week with brain damage. But when the patient regained consciousness, he was able to describe events that occurred around him while he was brain damaged and out of his body. This veridical evidence comes from a coronary-care-unit nurse who reported the veridical out-of-body experience of the comatose patient:

During a night shift an ambulance brings in a 44-year-old cyanotic, comatose man into the coronary care unit. He had been found about an hour before in a meadow by passers-by. After admission, he receives artificial respiration without intubation, while heart massage and defibrillation are also applied. When we wanted to intubate the patient, he turns out to have dentures in his mouth. I remove these upper dentures and put them onto the crash car. Meanwhile, we continue extensive CPR. After about an hour and a half the patient has sufficient heart rhythm and blood pressure, but he is still ventilated and intubated, and he is still comatose. He is transferred to the intensive care unit to continue the necessary artificial respiration. Only after more than a week do I meet again with the patient, who is by now back on the cardiac ward. I distribute his medication. The moment he sees me he says:
"Oh, that nurse knows where my dentures are."
I am very surprised. Then he elucidates:
"Yes, you were there when I was brought into hospital and you took my dentures out of my mouth and put them onto that car, it had all these bottles on it and there was this sliding drawer underneath and there you put my teeth."
I was especially amazed because I remembered this happening while the man was in deep coma and in the process of CPR. When I asked further, it appeared the man had seen himself lying in bed, that he had perceived from above how nurses and doctors had been busy with CPR. He was also able to describe correctly and in detail the small room in which he had been resuscitated as well as the appearance of those present like myself. At the time that he observed the situation he had been very much afraid that we would stop CPR and that he would die. And it is true that we had been very negative about the patient's prognosis due to his very poor medical condition when admitted. The patient tells me that he desperately and unsuccessfully tried to make it clear to us that he was still alive and that we should continue CPR. He is deeply impressed by his experience and says he is no longer afraid of death. Four weeks later he left hospital as a healthy man." (Dr. Pim Van Lommel)

There are many more anecdotal examples from the literature, for another example:

Dr. Kenneth Ring in a paper published in the Journal of Near-Death Studies concerning veridical NDE evidence, Dr. Ken Ring included perhaps the most famous case of veridical observation in NDE research at that time. Kimberly Clark Sharp first documented the NDE of a woman named Maria in her book, After The Light. Maria was a migrant worker who, while visiting friends in Seattle, had a severe heart attack. She was rushed to Harborview Hospital and placed in the coronary care unit. A few days later, she had a cardiac arrest and an unusual out-of-body experience. At one point in this experience, she found herself outside the hospital and spotted a single tennis shoe on the ledge of the north side of the third floor of the building. Maria not only was able to indicate the whereabouts of this oddly situated object, but was able to provide precise details concerning its appearance, such as that its little toe area was worn and one of its laces was stuck underneath its heel. Upon hearing Maria's story, Clark, with some considerable degree of skepticism and metaphysical misgiving, went to the location described to see whether any such shoe could be found. Indeed it was, just where and precisely as Maria had described it, except that from the window through which Clark was able to see it, the details of its appearance that Maria had specified could not be discerned. Clark concluded:
The only way she could have had such a perspective was if she had been floating right outside and at very close range to the tennis shoe. I retrieved the shoe and brought it back to Maria; it was very concrete evidence for me. (Clark, 1984, p. 243).

Outside of near-death studies there are also famous examples such as in the work of Robert Monroe, who has written three books on his OBEs. These are examples from his first book Journeys Out of the Body:

Page 46-48: In this experience, Monroe left his body with the intention of visiting his sick friend, Dr. Bradshaw. He knew Bradshaw was sick and in bed, and Monroe's idea was to visit him, and take notice of things in the room. He had never been in that room, so he thought this was a good way to confirm his experience was real. Upon going to Bradshaw's house, he saw Bradshaw and Bradshaw's wife outside. Monroe was confused because he knew Bradshaw was ill, and supposed to be in bed. He noted what they were wearing, and noted what they were doing. All of this information he later confirmed via a phone call, that he plainly asked his questions so that Bradshaw would give honest straight forward answers. Monroe writes:
"In this visit to Dr. Bradshaw and his wife, the time of the visit coincides with the physical event. The autosuggestion hallucination factor is negative. I expected to find Dr. Bradshaw in bed in the house, but did not do so and was puzzled by the inconsistency. Identical reports with conditions of actual events:
(1) Location of Dr. Bradshaw and his wife.
(2) Position of the two relative to each other.
(3) The actions of the two.
(4) Wearing apparel of the two.
Possibility of unconscious preknowledge through earlier observation of the above:
(1) Negative, had no information of their change in plans or time of habits of post office visits.
(2) Indeterminate, consciously at least unaware of who walks first.
(3) Negative, would have no preknowledge of their walking across to the garage in such a fasion.
(4) Indeterminate, may have observed both in similar dress, but expected to find only one (Dr. Bradshaw), in bedclothes."
Page 48-51: This experience is more impressive than the previous. In this one, Monroe left his body. He sees a boy throwing a baseball up in the air and catching it, then sees a man trying to put an awkward-looking device in the back seat of a car, then slamming the door. After a shift, he witnessed people sitting around a table, with dishes covering it. One person was dealing what looked like large white playing cards around to the others at the table. After the OBE ended, Monroe went about his day like normal, and met his friends Mr. and Mrs. Agnew Bahnson. Monroe had a gut feeling that he OBEd to them earlier, so he asked them about the three experiences. Their child had really been tossing a baseball around while walking to school that morning. At the same time, Mr. Bahnson was loading his car wth a Van DeGraff generator. His wife was also, for the first time in two years, brought in the morning mail to the breakfast table and had passed out the letters to them as she sorted the mail. Quoted from the book:
"In this morning visit to Mr. Bahnson and his family, the time of visit coincides with actual events. Autosuggestion hallucination, negative; no conscious intent of visit, although unconscious motivation possible. Identical reports with conditions of actual events:
(1) Son walking down the street tossing ball in air.
(2) Mr. Bahnson at car.
(3) Mr. Bahnson's action at car.
(4) Device he had at car.
(5) Action of Mrs. Bahnson at table, the dealing of "cards".
(6) Card size and white color.
(7) Dishes on table.
Possibility of unconscious preknowledge through earlier observation of the above:
(1) Negative, unaware of son's interest in baseball, and not conscious of his basic activities.
(2) Negative, had no knowledge of Mr. Bahnson's actions in morning around car, and reported action was not part of his daily routine.
(3) Negative, as indicated such actions were not routine, i.e., loading of car, thus could not be part of preobserved habit patterns of Mr. Bahnson.
(4) Indeterminate, possible that device had been observed previously but not in location indicated.
(5) Negative, no part of preobservation memory, as Mrs. Bahnson did not make habit of such action; sorting mail at table was unusual event.
(6) Negative, for reasons just given, coupled with no such habits in own life pattern of sorting mail at table, plus misinterpretation of action itself.
(7) Indeterminate, preobservation could have been applied here in relation to the Bahnson family, as writer had taken breakfast there several times."

Beyond anecdotal evidence there is also the research that has been done on psi abilities such as remote viewing, which is closely related to OBE. In an examination of laboratory evidence undertaken by Edwin May odds against chance of 10 20 to 1 were demonstrated, which is more than a billion billion to one. There is also the work of PEAR, which came to similar odds of 100,000 to 1, through to 100 billion to 1. I am not alone in viewing psi as real and repeatable, Nobel Prize winning physicist Brian Josephson, states “the evidence for (psi’s) existence is overwhelming”, and is active in supporting research in the area. There are also older studies such as the work of Janet Lee Michell, in which she presents a good overview of the evidence for the existence OBEs, much of which details studies of Ingo Swann which she undertook.

I understand that anecdotes and statistical evidence will probably not change your mind, but what I am trying to do is show that it is unfair and bias to say "there is no objective evidence that subjects who report such experiences are actually gaining any information that could not have come from normal sources". In fact there is evidence it is a matter of whether you accept it or not, I think in an article based on NPOV the reader should be able to make an informed decision. Best wishes - Solar 12:09, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Solar, You're right, anecdotes are not really completely convincing evidence, but I have to admit that what you have presented here is more interesting than what is currently on the page. The anecdotes by Monroe are the most suspect, since he is simultaneously the "seer" and the author the reports based on what he has seen (this is similar to the concerns aobut 'primary sources' and self-published web-pages that is built into the principles of wikipedia). If Monroe really has such abilities, then why won't he/can't he replicate such feats in controlled laboratory settings? If he were to do this, and show abilities of this sort under controlled conditions where independent, external verification could be achieved, it would make *very* compelling evidence indeed. The two references on NDEs are more interesting, but do not really rise to the level of scientific evidence. This is generally one of the difficulties that pro-psi folks have when they meet up with pro-science folks. Anecdotes are sucseptible to what is called confirmation bias (sometimes also referrred to as the fallacy of positive instances), which is that we remember the rare cases where something fits our preconcieved notions, and forget all the other cases where things do not fit, or fail to be verified. This is an all-too-human error, which scientists attempt to guard against by 1) insisting on random samples and statistical tests, 2) insist on independent verification and 3) depend on replication by other researchers who were not part of the original experiment. If these claims could be proven, in a manner which meets the standard of scientific rigor, they would be ground-braking, and the scientist (or scientists) who could provide this evidence would be revered and respected. Remember, scientists *want* to make big breakthroughs, and change our view of the world (think Copernicus, Galilieo, Darwin, Einstein, etc.). The fact that they haven't been is generally taken as evidence that, despite the presence of sometimes compelling anecdotes, these phenomena are not scientifically verifiable, and therefore not real.
On that score, the article itself (the very one we are discussing) states "Only 2 of the 66 spontaneous cases (from the previously mentioned study) involved attempts to verify the experience as being "really" out-of-body by checking the positions of people or objects in another room. The basis for the subject's belief that the experiences was real was not primarily the external evidence." And then goes on to say "Despite claims of some "projectors" who aver that they can initiate the experience at will, there is to date no reliable evidence that any imagery or information acquired during the experience could not have come from normal sources".
That is, I am using the article itself as it currently stands, as my evidence when I write "First, as noted above, there is no objective evidence that subjects who report such experiences are actually gaining any information that could not have come from normal sources." And indeed, although that view might be consistent with what I have stated, I have also added a {{fact}} tag to that very same sentence, because it is a factual claim that needs a reference. But, all in all, the article itself currently provides no statistical evidence for the reality of the "information gained" through OBEs.
Finally, I am not familiar with the particular citations and figures you mention on remote viewing. I tried looking them up on the remote viewing page, and I couldn't find any of the references you mentioned. I am not going to discuss things where I can't at least read about it myself, since it would be a disservice to both myself and to you to talk about something without at least knowing what it says... Do you have the citations available? Best wishes Edhubbard 15:05, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, thanks for the information on scientific method, I am well aware of the processes involved and have personally been involved with research a psychiatrist friend of mine has conducted. He has also done in-depth research into OBE type states that can be produced with the use of ketamine under laboratory conditions. As already mentioned I have also looked into the work of Michael Persinger, which used very similar technology with low level magnetic fields to those you mention. I am also well aware of confirmation bias etc. The common argument that confirmation bias explains away all these experiences and the research done on them seems to often reveal another common bias, which is simply not looking at the evidence in favour of psi, because your opinion is already set.

I agree that Monroe's information may be too POV for the article, but there should generally be more science in the article both for and against the objective reality of these experiences. As far as your point about Monroe doing tests, when he was alive he was very active in examining scientifically his experiences, but sadly the only people willing to do these experiments in a fair and neutral way are parapsychologists who get labelled pseudo-scientists, frauds and regularly attacked by sceptics. There are also those within the remote viewing world who are constantly putting themselves on the line to be tested. See this video of Joseph McMoneagle being put to the test for example.

You do point out, as I also did, that anecdotal evidence does not stand up, but this was only a part of a body of information I have presented. The research of Dr. Pim van Lommel for example cannot simply be dismissed as anecdotal; you can find out more and download the full study here. The work that has been done on remote viewing is also important; the source of the statistical evidence above is: The Conscious Universe: The scientific truth of psychic phenomena. Radin, Dean. Ph.D. P91-109, 1997 ISBN 0062515020. But there is also a range of information online, for example on Jessica Utts' page there is an essay entitled: An assessment of the evidence for psychic functioning, which also involves the aforementioned Edwin May. There is also a range of resources on Brian Josephson's page. I hope that is enough for now, I will add more when I get the time. One last point, the study that is presently included is very poor and could do with being replaced with a more extensive study, or balance with some other research. Best wishes - Solar 17:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Solar. Nice little chat we're having here. It's nice to be able to discuss and disagree with someone in a civil tone (compare the CSICOP wars). Sorry if my previous post was too pedantic; I have a bad habit of starting from the absolute begining when I discuss things. Good point, too, about the ketamine. My girlfriend has done some research looking at whether pain was reduced with ketamine induced OBEs in her PhD at UC San Diego, but the results were completely inconclusive. I had nearly forgotten about that. I'll have to look into some good citations, but they shouldn't be hard to find. The drawback from a neuroscience perspective is that ketamine acts throughout the brain, and doesn't really allow us to infer specific regions or functional effects.... But, how does the psi view reconcile the effects of ketamine with idea that there is some sort of mind/spirit/soul that is leaving the body? That is, how does a physical thing (ketamine) make the non-physical mind leave the body?
As for OBE references, it seems that you have some better ones than are currently in the article. I didn't have anything to do with writing those sections, and only recently came to this article after having more or less completed my work on the synesthesia article, which is my main research area. Given that your references seem better than what is here, perhaps you could integrate those in? Indeed, at this point, almost any references would be an improvement over the current state of the article. I'll look at them too, but don't have a lot of time currently. One thing that occurs to me is that both of us should look back through the page history and see what sorts of debates previous editors have had about these and other references. Best wishes, Edhubbard 19:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am glad we can have a discussion without any personal attacks, slurs or sensationalist arguments. I did have a brief look at the discussion at the CSICOP page, and it did seem to be quite heated. CSICOP, although I'm sure well intentioned, in my opinion often hold things back with their arrogant and tabloid tactics. They can alienate the very people they claim they are trying to reach, the lay public and new age adherents etc. They are also often very aggressive towards those within the scientific community who dare to examine psi and its related areas. I believe a taboo area of science is never productive, as history has shown, especially in an area that has so much supportive evidence and such wide reaching social implications.

As far as the Ketamine research, I think my psychiatrist friend found that it binds to certain receptors he had not expected and very little with relation to OBE states, but beyond that I don't recall the details it was a few years ago, I will ask him to send me the findings, he is now researching schizophrenia. In reply to your question: I do not have a fixed idea about what exactly is going on within an OBE. I don't focus on a 'supernatural' explanation if that's what you mean by a soul or spirit. My own OBEs have included both an energy body awareness and simply a point of perception; this also seems to be true of many who experience the OBE state. So at this point I leave it an open question on whether there is some kind of energetic body (I have read a book that suggests a ‘dark matter’ body) or simply an extra-sense operating through an as yet unknown or undefined strata of physics. I think the best thing to do is to read the books by Dean Radin or read Brian Josephson’s work (the links are above) in terms of the physics as a Nobel laureate will do a much better job of explaining possible theoretical models than I could. Note: Biological Utilisation of Quantum NonLocality, this paper may be of interest.

It seems to be that many who have 'psychical' experiences believe that they can be activated through mental processes, so the idea that a drug could do so is not totally alien. That is not to say that the ketamine experiences are objective but more that we know drugs can have objective effects as well as subjective hallucinatory ones. It is also worth mentioning though that both the Ketamine and Hypoxia experiences seem to have distinct differences to general OBE characteristics, making the findings related to them at best inconclusive.

In Michael Persinger's work he was able to elicit many classic NDE, OBE, Religious and spiritual type phenomena using a very similar method to the one you have added to the article. But there was one key difference with his research; he did not make any ‘assumptions’ about the paranormal explanation. He undertook a series of tests with renowned remote viewer Ingo Swann [2] and found strong evidence for objective psi functioning and came to the conclusion that EM brain stimulation does not explain away psi.

Finally I will put some of the references and alternative views into the article when I get chance to put them together. Thanks for your input I think this has been very constructive and we now have some good scientific perspectives to add into the article. Best wishes - Solar 16:44, 30 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Deleted Content

I have removed the following. It is unsourced and uncited (Cannot pass WP:V or WP:RS). For all I know the writter could have made it up on the spot

  • "I soon realized that I was capable of moving only my eyes. Neither my head nor fingers would budge. I remember desperately trying to move even a toe to no avail."
  • "Suddenly I could no longer move or even lift a finger. As I was struggling to move, there was a sudden jerk and I was pushed out of my body and was floating upwards."
  • "I had gone to bed, woke up suddenly and found that although I was fully conscious I couldn't move a muscle."
  • "I lay paralyzed, unable to move or blink."
  • "Then my mom woke me for school and I felt sensation slowly return to my limbs (before that I couldn't move anything)."
  • "I died in the dream, then I woke up and I couldn't move a single muscle for some seconds, and my body was in full numbness."
  • "The world ended in a dream, I woke up, eyes open and hearing static, only able to move a finger and nothing else."
  • "At one point in my life, I was exploring the idea of suicide. Because of an OBE, which not only took me out of my body, but out of the room, and the physical plane, and took me to a place where all the answers are; A place in which one can understand everything about everything. (Even though one can't explain it with words, this experience changes you). And it did me, helping me realize that life is so beautiful and perfect, that choosing to not be in it disrupts the balance of things (The Machine)."

perfectblue 10:26, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

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