Scientists recreate Out of Body Experiences

[articulett]

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=98A1FC65-E7F2-99DF-3150711A65904907&chanID=sa007

Bad news for dualists, but cool news for science. I want to try this.

[Phrost]

Awesome.

Back when I was a teenage woo I picked up a book from the 70's on astral projection (complete with a naked lady on the cover, illustrated to be doing this herself).

I had, what I considered to be, a success. The most dramatic moment of which involved me moving around my room with complete consciousness! For some reason I was on my hands and knees, but I decided that since I was "astral projecting" I could just push through the wall and go outside to explore the wide world in my etheral body.

For some reason that didn't go quite as planned; I just couldn't get through the wall. I'd be stretching the truth (for the sake of the story) to say that I woke up with a bruise on my head, but if I hadn't been such a gullible true believer I would have easily recognized the fact that I was just semi-consciously sleep walking (aside from being a dumbass teenager in general).

Ahh youth.

[articulett]

Yeah, I thought I had one two once... but couldn't do the looking around thing and find something to prove it. But I want to try this!-- Doesn't it sound intriguing. It would be fun to do at a TAM.

[articulett]

The phantom mirror trick mentioned in the article (with a variation link attached... http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00009E79-2A61-1196-906983414B7F0000)
also sounds cool. I may get a couple of mirrors this weekend to try it...

I think my students would really like it.

[HghrSymmetry]

Interesting findings. Perhaps ole "I.I." will discard his woo about consciousness not being dependent on the brain.

Ah well, that's probably too much to ask.
The quintessential response will be denial, excuses, rationalizations and other various back-peddling.

[articulett]

Interesting findings. Perhaps ole "I.I." will discard his woo about consciousness not being dependent on the brain.

Ah well, that's probably too much to ask.
The quintessential response will be denial, excuses, rationalizations and other various back-peddling.

It will never happen. I.I. used to post here... drunk... they finally banished him.
He never learned a thing. I don't think he taught anyone anything either, except not to post while intoxicated.

[INRM]

Would you say this would irrefutably define every aspect and detail of consciousness or even the feeling of existence itself as a function of the brain completely and fully? Or would you classify it as a great likelyhood?

I'm relatively convinced of the first part, but I'm asking the second one anyway just to rule out everything.

Tony L

[articulett]

Would you say this would irrefutably define every aspect and detail of consciousness or even the feeling of existence itself as a function of the brain completely and fully? Or would you classify it as a great likelyhood?

I'm relatively convinced of the first part, but I'm asking the second one anyway just to rule out everything.

Tony L

I have already been convinced of the former for some time. But I'm interested as to what maatorc who claims to have such experiences would think... except they (the woo) have learned not to think, I think.

[INRM]

Well I just wanted to hear all the arguments...

But the way this illusion sounds is basically this-- you feed visual data from a camera mounted some distance away... that goes right to the occiptal... you make a circular motion on ones chest, and you duplicate the circular motion with the camera...

The parietal lobe handles sensations, but spacial orientation is handled through the right angular gyrus... I would assume there's some connection between the two. Well the image of the circular motion with the rod in front of the camera (occipital, and possibly right angular gyrus) and the feeling of the circular motion on your chest which are synched (parietal and possibly right angular pertaining to spatial orientation) screw with the right angular gyrus! This has already been implicated in out of body experiences before...

Well the brain feels the sensation, the eyes see the movement and the spatial orientation center gets mixed up, and I assume the right angular and occiptal and parietal lobes can all communicate with each other (they're right NEXT to each other), and it screws up ones sense of spacial orientation

They feel that they're in front of the camera.

Now my explanation isn't the best, and I have trouble explainnig thigns -- but does that sound sort of right?


Tony L

[HghrSymmetry]

It will never happen. I.I. used to post here... drunk... they finally banished him.
He never learned a thing. I don't think he taught anyone anything either, except not to post while intoxicated.

Bonus points credited for being able to discern the difference!

[INRM]

Any agreements/disagreements/ambiguity at my speculations?

Tony L

[skeptigirl]

I believe this makes the 4th thread. Mine was the second. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=91235) Topics slide so fast down the list it's hard to know what has been posted before.

[INRM]

The right angular gyrus was implicated in previous out of body experiences. If I recall it taps data from the limbs... and uses it to determine one's orientation in space.

I wouldn't be suprized if that's involved in this case.

[articulett]

I think you are on the right path INRM...

Have you ever listened to the podcast, All in the Mind?

It's an Australian show--
http://abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/

I'm excited to learn the nuts and bolts of consciousness and perception and I think some of the tests being devised are really clever and will lead to more understanding. I think it's really exciting to live in a time when we are figuring this stuff out. To me, understanding the mind is so much more interesting than writing off the things we don't understand to gods, demons, souls, engrams, possession, angels, etc. I like knowing how the brain constructs our reality and how it can fool us.

[INRM]

articulett,

I've never heard that particular podcast-- in fact I rarely listen to pod-casts. But considering how important these findings are, please feel free to post any new discoveries from "allinthemind".

Tony L

[INRM]

Do you think the trick Ramachandran did with the fake hand feeling like the real hand also would implicate the right angular gyrus (among with the occiptal and such)?

[articulett]

Do you think the trick Ramachandran did with the fake hand feeling like the real hand also would implicate the right angular gyrus (among with the occiptal and such)?

Well, we know that there is the part of the brain that tells the body where it is in space... and we know that how it is that people experience phantom limbs-- you can google V.S. Ramachandran's work or books on the subject-- or transcripts of his podcasts for the BBC. He devises some really excellent experiments and uses brain scans to examine what is going on. He has a cool website too... with some cool optical illusions.

Dana.org has lots of free info. on the brain and the latest studies that they will both mail you or email you-- for fee. I think they are an outstanding source for current developments. There is also a website called Mind Hacks http://www.mindhacks.com/ that has some good short articles on the latest developments in brain research and further links. We've recently located the part of the brain active during moral decisions and in deciding to refrain from an activity after "going for it"... (chimps have it too). It's exciting to live in a time when we are finding out so much about how the brain works.

[INRM]

Articulett,

Can I see the brain-scan pics from Ramachandran's work?

Regarding the moral decision making part of the brain -- where is it? I remember hearing that the ventromedial PFC didn't work right in psychopaths and it played a role in risk-based decision making.

I don't have all that much money right no so I guess subscribing to Dana.org isn't an option, but regarding mindhacks.com, please feel free to keep all of us posted on this Forum (Science Tech etc)

Tony L

[articulett]

Articulett,

Can I see the brain-scan pics from Ramachandran's work?

Regarding the moral decision making part of the brain -- where is it? I remember hearing that the ventromedial PFC didn't work right in psychopaths and it played a role in risk-based decision making.

I don't have all that much money right no so I guess subscribing to Dana.org isn't an option, but regarding mindhacks.com, please feel free to keep all of us posted on this Forum (Science Tech etc)

Tony L

Dana.org is free. http://www.dana.org/news/braininthenews/
they deliver their publications free and they are available for download in pdf format. They have great podcasts too. Some of V.S. Ramachandrans illusions are here: http://psy.ucsd.edu/chip/ramaillusions.html

Here are some of Ramachandran's publications for free download
http://psy.ucsd.edu/chip/ramapubs.html

Here's the morality image of the brain. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/science/22brain.html?ex=1332388800&en=bad3fbf3c087d5a8&ei=5124&partner=digg&exprod=digg You can put "ventromedia/" in a google image search for actual scans.

Scentific American Mind is great too-- and online.