"Out-of-Body Experiences Simulated" - with link in

[LightMan]

http://www.livescience.com/health/070823_out_of_body.html

The "egg heads," as Jack O'Niell from Stargate SG-1 would put it , are at it again !

So this proves that OOBE's can now be simulated but that doesn't mean that what we experience IS a trick of the mind, does it ?

Well, nope - but the research is interesting anyway :).

[Korpo]

Somehow this story in a German news magazine made me angry. They wrote "They reproduce the illusion"... ha, right! :evil:

I know some of the experiences I had cannot be explained away, simply because I received information about other people that was simply true.

Oliver

[CFTraveler]

They wrote "They reproduce the illusion"... ha, right! :evil:
...
Oliver This shows that the reporting agency is coming from a preconceived notion, and not objective.

It is interesting to note that:

"We've shown the body and self is somehow separate in the brain, even though we didn't invoke a completely realistic [out-of-body experience]," One thing that I have in looking at these brain studies is that they can usually reproduce known anomalies, like autoscopy, (which is what this sounds like to me) and other things we experience like the arm trick, which is a cruder form of the same thing they're doing with this vr orientation thing.
Once again, I still say that we already know that the brain is associated in the OBE, it has to be 'tuned' to a certain frequency, and it works better when both hemispheres are synchronized. All this experiment shows to me is that they hemi-synched their brain hemispheres visually instead of using auditory inputs.
So,
http://www.clicksmilies.com/s1106/aktion/action-smiley-041.gif

[LightMan]

Somehow this story in a German news magazine made me angry. They wrote "They reproduce the illusion"... ha, right! :evil:

I know some of the experiences I had cannot be explained away, simply because I received information about other people that was simply true.

Oliver

It got me fuming as well, I mean I can respect the results of the experiment and think ok - so you can simulate certain things that happen with OOBE's but that doesn't automatically mean that it's an illusion that we experience.We all have our own experiences with OBE's and that is what matters. We may not be able to prove it by writing a scientific thesis on the experience at this present time but at least we have our own evidence locked away in our minds eh ? . . . there is that, not to mention how good it feels knowing that there is so much more to the mind ( and the universe around us ) than what we know of presently of course :D.

[journyman161]

Unless there's information they aren't sharing in the article, all they've shown is that the brain will link sight perceptions with similar body perceptions. ie. the camera showed a hand about to touch & then the real body reported a touch & the two got linked as one event. *shrugs* not even eggheads - just people trying to prove a pre-decided point. Linking is what brain do - it's basically a switchbox or like a complex telephone exchange.

Now if they had done a bit of work to convince the subjects that the camera location was them, & then shown a hand moving to touch & the subjects felt a touch (ie. without a touch on the real body) that would be significant. This is just the hot/cold trick expanded out.

(hot/cold) 3 bowls of water, one hot, one cold, one at room temperature; hand in hot then neutral, the brain says the luke warm one is freezing. Hand in cold the luke warm, brain says it's hot, even though the temp of the room temp one never changed.

It's easy to fool the brain. It is, after all, getting extremely limited information through a set of filters - alter the filters in any way & the brain has no choice but to do strange things.

[Willowy]

I think their assumptions about the whole thing are a little frustrating but what if they actually are learning how to stimulate an obe with technology? If they are, they just opened Pandora's box and they'll end up throwing all those assumptions out the window as they experience.

[journyman161]

I don't think they have much chance unless they throw out the most important assumption - that the brain is what matters. Almost all of this kind of experimenting starts with the assumption that we are just body & brain.

[Korpo]

Yeah, it's a fairly big assumption to start with.

As long as you follow the "brain paradigm" for example we have no free will, because changes in the brain do not occur early enough to allow for them to travel to our extremities and explain their activities as willing them to do something.

However, when you read the "Holographic Universe" an interesting fact is presented: Changes in the human aura occur before both the changes in the brain and to the extremities, so it seems we "channel ourselves", and the brain is maybe a receiver and a storage, but not the seat of the free will.

This may also explain why brain damage impairs our ability even when the brain is not the seat of consciousness. With a partially damaged receiver you can no longer channel your full consciousness into the physical world.

It would be nice to see some openminded researchers going out and doing some researchs outside the standard paradigms to see if those hold true.

Oliver

[CFTraveler]

Some have. Dr. Candace Pert had discovered that sometimes, the chemical peptide pathways go from the body part towards the brain when a movement happens and then the brain sends out the neuronal pathways back to the body part, making the decision to do it originate in the body part. I'm not sure what her ideas about why this are, but she is one of the scientists that has studied the 'alternative' health fields, and has mapped peptide pathways along the body that correspond with classic meridians in chinese medicine. In Molecules of Emotion, by Dr. Candace Pert.

[Korpo]

Sadly, a friend of mine hogs my copy of "Holo-Universe", but I think the book is referenced in the bibliography... I somehow remember the title. :)

Oliver

[Shannanigans]

hmmm

I don't really see the significance of this experiment. It seems like they were simply creating an optical illusion, something that often tricks people

We played a game when we were kids, where one would lay on the ground face down, eyes closed, arms stretched in front of them. The other would grab their arms and lift them off the ground to the point where their back was arched but the head hung down. As they slowly lowered your arms, it eventually felt as if you were being lowered even lower than the floor you were laying on. When you would open your eyes you were often still a ways from the floor. Same kind of experiment, but cheaper!

[Korpo]

Don't tell anyone or they do not get any further money for research! :lol:

Oliver

[Shannanigans]

Maybe I should apply for that funding!! :D

[orbit1]

I actually thought it was a cool article. I don't think they were trying to disprove or belittle anyone's OBE experiences. They were just showing that the perception of "self" isn't always tied to the physical body, which, if anything, supports OBE - even if this was only "virtual". I didn't see where it said "They reproduce the illusion" as Korpo writes, but even if they don't believe OBEs are real, this article does nothing to convince me of that, nor do I feel it was their intention.

I also don't think that by showing the "mind can be tricked" that they are trying to say OBEs are simply tricks of the mind. This past Thursday, my mind was tricked into thinking it was Wednesday. That does not mean that Wednesdays aren't real!

[kiwibonga]

I can't seem to find either a personal page or an email address for that Dr. Ehrsson, or even the study itself...

I would have liked to see it... I can't believe a real scientist would draw conclusions from something this irrelevant... The whole connection to OBEs is baseless, even if OBEs turn out to be purely brain farts!

Can't even write him to ask how he sleeps at night :p

[Zante]

Any of you who saw the actual program (it appeared on BBC news if I recall correctly) will have heard one of the researchers detailing an experience she had as a child. While listening to some music she 'dropped out of her body' and could see the entire room, along with her friend. She could speak to her normally (this is called the mind split effect) and describe what she was seeing. She went on to say that eventually, when above her house, she could see everything in perfect detail and went on to fly over the area and the sea at high speed.

You didn't see that written in the article eh?

They haven't recreated anything here. This is a waste of time. Anyone who has experienced autoscopy before will tell you now that this little trick has nothing to do with anything.

Articles with the title "OBE EXPLAINED" appear every day yet they offer nothing. I never thought I'd say this next bit but it seems that materialist scientists are clutching at straws here.

I don't care if the experience is subjective or not, I'm just telling you now that this 'experiment' (more like an art project) is failing to take into account the rest of the 90% that happens during these experiences.

[Blue Mage]

Let's not be naive. The purpose of the way this insipid and meaningless study has been bandied about on every major news source is to discount out-of-body experiences, period. There are so many more important things going on in the world and they choose this steaming load. If "science news" was actually about informing people instead of manipulating them you would hear about Robert Bruce's and other's amazing work on the news.

[Zante]

Let's not be naive. The purpose of the way this insipid and meaningless study has been bandied about on every major news source is to discount out-of-body experiences, period. There are so many more important things going on in the world and they choose this steaming load. If "science news" was actually about informing people instead of manipulating them you would hear about Robert Bruce's and other's amazing work on the news.

I'm not one for conspiracy theories but it certainly looks that way. Either that or they're so pig ignorant that they choose to ignore everything.

[blowk]

I can't seem to find either a personal page or an email address for that Dr. Ehrsson, or even the study itself...


This should help you find it http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0708/07082305. Also http://ki.se/ki/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=4329 ... wsdep=4329 (http://ki.se/ki/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=4329&a=38238&l=sv&newsdep=4329&newsdep=4329).

Ehrsson was a researcher at the university I went to at the time of the research, and now is back in Stockholm. Email address is henrik.ehrsson@ki.se.

You find the article in the latest edition of Science.

Regards

[kiwibonga]

Thanks... So he didn't actually release any studies yet, just had some journalist from Science interview him?

[blowk]

Sort of: Ehrsson didn't undertake an indepth study of the phenomenon, but simply performed an experiment and postulated some theories on the results. The analysis admits that it doesn't have any real answers, and it didn't set out with any real questions, the experiment was just an experiment. However, the researchers did say that it was interesting and at the very least it opened up the possibilities for further research using similar techniques that might tentatively tackle the phenomenon head on. Further, the research only dealt with one part of one aspect of the OBE experience, namely seeing your own body from a different perspective. The experiment, importantly, did not simulate the full OBE experience, and thus there is nothing to say or infer about exit symptoms, astral vision and all the other stuff.

Later, journalists have put their spin on the experiment and made further postulations about the 'meaning' of the results.

Personally, I think that experiments such as this ultimately show the limits of science, rather than its potentiality.

[Blue Mage]

Well, to amend what I said, there are other factors. Sometimes they just want to word things such that they don't offend people's sensibilities. News sources don't want to look like one of those supermarket tabloids with stories about batboy and whatnot. But even then, why not just not-mention the story at all? Conspiracy theory-cist in me says that its so people with vague interest don't actually see the actual program, and just read the little blurb in the newspaper, and then consider themselves informed and then "go back to sleep".

[LightMan]

Well, to amend what I said, there are other factors. Sometimes they just want to word things such that they don't offend people's sensibilities. News sources don't want to look like one of those supermarket tabloids with stories about batboy and whatnot. But even then, why not just not-mention the story at all? Conspiracy theory-cist in me says that its so people with vague interest don't actually see the actual program, and just read the little blurb in the newspaper, and then consider themselves informed and then "go back to sleep".

What he said ^^^

I believe that too much of our news media is manipulated to get across fear and focus on the negatives in any way possible. This is the best way to control people after all, with fear. I mean, as a side note, you can't turn on the news these days and hear all the happy positive things going on in the world ( maybe sometimes ) but always the wars, crimes etc - I prefer to read the news on-line so I can pick and choose what I want to read. I do care about all the suffering in the world but I don't want to get depressed over it - can't afford to, so I read the headlines on such material. Seems spiritual matters are being put down whenever possible as well which is so sad.

[White Wolf]

What he said ^^^

I believe that too much of our news media is manipulated to get across fear and focus on the negatives in any way possible. This is the best way to control people after all, with fear. I mean, as a side note, you can't turn on the news these days and hear all the happy positive things going on in the world ( maybe sometimes ) but always the wars, crimes etc - I prefer to read the news on-line so I can pick and choose what I want to read. I do care about all the suffering in the world but I don't want to get depressed over it - can't afford to, so I read the headlines on such material. Seems spiritual matters are being put down whenever possible as well which is so sad.

While I agree that there is too much negativity in the press, you can always turn it around the other way too from an economics standpoint.

The press (supply) wouldn't keep reporting on nagative stuff, if people stopped listening to it. Its not like the press is force feeding the stuff to people, its just that people love being sad/worried/angry (demand).

There have been several attempts to report a more resprentative new program and even all positive programs, but it is as best a niche market so far. People just don't care to hear about other people that are happier than themselves.

If there was a demand for positive news, you bet that the powers that be would find a way meet that demand. There just simply isn't one.

Lets look at it another way. Who many times a week do you hear about how something bad happened to some common friend/aquaintance. You know the scenario. You meet up with an old friend you haven't seen in a while and what words eventually come out? "Did you hear what happened to so and so?" The news is almost never good. Its small talk, people use it to get reaquainted, but it is almost alway negative news that gets exchanged. Usualy, the good news seems to almost always get missed. I found out an old friend got married and now has 2 children and everything is going well, and it takes years to get that news. Someone dies, and I find out the next day.

Its human nature. Pure and simple. I'm not saying its bad or good. It is just how it is. CNN/ABC/FOX are all just supplying what people want.

[LightMan]

The press (supply) wouldn't keep reporting on nagative stuff, if people stopped listening to it. Its not like the press is force feeding the stuff to people, its just that people love being sad/worried/angry (demand).


I guess so, but many people that I'm acquainted with will agree on what I said above. I think it's good to stay informed about all the bad stuff but like everything else news reporting needs balance. Our local TV news, Calendar, has that balance with positive and negative reports and I find myself wanting to tune into that regularly. With the main news I can't help but feel anxious when it starts.



People just don't care to hear about other people that are happier than themselves.


I know :).



If there was a demand for positive news, you bet that the powers that be would find a way meet that demand. There just simply isn't one.


Isn't that the truth :). I know of people who simply skip the news altogether because they find it too depressing.



You meet up with an old friend you haven't seen in a while and what words eventually come out? "Did you hear what happened to so and so?" The news is almost never good. Its small talk, people use it to get reaquainted, but it is almost alway negative news that gets exchanged. Usualy, the good news seems to almost always get missed.


Yeah, I find that too. When telling someone something positive about someone else I mostly get an "oh," an "I see" or a nod but when catching up with someone I haven't seen for a long while they do seem interested in the good things as well.



Its human nature. Pure and simple. I'm not saying its bad or good. It is just how it is. CNN/ABC/FOX are all just supplying what people want.

Fair enough :).

[blowk]

For those who tend towards the cynical when it comes "The Media", I heartily recommend Noam Chomsky. A work like 'Understanding Power' is great bed time reading. It's kind of like Orwell's 1984 but more plausible and of the 'now' rather than tomorrow. It will help confirm your suspicions while giving you lots more intellectual ammunition rather than lame mud slinging.

[Blue Mage]

I don't think it's human nature to only be interested in negative stuff. If you go to other countries or communities you see that people can be so completely different than what you are used to. Humankind has so much great potential, we just need to realize it. There is such an onslaught of conditioning a person can take from birth such that hardly anyone knows who they really are.

[White Wolf]

I don't think it's human nature to only be interested in negative stuff. If you go to other countries or communities you see that people can be so completely different than what you are used to. Humankind has so much great potential, we just need to realize it. There is such an onslaught of conditioning a person can take from birth such that hardly anyone knows who they really are.

Well, I'll grant you that much, I think. I could be observing a predominately western phenomenon, which has influenced all the cultures I have observed. But I can say that it is true of the many people that I've met in the great many states I've visited in the US and currently reside, as well as Japan, Thailand, East Timor, and the Phillipines. As well as witnessed through personal relationships with persons from Austalia, China, Korea, France, England, Germany, Russia, Malaysia and India.

Obviously, I can't say with absolute certainty as I haven't spoken with everyone in the whole world, but I choose to believe that I have a pretty good impression of what human traits transend cultural barriers.

I'm not being sacastic, please don't take it that way. I'm just saying that maybe naive or purposeful optimism leads peope to think that such negativity isn't an ingrained pattern fro most of the people in the world.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying that such a thing is bad either. Listening up and pasing on tramatic experiences is a very useful survival trait. You hear that someone died because they were driving drunk and it helps make the penalties from that behavior more real and you are more likely to not do such a thing. Not so much of that type of useful information gets passed with positive news i think, which is why people say that all they hear is bad news. Maybe its just because it is the only news with useful information.

To bring a recent example into play, we can see some of this in action. I had several topics passed to me in conversation recently. Like I said earlier, one was that a friend had gotten married and had two children and was living a good life. Its uplifting, but there's really not much useful information there. Maybe that finding a good partner that I would be willing to have children with is a good experience? Like I said, not much information is being passed.

On the other hand, there's was news of a old friends death. He had died in a car accident, he apparently pulled out in front of a speeding car. There some good information there. It makes real the lesson to be careful while driving and to be extra careful of the other driver and don't misjudge speed.

Another friend died of heart failure. She was severly obese. I think the lesson is pretty clear. If you don't take care of you body, it won't take care of you.

Don't get me wrong. I was hurt when I found out about both of their deaths. But by passing the news, their lessons can be taught, and maybe thier deaths weren't in vein.

Maybe we hear about bad news more than good news is that bad news has a higher intrinsic value.

[Tim Brewer]

I actually thought it was a cool article. I don't think they were trying to disprove or belittle anyone's OBE experiences. They were just showing that the perception of "self" isn't always tied to the physical body, which, if anything, supports OBE - even if this was only "virtual". I didn't see where it said "They reproduce the illusion" as Korpo writes, but even if they don't believe OBEs are real, this article does nothing to convince me of that, nor do I feel it was their intention.

I also don't think that by showing the "mind can be tricked" that they are trying to say OBEs are simply tricks of the mind. This past Thursday, my mind was tricked into thinking it was Wednesday. That does not mean that Wednesdays aren't real!

I like the way you think

[Flash_hound]

I think these experiments, while interesting, don't prove anything.

1) They don't have any explicit exit symptoms.
2) They don't control the OOB point of view, it is simply there.
3) It is a mind trick, and it isn't an "experience" meaning, there wasn't anything significant it was just an outside perception of your body.

As far as negative news being predominant, I think the reason people like to listen to negative news is because they like to feel involved. It's simply that people like to feel like they are involved. It feeds their ego to watch negative news because they get to demonstrate sympathy to others. Great. They feel like they are "educated" in what is "really going on in the world". For example you get people who seem all enlightened by saying, "Well somewhere else in the world with $5 they could live for a week! How could they charge that much for a hamburger!" It's called economy my friend...

It's simply that people like to feel like they are knowledgeable and sophisticated and have a knowledge of the world around them, but they don't want to leave their couches to become so.

[Blue Mage]

White wolf, we are coming from two fundamentally different worldviews, so I can't get you to agree with me, but let me explain: You could have gone to every single country and met every single person and it would not matter. Like I said, hardly anyone knows their true nature. Humans on earth are just a grain of sand and what humans can be like is a beach. Reality is an illusion and so anything is possible. It's not about holding fluff-bunny ideas near and dear to my heart, I tend to have a very bleak and cynical view of the world actually, it's a matter of what makes sense to me given my experience.

It doesn't matter if paying attention to tragedy is good for survival, I don't see human nature as being the result of survival of the fittest. People say all the time, this or that is human nature, but no one is truly equipped to judge. People say, "everything thinks like this, everyone does that" and they are just talking about themselves. The way I see it: the world is dark, cruel place that corrupts and twists us and then keeps us that way. We all have a vibration and the general low-vibration environment of earth keeps us low-vibration too using a metaphysical mechanism similar to the way that two pendulum clocks next to each other on the same wall will sync-up in time. I see human nature as passive and moldable, too willing to confuse the negative influences that mold them with their true selves.

[ButterflyWoman]

The way I see it: the world is dark, cruel place that corrupts and twists us and then keeps us that way.

Well, it certainly tries. For that vast majority of people, breaking free of the ego corruption and learned behaviors and so on is nearly impossible.


We all have a vibration and the general low-vibration environment of earth keeps us low-vibration too using a metaphysical mechanism similar to the way that two pendulum clocks next to each other on the same wall will sync-up in time.

Hmm. Well, I would agree that it's very, very difficult to resist the tendency to be sucked in to the darkness and mediocrity and low vibration of the world.

However, I believe that the reason that it is so hard to break free from it is for the purpose of giving us something to struggle against. Same concept as weight lifting. The resistance builds strength.


I see human nature as passive and moldable, too willing to confuse the negative influences that mold them with their true selves.

I would agree with that, generally. I don't think much of humans as a whole. I have great respect, admiration, and affection for some specific humans, but humanity is a different matter.

[Korpo]

It seems like a very harsh way of putting into words that we are here to learn something. In fact, if we did detach from the outcomes more, reduce our ego-driven cravings and listened to inner guidance, we could have this easier. The world is not really a dark place.

Of course, there is always a certain resistance to overcome, within ourselves and without. This keeps our drive to learn something going. Still, the biggest misery comes from within, and that is every time our ego denies us growth by preventing change.

Every person learns something in every life. Every experience counts in a way. In the big picture it will make sense, even if it does not now.

Oliver

[ButterflyWoman]

The world is not really a dark place.

I'd like to believe that, but the experiences of this lifetime and, if my apparent past life memories are any indication, other lives, have led me to conclude that other people are hell.

It might be argued that I agreed to the lives I've had, or that it was karmic, or any number of other rationales, and I might agree with them in principle, but the fact remains that I've seen and experienced a tremendous amount of very negative intentions and activities, including some that I'd consider borderline evil, and almost all of those things were enacted by human beings.

Hence my fairly low opinion of humanity.

And on a less personal level, I've read and studied a great deal of history. If anything will give you a bad view of humanity, it's reading history... ;)

[Korpo]

OlderWiser,

sometimes hell is other people. And sometimes they can be heaven. I still don't think the world as a whole is a dark place, there's a place and space for all kinds of lives.

You see, I have studied history a lot. But still I don't think that human nature ultimately prevents heaven on Earth. It's just hard.

I prefer to think of Earth as a very tempting and also sometimes an extremely tough place. Still it allows for happiness, learning and growth, often astounding.

Which one is true depends on you and how you look at it, don't you agree? ;)

Oliver

[ButterflyWoman]

Oh, I've learned how to see and find beauty and love and joy. :) But that's because I've learned to see it or find it or make it. I still think the world's a pretty nasty place for the most part. The joy and love and beauty is here but you have to work for it.

Or maybe only I do.... Hmm.

[Korpo]

From your posts I guess you know well that faith and work comes first. That does not mind happiness and joy are as elusive as they may seem. ;)

Oliver