Tingly
August 24th, 2007, 06:01 AM
From www.timesonline.co.uk:
To many people who have had an out-of-body experience, they are profoundly spiritual events that reveal how the mind extends beyond the material confines of the body and strengthen beliefs in religion or the paranormal.
Scientists have recreated such out-of-body experiences in the laboratory successfully for the first time, in a pair of experiments that show them to be nothing more than tricks of the mind.
With a combination of virtual-reality goggles and tactile stimulation, researchers in Britain and Switzerland induced volunteers to feel that they have left their bodies to view themselves from a few metres away. The illusion is said to feel as if the subject’s consciousness has been “teleported” elsewhere.
The results could eventually have commercial, medical, scientific and military applications.
In [one] study, volunteers wore goggles, and cameras were placed 2m (6ft) behind the subject, with the feeds connected to the subject’s eyes. The participant thus saw an image of his or her back. Dr Ehrsson stood behind the subject and held two rods. He used one to prod the subject and the other to jab underneath the camera. The participants said they felt they were sitting where the cameras were placed, and that the figure they were watching was another person or a dummy.
“This was a bizarre, fascinating experience for the participants - it felt absolutely real for them and was not scary. Many giggled and said, ‘Wow, this is so weird’.” He said that when he took part, he felt himself move suddenly out of his body. “I see the object coming towards me, feel the touch, then ‘boof!’, I feel a striking sensation that I’m over there looking at myself.”
In the second experiment, a team at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne fitted volunteers with similar goggles, then trained the cameras on a mannequin. The backs of the subject and the mannequin were stroked - though the subject could see only the mannequin. They were blindfolded and moved away, then asked to walk to return to their position. They tended to move towards where they had seen their “virtual bodies”.
The full article is here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2317316.ece
Is this a parlor trick, or does it really have beneficial implications? Will I be able to play my guitar from across the room, just by thinking? If I was at a drunken brawl, after a gig, could I "get out of my body" for awhile, if I saw I was about to get my *** kicked? That would be useful. It would also be good in motor vehicle accidents, right? As you are crashing, you would "jump out of your body" and look over at yourself getting smashed up. You could say, "Wow, that sucks bein' him - that was me, but it ain't me no more." That would be useful. And what if you don't want to come back to your body? Or your body died? Can you wander around, out of your body, since it's gone, now? Would you be a ghost or just a guitarist without a solid body? (Okay, I apologize for that one.)
What do YOU think?
To many people who have had an out-of-body experience, they are profoundly spiritual events that reveal how the mind extends beyond the material confines of the body and strengthen beliefs in religion or the paranormal.
Scientists have recreated such out-of-body experiences in the laboratory successfully for the first time, in a pair of experiments that show them to be nothing more than tricks of the mind.
With a combination of virtual-reality goggles and tactile stimulation, researchers in Britain and Switzerland induced volunteers to feel that they have left their bodies to view themselves from a few metres away. The illusion is said to feel as if the subject’s consciousness has been “teleported” elsewhere.
The results could eventually have commercial, medical, scientific and military applications.
In [one] study, volunteers wore goggles, and cameras were placed 2m (6ft) behind the subject, with the feeds connected to the subject’s eyes. The participant thus saw an image of his or her back. Dr Ehrsson stood behind the subject and held two rods. He used one to prod the subject and the other to jab underneath the camera. The participants said they felt they were sitting where the cameras were placed, and that the figure they were watching was another person or a dummy.
“This was a bizarre, fascinating experience for the participants - it felt absolutely real for them and was not scary. Many giggled and said, ‘Wow, this is so weird’.” He said that when he took part, he felt himself move suddenly out of his body. “I see the object coming towards me, feel the touch, then ‘boof!’, I feel a striking sensation that I’m over there looking at myself.”
In the second experiment, a team at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne fitted volunteers with similar goggles, then trained the cameras on a mannequin. The backs of the subject and the mannequin were stroked - though the subject could see only the mannequin. They were blindfolded and moved away, then asked to walk to return to their position. They tended to move towards where they had seen their “virtual bodies”.
The full article is here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2317316.ece
Is this a parlor trick, or does it really have beneficial implications? Will I be able to play my guitar from across the room, just by thinking? If I was at a drunken brawl, after a gig, could I "get out of my body" for awhile, if I saw I was about to get my *** kicked? That would be useful. It would also be good in motor vehicle accidents, right? As you are crashing, you would "jump out of your body" and look over at yourself getting smashed up. You could say, "Wow, that sucks bein' him - that was me, but it ain't me no more." That would be useful. And what if you don't want to come back to your body? Or your body died? Can you wander around, out of your body, since it's gone, now? Would you be a ghost or just a guitarist without a solid body? (Okay, I apologize for that one.)
What do YOU think?