Out Of Body Experiences – What Are They?

Out of body experiences include several phenomena that are as amazing as they are complex. Imagine flowing out of your body – that’s exactly how it feels. For a long time, the explanations were tribal and mysterious. But now we know that it is all in our brains.

Also, out of body experiences are perceptual phenomena that include experiences of illusory movement. Among them we can emphasize flying, falling, floating and seeing ourselves from the outside. These dissociative experiences are related to neurological and psychological factors and can occur in both healthy and unhealthy people.

Types out of body experiences

We can divide this phenomenon into two types of experiences with well-defined characteristics:

• Sensory experiences. The feelings of falling or floating are due to a break in the union of bodily sensations related to the vestibular system.

• Autoscopic experiences. These experiences consist of perceiving one’s own body from an outsider’s perspective.

Why do we have out-of-body experiences?

Out of body experiences are often associated with altered states of consciousness. Thus, many writers compare the phenomenon of characteristic states with very imaginative dreams. In addition, there is a process of anomalous multisensory integration where a person is aware of the situation. It is for this reason that the vestibular, motor and sensory systems are important for pregnancy.

Systems involved in this phenomenon

• Vestibular. The receptors of this system are in the inner ear and are responsible for maintaining stable images in the retina, which is a basic ability to maintain balance.
• Motor skills. During out-of-body experiences, the brain performs the corresponding movement programs on a dissociative level, even if a person is not moving.
• Sensory. This is like a motor and it is located in the parietal lobe. Many writers theorize that an out-of-body experience is just a self-perceived image of your body.

Disorders and phenomena associated with out-of-body experiences

When there are changes in any of the systems above, the disposition to experience yourself outside your body increases. Disorders related to sleep, drug use and brain damage can create the optimal conditions for these phenomena.

Among the phenomena that occur during sleep, we can highlight the following:

• Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations. These are lively and confusing perceptual experiences that occur at the beginning and end of sleep.
• Sleep paralysis. The extremities and the execution engine desynchronize and change the body’s multisensory processing. Thus, self-perception leads to feelings of floating outside your body.
• Clear dreams. These consist of being conscious while you sleep. A person can actually partially direct a dream sharply and with precise details.
• REM sleep. Daydreaming happens at this stage because the brain is still active, just like when we are awake. Thanks to electrophysiological studies, researchers discovered that the three preceding situations mainly occur during this sleep phase.

Is it possible to evoke an out-of-body experience?

For hundreds of years, these experiences were linked to the paranormal. This is not surprising because our ancestors did not have the knowledge to study them. Today we know that this phenomenon is due to a distortion of one’s body image, related to cognitive processes such as memory, self-perception and imagination.

Out of body experiences and imagination

Just as there is an organic basis for this experience, some psychological factors are also closely linked to the phenomenon. Personality is the most prominent. Several studies reveal that these experiences are more frequent in people with a high degree of imagination and openness. This relationship shows that experiences are also caused by suggestions and personality traits.

Artificial induction

One can also artificially induce this phenomenon. The most effective techniques for doing this are:

• Induction of brain frequencies. It is possible to induce Theta wave activity in the brain through bineuronic beats that are characteristic of the states between sleep and wakefulness.
• Transcranial magnetic stimulation. Through stimulation of the temporal lobes, just as in the Persinger experiment, the hyperconnectivity generated between the lobes leads to an intrusion of the spatial feeling of “I” in the right hemisphere to the linguistic meaning of “I” in the left hemisphere.
• Direct stimulation. In some experiments, researchers provoked these experiences through direct stimulation of the vestibular and motor bark.
• Electrical stimulation of the temporoparietal junction. As in the Arzy experiment, stimulation of this area of ​​large multisensory processing causes self-perception errors.

• Sensory deprivation. Disorientation can cause altered states of consciousness where mental images strain excessive realism if you eliminate all references to space and time.

Out of body experiences and meditation

This phenomenon usually occurs in conditions where the brain activity is similar to that during sleep, but where a person retains consciousness. Researchers have found that those who meditate regularly find it easier to achieve such experiences. This is what they call “astral projection”. Thus, Theta waves usually disperse in extreme stages of relaxation, such as meditation.

Mixing of mirror neurons

The authors Jalal and Ramachandran suggest that the mirror neuron system is so connected that it allows virtual vision in the third person. Mirror neurons simply fire up as soon as we see another person do something and come in contact with our higher centers to predict or mimic it, even if we only do it symbolically. The connection between these neurons with the cerebral cortex and afferent pathways is what leads to “separation from the body” under conditions of sensory disturbance.

A psychobiological phenomenon

Out of body experiences involve nervous and motor systems, cognitive functions and personality traits. It is also a phenomenon which under certain conditions can also be pathological.

Be aware that seeking this type of experience is not necessarily healthy and can be dangerous as it is closely linked to psychotic crises.

Because people often associate this phenomenon with the paranormal, they refused to talk about it for many years. They did not want to be seen as mentally unstable. Thus, understanding the true causes of this phenomenon is a big first step in treating it properly.