so here says the scientists - jimmie & I did it all the time. We never had to use virtual reality goggles or blinders! Maybe 'goin' anaological' and hyperventilating causes your brain to dysfunction. hey, whatever works. just keep sending in those dollars.. speaking of dollars, where is everybody? at the mini-Assay? or high-faluting over there with all those I-talyins? ;)

SCIENTISTS CREATE OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCES (WITHOUT DRUGS)

For centuries, people have claimed to have had out-of-body experiences but now scientists have recreated the sensation without using drugs in the first experiments of their kind, a study said Thursday. As many as one in 10 people say they have experienced the sensation of being awake and seeing their own body from another location, according to the study published in the journal Science.

"Out-of-body experiences have fascinated mankind for millennia. Their existence has raised fundamental questions about the relationship between human consciousness and the body," said Henrik Ehrsson, a neuroscientist formerly of University College London, and now at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.

Now neuroscientists have manipulated a group of perfectly healthy volunteers into thinking they had moved outside their bodies by distorting their perception of reality. Using virtual reality goggles to mix up the sensory signals reaching the brain, they induced the volunteers into projecting their awareness into a virtual body. Participants confirmed they had experienced sitting behind their physical body and looking at it. The illusion was so strong that the volunteers reacted with a palpable sense of fear when their virtual selves were threatened with physical force.

The findings suggest there may be a scientific explanation for these types of out-of-body
experiences, which are often thought of as delusional or paranormal, and the scientists believe their research could have important applications.

"The invention of this illusion is important because it reveals the basic mechanism that produces the feeling of being inside the physical body," said Ehrsson. "This represents a significant advance because the experience of one's own body as the center of awareness is a fundamental aspect of self-consciousness." And inducing people to have out-of-body experiences could have wide-ranging uses, he believes. "This is essentially a means of projecting yourself, a form of teleportation. If we can project people into a virtual character, so they feel and respond as if they were really in a virtual version of themselves, just imagine the implications.

"The experience of video games could reach a whole new level, but it could go much beyond that. For example, a surgeon could perform remote surgery, by controlling their virtual self from a different location."

But scientists still don't know exactly what causes such experiences which have often been associated with traumatic experiences such as car accidents and linked to compromised brain function in epileptics, drug addicts and stroke victims. "Brain dysfunctions that interfere with interpreting sensory signals may be responsible for clinical cases of out-of-body experiences," said Ehrsson. "Though, whether all out-of-body experiences arise from the same causes is still an open question."

Thank you tammy faye,

This is from a recent BBC report titled...

"Out-of-body experience recreated"


Experts have found a way to trigger an out-of-body experience in volunteers.
The experiments, described in the Science journal, offer a scientific explanation for a phenomenon experienced by one in 10 people.
Two teams used virtual reality goggles to con the brain into thinking the body was located elsewhere.
The visual illusion plus the feel of their real bodies being touched made volunteers sense that they had moved outside of their physical bodies.
The researchers say their findings could have practical applications, such as helping take video games to the next level of virtuality so the players feel as if they are actually inside the game.
Clinically, surgeons might also be able to perform operations on patients thousands of miles away by controlling a robotic virtual self.
Teleported
For some, out-of-body experiences or OBEs occurs spontaneously, while for others it is linked to dangerous circumstances, a near-death experience, a dream-like state or use of alcohol or drugs.

One theory is that it is down to how people perceive their own body - those unhappy or less in touch with their body are more likely to have an OBE.
But the two teams, from University College London, UK, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, believe there is a neurological explanation.
Their work suggests a disconnection between the brain circuits that process visual and touch sensory information may thus be responsible for some OBEs.
In the Swiss experiments, the researchers asked volunteers to stand in front of a camera while wearing video-display goggles.



Through these goggles, the volunteers could see a camera view of their own back - a three-dimensional "virtual own body" that appeared to be standing in front of them.
When the researchers stroked the back of the volunteer with a pen, the volunteer could see their virtual back being stroked either simultaneously or with a time lag.
The volunteers reported that the sensation seemed to be caused by the pen on their virtual back, rather than their real back, making them feel as if the virtual body was their own rather than a hologram.
Volunteers
Even when the camera was switched to film the back of a mannequin being stroked rather than their own back, the volunteers still reported feeling as if the virtual mannequin body was their own.
And when the researchers switched off the goggles, guided the volunteers back a few paces, and then asked them to walk back to where they had been standing, the volunteers overshot the target, returning nearer to the position of their "virtual self".
Dr Henrik Ehrsson, who led the UCL research, used a similar set-up in his tests and found volunteers had a physiological response - increased skin sweating - when they felt their virtual self was being threatened - appearing to be hit with a hammer.
Dr Ehrsson said: "This experiment suggests that the first-person visual perspective is critically important for the in-body experience. In other words, we feel that our self is located where the eyes are."
Dr Susan Blackmore, psychologist and visiting lecturer at the University of the West of England, said: "This has at last brought OBEs into the lab and tested one of the main theories of how they occur.
"Scientists have long suspected that the clue to these extraordinary, and sometimes life-changing, experiences lies in disrupting our normal illusion of being a self behind our eyes, and replacing it with a new viewpoint from above or behind.

BBC Link....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6960612.stm


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OBE... buyer beware!.

David.