Out-of-body experiences recreated in a lab

by acsot 16 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  FreedomFrog

  I'm not totally sure if I believe in it but I find this stuff fascinating. Now my question would be for the skeptics (me including); when we see/feel things from day to day, how do we know that our brains aren't being tricked in saying it is real when in reality we are actually having an OBE on occasion?

  For example, the movie Matrix, everyone in that movie was living their lives from day to day not aware that it was fake except for a few. I admit this is an extreme example but could we all be having OBE on occasion and remembering it as if it's in real life?

  I hope I'm making sense...I see the question in my head and can not articulate it very well.

  ~~Froggy~~
• 

  acsot

  I find this stuff fascinating also, FreedomFrog, but do I believe in the paranormal? Uh, no. And yes, I've had what would be described as an out-of-body experience, therefore my fascination with said subject. Did I ever think it was my "soul" or a "god experience" or whatever? No.

  As research is beginning to demonstrate (and as other experiments have shown that supposed "god experiences" = temporal lobe stimulation), there are (unfortunately for paranormal believers), rather more mundane medical/scientific explanations for what I/others have experienced. I know, of course, that those who want to believe will continue to do so, evidence to the contrary will be dismissed or somehow explained away, and their comfort zone will remain intact.
• 

  LittleToe

  I also find this stuff fascinating.

  I'll be chuffed if they manage to work out how to conduct proper temporal lobe communication. I'll be even more chuffed when they work out what "frequency" it transmits on and are able to isolate / detect it. At that point I'll be quite intrigued to see if they detect any unaccounted for external transmission...

  ...maybe another hundred years, at the current rate of progress.
• 

  funkyderek

  Warlock:

  Why should I believe these researchers are telling the truth?

  You normally seem quite happy to believe just about anything, but if for some reason some long-dormant skeptical neurons have been fired up by this article, you can read their full report in the journal Science in which I'm sure they fully detail the methods used and the results obtained. If that still doesn't convince you, you'll soon be able to read about attempts to repeat the experiment and whether other scientists get similar results. Finally, if you just won't take anybody's word for it, you can repeat it yourself. These people aren't just recounting an interesting event that they claimed happen to them; they are making testable predictions - and are inviting people to test them.
• 

  Warlock

  You normally seem quite happy to believe just about anything, but if for some reason some long-dormant skeptical neurons have been fired up by this article, you can read their full report in the journal Science in which I'm sure they fully detail the methods used and the results obtained.

  Not true. I probably have twice as many skeptical neurons as you do, but since you don't know me, you wouldn't know that.

  Warlock
• 

  under_believer

  Listen to this episode of RadioLab: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2006/05/05. You can either download it or stream it. If you stream it, the part about pilots is the part we're interested in. It is a highly detailed account of how one can use extreme physical stress from a centrifuge or jet fighter to induce a genuine out-of-body experience.
  
  This is a wholly separate research effort from the study cited above and also confirms that out of body experiences can be induced fairly reliably.
• 

  RAF

  Well since someone can see someone else's precise futur for the very next day in a dream (*) ... well why couldn't any can get what happens somewhere else? (whatever way they know)

  (*) I have 2 concrets examples from my own father and he is not the one who is talking about it - it's actually the kind of stories that a Grand mother feel like to tell you when you ask questions about a father that you don't really know about his childwood)

  All what you could say is errr : coincidences (but then from where comes the details, the exactitudes?)

  Don't get me wrong here ... what I'm saying is that we are different ... with not only different lives/experiences but also different capacities (call it gifts or even curses when actually it doesn't really help or that it scares people or get you annoyed by people who just can't get it).

  I find it interesting when I hear some people saying ... this didn't happened to me so why did it happened to you? ... well, well, well ... Why aren't we all suffering from famine since day one and dye after 6 months?