VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, [3], 4 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 05:41:34 09/21/02 Sat
Author: Weird_Enigma
Author Host/IP: 209.252.119.3
Subject: Scientists induce out-of-body experience

Scientists induce out-of-body experience
Mild electric shock applied to part of brain
GARETH COOK
Boston Globe

A tiny part of the brain behind the right ear can cause out-of-body experiences and could explain the many stories of near-death patients who say they have looked down at their own bodies, a team of Swiss scientists announced Wednesday.

While treating a woman with epilepsy, the researchers discovered that every time they applied a mild electrical current to part of the woman's brain, she felt as if she were floating near the ceiling, looking down on her own body like a soul freed of earthly bonds.

The results were published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Because the experiment was done on only one person, the finding does not definitively explain out-of-body experiences, scientists cautioned.

But the work represents the first time a precise part of the brain has been linked to the out-of-body sensation, a phenomenon that after many accounts of patients "watching" themselves before pulling back from the verge of death, has been seen as evidence of an afterlife. The experiment is also the first time that out-of-body experiences have been repeatedly flipped on and off at the flick of a switch.

"This does not mean that all out-of-body experiences are related to this area," said Olaf Blanke, a neurologist at Geneva University Hospital in Switzerland and the lead author of the article. But "now they are open to a more hard-science experimental investigation."

The Swiss work represents a scientific change of attitude. "This is one of those things that 10 or 15 years ago were considered just another crazy phenomenon that scientists wouldn't study," said Christof Koch, a neuroscientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. "Now we can study them and learn something about the brain."

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]
[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-5
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.