Virtual-reality experiments give subjects that disembodied feeling
New virtual-reality experiments show the brain can be tricked into believing
it's outside the body, lending credence to the strange claims of some
patients and shedding light on how the brain might generate its
"self-image."
"We have decades of intense research on visual perception, but not very much
yet on body perception," said Henrik Ehrsson of University College London.
"But that may change, now [that] virtual reality offers a way to manipulate
full-body perception more systematically and probe out-of-body experiences,"
said Olaf Blanke, a Swiss Federal Institute of Technology neuroscientist.
The researchers worked on separate studies, which are detailed Thursday in
the online edition of the journal Science.
Researchers equipped subjects with virtual-reality goggles that showed
images from a stereoscopic video camera setup - two cameras spaced like a
pair of eyes. When placed behind the person wearing the goggles, the cameras
acted as a "virtual self" that looked at the subject's back.
As subjects watched themselves from behind, an experimenter prodded their
chests with one hand while prodding the air just below the cameras at the
same time. Because subjects could see the experimenter's hand but not the
spot it was poking, researchers said subjects felt as if they were being
poked in the chest - outside their bodies.
"This was a bizarre, fascinating experience for the participants," Ehrsson
said. "It felt absolutely real for them and was not scary. Many of them
giggled and said 'Wow, this is so weird.'"
Where's my body?
But the researchers didn't stop there. They also performed the experiment
with cameras behind a wigged mannequin to test the brain's limits of
self-perception.
When they saw a bodily shape, they still felt it was them," said Bigna
Lenggenhager, a psychologist also with the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology. She explained that touching both the fake body and the real body
at the same time tricked many of the subjects.
"They felt a touch was there but couldn't pinpoint it," Lenggenhager said,
noting that some felt as if the mannequin was their own body.
Going even further to test the effect, researchers removed subjects' goggles
and asked them to move to where they believed they were standing during the
experiment. Almost every time, she said, they overshot and walked back to
their virtual self's location - and not where their real or simulated body
was situated.
"They didn't localize themselves where their real body was," Lenggenhager
told LiveScience.com. "Where the camera was is where they believed they
were."
Ehrsson's group also tested the technique's limits by swinging a hammer just
below the camera setup, or virtual self. By measuring how much subjects
sweated - a bodily response to fear - Ehrsson said he showed that subjects
felt threatened by the hammer swings.
Lenggenhager noted that the setup, while an extremely useful tool for
testing the limits of self-perception, is only the beginning of better
research on the brain.
"We've shown the body and self is somehow separate in the brain, even though
we didn't invoke a completely realistic [out-of-body experience]," she said.
Lenggenhager thinks the next step is to monitor the brain's activity with
special electrodes during similar experiments. By doing so, the researcher
and her colleagues hope to better understand which regions of the brain are
responsible for self-perception.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20411858/
.
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| User: "Docrodile" |
|
| Title: Re: Scientists simulate out-of-body experiences |
24 Aug 2007 11:45:40 AM |
|
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"mukyuk" <a@b.com> wrote in message
news:NACzi.89732$rX4.10879@pd7urf2no...
Virtual-reality experiments give subjects that disembodied feeling
New virtual-reality experiments show the brain can be tricked into
believing it's outside the body, lending credence to the strange claims
of some patients and shedding light on how the brain might generate its
"self-image."
"We have decades of intense research on visual perception, but not very
much yet on body perception," said Henrik Ehrsson of University College
London.
"But that may change, now [that] virtual reality offers a way to
manipulate full-body perception more systematically and probe
out-of-body experiences," said Olaf Blanke, a Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology neuroscientist.
The researchers worked on separate studies, which are detailed Thursday
in the online edition of the journal Science.
Researchers equipped subjects with virtual-reality goggles that showed
images from a stereoscopic video camera setup - two cameras spaced like
a pair of eyes. When placed behind the person wearing the goggles, the
cameras acted as a "virtual self" that looked at the subject's back.
As subjects watched themselves from behind, an experimenter prodded
their chests with one hand while prodding the air just below the cameras
at the same time. Because subjects could see the experimenter's hand but
not the spot it was poking, researchers said subjects felt as if they
were being poked in the chest - outside their bodies.
"This was a bizarre, fascinating experience for the participants,"
Ehrsson said. "It felt absolutely real for them and was not scary. Many
of them giggled and said 'Wow, this is so weird.'"
Where's my body?
But the researchers didn't stop there. They also performed the
experiment with cameras behind a wigged mannequin to test the brain's
limits of self-perception.
When they saw a bodily shape, they still felt it was them," said Bigna
Lenggenhager, a psychologist also with the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology. She explained that touching both the fake body and the real
body at the same time tricked many of the subjects.
"They felt a touch was there but couldn't pinpoint it," Lenggenhager
said, noting that some felt as if the mannequin was their own body.
Going even further to test the effect, researchers removed subjects'
goggles and asked them to move to where they believed they were standing
during the experiment. Almost every time, she said, they overshot and
walked back to their virtual self's location - and not where their real
or simulated body was situated.
"They didn't localize themselves where their real body was,"
Lenggenhager told LiveScience.com. "Where the camera was is where they
believed they were."
Ehrsson's group also tested the technique's limits by swinging a hammer
just below the camera setup, or virtual self. By measuring how much
subjects sweated - a bodily response to fear - Ehrsson said he showed
that subjects felt threatened by the hammer swings.
Lenggenhager noted that the setup, while an extremely useful tool for
testing the limits of self-perception, is only the beginning of better
research on the brain.
"We've shown the body and self is somehow separate in the brain, even
though we didn't invoke a completely realistic [out-of-body
experience]," she said. Lenggenhager thinks the next step is to monitor
the brain's activity with special electrodes during similar experiments.
By doing so, the researcher and her colleagues hope to better understand
which regions of the brain are responsible for self-perception.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20411858/
Every time I encounter Stevie, it's an out of body experience.
.
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| User: "Docrodile" |
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| Title: Re: Scientists simulate out-of-body experiences |
24 Aug 2007 08:49:29 PM |
|
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"mukyuk" <a@b.com> wrote in message
news:NACzi.89732$rX4.10879@pd7urf2no...
Virtual-reality experiments give subjects that disembodied feeling
New virtual-reality experiments show the brain can be tricked into
believing it's outside the body, lending credence to the strange claims
of some patients and shedding light on how the brain might generate its
"self-image."
"We have decades of intense research on visual perception, but not very
much yet on body perception," said Henrik Ehrsson of University College
London.
"But that may change, now [that] virtual reality offers a way to
manipulate full-body perception more systematically and probe
out-of-body experiences," said Olaf Blanke, a Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology neuroscientist.
The researchers worked on separate studies, which are detailed Thursday
in the online edition of the journal Science.
Researchers equipped subjects with virtual-reality goggles that showed
images from a stereoscopic video camera setup - two cameras spaced like
a pair of eyes. When placed behind the person wearing the goggles, the
cameras acted as a "virtual self" that looked at the subject's back.
As subjects watched themselves from behind, an experimenter prodded
their chests with one hand while prodding the air just below the cameras
at the same time. Because subjects could see the experimenter's hand but
not the spot it was poking, researchers said subjects felt as if they
were being poked in the chest - outside their bodies.
"This was a bizarre, fascinating experience for the participants,"
Ehrsson said. "It felt absolutely real for them and was not scary. Many
of them giggled and said 'Wow, this is so weird.'"
Where's my body?
But the researchers didn't stop there. They also performed the
experiment with cameras behind a wigged mannequin to test the brain's
limits of self-perception.
When they saw a bodily shape, they still felt it was them," said Bigna
Lenggenhager, a psychologist also with the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology. She explained that touching both the fake body and the real
body at the same time tricked many of the subjects.
"They felt a touch was there but couldn't pinpoint it," Lenggenhager
said, noting that some felt as if the mannequin was their own body.
Going even further to test the effect, researchers removed subjects'
goggles and asked them to move to where they believed they were standing
during the experiment. Almost every time, she said, they overshot and
walked back to their virtual self's location - and not where their real
or simulated body was situated.
"They didn't localize themselves where their real body was,"
Lenggenhager told LiveScience.com. "Where the camera was is where they
believed they were."
Ehrsson's group also tested the technique's limits by swinging a hammer
just below the camera setup, or virtual self. By measuring how much
subjects sweated - a bodily response to fear - Ehrsson said he showed
that subjects felt threatened by the hammer swings.
Lenggenhager noted that the setup, while an extremely useful tool for
testing the limits of self-perception, is only the beginning of better
research on the brain.
"We've shown the body and self is somehow separate in the brain, even
though we didn't invoke a completely realistic [out-of-body
experience]," she said. Lenggenhager thinks the next step is to monitor
the brain's activity with special electrodes during similar experiments.
By doing so, the researcher and her colleagues hope to better understand
which regions of the brain are responsible for self-perception.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20411858/
When I was 14, I had what I would describe as an OOBE while asleep. I
could see my body in the bed as I floated toward the window, became
momentarily hesistant about passing through it, and then moved through the
glass. Outside, I then floated upward to a height a little above the
trees, and again, I felt a hesistancy to float upward and for a moment
felt apprehensive about falling to earth. But, as I flew around in the
sky, feeling the dampness of the night, and looking down upon the tops of
houses in the neighborhood, I began to feel quite elated, very relaxed.
And, as the aerial journey continued, a feeling of not wanting to come
back to my body set into my mind. Something, though, beckoned me back to
my body, and I floated downward and passed through the same window. I
could see my body asleep in the bed, and I floated into a position in
which I lowered myself, back turned to my body in bed, precisely down and
into my body. I could feel an odd sensation of merging...and then I awoke.
My skin and PJs were cool and damp, and I could've sworn I'd been outside
in the damp cool air. It was totally unlike an ordinary dream of flying,
and the sensation was so disturbing that it has kept me wondering about
the nature of it ever since. It has never repeated. Only that one time,
very long ago. I should add that I could feel my entire body while I was
floating about, as if it were really there.
Doc
.
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| User: "mukyuk" |
|
| Title: Re: Scientists simulate out-of-body experiences |
24 Aug 2007 09:47:13 PM |
|
|
"Docrodile" <swampthing@hellsbayou.net> wrote in message
news:b7CdnVjVY5k4F1LbnZ2dnUVZ_tWtnZ2d@comcast.com...
"mukyuk" <a@b.com> wrote in message
news:NACzi.89732$rX4.10879@pd7urf2no...
Virtual-reality experiments give subjects that disembodied feeling
New virtual-reality experiments show the brain can be tricked into
believing it's outside the body, lending credence to the strange claims
of some patients and shedding light on how the brain might generate its
"self-image."
"We have decades of intense research on visual perception, but not very
much yet on body perception," said Henrik Ehrsson of University College
London.
"But that may change, now [that] virtual reality offers a way to
manipulate full-body perception more systematically and probe out-of-body
experiences," said Olaf Blanke, a Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
neuroscientist.
The researchers worked on separate studies, which are detailed Thursday
in the online edition of the journal Science.
Researchers equipped subjects with virtual-reality goggles that showed
images from a stereoscopic video camera setup - two cameras spaced like a
pair of eyes. When placed behind the person wearing the goggles, the
cameras acted as a "virtual self" that looked at the subject's back.
As subjects watched themselves from behind, an experimenter prodded their
chests with one hand while prodding the air just below the cameras at the
same time. Because subjects could see the experimenter's hand but not the
spot it was poking, researchers said subjects felt as if they were being
poked in the chest - outside their bodies.
"This was a bizarre, fascinating experience for the participants,"
Ehrsson said. "It felt absolutely real for them and was not scary. Many
of them giggled and said 'Wow, this is so weird.'"
Where's my body?
But the researchers didn't stop there. They also performed the experiment
with cameras behind a wigged mannequin to test the brain's limits of
self-perception.
When they saw a bodily shape, they still felt it was them," said Bigna
Lenggenhager, a psychologist also with the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology. She explained that touching both the fake body and the real
body at the same time tricked many of the subjects.
"They felt a touch was there but couldn't pinpoint it," Lenggenhager
said, noting that some felt as if the mannequin was their own body.
Going even further to test the effect, researchers removed subjects'
goggles and asked them to move to where they believed they were standing
during the experiment. Almost every time, she said, they overshot and
walked back to their virtual self's location - and not where their real
or simulated body was situated.
"They didn't localize themselves where their real body was," Lenggenhager
told LiveScience.com. "Where the camera was is where they believed they
were."
Ehrsson's group also tested the technique's limits by swinging a hammer
just below the camera setup, or virtual self. By measuring how much
subjects sweated - a bodily response to fear - Ehrsson said he showed
that subjects felt threatened by the hammer swings.
Lenggenhager noted that the setup, while an extremely useful tool for
testing the limits of self-perception, is only the beginning of better
research on the brain.
"We've shown the body and self is somehow separate in the brain, even
though we didn't invoke a completely realistic [out-of-body experience],"
she said. Lenggenhager thinks the next step is to monitor the brain's
activity with special electrodes during similar experiments. By doing so,
the researcher and her colleagues hope to better understand which regions
of the brain are responsible for self-perception.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20411858/
When I was 14, I had what I would describe as an OOBE while asleep. I
could see my body in the bed as I floated toward the window, became
momentarily hesistant about passing through it, and then moved through the
glass. Outside, I then floated upward to a height a little above the
trees, and again, I felt a hesistancy to float upward and for a moment
felt apprehensive about falling to earth. But, as I flew around in the
sky, feeling the dampness of the night, and looking down upon the tops of
houses in the neighborhood, I began to feel quite elated, very relaxed.
And, as the aerial journey continued, a feeling of not wanting to come
back to my body set into my mind. Something, though, beckoned me back to
my body, and I floated downward and passed through the same window. I
could see my body asleep in the bed, and I floated into a position in
which I lowered myself, back turned to my body in bed, precisely down and
into my body. I could feel an odd sensation of merging...and then I awoke.
My skin and PJs were cool and damp, and I could've sworn I'd been outside
in the damp cool air. It was totally unlike an ordinary dream of flying,
and the sensation was so disturbing that it has kept me wondering about
the nature of it ever since. It has never repeated. Only that one time,
very long ago. I should add that I could feel my entire body while I was
floating about, as if it were really there.
I sometimes have this horrible darkness take over my body as I sleep. I feel
fully awake and aware what is happening, but I can't move. The more I
struggled, the more the grip of an evil force wraps itself around me. When
wake out of it, I will still feel the force trying to suck me back in. I
become terrified. When it happens, I have to get out of bed and turn on the
lights. I’m too afraid to go back to sleep.
Another time, I hit my head against a concrete wall. For a space of about 3
or 4, hours I kept getting flashbacks of a previous life. True, I did hit my
head, but it was the experience that was so freaky. Every couple minutes, my
mind would become flooded with memories which I knew were not mine, but as
‘real’ as this life. It seemed like I got a glimpse of another life in
which I live. It's impossible to say whether these things are real or not,
but the mind can make you have some really freaky experiences.
Doc
.
|
|
|
| User: "Docrodile" |
|
| Title: Re: Scientists simulate out-of-body experiences |
25 Aug 2007 03:28:59 AM |
|
|
"mukyuk" <a@b.com> wrote in message
news:RKMzi.91025$rX4.86586@pd7urf2no...
"Docrodile" <swampthing@hellsbayou.net> wrote in message
news:b7CdnVjVY5k4F1LbnZ2dnUVZ_tWtnZ2d@comcast.com...
"mukyuk" <a@b.com> wrote in message
news:NACzi.89732$rX4.10879@pd7urf2no...
Virtual-reality experiments give subjects that disembodied feeling
New virtual-reality experiments show the brain can be tricked into
believing it's outside the body, lending credence to the strange
claims of some patients and shedding light on how the brain might
generate its "self-image."
"We have decades of intense research on visual perception, but not
very much yet on body perception," said Henrik Ehrsson of University
College London.
"But that may change, now [that] virtual reality offers a way to
manipulate full-body perception more systematically and probe
out-of-body experiences," said Olaf Blanke, a Swiss Federal Institute
of Technology neuroscientist.
The researchers worked on separate studies, which are detailed
Thursday in the online edition of the journal Science.
Researchers equipped subjects with virtual-reality goggles that showed
images from a stereoscopic video camera setup - two cameras spaced
like a pair of eyes. When placed behind the person wearing the
goggles, the cameras acted as a "virtual self" that looked at the
subject's back.
As subjects watched themselves from behind, an experimenter prodded
their chests with one hand while prodding the air just below the
cameras at the same time. Because subjects could see the
experimenter's hand but not the spot it was poking, researchers said
subjects felt as if they were being poked in the chest - outside their
bodies.
"This was a bizarre, fascinating experience for the participants,"
Ehrsson said. "It felt absolutely real for them and was not scary.
Many of them giggled and said 'Wow, this is so weird.'"
Where's my body?
But the researchers didn't stop there. They also performed the
experiment with cameras behind a wigged mannequin to test the brain's
limits of self-perception.
When they saw a bodily shape, they still felt it was them," said Bigna
Lenggenhager, a psychologist also with the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology. She explained that touching both the fake body and the
real body at the same time tricked many of the subjects.
"They felt a touch was there but couldn't pinpoint it," Lenggenhager
said, noting that some felt as if the mannequin was their own body.
Going even further to test the effect, researchers removed subjects'
goggles and asked them to move to where they believed they were
standing during the experiment. Almost every time, she said, they
overshot and walked back to their virtual self's location - and not
where their real or simulated body was situated.
"They didn't localize themselves where their real body was,"
Lenggenhager told LiveScience.com. "Where the camera was is where they
believed they were."
Ehrsson's group also tested the technique's limits by swinging a
hammer just below the camera setup, or virtual self. By measuring how
much subjects sweated - a bodily response to fear - Ehrsson said he
showed that subjects felt threatened by the hammer swings.
Lenggenhager noted that the setup, while an extremely useful tool for
testing the limits of self-perception, is only the beginning of better
research on the brain.
"We've shown the body and self is somehow separate in the brain, even
though we didn't invoke a completely realistic [out-of-body
experience]," she said. Lenggenhager thinks the next step is to
monitor the brain's activity with special electrodes during similar
experiments. By doing so, the researcher and her colleagues hope to
better understand which regions of the brain are responsible for
self-perception.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20411858/
When I was 14, I had what I would describe as an OOBE while asleep. I
could see my body in the bed as I floated toward the window, became
momentarily hesistant about passing through it, and then moved through
the glass. Outside, I then floated upward to a height a little above
the trees, and again, I felt a hesistancy to float upward and for a
moment felt apprehensive about falling to earth. But, as I flew around
in the sky, feeling the dampness of the night, and looking down upon
the tops of houses in the neighborhood, I began to feel quite elated,
very relaxed. And, as the aerial journey continued, a feeling of not
wanting to come back to my body set into my mind. Something, though,
beckoned me back to my body, and I floated downward and passed through
the same window. I could see my body asleep in the bed, and I floated
into a position in which I lowered myself, back turned to my body in
bed, precisely down and into my body. I could feel an odd sensation of
merging...and then I awoke. My skin and PJs were cool and damp, and I
could've sworn I'd been outside in the damp cool air. It was totally
unlike an ordinary dream of flying, and the sensation was so disturbing
that it has kept me wondering about the nature of it ever since. It has
never repeated. Only that one time, very long ago. I should add that I
could feel my entire body while I was floating about, as if it were
really there.
I sometimes have this horrible darkness take over my body as I sleep. I
feel fully awake and aware what is happening, but I can't move. The more
I struggled, the more the grip of an evil force wraps itself around me.
When wake out of it, I will still feel the force trying to suck me back
in. I become terrified. When it happens, I have to get out of bed and
turn on the lights. I’m too afraid to go back to sleep.
That sounds a bit like you may have been experiencing a waking dream, like
the ones I had many years ago, except your 'invisible force' didn't
completely paralyze you, and you didn't suffer auditory hallucinations.
It happened three times back in the 80s, and each time my body was
paralyzed in bed, but I could talk and move my eyes and head a little. I
thought I could hear heavy breathing and a thing shuffling its feet just
outside my bedroom. I could even hear the wooden floorboard creaking from
the thing's weight. Or so I thought. It was sheer terror the first time,
but subsequent 'visitations' became much less scary since I began to
understand it was a powerful hallucination. Very powerful. Not being able
to move your body while some monster threatens you is fuckin' horror.
And the OOBE could have been another hallucination. Who knows?
Psychologists would say it was, but are they sure? Yep, the mind's a
tricky thing. (Look what it's done to poor Stevie!)
Doc
Another time, I hit my head against a concrete wall. For a space of
about 3 or 4, hours I kept getting flashbacks of a previous life. True,
I did hit my head, but it was the experience that was so freaky. Every
couple minutes, my mind would become flooded with memories which I knew
were not mine, but as ‘real’ as this life. It seemed like I got a
glimpse of another life in which I live. It's impossible to say whether
these things are real or not, but the mind can make you have some really
freaky experiences.
Doc
.
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| User: "Werewolfy" |
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| Title: Re: Scientists simulate out-of-body experiences |
24 Aug 2007 02:19:07 PM |
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On Aug 24, 4:13?pm, "mukyuk" <a...@b.com> wrote:
"New virtual-reality experiments show the brain can be tricked into
believing
it's outside the body..."
But does 'reality' trick the brain into making it think that it is
inside the body?
Werewolfy
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| User: "mukyuk" |
|
| Title: Re: Scientists simulate out-of-body experiences |
24 Aug 2007 07:12:21 PM |
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"Werewolfy" <Werewolfy1@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1187983147.960832.138150@x35g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
On Aug 24, 4:13?pm, "mukyuk" <a...@b.com> wrote:
"New virtual-reality experiments show the brain can be tricked into
believing
it's outside the body..."
But does 'reality' trick the brain into making it think that it is
inside the body?
Makes me wonder, why does someone not have an 'out of body' experience when
they look at themselves in a mirror?
Werewolfy
.
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| User: "Werewolfy" |
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| Title: Re: Scientists simulate out-of-body experiences |
24 Aug 2007 08:12:30 PM |
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On Aug 25, 1:12?am, "mukyuk" <a...@b.com> wrote:
Makes me wonder, why does someone not have an 'out of body' experience when
they look at themselves in a mirror?
Interesting thought.
Accepted perception I suppose. It seems likely. We 'know' we will see
our reflection when we look into the mirror, so we 'see' it.
That's about the best I can do with that one...quite frightening
adventure is entering the world of perception/reality.
Dreams show us that 'unreal' events are very real..at least they are
to the dreamer. As I say, a frightening road to look down.
Werewolfy
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