Scientist Induces Out-of-Body Experience

Sept. 19 -- At one point she felt she was "sinking into the bed." Later she said, "I see myself lying in bed, from above …"

Reports of out-of-body sensations have been common throughout history. The Greek philosopher Plato was among the first to suggest that when the body dies and disintegrates, the soul migrates outside the body and continues to live. Characters in countless paranormal dramas have been resuscitated back to life and then speak about how they rose above their own bodies and watched others working feverishly to save them.

But rarely has the sensation been captured in the controlled setting of a laboratory — until now.

In a new study released today in the journal Nature, Swiss scientists describe how they were able to trigger bizarre, out-of-body experiences in a 43-year-old female epileptic patient while analyzing her brain with electrodes.

Accidental Discovery

Olaf Blanke, a neurosurgeon at University Hospitals of Geneva and Lausanne, wasn't trying to set off the sensations in his patient but was using electrical stimulation to map the activity of her brain in preparation for surgical treatment. But by recording the patient's reactions and matching them with specific electrodes, Blanke was able to pinpoint the region where out-of-body experiences seem to originate.

"We wanted [and needed] to be sure that what the patient experienced and told us was related to the actual stimulation," says Blanke.

When Blanke and colleagues activated electrodes placed just above the patient's right ear — a region known as the right angular gyrus — the woman began to have the strange sensations. Depending on the amplitude of the stimulation and the current position of the patient's body, her experience varied. Each of the patient's four episodes lasted about two seconds.

After one stimulation, the patient said she felt as though she were sinking into her bed and then she felt as though she were "falling from a height." After another stimulation she said felt like she was "floating" about 6½ feet above her bed, close to the ceiling. When she was asked to watch her legs during the stimulation, the patient said she saw her legs "becoming shorter."