With the help of a special brain scanner, the researchers tracked what happens to a person "leaving his body."
An "out-of-body" or "astral" experience is commonly referred to as the sensation of floating outside one's own body. Most often, such experiences are reported by people with sensory impairment, survivors of brain trauma, other clinical conditions, and, in rare cases, people who have been on the verge of life and death.
To understand what actually happens to a person during "travel outside the physical body", specialists used an MRI scanner. In this way, they could observe which areas of the brain remain active during out-of-body experiences.
One volunteer who expressed a desire to participate in the study lay down inside a scanner with a special display that was worn over his head. On this display, an image of the body of a second volunteer was broadcast, who was lying in another part of the same room.
To awaken the participants in the experiment with the necessary sensations, the researchers simultaneously touched a wooden rod to the same parts of their bodies. Thus, they managed to achieve the illusion of the volunteer (the one with the display) that his body is somewhere else.
“It's a very strange sensation,” explains neuroscientist Arvid Guterstam. "Just a few touches and you really suddenly get the feeling that your body is lying apart, in another part of the room."
The results of the experiment showed that the hippocampus is responsible for determining the location of the body, while another part of the brain (the cortex of the posterior cingulate gyrus) associates the feeling of oneself with the sensations of owning one's own body.
Experts hope that by studying the experience of "out-of-body experiences", they will be able to better understand the processes occurring in the brain of patients with epilepsy.
Promotional video:
Seva Bardin
