Scientists float out-of-body theories

Scientists float out-of-body theories

By Anna Salleh, ABC Science Online

A feeling of floating and seeing your physical body from the outside might reflect a psychological problem with your body image, suggest UK psychologists.

This is one of the theories about out-of-body experiences (OBEs) that David Wilde, of the University of Manchester, and team are testing using a new online survey.

"There are several theories as to why people have OBEs," says Wilde. "A common link between them is the idea that in certain circumstances the brain somehow loses touch with sensory information coming in from the body."

He says this triggers a series of psychological mechanisms that can lead to someone having an OBE.

"In this study we aim to take the theory a stage further, by looking at the way people see and experience their bodies, and how, through perfectly ordinary psychological processes, these images and experiences may create the impression of seeing their bodies from the outside."

The researchers say 10 per cent of people experience OBEs, which cover a variety of experiences such as near-death experiences, OBEs induced by drugs or trauma, and spontaneous OBEs.

Wilde and team say previous research shows people who have spontaneous OBEs are more likely than people having OBEs induced by drugs or life-threatening experiences to have heightened self-consciousness, dissatisfaction with their appearance, and anxiety about others judging their physique.

As well as asking participants questions that rate people on their body image, the survey will ask about hallucinations and deja vu. It will also ask if people communicate with supernatural forces, hear voices, use a ouija board regularly, see auras or practice witchcraft.

Both people who have had an OBE and those who have not are encouraged to take part in the survey.

Investigating the paranormal

An Australian expert in the history and philosophy of psychology and psychiatry, Dr Hans Pols of the University of Sydney, says studies such as the Manchester survey are useful in forming a picture of what kind of out-of-body experiences people have.

But, he says, it avoids directly dealing with the thorny question of whether or not OBEs are objective phenomena.

"It´s a very typical clinical psychology approach that tries to correlate out-of-body experiences with a known clinical phenomenon," says Pols.

Pols says para-psychologists, such as those at Duke University in the US, say they can prove OBEs are objective phenomena but their experiments do not convince the sceptics.

He says one problem is that it is hard to prove OBEs exist because they are rare and often linked to emotional experiences that are difficult to reproduce in laboratory conditions.

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