Natural Explanations for Out of Body Experiences
The July 2003 issue of Skeptical Inquirer has an article on the insights that cognitive science research has provided on the alleged ability of people’s “minds” to leave their bodies:
[Susan] Blackmore’s research suggests that disturbances in the brain may produce OBEs. Consistent with this prediction, Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield (1955) was apparently able to produce an OBE by stimulating a patient’s brain with minute electrical currents prior to operating on the patient for temporal lobe epilepsy. Before surgical removal of a damaged area that caused the debilitating seizures, Penfield would routinely stimulate different places in the patient’s brain, such as in the right temporal lobe shown in Figure 2, to prevent the inadvertent removal of healthy brain tissue. Once, after he had electro-stimulated a point in this area, the patient, who had previously had an OBE, exclaimed “I am leaving my body” and then showed a strong fear reaction (Penfield 1955, 458).
Recently, Olaf Blanke and his colleagues (2002) have used electrostimulation of the brain to produce a more convincing OBE in a forty-three-year-old epileptic woman. While trying to find the focus of her brain damage, they stimulated points in the right angular gyrus (shown in figure 2), producing various disturbances in the perception of her body. When stimulated at different intensities, she reported feeling that she was “sinking into the bed,” “falling from a height,” and seeing parts of her body shortening (Blanke et al. 2002, 269).
At one point she had an OBE in which she saw her trunk and legs from above, the same portion of her body she had felt when stimulated before. However, when they stimulated her epileptic focus in her temporal lobe, over 5 cm away from the angular gyrus, she did not have an OBE. Blanke and his colleagues proposed that it was stimulating her angular gyrus that produced the OBE by disrupting the integration of somarosensory and vestibular information--that is, information about the feel and position of her body. These findings support the idea that the brain produces the conscious perception of an embodied self from the coordinated activity of various brain regions.
Drug effects on the brain can also produce OBEs. The drug ketamine, called “Special K” on the street and used as an anaesthetic before surgery, often produces OBEs. Karl Jansen (1997) has argued that the experience produced by ketamine is very much like the near-death experience (NDE) in which people often report the experience of floating above the body, traveling through a dark tunnel into the light, seeing God, and the conviction that they were actually dead. Although naturally occurring NDEs may result from various causes, ketamine may produce an artificial version of the NDE and an associated OBE by blocking neural transmission in the temporal lobe.
Given the fact that there are completely natural explanations for at least some OBEs, the burden of proof lies squarely with believers in the supernatural and paranormal to demonstrate that any particular OBE has anything other than a natural explanation — not on scientists to demonstrate that every individual OBE has a natural explanation. Why?
The use of supernatural explanations only comes up because of the presumed inability of science to offer natural explanations in the first place. Once such explanations can be demonstrated, then, the presumptive need for the supernatural disappears. We have, for example, natural explanations for objects falling — is it the obligation of scientists to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that every instance of an object falling is due to natural causes? Do they need to prove that some individual instance of a falling object in the past wasn’t due to fairies instead?
No. If anyone wishes to claim that some particular object has fallen due to some reason other than the standard natural causes, then the obligation is entirely theirs to demonstrate how and why. They have the burden of proof, not the scientists who rely upon the naturalistic explanation that serves them the rest of the time.
The same is true of events like OBEs. Belief in supernatural or paranormal causes is not, strictly speaking, reasonable even in the absence of natural explanations — but since they do exist, believers in the paranormal have a much harder job ahead of them. I wouldn’t place any bets on their chances of succeeding, though.
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Comments
hmm.. seems like the only flaw in the logic here is that the example given for “objects falling” is nowhere near adequate enough of a comparison. This example is well within the limits of our ordinary physical laws. You’re equating the ordinary with the un-ordinary. Now say you saw an object falling UP into the sky. Does the burden of proof fall upon the naturalist? (who 9 times out of ten is too narrow-minded to accept the possiblity of a super-naturalistic explanation, even if it IS the most logical one..) or are you simply demanding, with certain pre-suppositions, that EVERY OBE case require a naturalistic explanation?
…and define what you mean by “natural”, lol! (ie. anti-theistic?) Because if you eliminate the possiblity of the existence of souls and consciousness (which are immaterial, non-physical components to human beings..) then OF COURSE you’d have no choice but to try and rationalize these occurences with a naturalistic frame of thought. If there was a creator of the physical laws in the world in which we now live, then wouldn’t it be quite rational to think that this creator could suspend or break it’s laws of it wanted to?? Especially if you consider how everything got here in the first place. Can something really come from nothing?? and with no cause?(the popular “belief” of the Athiest..)
..and could you please explain to me, (using a naturalistic worldview), the origins of consciousness/thought?
So are OBEs… unless you have evidence to the contrary?
Begging the question.
No, the burden of proof falls on those who claim that the event isn’t due to natural laws.
In what way does “supernatural” qualify as an “explanation”?
Operating according to natural physical laws.
No one has has eliminated the possibility of the existence of consciousness. No one has demonstrated the possible existence of “souls,” whatever they are supposed to be.
If there are invisible fairies, then wouldn’t it be quite rational to think that they are responsible for the movement of oxygen molecules?
Look up quantum mechanics.
It’s a function of the operation of the brain.
Is it entirely possible these events are not paranormal but rather rooted in natural phenomenon yet still have a metaphysical significance. Just spend a few hours reading about string theory and other quantum physics hypothesis and it becomes abundantly clear that there is more going on around us that can be observed. Some theorize that the gelatinous blob in our head is none other than a quantum antenna that taps information stored in the Omega point where space & time have no relevance. Conscious thought and even something as simple as a memory have continued to elude science. Primarily, because science and theology have spent the last few hundred years trying to debunk one another. Science has done us a great service with regard to NDE research by proving they do happen, whether spiritually or physically, its pretty mute as they do happen and are documented. The fact that they have found the source in our brain only helps metaphysical theories. We know the optical lobe translates information from the eyes. Even with eyes closed, if stimulated, we can see flashes, dreams etc. If the angular gyrus is meant to tap things on the quantum level, it should come as no surprise it will produce similar effects when stimulated. Consequently, just because the effects of an NDE can be duplicated, does not mean actual near death experiences are not authentic.
The nature of consciousness still has yet to be understood. Since this is the case, combined with the fact that we still don’t knoow what most of the brains function are for, we can’t really say what is happening in these experiences. Did the person have an illusion of consciousness focused outside the body, or did electrical stimulation cause consciousness to become focused outside the body.
Also, people have given acounts in both OBE and NDE of seeing and hearing experiences in other parts of the building. These accounts have been verified.
Feel free to provide citations of peer-reviewed research demonstrating this.
Oh snap!
give us real experience, Real evidence and so dramatic correct proof! If you want to hear my comment about that I can tell you. I don’t know if there’re other evidences But I want to see the scientifically proof! It’s not enough to throw out just natural evidences, I want proof from scientists. And did you forget the answer, no, okay, Natural causes but which of them are right and possibly correctly as well?