Out of body and near-death experience

Common features of near-death expereince
1. Intense emotion, seeing ones body from above, movement through darkness towards 'light', encounters with dead loved ones, a life review and for some a decision to return to thier body
2. Atwar 2007- she notes that for pleasant near-death experience there is often a sensation of floating out of one's body; passing through a long black tunnel and towards light; friendly greetings from familiar and unfamiliar voices; the realisation does not exist and disappointment at being reviewed
3. A persons beleif or cultural background will influence how they interpret an experience. The individuals interpretation of the experience could therefore shape their wider spiritual or religious beliefs.
Explanations of near-death experience
1. Psychological explanations: some people hold paranormal beliefs and this leads them to interpret events in terms of paranormal explanations, for example viewing NDEs as spiritual expereinces.
2. Biological explanations- one suggestion is that endorphins are released at times of pain or stress and these lead to feelings of Euphoria (Carr 1982)
Evaluation of explanations
1. Psychological explanation- the fact that NDEs are not expereinced by all near-death patients means that there is likely to be a psychological component to the expereince. For example, some people may expect to have such expereinces and then, if they expereince certain physiological changes, they label these as spiritual event.
2. Spiritual explanation- van Lommel et al 2001 followed 344 cardiac survivors over 8 years and found that those who had expereinced an NDE continued to fear death. This suggests that it is a spiritual experience but that does not mean that it is caused by spiritual factors.
3. Cultural differences- Augustine 2008 presented a comprehensive review of NDEs in different cultures and provided examples, such as India NDEs invovle encounters with Hindu figures and in Japan there were no instances of any light appearing. There was also a consistent features, such as going through a tunnel, feelings of peace, OOBEs, and meeting a barrier between life and death. Such differences and similarities suggest that both psychological and physiological factors are invovled.
Research studies
1. Naturally occuring NDEs- Ring 1980 interviewed 100 people who had NDEs, finding that about 60% of survivors reported a sense of peace, 33% reported OOBEs, 25% said that they entered a tuneel and a few had experienced a kind of life review. Nelson et al 2006 studied 55 people with NDEs and 55 controls. He found that NDE group were more likely to expereince 'REM instrusions'
2. Artifically induced NDEs- Jansen 1993 has experimented with the drug Ketamine, giving it to patients to observe it effects. He has found that it can produce the classic symptoms of NDEs. Ketamine has also been found to trigger the same blockade as glutamate,
Evaluation of research studies
1. Early studies may have lacked appropriate controls. Interviewer bias may have affected the data collection as Moddy 1975 reported NDEs as wonderful expereinces, whereas more recent research has found that for many people they are expereinced as frightening.
Out of body expereince explanations
1. Paranormal- suggest that something beyond our current understanding is happening. The only possible way to explain how you physically leave your body is by seperating mind and body
2. Biological explanations- suggest that OOBEs are related to sensory disturbance. Blackmore 1982 suggests that normally we view the world as if we were behind our eyes. In situations where sensory input breaks down, the brain attempts to reconstruct what we are seeing using memory and imagination. Memory images are often bird's-eye view so the contructed image usually appears to be viewing oneself from above.
Research studies of Near-death expereince
1. Naturally occuring OBEs- Green 1968 studied 400 personal accounts of OOBEs and classified them as parasomatic (about 20% of the accounts) or sometimes asomatic (no sense of another body). She also found, for example, that 25% of the cases were associated with some kind of psychological stress and 12% occured during sleep.
2. Artificially induced OOBEs- Alvarado 1982 reviewed a range of lab studies where OOBEs were induced by various means (e.g. relaxation). The participants were then asked to identify target objects out of sight of their physical body. In one experiment a Miss Z was able to read out a randomly selected five-digit number placed in another room (Tart 1968). Overall Alvardo considered that the evidence was weak although there were some striking results.
3. Biological studies- Blanke et al 2002 induced OOBEs accidently by electrically stimulating the temporal-parietal (TPJ) in a woman who suffered epilepsy in that region. This led them to study nerologically normal subjects as well. Stimulation of the TPJ using transcranial magnetic stimulation resulted in OOBEs whereas stimulation of other areas did not.
Evaluation of OOBE explanations
1. Paranormal explanations- the evidence does not support such explanations. For example, Alvarado's review did not find evidence that the parasomatic body had physically moved out of the physical body. He did acknowledge some expectional cases but perhaps these can be explained in terms of suspect methodology, for example the participant might have had the oppurtunuty to see the target object prior to the test.
  1. Biological explanations- suggests that OOBEs are related to sensory disturbance. There is support for this from the Blanke et al study that implicated activation of the TPJ. Other research shows that this area of the brain is implicated in the construction of the sense of body in shape (Persinger 2001). Ehrrson's research also showed a link between sensory disturbances and OOBEs.
Evaluation of research studies
1. Artificial versus natural OOBEs- one of the problems with anyresearch is that it is difficult to study natural OOBEs because they occur without predictability and, even if a researcher was present, the OOBE would cease as soon as the participant reported it. Therefore, most research is conducted on artifically-induced OOBEs in lab settings. Some researchers e.g. Holden et al 2006 do not regard these as equivalent to naturally-occuring OOBE'S.
Overall Evaluation points
1. Ehrsson 2007 provided support for the link between sensory disturabance and OOBEs. He did this by placing a pair of video displays in front of a participants eyes. The displays show a live film relayed by two video cameras that are two metres behind the participant. The p sees their own back as if they were sitting behind themselves. The experimenter then places one rod on the participants chest and another rod on where the illusonary body would be located just below the camera's view. P's reported feeling that they were sitting behind their their physical body and looking at it from that location. Ehrrson tested the reality of the illusion by threatening the illusonary body. Particpants delayed a physiological fear response
2. Individual differences- OOBEs are reported more often by indivduals who are paranormal beleivers (Irwin 1985).People who have OOBEs are also more fantasy prone. Such characteristics go some way to explaining why such indivduals have OOBEs. However, there is no evidence to suggest people with OOBEs are mentally ill, although the expereince may make people feel they are losing their mind (Gabbard and Twemlow 1984)

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Out of body and near-death experience

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