Neuroscientists can recreate an OBE by simulating the stimuli to the brain during an OBE.

Dr Michael Persinger‘s God helmet, an adapted crash helmet with a number of electrodes on the inside, is used to disrupt the senses, mimicking trauma to the brain in a safe, controlled environment.

The idea is that if the results are similar to the Near Death Experience, with its feelings of calm and the visual elements like a tunnel of light, then the spiritual aspects of the NDE may have been effectively explained away.

This sort of experiment is NOT something that an OBEer should feel hostile about.

The more that is understood about these types of experience the better for the human race, but particularly for practitioners of Astral Projection!

How it works:

Sensory and visual centers of the brain in the right hemisphere are stimulated using electromagnetic fields.

The stimuli are safe, and of a lower power than, say, a hair dryer.

The subject needs to be in a state of a certain level of sensory deprivation. There needs to be no outside disturbances, and a covering over the eyes is part of the experiment.

Results certainly differed from person to person, with creative people such as artists and musicians having by far the most encouraging results.

However, it was realized that the best proof of the God Helmet making an effective recreation of a Near Death Experience was to find subjects who had clinically died, and had experienced an OBE.

Genuine experiencers of NDE were sought, to try the God Helmet and directly compare the two.

If the real and induced experiences were similar, it may mean that the entire experience of OBEs is simply unusual brain activity!
[I still struggle to understand how a person who is clinically dead can create brain activity and form memories, but that’s another question.]

Subjects who have experienced both Persinger’s God Helmet and a Bona Fide NDE speak of the similarities between the two, but the mechanically- induced version is far more muted.

The images they see are notably more random, and there is no sensation of movement from the body.

It has been described as like an OBE, but with less intensity, and without the “Out of Body” bit! Aspects of the OBE are touched upon, but in a much less profound way. Maybe the induced experience is just the first step of many!

That science can even start to look into such questions is truly amazing. But it still doesn’t answer the question of what happens when we die.

It seems that the God Helmet is a pale imitation of the real thing; but there does appear to be enough similarity for us to wonder if science is getting quite close indeed to unlocking the secrets of what goes on during death!

If you listen to a lot of people, you will get the impression that the Out of Body Experience is something esoteric, not understood or studied or taken seriously by science.

Quite the opposite, actually, a great deal of research has been done, and is continuing, more than you might think…

Although results are not completely conclusive, there is enough evidence gathered by the scientific community to ponder upon.

Is it surprising?

Doctors of cardiology quite frequently come across specific examples of OBEs, experienced by patients on the operating table.

Sleep specialists will be familiar with stories of subjects feeling that they left their bodies during an episode of sleep paralysis.

Many people who have an interest in phenomena such as the OBE simply seem to have a natural antipathy towards science. They feel that their beliefs are being challenged and debunked. However I am not one of those!

Science has a great deal to offer, both now and in the future, and anything that helps us understand the science behind the OBE is a good thing; however it does help to understand that by its nature science has to be impartial, so the methods and language can be a long way off from our experience. Science simply can’t convey, and nor should it, the excitement that we feel.

But there’s definitely plenty we can learn.

Let’s go back to the beginning…

The Out of Body Experience, especially that associated with a Near Death Experience or NDE, is often used as a proof for the existence of the human soul.

Some scientists, often fuelled by their own out of body experiences, or those of their patients, have sought to reproduce the effect of an OBE in a laboratory setting.

Many people who have an OBE are clinically dead, and typically see a bright light (either a tunnel or living sun), see key spiritual figures from their own particular faith or belief system, and experience a feeling of love and forgiveness.

But what does science have to say about the Out of Body Experience, and does it prove the existence of the eternal human soul?

It is as important for science to answer the questions about what happens in human consciousness as we go down the path of clinical death as it is for students of religion or the paranormal.

Work with cardiac arrest patients, in particular, has helped scientists understand more about what happens during an NDE.

Now, scientists don’t necessarily agree that there is proof of a human soul, but they do generally agree that it does provide evidence of extra potential of the human brain.

Related Articles

How does science explain the sensations commonly experienced during an NDE?

The human soul has a weight and it is 21 grams!

The God Helmet – how does it compare to an actual OBE?

Of course it doesn’t and it isn’t. But as a story it still really captures my imagination!

The story goes back to 1901, when a Dr Duncan MacDonald of Massachusetts, weighed patients who were dying of TB in a rest home.

When it became apparent that they were not much longer for this world, the patients were weighed, with their bed, on an industrial-sized scale.

Within moments after death, the results seemed to suggest the patients had lost, on average, 21 grams of weight, which it was suggested was the result of their soul leaving their bodies.

His subsequent experiments with animals lead him to postulate that animals do not have souls.

The results of his experiments were quite widely published, and remain somewhat in the public consciousness, in spite of being fairly meaningless and without any real merit.

His experiments were given a new surge of public interest due to reference to his work in the title of the excellent film “21 Grams“. The film is essentially about its characters’ struggles to come to terms with the weight of a human soul in another sense. Recommend you watch it…but don’t go spouting to people about the weight of a soul; you’ll look like a crazy fool!

Scientists have looked at the most common themes that run through accounts of Near Death Experiences.

Of those, these are the ones that appear to be of most interest to scientists:

• A bright tunnel of light 
• A feeling of great calm, love and forgiveness 
• Guardian figures, either key figures from the subject’s religion, or from the subject’s family or friends 

Scientific explanations have been put forward for these; they are not glamorous, but if we are to understand the Out of Body Experience we should be able to consider the possibility that there are rational explanations.

The Tunnel of Light

In an extreme situation, the human body goes into shock. It doesn’t go into shock in the way that TV shows tend to describe going into shock, often from seeing something shocking, and where a slap to the face may bring the subject to.

The body goes into shock in the profound clinical sense. Blood supply is diverted away from some areas, to areas that need more to compensate for blood loss, to maintain body temperature, or whatever else is necessary to keep the subject alive.

Blood supply to the retina is reduced, and with it changes happen to the way blood forms on the retina, due to blood loss and oxygen starvation.

Blood will move to the sides of the retina, and it is easy to see how that could produce the effect of a tunnel of light, or as in other accounts, the appearance of a “living sun”.

A Feeling of Great Calm

This is also no great surprise to scientists. For the same reason as above, when the subject goes into shock, blood supply, and the oxygen it carries, is diverted from the brain. This results in feelings of indifference, calm, resignation and sometimes euphoria.

You will have probably heard about people deliberately suffocating or strangling themselves to increase their sexual kicks!

Guardian Figures

Again, this is not too hard to explain. Oxygen starvation, blood redirection creating unusual configurations on the eyes, confusion, trauma, these could certainly combine to create images that would have a particular significance during such an extreme time as we experience on the path towards clinical death.

If you have ever stared into a fire, or watched cloud formations create images, it is possible to see why this is not so far fetched. When I was a child, my bedroom had curtains in which I could see all manner of weird and wonderful, and sometimes frightening, things.

The fact that the Guardian figures are so personalized also suggests that it is our brain activity that is creating them.

(Although I do struggle to understand how our brain activity can be so, well, active, when we are clinically dead.)

Aspects of the NDE that are a little harder for science to explain…

For me, there are some major aspects of the NDE that are not explained to my satisfaction.

How does science explain the feeling of literally leaving the body, and looking down upon yourself?

(It turns out that, to an extent, this sensation can be triggered in a laboratory setting. There is a part of the brain that can displace the perception, and make a person view themselves from outside their own body. But why does not seem to be understood…)

Most of all, there really has not been a strong explanation of the transformative aspect of a near death experience.

Seemingly without fail, those who return to the physical world after experiencing a clinical death, return with something rather more than being simply thankful to be alive!

People who return from an NDE are usually profoundly changed, not just emotionally and spiritually, but also physically.

Whether you choose to call it an Out of Body Experience or a Near Death Experience, it is certainly utterly unforgettable.

People speak of coming back as another person.

If a human brain is capable of creating this kind of experience, of tapping into such a life-changing power, and that’s all it is, just brain activity, do you know what? That’s okay with me!

Conclusion

It is important that studies are done to help us understand the Out of Body Experience, and necessarily these must be done by scientists.

If history has taught us anything, it is that a “clinical study”, when performed by a non-clinical individual, and particularly when they have an interest in getting a certain result, always results in flawed evidence. Every time.

But science is still unable to tell the full story.

The subjects who experienced near death describe what their sensations were, and scientists look at these descriptions impassionately, as is their job.

But the subjects are not talking literally, but figuratively.

They are trying to put in words their experience so that other people may understand, but what they are trying to describe is quite beyond words!