Blanke et. al. (2002) Stimulating illusory own-body perceptions

As this paper has come up on another blog, I'm going to try explaining my ideas about the veridical Out Of Body Experience (OBE) again here...

1). Blanke et. al. (2002) Stimulating illusory own-body perceptions
https://doi.org/10.1038/419269a

Initial stimulations (n43; 2.0–3.0 mA)
induced vestibular responses, in which the
patient reported that she was “sinking into
the bed” or “falling from a height”.

Can you imagine trying to unify your own visual experience with a third parties visual experience with who is standing above you whilst you lie on your back on a bed? (From the third parties visual perspective: what happens to the size of the patient when you go from a bent head position to an unbent head position?)

Increasing the current amplitude
(3.5 mA) led to an OBE (“I see myself lying
in bed, from above, but I only see my legs
and lower trunk”). Two further stimulations
induced the same sensation, which included an
instantaneous feeling of “lightness” and
“floating” about two metres above the bed,
close to the ceiling

Can you imagine trying to unify your own visual experience with multiple third parties visual experience who are standing above and around you, you whilst you lie on your back on a bed. (From the third parties visual perspective: See 2. below)

When asked to look at her outstretched
arms during the electrical stimulation
(n42; 4.5, 5.0 mA), the patient felt as
though her left arm was shortened; the
right arm was unaffected.

Can you imagine trying to unify your own visual experience with a third parties visual experience who is standing above, and to your right hand side, whilst you whilst you lie on your back on a bed? (From the third parties visual perspective, which of the patients arms would appear smaller in size?)

When her eyes were shut,
she felt that her upper body was moving
towards her legs, which were stable (n42;
4.0, 5.0 mA).

Can you imagine trying to unify your - eyes shut - proprioceptive experience of where your legs should be in relation to your head, with a third parties visual experience who is standing above you, whilst you lie on your back on a bed? (From the third parties visual perspective: They can see the patients legs?)

2). Just a simplistic every day example of something similar in action, so you can more easily understand what I'm getting at.



Multiple wide angle cameras can be mounted to the four sides of a vehicle. Their individual visual perspectives which look down upon the surrounding road and sidewalk surfaces show different information. When the information from all four cameras is unified, as though coming from a single perspective, a birds-eye-view perspective for the false camera location is created.

As this paper has come up on another blog, I'm going to try explaining my ideas about the veridical Out Of Body Experience (OBE) again here...

1). Blanke et. al. (2002) Stimulating illusory own-body perceptions

I have no idea whether these patient's anomolous experiences are veridical, or not.

The important point here, is that Blanke just assumes the patients false perceptions are a totally isolated effect within the patients own brain. No attempt is made by Blanke to consider the experimenters effect upon the experiment. No attempt is made to test for anomalous perceptions from third parties. Considering such things doesn't occur in their mind, due to their past experience, which bias their thinking.

I’m speculating that Blanke’s report of induced ‘hallucinatory’ experiences, associated with electrical disruption of the patients neural network, might also be the result of anomalous transmission of information from the researchers undertaking the experiment.

When asked to look at her outstretched
arms during the electrical stimulation
(n42; 4.5, 5.0 mA), the patient felt as
though her left arm was shortened; the
right arm was unaffected.

That’s certainly not excluded in this example, as the researchers – presumably working on the right hand side of the patients head as mentioned in the paper – would perceive the patients left arm (which is further away from them) as shorter than the right arm which is nearer to them.

If the researchers perception of the patients arms, is anomalously transmitted to the patient, whilst the patient’s neural network is electrically disrupted. The shortened perception of the left arm might, become combined with the patients own perception, resulting in a hallucinatory perception within the patient that their left arm is shorter than their right.

https://iands.org/research/nde-research/...brain.html
Interesting comparison, but unfortunately ignored by dominating views in academia.

https://iands.org/research/nde-research/...brain.html
Interesting comparison, but unfortunately ignored by dominating views in academia.

I spoke to someone (who'd had an NDE after a massive cardiac arrest) at great length. He said he was walking around the hospital (out of his physical body) and at first he reached down (as you would I suppose)  to (try and) grip door handles until he realised he didn't need to do that (of course his hand couldn't grip anything physical, which he soon realised). Once he realised that, he didn't bother with the doors, just went straight through the walls.

I asked him if he could see his new mode of existence (his astral body?). He said he didn't examine himself, it wasn't even something he thought about. I asked him if he could see his hands and he said "When I thought I needed a hand (my hand), a hand would appear. 

In addition he was able to instantly travel (relocate is probably a better way to describe it) anywhere in the United States he wanted to be and anywhere in the world for that matter.  Of course, that's impossible and can't happen but he was able to see things that he couldn't possibly have seen. He visited an ex girlfriend, for instance (amongst many other old friends) and stood right in front of her in her kitchen while she was talking to friends. 

He couldn't have known where she lived, he hadn't seen her for thirty years but he was able to verify what she looked like by finding her on facebook. Prodding people's parietal lobes is unlikely to produce this kind of experience, I would have thought.