...nope! We all know that theree are now many medical/scientific theories behind OBEs. Some of these are:
1. Dissociative Phenomenon / Dislocation (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2320/is_3_64/ai_70654640)
2. Sleep Paralysis / Hypnagogic & Hynapompic Hallucinations, Arousal System Disturbances (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070305202657.htm)
3. Other brain disorders implicating different regions of the brain including:
A) The Angular Gyrus & Epilepsy (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v419/n6904/abs/419269a.html;jsessionid=495515CA4D10913B3616D05AB4470640)
B) The Temporoparietal Junction (http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/25/3/550)
4. And even suggest that OBEs can be triggered by Virtual Reality! (http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/08/23/tech-vr-outbody.html)
5. Simply vivid dreams being recalled
With so many different theories, how can they really know anything!? The truth is, that in all the years of neuroscience, they have yet to be able to pin point the exact seat of consciousness. I have a friend who is a neuro resident and a big time skeptic... he falls into the belief (as most of them do) that the consciousness is simply the result of the electrical activity running about in the brain, and not some seperate entity. When I brought up to him about quantum physics and the theory of entanglement and the very real possibility that consciousness exists outside the phyeical body... and that it's not some mumbo jumbo mystical theory with no scientific basis... he still finds it hard to believe but now has a harder time trying to back up his theory. After all... if we were just computers that only have consciousness while the electrical activity is turned on, it doesn't account for self awareness.
Entanglement & Psychic Abilities: (http://www.johnemackinstitute.org/center/center_news.asp?id=304)
Many OBEs occurr while in a state where there is supposed to be no consciousness... such as during surgery while under general anesthetic. It is well known that REM is supressed while under general anesthetic. And NDE's which occur when the body is clinically dead, can not be shrugged off as a brain disorder. Charles Tart concluded through his experiments that OBEs occur within a range of brainwave states... not a discrete definate required level. They CAN happen during REM but do not need to be in REM. (http://near-death.com/tart.html) This to me, proves that OBEs can not be dreams, or any kind of dream phenomenon encroaching on the wake state... (as in SP or hypnagogic and hypnapompic hallucinations)
My thoughts on the VR experiments are that the volunteers were completely aware during their experiences, and able to communicate with the staff. This to me indicates right away that its not really an OBE... but a fake OBE-like experience. They kind of word it to the effect that the VR can trigger the real thing. If I put a VR helmet on and am shown images as if I were flying over mountains... it doesn't mean I am really flying over mountains!
The other articles above mention feelings etc experienced by people when certain parts of their brain were stimulated... well, the one female with epilepsy was supposedly talking while it was happening, telling the doctors that she felt like she was floating above her body... again, I doubt this was the real thing. Lots of things make you feel like you are floating... I might put more into it, if she had of been able to verify some physical aspect of the room etc from a point of view not available from the table.
The whole point of this message? The neuroscientists really dont know... until they can settle on one or two theories instead of every condition and brain related theory under the sun....
Thoughts??
Well, in their defense, there's infinitely more theories coming from mystics... Personally I would say I don't find either side's understanding of OBEs to be flawless...
The more I experience and read, the more I feel that perhaps OBEs really aren't as "magical" as we'd like them to be... I do believe it's possible to communicate remotely by thought... What if it's just that our brains are like big radios and we're able to "plug into" this big network of vibrating signals... Like our blood's metal vibrates at certain frequencies and the brain is somehow able to interpret the information that goes through there? What if dreams and OBEs are just brain farts and the ones with psychic elements are basically brain farts influenced by an outside signal? You can't deny that anything that cannot be verified concretely will never be anything more than a subjective experience, and could absolutely be the sole product of an overactive imagination, or the brain's ability to convert signals into something that makes sense...
You can't really rule out the possibility that there's nothing beyond the physical...
There not magical at all. The whole message I suppose we're trying to get across is that they are completely normal. Everyone has the ability to project, it's just a matter of work before they can do so. OBE phenomenon is really part of something larger than itself. People often get caught up simply because they are excited about an OBE. If you take a step back and look at the whole community, the idea of a non-physical world is really what's attempting to cement itself in the human psyche. It opens the door to allow in a whole new range of psychic abilities on a collective scale.
We really need to start viewing the world like this. We are all part of a single organism called humanity. We are integrated into our entire world. A species in amnesia. It's important to always ask yourself why an idea is entertained by a mass of people.
-AM
AP Friends,
It doesn't matter - both sides will always have their theories, but the one who can experience the obe first-hand, come back with validation knows. Talking about it doesn't get the job done, experience on the otherhand holds weight. We don't want to project and take everything as validation, but to test, study, examine, and report our discoveries. Sharing the data deffinitely brings more to the table then just the same ole 'its in the mind and consciousness can't co-exist w/o the brain'.
I like what AM had to say, there's nothing magical about the obe. Everyone can project if they just know "how-to" tune in, have patience, and the iron-will to succeed.
Synergy - thank you for posting this topic!
Tvos
I guess the whole point of this topic was to point out that neuroscientists are so quick to dismiss the OBE as a mere function of the physical brain and nothing more, meanwhile they have never been able to prove that same theory about consciousness itself!
You guys are right... OBEs are NOT magickal! Neither is the nonphysical world! We just don't have the science yet to prove it exists!
QuoteYou can't really rule out the possibility that there's nothing beyond the physical...
Yes I can... even if I only consider my own dreams! Dreams exist in a very real place to the person experiencing them; a whole infinate realm that really exists to the experiencer, and they are nonphysical! ;)
Well it's obvious sitting here typing that there is some relationship between the physical brain and the mental dimension/soul/ spirit. I'm a dualist, can you tell? Consciousness is being studied in quantum physics and neuropsychology. Quantum physics is really moving toward the idea that consciousness is integrated into everything and plays an effective role in our environment. The furthest I heard from biology is that idea that consciousness can be found in coherent light! I am definately interested in this and have a bit to read on the topic. I just haven't gathered many references as of yet. Appologies for not being able to elaborate any further.
-AM
And they ask you (O Muhammad SAW) concerning the Ruh (the Spirit); Say: "The Ruh (the Spirit): it is one of the things, the knowledge of which is only with my Lord. And of knowledge, you (mankind) have been given only a little." [Qur'an 17:85]
Quote from: Synergy on October 17, 2007, 14:05:37
Yes I can... even if I only consider my own dreams! Dreams exist in a very real place to the person experiencing them; a whole infinate realm that really exists to the experiencer, and they are nonphysical! ;)
Dreams exist only as memories... The main reason we can recollect them is probably because they are recorded physically into our brains alongside memories of past events. You can't rule out the possibility that the mind is nothing but a bunch of electrical signals jumping around from neuron to neuron..
Quote from: kiwibonga on October 20, 2007, 15:39:51
Dreams exist only as memories... The main reason we can recollect them is probably because they are recorded physically into our brains alongside memories of past events. You can't rule out the possibility that the mind is nothing but a bunch of electrical signals jumping around from neuron to neuron..
You are right... but I also cant rule out the possibility that the mind is nonphysical either.
As for OBEs.... there is some evidence to suggest that they are not just memories conjurred by the mind. There have been numerous accounts of OBEs during surgeries where the person is under general anesthesia. It is a known medical fact that being under general anesthesia supresses REM sleep, and the person is unconscious. Why then, do these people fully recall their OBEs, seeing the surgical room, the tools, the doctos working on them etc while their eyes are closed and they are supposed to be unconscious? These OBEs can not be a dream, or a memory, or imagination, because these things are supressed by the anesthesia, yet these people have been a\ble to decribe in great detail what they witnessed/heard.
More evidence comes in the form of reports of 'ghosts' of living people being seen by others. There are reports of people seeing the ghosts of people who are sick, in comas, and even of people who were just 'asleep' at the time and have nothing wrong with them. There are even cases where these ghosts were witnessed by several people at once.
Another example are shared dreams, and also shared OBEs, where more than one person have the same experience and all those involved remember the event exactly the same. The only way I can see that this could occurr is if 'something' leaves the body and interacts with the same essense from the others involved.
One last thing... you seem pretty sure that the mind IS a bunch of electrical signals jumping from neuron to neuron... that means that you acknowledge that the neurons themselves are not 'us' but only the mechanism with which we control our physical body and ineract with the physical world. Who is to say that this electrical field (or I would say more electromagnetic field) that is US can not survive outside of the physical body as well, by jumping through other machanisms unknown to us (yet) by physical science?... Possibly while we are out of body, we are jumping through electrons in the air, or going even deeper... maybe travelling using zero point energy itself.
Just remember that materialism (the idea that things that can only be measured/perceived exist) comes from the completely disproven idea that the universe hasn't changed from the beginning and will never change. On top of that, for some it's like a religion. No amount of anecdotal evidence will convince them that reality is more than just that, and in some cases even the expreriences themselves won't convince them even if they have them. It's just what it is.
I don't mind the most of you lowering materialists here, but do know that most highly educated people in the scientific or medical section are materialists.
So they must learn something there. :-) (shhht, it's a secret, you must tell no-one!)
Quote from: Sharpe on October 20, 2007, 21:53:41
I don't mind the most of you lowering materialists here, but do know that most highly educated people in the scientific or medical section are materialists.
So they must learn something there. :-) (shhht, it's a secret, you must tell no-one!)
I dated a neurology resident! I know all about it lol I made him think though!!
Cool, my parents are both dentists, my aunt is a cardiothoracic surgereon, my uncle is also a dentist :|.
The daughter of my grand aunt is a neorologist and her husband is a neuro surgeon!
I couldn't make them think though :|, that's because I didn't try, because they DO know a lot.
I don't know how you made him think, but if I ever try to discuss anything with my grandaunt's daughter's husband, he dig's me into the ground and makes me look silly :oops:.
So I just take everything I learn from them as a fact, besides, they studied the brain for 6 years, and 6 years before that they studied the whole human body.
They really do know much...
Quote from: Synergy on October 20, 2007, 16:29:06
As for OBEs.... there is some evidence to suggest that they are not just memories conjurred by the mind. There have been numerous accounts of OBEs during surgeries where the person is under general anesthesia. It is a known medical fact that being under general anesthesia supresses REM sleep, and the person is unconscious. Why then, do these people fully recall their OBEs, seeing the surgical room, the tools, the doctos working on them etc while their eyes are closed and they are supposed to be unconscious? These OBEs can not be a dream, or a memory, or imagination, because these things are supressed by the anesthesia, yet these people have been a\ble to decribe in great detail what they witnessed/heard.
People very commonly report hearing everything that goes on while in surgery and being conscious throughout the process... General anesthesia may suppress REM sleep, it does not suppress brain activity...
QuoteMore evidence comes in the form of reports of 'ghosts' of living people being seen by others. There are reports of people seeing the ghosts of people who are sick, in comas, and even of people who were just 'asleep' at the time and have nothing wrong with them. There are even cases where these ghosts were witnessed by several people at once.
Those are subjective experiences... Unless the ghost tells the person something that is physically verifiable and couldn't have been known otherwise, the report doesn't really count as evidence...
QuoteAnother example are shared dreams, and also shared OBEs, where more than one person have the same experience and all those involved remember the event exactly the same. The only way I can see that this could occurr is if 'something' leaves the body and interacts with the same essense from the others involved.
It happened to me, and I agree there is a possibility that the mystical explanation is right, but as subjective experiencers, I don't see how we can instantly say "I left my body in spirit"; we'd be rushing to conclusions just like people from the middle ages who thought all planets and the Sun revolved around the Earth...
QuoteOne last thing... you seem pretty sure that the mind IS a bunch of electrical signals jumping from neuron to neuron... that means that you acknowledge that the neurons themselves are not 'us' but only the mechanism with which we control our physical body and ineract with the physical world. Who is to say that this electrical field (or I would say more electromagnetic field) that is US can not survive outside of the physical body as well, by jumping through other machanisms unknown to us (yet) by physical science?... Possibly while we are out of body, we are jumping through electrons in the air, or going even deeper... maybe travelling using zero point energy itself.
That is precisely what I am saying.. OBEs and psychic dreams could be nothing but "interference" of an unknown kind with extra sugar coating created by our brains... That would make OBEs somewhat less real, and it would mean that perhaps there is no afterlife and there are no ghosts or spirits as we like to think of them, only echoes of physical beings that may or may not be self-aware...
OBEs are like the gateway drug of occult beliefs... We read all these things that seem crazy but would be so great if they were true... Then we have an OBE, and automatically go "if those are real, then there's a big chance that the rest is all real too!"
Maybe I'm just still bitter from the day I learned that Santa didn't exist, but well... I have access to the same information, the same studies as you do and I just think it's way, way too soon to assume anything.
Regarding the mystical or magickal explanation for OBEs -
A person can induce and experience an OBE without resorting to mystical or magickal means.
On the other hand the greatest mystcis and magicians down through history have claimed that magickal consciousness and occult knowledge can greatly further the practice of astral projection.
75 to 100 years ago the mystical explanation was popular.
Right now the scientific ( ie. Quantum mechanics >>> entanglement) explanation is the most acceptable.
Maybe in 10 to 25 years that too will change.
The point is that both the magickal and scientific explantions for OBEs have validity.
Both Can work. Much depends on the subjective viewpoint, social background and experience level of the individual.
Quote from: Sharpe2 on October 22, 2007, 14:26:13
Everything is logical viewing from the scientific side...
The spiritual side however is what it always has been, around the grey part and very vague.
Maybe the roles have changed since the time of Galileo and on the flip side, the scientific side is saying that the world is flat, and that science has become the new religion.
Where as spirituality becomes the new frontier of exploration.
Research is a business, a job that requires results that produce something tangible and of monetary value to justify spending time and resources.
A common trend among materialist showing interest in OBE is that they want to see a practical method of obtaining new information from an OBE technology.
As information is as much of a commodity today as it ever was, the research investors will only be interested in OBE if it can produce wealth.
If the information learned from an OBE observer isn't relavant to this dimension, and therefore unreliable or impractical, then we are only left with a spiritual value and the researchers will loose interest.
So I guess my point is, who really cares what they think or what they try to prove? :-)
Will anyone/thing care in 500,000 years when the remains of our civilization is nothing but a thin smear line on a geological strata? :-D I'm just kidding, thought that last line sounded cool )
I like the 'smear' analogy- but what I'm trying to say is that it's not so simple. Years ago there was a 'mystical' camp that used words like 'spirit' and 'afterlife', and everything was explained that way. Then materialism arose and explained away everything in terms of 'that which can be observed'- the only problem is that nowadays the distinction isn't so clear cut- I for one don't subscribe to either in the way that it has been represented- I think that reality isn't as simple as consciousness as a side effect of chemical/electrical impulses in the brain, but not as 'nebulous' as the 'spirit' leaving the 'shell' and going off into the 'other side'. We now know (or think we know) thanks to modern physics, that everything that exists does so as interfrerence patterns in a wave matrix, so the idea of consciousness existing along the wave matrix instead of discrete beings is not as outlandish as it was a few decades or generations ago- but we still insist on clinging on those outdated models of thought. And the fact that in this day and age someone is saying 'those mystics believe this' shows how reactionary we really are. So in reality this is not about believing in something or other, but in looking at the evidence for perception outside the physical parameters of the body, and replicated if possible. And there's nothing wrong with knowing how the physical brain works- it brings us closer to figuring out how the whole thing happens. But these 'scientific experiments' are not about that- that is why the research keeps looking around for new areas of the brain to probe-because the results they are getting from this paradigm are not amounting to an OBE. Perceptual experience that come close to them, but not the real thing.