Out-of-Body FAQB.Nothing Leaves the Body1.Parapsychological Theory Certain parapsychologists have tried to incorporate the evidence that ESP occurs during OBEs by suggesting that the OBE is 'imagination plus ESP' or PK. For example, one of Tarts's five theories is the 'hallucination-plus- psi explanation.' According to this theory, 'For those cases of OBEs in which veridical information about distant events is obtained, it is postulated that ESP, which is well proved, works on a nonconscious level, and this information is used by the subconscious mind to arrange the hallucinatory or dream scene so that it corresponds to the reality scene' [Tar78]. Osis [Osi75] contrasts his 'ecsomatic hypothesis' with 'traveling fantasy plus ESP' and Morris [MHJHR78] compares the theory that 'some tangible aspect of self can expand beyond the body' with what he call the 'psi- favorable state' theory. In parapsychology many states have been thought to be conducive to ESP. They include relaxation, the use of ganzfeld or unpatterned stimulation, and dreaming. There are many reasons why an OBE might be thought of as a psi-conductive state. Palmer suggested that it might induce attitudes and expectations consistent with psi, thereby facilitating its occurrence [Pal74]. This sort of theory is not satisfying. It appears to avoid all the previous problems and yet to be able to cope with the paranormal aspects of the experience. According to Blackmore 'Calling the OBE imagination or hallucination tells us very little, and adding the words 'plus ESP' adds nothing. We know little enough about ESP. It is defined negatively, and we cannot stop and start it or control it in any way.'
Among psychological approaches there have been psychoanalytic interpretations, analogies between the 'tunnel' and the birth experience; the creation of the double has been seen as an act of narcissism or as a way of denying the inevitable mortality of the human body. Then there have been theories which treat the near-death experience as a form of depersonalization or regression to primitive modes of thinking, and those which treat it as involving an archetype. John Palmer used a mixture of psychological and psychoanalytical concepts in his account [Pal78a]. He made the crucial point that the OBE is neither potentially nor actually a psychic phenomenon. An OBE may be associated with psychic events but the experience itself, just like any other experience, is not the kind of thing which can be either psychic or not. He went on to suggest that the OBE almost always occurs in a hypnagogic state. Within this state it is triggered by a change in the person's body concept which results from a reduction or other change in proprioceptive stimulation. This change then threatens the self concept and the threat activates deep unconscious processes. These processes try to re-establish the person's sense of individual identity as quickly and economically as possible in a way that follows the laws of the Freudian primary process. According to Palmer it is this attempt to regain identity which constitutes the OBE. Since the whole purpose of the OBE is to avoid a threat, the person will usually remain unaware of that threat and of the change in body image which precipitated it. However, Palmer adds that it is possible, with practice, to gain ego-control over the primary process activity. Of course the OBE is, at best, only a partial solution to the threat and both ego and primary process strive to regain the normal body concept. As soon as they succeed the OBE ends. For Palmer any psychic abilities which manifest themselves during an OBE do so more because of the hypnagogic state than because anything leaves the body. This theory has much in its favor. It has no need of astral bodies or other worlds and so avoids all the problems of the earlier theories. It makes sense of the situations in which the OBE occurs, and the way it varies with the situation, and it relates the OBE to other experiences. However, the theory is not without its own problems. It depends heavily on the idea that the OBE is a means of avoiding a threat to the integrity of the individual and the anxiety which such a threat would arouse. But it is not clear that the OBE would not provide an even greater threat than the original change in body concepts. Sometimes OBEers are terrified that they will not be able to 'get back in' which is surely also a threat. Susan Blackmore [Bla82] bases her theory on the claim that the evidence of paranormal events during the OBE is limited and unconvincing. She therefore asserts that the claims for ESP and PK in OBEs are not impossible but there is actually not very much evidence which has to be 'explained away' in this fashion. Blackmore suggests that the OBE is best seen as an altered state of consciousness (ASC) and is best understood in relation to other ASCs. Everything perceived in an OBE is a product of memory and imagination, and during the OBE one's own imagination is more vividly experienced than it is in everyday life. In other words the experience is a kind of privileged peek into the contents of one's own mind. Blackmore suggests that in the case of the OBE the following are necessary: vivid and detailed imagery; low reality testing so that memories and images may seems 'real'; sensory input from the body reduced or not attended to; awareness and logical thinking maintained. She shows how these prerequisites can lead to an altered state of which one form is the semi- stable OBE and indicates related states, such as lucid dreaming, and shows how experience can change into others when conditions, or ways or thinking, change. This theory accounts adequately for cases of so-called traveling clairvoyance, where the subject does not necessarily see his body, but is aware of a distant scene. It accounts less well for cases of conscious projection, where the subjects feels himself to be at a distant location and is actually perceived by a person at that location. It also underestimates the veridical aspect of perception in cases where there is no apparent distortion by the imagination, in other words when the scene viewed from another point of space corresponds exactly with what one might expect to observe from that point; for instance a room seen from the vantage point of the ceiling. The question of perceptual distortion is related to the degree of interference by the imagination: the greater the imaginative element, the less veridical the perception of the place. Stephen LaBerge describes a theory in which OBEs occur when people lose input from their sense organs, as happens at the onset of sleep, while retaining consciousness [LL91]. This combination of events is especially likely when a person passes directly from waking into REM sleep. In both states the mind is alert and active, but in waking it is processing sensory input from the outside world, while in dreaming it is creating a mental model independent of sensory input. This model includes a body. When dreaming, we generally experience ourselves in a body much like the 'real' one, because that is what we are used to. However, our internal senses reside in the physical body, which when we are awake inform us about our position in space and about the movement of our limbs. This information is cut off in REM sleep. Therefore, we can dream of doing all kinds of things with our dream bodies -- flying, dancing, running from monsters, being dismembered -- all while our physical bodies lie safely in bed. During a WILD, or sleep paralysis, the awake and alert mind keeps up its good work of showing us the world it expects is out there -- although it can no longer sense it. So, then we are in a mental dream world. Possibly we feel the cessation of the sensation of gravity as that part of sensory input shuts down, and then feel that we are suddenly lighter and float up, rising from the place where we know our real body to be lying still. The room around us looks about the same as it would if we were awake, because such in image represents our brain's best guess about where we are. If we did not know that we had just fallen asleep, we might well think that we were awake, still in touch with the physical world, and that something mighty strange was happening -- a departure of the mind from the physical body. The unusual feeling of leaving the body is exciting and alarming. This, combined with the realistic imagery of the bedroom is enough to account for the conviction of many OBE experients' that 'it was too real to be a dream.' Dreams, too, can be astonishingly real, especially if you are attending to their realness. Usually, we pass through our dreams without thinking much about them, and upon awakening remember little of them. Hence, they seem 'unreal.' But waking life is also like that -- our memory for a typical, mundane day is flat and lacking in detail. It is only the novel, exciting, or frightening events that leave vivid impressions. If we stop what we are doing, we can look around and say, 'Yes, this world looks solid and real.' But, if you look back and try to recall, for instance, brushing your teeth this morning, your memory is likely to be vague and not very life-like. Contrast this kind of event to a past event that excited or alarmed you, which is likely to seem much more 'real' in retrospect.
Perhaps all the distinctions and problems are artificial, perhaps
the mind is neither 'in' nor 'out' of the body. Grosso argues the
possibility [Gro81] that one is always 'out' and in an OBE just becomes
conscious of that fact. Should the distinction between normal and
paranormal then be dropped? Let us consider the state of affair that
is considered normal: the 'in-the- body' experience. What does it
mean to be in a body? LaBerge [LL91] argues that saying that one is
in a body implies that the self is an object with definite borders
capable of being contained by the boundaries of another object --
the physical body.
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