I should think this research could have implications beyond OOBEs, and impact our understanding of NDEs as well as effects of substances like DMT.
From an article on PopSci.com
After a class on out-of-body experiences, a psychology graduate student at the University of Ottawa came forward to researchers to say that she could have these voluntarily, usually before sleep. “She appeared surprised that not everyone could experience this,” wrote the scientists in a study describing the case, published in February in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
She was able to see herself rotating in the air above her body, lying flat, and rolling along with the horizontal plane. She reported sometimes watching herself move from above but remained aware of her unmoving “real” body. The participant reported no particular emotions linked to the experience.
[There] are fascinating suggestions–both that these out-of-body experiences may be more common than previously thought, or could be learned during a critical window early in life.
To better understand what was going on, the researchers conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of her brain. They found that it surprisingly involved a “strong deactivation of the visual cortex.” Instead, the experience “activated the left side of several areas associated with kinesthetic imagery,” such as mental representations of bodily movement.
Her experience, the scientists wrote, “really was a novel one.” But just maybe, not as novel as previously thought. If you are capable of floating out of your body, don’t keep it to yourself!
Fascinating and frightening. I wonder to what extent we should delve into the concept of consciousness especially when you consider that every monster and demon and horror Humanity has ever conceived has come from that source. What lies waiting for us in the dark recesses of our own consciousness?
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