Well, I am at least happy to see that most people are not duped into believing that this little 'experiment' in any way disproves the reality of the OBE phenomenon. The way the media is reporting this information reveals to me an agenda to confuse the issue. I'm happy to see that many people are not fooled by this.

J.G.Howe, Tulsa, Oklahoma

This supports many Eastern philosophies that emphasize that all experience is rooted in perception by the self and not outside of the self. The corollary is that you will not "find yourself" even if you travel to India and sit with a swami or meditation master - you have to do it yourself, wherever you are.

Paige, Edmonton, Canada

This no proof at all what the scientist have done with their experiment I have personally had a out of body experience which is a very personal thing to happen however we do have a soul and it does leave the body I learned much on my travel out of body.
We all leave our bodies every night to go to the astral level whilst we are sleeping every person has out of body experiences regularly even if not remembered.As children many have the feeling of falling that is the soul re-entering the body as grown ups we shut down a lot so less is remebered.
Out of body experiences are not mumbo jumbo paranormal they represent far more than the scientist experimnent. It is indeed a very spiritual experience which has changed my life in many ways for the better the scientist have a long way to go to prove their mumbo jumbo. I ask all to keep an open mind on this subject.

H.Barnard, Oakville , canada

It is quite remarkable how many people feel the need to hold on to mystical beliefs in the face of what is truly wonderous -- the nature of the human body. It is neither depressing nor unimaginative to behold the wonderous capabilities of this super-complex system. Just because you don't understand how your body works isn't sufficient evidence to suggest that an out-of-body experience isn't a function of the body itself.

Elizabeth Whelan, West Tisbury, Massachusetts, USA

It's seems like an interesting experiment in perception and dissociation. Shows that visual perception along with sensory expectation are key to the subjective anchoring of the mind in the body. If either are interrupted or distorted then a feeling of dissociation arises. And OBEs are great fun!

Alex, Manchester, uk

It is amusing to see so called scientists desperately trying to prove that there can only be a material foundation for individual consciousness. The logic is fundamentally flawed. That you can simulate being out of body by mechanical means does not prove that being out of body without it does not exist. If I simulate flying with a head mounted display this does not prove that actual flying is delusion or disfunction. There are many documented cases of individuals accurately viewing things at a great distance from thier physical body. How do these boys deal with that? That out-of-body experiences often correlate with trauma could simply mean that we ordinarily suppress this ability and the self inflicted suppression is bypassed under extreme stress. There are religious disciplines which practice technology that achieves out-of-body states with stability. I thought that true science allowed for the introduction of new paradigms and disposed of culturally enforced assumptions.

Don, Sandia, Texas

if being out of your body is all in the mind tell me could i see into my husbands mind when he had an out of body experience and he is a fit and active man with no ill health

irene severs, liverpool,

The flaw in this experiment is that the scientists are using cameras. The out of body experiences of people near death have no goggles with feeds attached to their eyes on a camera behind them. You may have successfully recreated the feeling with optical illusion, but not the true experience. T to say an out of body is experience is no more than a trick of the mind is , in my opinion, just bad science.

Coleen, Burlington, Canada

The point being missed by many is that if the OBE experience can be triggered then it's just part of the wiring of our brains and no divine intervention is required to have such an experience. The 3D world that we view with our brain is computed from stimulation by photons on our retinas. A simple coordinate transformation or perhaps a synaptic short circuit could result in a different viewpoint. When something goes wrong with your graphics card, you don't usually consider it a message from god. The light at the end of the tunnel may just be the white noise you see when the TV station you are watching stops broadcasting.

Robert Saunders, Piscataway, New Jersey

I think it totally believable that the camera in a "real" OBE is in fact the mind. Many dyslexics and autistics can very easily "leave their bodies" and view things from afar--even themselves. Many spend their whole lives in this state, which accounts for a typical lack of time sense, spatial sense and difficulty with flat abstracts like numbers and letters. They can often accurately picture objects behind obstructions (in all 3 dimensions at once!). Many report also "becoming" other creatures like birds or quadrupeds--not just pretending or imagining, but having the sensation of really BEING these things, feeling and thinking like them. These experiences come with brains wired different than "normal" brains, and there's no reason to think some of these mental obstructions might temporarily fall away in us, especially when faced with mental or physical trauma. The lab experiment just found a more reliable method for simulating the experience. It's better than a konk on the head.

Nick, Johnston, Iowa, USA

Sounds like an awful lot of people fear having their beliefs - that's right, beliefs - undermined.
That it might be true that we are only a conglomeration of atoms that will eventually disperse into a great unknown scares the hell out of them. So, at all costs, they adopt coping mechanisms - religion and sprituality.
They deny science when it threatens insecurties, yet turn to science for that MRI to save their lives.
So, you folks just keep on clinging to what ever it is that gets you thru the night; be it a flat Earth or the second coming of the Messiah.

Lyle , Surprise/AZ, USA

OK... so now they have laid out the preliminary work. Now to thoroughly prove it is a trick of the mind they are going to do it all over again without the use of a camera mounted away from the body or an artificial mechanism to view the images. Oh sorry, they can't do that? Of course not. They only tricked themselves and some gullible readers.

Simulating something does not provide any sort of proof, for or against this phenomenon. It is what it is: a simulation. They gloss over the fact that that they needed a conscious person actively viewing themselves, through a camera positioned with their own body 'in frame'. The mystery of the 'real' phenomenon, is that it occurs without a camera, and in many instances where the person is unconscious or clinically dead, while doctors are trying to revive them.

I am not sure whether the 'real' phenomenon is indeed 'real'. However I am sure the 'parlour trick' these so called scientists created does not prove or disprove anything.

Bill Rosmus, Vancouver, B.C. Canada

This is an attempt to see if the mind can simulate consciosness of the human spirit. Maybe it can simulate the physically manifested responses. That does not make it so.

John Duffy, Galway, IRELAND

More than one event can cause the same outcome. For instance, I could break my arm from falling out of a tree - or skiing. Breaking one's arm falling out of a tree is not proof positive that falling out of a tree is the only cause of a broken arm.

All this study proves is that there is more than one way to have an out-of-body experience - period.

r sue miller, Ontario, Canada

out of body journey is to be likened to a gift from god.
without them i would not be alive and would never have known who my wife and children would be or look like TEN YEARS OR SO BEFORE HAND!
these people should embrace such a gift rather than try to disprove it.!

j. martin, tehachapi, ca

This sounds very much like a group and subject of which the doctors in these fields know little about the subject nor haven't raised their conscienceness above the very preliminary of thoughts about. By staging a fun exercise in distracting the mind their hope is that someone will hear and elaborate on this subject matter and send sensory feelers out to the public at large for answers. So, they are clueless and hope we will have the chanel for them so they could take claim of the subject and make money or recieve money.

Tony DiFederico, Amarillo, Tx, USA

This experiment hardly seems as if it proves or disproves anything. All these scientists seemed to have proven is that they can create the illusion of having an OBE. Illusion are hardly a difficult thing to create, for hundreds if not thousands of years magicians, and illusionists have tricked the mind. And just because they tricked the mind into believing it is having an OBE is hardly proof that such and experience is all in ones mind.

tim R, fl, usa

This sounds as if it explains out of body as not real. Obviously they have never had the type of De-Ja-Vue where one can explain to a second person the next 10 minutes of events well before they actually happen and exact detail. I was in another country for the first time and described to my wife every detail of what lay around the next corner. Neither of us had ever seen this area before.
This experiment sounds like tricking the mind, not explaining the out of body experience. Meybe they should go back and talk to people that have had true out of body experience.

Mike Rausch, Orlando, Florida

This proves nothing. So now, we can simulate an out of body experience, so that means its only a trick of the mind? I don't think so.

Say I were a helicopter pilot and I felt as if I was flying when im in a an airplane (Well duh, of course i am). If we had a flight simulation with this virtual reality that made me feel as if I were flying. That doesn't prove the because I feel the same sensation that they are both just tricks of the mind.

Joseph RIssler, Alabama, USA

Er, Dr Ehrsson,....do the same again, but this time try and make sure your subjects eyes are taped shut so they can't see. That way your 'experiment' will be closer to an NDE where the subject is unconcious but with eyes wide shut.
You scientists have a strange logic, I mean, Maxwell called light 'electromagnetic' radiation, but you can't influence it with either an electric or magnetic field no matter how intense. Neither do scientists define sound waves by the medium they travel through.
Oh sorry, I forgot, the god Maxwell has declared it, so it cannot be questioned. Oh you're so like us theists, you're just in denial, all of you.

Ian , london,

It's amazing to me how so many people can be so closed minded at the notion of the paranormal without even doing a little bit of research. They're is tons of info on the net concerning OBE's and what happens when we die. Enough to make any skeptic change his/her mind. "Another nail in the coffin of paranormal mumbo-jumbo" was a comment left by another reader...Get real and go learn something.

Will F., Montreal, Canada

This sounds like a virtual reality game, and having had at least two out of body experiences myself I can't grasp how this is comparable ! ??

Wanda Hill, TBay, Ontario

so what about when you have an out of body experience where someone else not only can see your body but also they see the apparition of that person moving away from th ephysical body. let me guess their minds are playing tricks as well. Ok. Hate to tell ya'll but youy can train yourself to do this and have others see it happen.

wrath of the real, Andover, MA

I was afraid to read this and then see all kinds of comments praising the scientific community for solving such a mystery. Faith in mankind +1!

Seriously though, there's nothing I can say that hasn't been said already. It is fascinating science but the scientists conducting it have reached typical close-minded pretentious conclusions.

Sam, Montreal, Canada

This is an interesting article, but the experiment itself seems to be "How can we induce the feeling of an out-of-body experience?" rather than anything that sheds light on what an actual OOB is or how it happens. It's a simulation -- interesting, but a bit irrelevant, I think; like putting a blindfold on someone and then saying we the neurological causes of blindness.

Sean Hoade, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA

Just because I can play a helicopter simulation on my computer, does not make me a helicopter pilot. Just because I shine a torch in my eyes does not make it a near death experience. Just because a scientist approximates an out of body experience does not disprove the supernatural.

Mark, London,

What a really feeble article/experiment. This is no different than a kid in the arcade getting too carried away that they are Lara Croft or whoever or a submariner using a periscope. The basic issue with out of body experience remains nowhere near being answered - I don't even really think it is that interesting or significant a phenomena in the first place so I'm no fixated believer. Without the camera how can someone have an alternative persepective on their body?. Come on, this is just a waste of time.

Benjamin , Gloucester,

Even thougth this is an interesting illusion using technology to simulate out of body experiences. This is just a simulation albeit an effective one using cameras, VR gogles and nuro stimulation. This can not explain the clasical near death out of body experiences that thousands of people have reported. For these people do not have such equipement to hand as they temporyally pass on. You report the causes for out of body experiences is the brain inducing an illusory interpretation of the world due to drug abuse and serious injuries. You do not mention death as a cause . The thousands of reports of peoples perspectives of looking at themselfs and also reporting accurate visual information of what is happening around them as they die, contrordicts the trick of a the brain theory, but confirms that their concieness and body are at a different places. This technology does not explaine the parranomal but I do believe it has great potential, for medicine and science.

Dan Colquhoun, Newcastle Upon Tyne,

In order to have a sensory input misinterpreted, it has to exist in the first place. How can we explain what a person sees at the back of him without a camera at his back in a natural out of body experience? Isnt something fundamental missing in the assumptions of this experiment?

kiran, morristown, USA

This hardly proves anything except that the experience can be recreated with technology. Other research has not been able to explain people describing accident scenes, seeing objects on hospital roof tops or quoting conversations of doctors or family in hospital waiting rooms, while they were "out of their body".
I remain open on the subject.

Mitchell Ford, Tampa, Fl, USA

"Scientists have recreated such out-of-body experiences in the laboratory successfully for the first time..."
This is incorrect as any scientist will tell you. What the sentence should read is 'Scientists have simulated out-of-body experiences in the laboratory." Successfully? That is subjective analysis not scientific. For the first time? Of that I'm not so sure. I believe some work was done on this about 10 years ago.

Philip McDaniel, Sebring, USA / Florida

The notion of a spirit that exists free of the body is an illusion which goes all the way back to caveman days, bolstered by the development of language. Words allow the creation of worlds that do not exist, but to the mind which processes the words, there seems to be little difference. Fear of dying is the main impetus to the widespread "belief" that humans live on after death. See "the institute for general semantics" for more information on the subject of words, and thier power over human society.

Joe G, Altamonte Springs, USA/Florida

I can't agree with other comments. The "genuine" OBE is an illusion produced by triggering perception channels independently of the body, rather in the way an amputated limb continues to be sensed as a phantom limb. This machine looks like an advance towards the proof we have all needed for so long that there is no such thing as "consciousness".

John Ledbury, Kings Lynn, England

David Blane has fooled them again!

Ian , london,

If we agree with the statement "sensory inputs are misinterpreted by the brain", then we obviously need question how a person having out of body experience gets the sensory input from his back. In the experiment, we have a camera. But where is the camera for a person having a natural experience. Misinterpretation can be only of the data received. If person is watching what is in front of him see what is at the back of him.
Something very strange..isn't it

kiran, morristown, USA

Another nail in the coffin of paranormal mumbo-jumbo

Oooh - hark at my closed mind.

Wilhelm, Godalming , Idaho

Speaking as someone who has had an out of body experience, I can confirm that yes indeed they are real, and we are much more than our bodies. It was a profound spiritual experience for me, and it awakened me to what we all truly are, spiritual beings living within (what we call) physical bodies.
The world is currently living in a deep materialistic denial. Connected to this is fear and all kinds of foolishness, and a distancing from the other life forms that are amongst us, and distancing ourselves from the spiritual origins of life, and the holy spirit in ourselves. It comes as no surprise to see the media attacking this.

John J., Kansas City, MO

Sounds like they have simulated an out of body experience but now the need to work on duplicating one.

Dman, baltimore, md

Another nail in the coffin of paranormal mumbo-jumbo

Wilhelm, Godalming , Idaho

I'm so glad that others in the comments were skeptical of the scientist's claim. I came to read the article with dread because things of wonderous nature are always taken apart by people with little imagination. I want to live in a mysterious world where life after death can be a wonderful possibility - the thought of creating OBEs to create better killing techniques makes me. Maybe that makes me naive but I'd rather the spirit, the soul, and love be more than Virtual Reality, a fairy tale, and a regurgitation of the Limbic Region.

Just my two cents.

Michael Ian Bateson, denver, co

As near as I can tell from this story, this only proves that with Virtual Reality technology they can simulate an out-of-body experience.

While the headline suggests as much, I don't see how this pertains to out-of-body experiences perceived by people in a meditative state or in a near death experience: It establishes that they can simulate the effect, but makes no attempt to address the CAUSE.

John L., Lawrence, Kansas, USA

Susan Blackmore is a materialist to the nth degree. Her name is cited more times than I can count when it comes to disproving anything that hints of the supernatural. She is dogmatic to her own detriment regarding her lack of open-mindedness in the area of open-mindedness.

Dan B. Graves, San Jose, CA

Using a camera mounted some distance away of course does little to explain such perception without the aid of a camera..

Ben, newton, MA

So what? This trick is truly an illusion, as in synthetic, and has not the immersive quality of a true spontaneous out of body experience. Looking for consciousness as a materialist phenomena in the brain/ nervous system is typical of a culture of science that is desperate to explain "everything" and intolerant of the transpersonal aspects of consciousness. Sure we can commericalise this trick for entertainment and of course some will desire to use it in remote control warfare; but it's still a bogus experience when compared to the real thing. Question: did any of the subjects have previous experience with out of body phenomena; if so what was their comparison?

James Harvey, Myocum, Australia

What a silly statement: "Out-of-body experiences should be understood not as evidence for the supernatural, but as a fascinating experience that potentially we can all have".
There are thousands of people who have died and returned within a few minutes (NDE) and all saw with their eyes that indeed man has a spirit which at death travels back to the spirit world.
Scientist keep trying to prove something impossible: that man as no soul and the out of body experiences are just illusions. What a surprise they will have when it will be thier turn to die!

franz Sidney, norwich, england

The mind is all that is real, everything else is illusiory including this world which is only one step ahead of virtual reality.

Clive Burghard, LANCING, ENGLAND

Academics are always good for a laugh, their usual stock in trade is stating the obvious and pinching ideas from people with experience.
If one of them were to have an out of body excursion,he or she would know the difference.

Clive Burghard, LANCING, ENGLAND

Academics are always good for a laugh, the cleverer they imagine themselves to be, the more absurd their theories.
If one of these individuals were to experience the real thing he or she would not have any doubt at all as to what had taken place. I have spent many years hearing them stating the obvious as if it were a virtue, and pinching ideas from more experienced people.
Out of the body experiences are very real, it is this world that we live in that is an illusion.

Clive Burghard, LANCING, ENGLAND