Research And Explanations Into OBE

Question 1

Paranormal explanation for OBE

Answer 1

Survival hypothesis:

The human soul during an OBE can actually leave their physical body which is evidence for the immortality of the soul

Question 2

Psychological/Physiological explanation for OBE

Answer 2

Blanke et al (2002) claims OBEs are illusions created by electrical activity in the brain, which occur as a result of the malfunctioning of the right angular gurus, part of the temporal-parietal junction of the brain which can trigger an OBE

Blackmore (1984) -
Cognitive theory “models of reality”
Our worldview is derived from our senses and the mind has the ability to generate other types of models of realities (daydreams, fantasies, memories) and the brain chooses the one which is stable and coherent to be reality.
In some circumstances such as stress, disturbance of sensory input, the normal sensory model of reality becomes unstable so the brain generates a new model from memory and imagination.
Those who experience OBE have a disturbed sensory input and the brain attempts to create a reality from memory - explains why people feel they are outside the body looking down from above, as images recalled from memory are often constructed from a bird’s eye view

Question 3

Research supporting paranormal explanation

Answer 3

Tart (1968) experimented whether one experiencing an OBE could leave their body and identify items located elsewhere

The young woman, Miss Z of the experiment experienced an OBE and located a paper with 5 numbers and reported the exact numbers on the paper

Question 4

Research supporting psychological/physiological explanations

Answer 4

Blanks et al (2002) accidentally stimulated the right-angular gurus region of a 43 year old woman who was epileptic.
When stimulated, she reported having the sensation of lightness and floating (looking downhill), had an illusion of seeing her legs becoming shorter

Concluded that the angular gurus role is to integrate incoming info from different senses in order to create the wholeness of a person’s perceptions

Question 5

Evaluating paranormal explanations of OBE

Answer 5

• Unable to repeat the experiment to see if they can obtain the same results
• Methodological flaws:
  Why was the target object so close to her?
  Why was there no observer?
  She was able to get a glimpse of the numbers in some way as Tart placed it in the room in her presence

Question 6

Evaluating physiological explanations into OBE

Answer 6

Concept of bird eye view-

• fails to explain how memory acquires the images to create such bird’s eye-views in the first place
• not all memory images are recalled from bird’s eye, e.g recalling the local supermarket

Distortions of body parts-

• not commonly found in natural OBEs
• blanke was a case study, can’t be generalised
• epilepsy sufferer

Question 7

What is the definition of an Out-of-body experience?

Answer 7

An experience in which a person seems to perceive the world from a location outside the physical body - Blackmore (1982)

Characteristics:

• able to penetrate solid objects
• last from a few seconds to several minutes