This passed weekend, the Wall Street Journal ran “When Brain And Body Parts,” a look at the phenomenon of out-of-body experiences. It detailed various researches and experiments that examined such occurrences, and then interpreted the results from a hard-line mechanistic viewpoint. So the conclusions discussed consider the effect a “hallucination” generated by the brain dealing with confusing circumstances. In fact the word “mind” doesn’t occur in the article at all. The concluding sentence states “But it all begins with the body.”
So…certainly reading about the research and the effects documented is illuminating whether you ascribe to the Newtonian view of the universe or no as, in my opinion, they could support either perspective. Meanwhile, the more subtle reader might well find amusement in the quiet desperation in the author’s rigidly narrow viewpoint; suggesting the savants of old who steadfastly purported that the sun, in fact, died at the end of the day — you can SEE it disappear every dusk! Of course the author could be correct in his assumptions but he hasn’t proved them here – just ignored the other possibilities. The opening of the article describes specific details of the out of body experience that, I’d hold, are not adequately addressed in the body of the aricle:
“About two months after his younger brother died of complications from HIV, Chris—a friend of mine in his 50s living in California—woke up early one morning. He got off the bed, stood up, stretched, turned around and got the fright of his life.
“’The shock was electric,’ Chris told me last year. ‘Because I was still lying in the bed sleeping, and it was very clearly me lying there sleeping, my first thought was that I had died.’
“Of course, Chris hadn’t died. He was having what neuropsychologists call a doppelgänger experience: He found himself inhabiting an illusory body while his real, physical body was lying in bed. He says he’s not clear how long the feeling lasted. Eventually, ‘there was this enormous sucking sensation,’ said Chris, making a long, drawn-out slurping sound. ‘I felt like I was dragged, almost thrown, back into the bed, smack into myself.’ He woke up screaming.”
Read the entire article here: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lessons-of-out-of-body-experiences-1440774646
