In an interesting first, researchers at the University of Ottawa have scanned the brain of a female psychology student as she underwent an out-of-body experience.

Out-of-body experiences involve a sense of one’s consciousness becoming separated from one’s body.  This often enables the person having the experience to look down from above at their body, and is frequently reported in connection with near-death experiences.  Many people brought back from the edge of death report having watched doctors and nurses from above as they worked on the person’s physical body.

Other people report these experiences – abbreviated as “OBEs” – without being at the brink of physical death.  The woman scanned in Ottawa can enter this state at will and sometimes does so just before going to sleep.  This was a lucky break for the researchers; most OBEs appear to either be triggered by trauma or to happen by chance, thus making it very difficult to study someone’s brain during this experience.

Researchers say that while they still have much to learn, there were definitely changes taking place in this woman’s brain that corresponded with her experiencing the world in a very different way.

The woman in this experiment said she’d been able to do this at will since childhood and expressed surprise that other people can’t.  The Ottawa researchers speculate that possibly many children can do this but lose the ability over time.

I don’t know how common it is, but I had experiences like this when I was a child.  They provided me a way to defy my mother at nap time.  Though physically confined to my bed, I was still able to move about my room “in spirit.”

I won’t say this was a frequent experience, and I couldn’t do it all the time, but it was common enough that I just took it for granted.  That is, until one day when I was 6.  I remember walking down the sidewalk when I noticed that I was watching myself from above and behind.  It suddenly occurred to me that this was impossible.  Instantly I was back in my body and I didn’t leave again for a long time.

Twenty-some years later, on a cold November morning, I crawled back into bed for warmth.  As I lay there it felt like my body went back to sleep while my mind stayed awake.  I then suddenly felt as though I was shaking violently.  I had read about OBEs and knew that this was how they often began (though this had never happened to me as a child), so I fought off some initial alarm and went with the experience.

I soon felt I was no longer in my body, though instead of seeing myself from above I found myself in a place I’d never been before.  I was still “me” in how I thought and felt – just without physical form.  This wasn’t a dream; I observed my circumstances carefully and even took time to consider the implications of my situation for my previously held beliefs.

I won’t pretend to understand the mechanisms behind an OBE; all I know is that to me this was very real.  I know a few other people who’ve had similar experiences and they agree that OBEs seem as real as ordinary life.  I’m pleased that researchers are gaining insight into OBEs and hope this will lead to a deeper appreciation of what our minds are capable of doing.  And while it can be argued that an OBE is an illusion caused by changes in the brain, my experiences have given me a different perspective on life.