Consciousness is primarily experienced internally, but the phenomenon of out-of-body experiences (OBEs) challenges this assumption.
Although scientists have developed biological-based explanations for OBEs (a mismatch of sensory information or the disruptions of coordination across certain brain areas), other experts wonder if OBEs could be evidence of non-local consciousness—the extremely controversial idea that the brain isn’t at the center of our awareness.
A tiny new study argues that gathering qualitative data surrounding these experiences could help both explain OBEs and understand how they fit within the ever perplexing mystery of consciousness.
For most scientists, consciousness and the brain are inextricably linked—and for good reason. The brain is the synaptic center where our biological selves make sense of the world around us. But this approach only explains certain aspects of consciousness, like information processing and memory storage. The “hard problem,” as famously stated by the Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers, is explaining why these physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience.
And it is indeed a hard problem, one that philosophers, theologians, neuroscientists, and biologists have pondered for millennia. Because knowledge abhors a vacuum, many theories of consciousness have filled the void. Some have even explored the highly controversial idea of non-local consciousness—that is, a consciousness that exists beyond the confines of our physical skulls. This might seem counterintuitive to your lived experience, which feels very internal. But for years, some have analyzed the perplexing phenomenon of the out-of-body experience (OBE) as potential evidence for this controversial theory.
Whether induced in a moment of immense calm or calamity, OBEs broadly describe the feeling of a person’s consciousness temporarily being spatially removed from the body. A new study, published last month in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, argues that the subjective experience of those who’ve experienced OBEs should be considered when exploring ideas surrounding the hard problem of consciousness.
“We argue that these experiences should be described as they present themselves to consciousness, without resorting to theoretical presuppositions or external causal explanations,” the authors wrote. “Addressing this gap is crucial to achieving a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. This is essential for two main reasons: first, to comprehend the nature of human consciousness, and second, to help normalize these experiences for individuals who undergo them.”
In this very small study, the authors interviewed 10 participants who experienced OBEs in a variety of contexts. Most participants described the experience using terms like “other plane of existence” or “universal consciousness,” which the authors note aligns with theoretical descriptions of non-local consciousness.
However, scientists also have other, less controversial explanations about what is going on in our mind when we experience OBEs. For example, a 2023 study from Stanford University analyzed nine epilepsy patients with cerebral electrodes (originally inserted for other purposes). With their permission, the scientists attempted to locate the area of the brain that appeared most affected by out-of-body experiences, pointing them to the anterior precuneus—an area of the brain associated with somatosensory (i.e. body-related) information.
After receiving pulses of electricity, participants experienced distortions both to their sense of space and to their perceived location of consciousness. This work builds on previous research that also suggests that OBEs could be the misalignment of vestibular information with visual information. In other words, the experience of an OBE doesn’t necessarily mean that consciousness exists outside our bodies.
With such a small sample size, its difficult to draw an definitive conclusions about out-of-body experiences. But with more qualitative information about the experience, scientists could potentially begin to piece together the endlessly complex puzzle that is human consciousness.
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