Extracorporeal experiences, sensations of seeing each other outside their body, affect up to 20% of the population. Between neurological explanations, links with childhood trauma and spiritual interpretations, the latest research shows its role as a defense and response mechanism to stress.
Extracorporeal experiences, often indicated with the acronym obe (out of body experience), are phenomena in which a person perceives to be outside his physical body, observing himself from above as if it were a sort of separate entity or floating spirit in the air. These mysterious sensations have always fascinated philosophers, scientists and scholars, being on the border between spiritual experiences and neurological phenomena. About 10-20% of the world population reports that they have lived at least one episode of obese offenders.
The neurological and psychological roots of the obese
Despite the almost mystical appearance of extracorporeal experiences, scientific research suggests that many of them could have a neurological and psychological origin. Recent studies indicate that OBE are more frequent in people suffering from mental disorders, in particular anxiety, depression and dissociative conditions. An investigation published in the scientific journal Personality and Individual Differences He revealed that those who lived an extracorporeal experience are more likely to present psychiatric symptoms than those who have never had it. In particular, it was observed that the first episode of Obe was more early, the higher the probability that the person had psychiatric or psychological problems. However, the relationship does not seem to be causal: obese offs must not be considered exclusively as manifestations of mental illness.
Extracorporeal experiences as a defense mechanism
An important turning point comes from an international study led by the University of Virginia, in collaboration with Brazilian and American research centers, which has examined more than 500 adults. The researchers have shown that extracorporeal experiences can work as a coping mechanism, that is, a psychological defense strategy to face intense trauma and stress.
Many of the participants who had lived Obe had undergone trauma in childhood and often described these experiences as positive moments, even among the most significant of their life. The event to perceive themselves out of the body was interpreted by many as a spiritual experience or contact with an otherworldly dimension, accompanied by a sense of peace and a reduced fear of death.
How do obean manifest themselves and in what contexts?
Obe generally manifest themselves spontaneously, even if in some cases they can be induced through deep meditation, hypnosis or the use of psychedelic substances. Most people had a limited number of episodes (at most four), while only a fifth of the sample has had five or more.
These phenomena are often associated with states of dissociation, during which the person temporarily detaches himself from the sense of body identity. Some research have also connected obesers to pre-minor events, as in patients undergoing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (RCP), in which up to 40% of patients recall similar sensations.
Obe: between science and spirituality
Although science tends to explain extracorporeal experiences as brain and psychological phenomena, many people who live them interpret them as deep spiritual events. Their ambivalent nature, between distortions of perception and possible “contact” with other dimensions, continues to stimulate debates both in the field of neuropsychiatry and in that of philosophy and religion.
Professor Marina Weiler, coordinator of the study, invites mental health professionals to consider the obees with greater opening, seeing them not only as signs of suffering but also as possible adaptive responses of the brain to trauma and stress. Understanding this can improve the therapeutic approach and the relationship with patients reporting these experiences.
Future perspectives and current research
Studies on extracorporing experiences are still in the initial phase and require insights, above all to distinguish what aspects are associated with mental pathologies and which instead represent responses of psychological adaptation. The correlation with childhood trauma and positive perception by many subjects opens new perspectives on the functions that such experiences can perform in the human psyche.
In addition, the interest in obese offs have also extended to the field of neurosciences, with research that attempts to identify the brain areas involved in the perception of the body and self, such as the temporo-parietal cortex, crucial for the perception of the body position in space.
