Key Takeaways
- An out-of-body experience can feel like you’re watching yourself from outside your body.
- Out-of-body experiences can happen during near-death experiences, sleep, or due to certain health conditions.
- Around 5% of people will have at least one out-of-body experience in their lifetime.
Have you ever experienced a moment when it seemed like you were watching yourself from a distance, almost like you were watching what was happening to you from an outside perspective? This can be an eery, unnerving sensation known as an out-of-body experience. These experiences can be triggered by a range of factors, including trauma, meditation, stress, sleep, and certain psychological and medical conditions.
Normally, we experience our conscious selves as located within our bodies. When you have an out-of-body experience, it feels like your conscious self is separate and outside of your physical body.
While not a formal diagnostic term, an “out of body experience” may be an extreme form of depersonalization. This can be one of the symptoms of the dissociative disorder known as depersonalization/derealization disorder.
Out-of-body experiences are associated with a number of factors, including near-death experiences, sleep, and medical conditions like migraines and epilepsy. Despite a growing body of research on the topic, neuroscientists, cognitive researchers, and psychologists don’t have one single answer to the question of what causes out-of-body experiences.
Keep reading to learn more about the typical features of out-of-body experiences, including what it feels like to have one. We’ll also touch on why they might happen and what research has uncovered about the physical systems that play a role in out-of-body experiences.
What Happens During an Out-Of-Body Experience?
Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) have been described in a variety of different ways. However, scholars generally agree that during an OBE, an individual feels their consciousness is located outside their physical body or experience a “split-self,” with one part observing and one participating.
OBEs usually include additional common features, such as:
- The perception of floating in an elevated position that’s spatially distant from the body
- The feeling of seeing the world from that elevated perspective
- The feeling of seeing the self from an elevated perspective
- A break in the unity of the body and the self
- A sense that the experience is very real
There isn’t much data available about out-of-body experiences, but some estimates suggest that around 5% of the population will have at least one OBE during their lifetime.
History of Out-Of-Body Experiences
People have known and been fascinated with OBEs for a long time, with documentation on the phenomenon going back to at least the late 1800s. Evidence also suggests that this is a universal phenomenon; people in almost every culture around the world experience OBEs.
While accounts of out-of-body experience are widely reported, the phenomenon is often linked to psychiatric disorders. However, within the last few years, research evidence has increasingly pointed to OBEs being the result of problems with processing in the body’s sensory systems.
What Causes Out-Of-Body Experiences?
Researchers don’t fully understand what causes out-of-body experiences, but research has pointed to a few potential causes. There are a number of circumstances and conditions that seem to make it more likely that people will have an OBE. These can cause one of two kinds of OBEs: spontaneous OBEs or induced OBEs.
Spontaneous Out-Of-Body Experiences
Some research has shown that people who experience induced as opposed to spontaneous OBEs are more likely to report feeling the sensation of leaving their physical body prior to the OBE. Causes of spontaneous OBEs include:
Near-Death Experiences: OBEs often accompany near-death experiences and appear to be the product of disruptions in the brain during life-threatening situations. Studies have found that survivors of cardiac arrest have frequently reported OBEs during CPR in which visual and auditory perception is experienced as separate from the body.
Sleep: The relationship between OBEs and sleep has been investigated by a number of scholars, who’ve found that OBEs are most often reported just before falling asleep, resting, dozing, and just before waking up. It has also been associated with conditions such as sleep paralysis.
Medical and Mental Health Conditions: There are a number of neurological and mental health conditions that have been associated with an increased likelihood of OBEs, such as:
Induced Out-Of-Body Experiences
Some research suggests that people who experience induced OBEs are more likely to have the sensation of floating away from their body before the OBE. Causes of induced OBEs include:
- Chemicals: A number of drugs with hallucinogenic and dissociative properties, including ketamine, marijuana, heroin, mescaline, and LSD have been linked to a higher prevalence of OBEs. OBEs have also been reported by people undergoing anesthesia.
- Body Position: Body position appears to play a role in OBEs, with most research suggesting that OBEs are most likely to happen, whether spontaneous or induced, in a supine, relaxed position. Rapid body position changes, such as quick acceleration or deceleration, also seem to be more likely to induce OBEs.
- Strong G-Forces: Pilots and astronauts can experience OBEs when they encounter strong gravitational forces. This appears to the result of blood partially draining from the brain and pooling in the lower body, which may lead to a loss of consciousness and possible OBEs. These forces can also lead to disorientation which may be a factor.
OBEs can also be induced, intentionally or unintentionally, through:
What Happens Physically When You Have an Out-of-Body Experience?
OBEs are very difficult to study because they’re usually spontaneous, only last a short time, and happen just once or twice in a lifetime, if they happen at all. However, several studies have explored the systems in the brain and body that play a role in OBEs.
Role of the Vestibular System
One recent study traced OBEs to problems with the vestibular system, which consists of several parts of the inner ear. Problems with the vestibular system can cause dizziness. In the study, OBEs occurred in 14% of participants with dizziness from vestibular system disorders, while OBEs only occurred in 5% of participants without vestibular disorders.
The researchers concluded that dizziness caused by problems with the vestibular system may lead to perceptual incoherence that can result in OBEs. In other words, disorders may cause the vestibular system to send confusing signals to the brain, and the brain’s attempt to make sense of these signals distorts people’s sense of their bodies and environment.
Role of the Temporoparietal Junction
In addition, there is also research indicating that OBEs stem from disturbances in the integration of multisensory information in the temporoparietal region of the brain, including the temporoparietal junction (TPJ).
The TPJ plays a key role in self-perception and integrates information from the external environment and within the body, including information from the visual, auditory, and other bodily sensations.
When multisensory information disintegrates at this region of the cerebral cortex, it can lead to the bodily illusions that are tied to OBEs, including a sense of body reduplication, a difference in location between the body and the self, and a change in perspective to outside the body.
Although these explanations for OBEs are unlikely to be the only reasons people experience this phenomenon, they indicate that malfunctions in the body’s sensory systems are often the cause of OBEs.
If you have experienced an OBE you probably don’t have to be concerned, however if they occur frequently you may want to talk to your doctor or a mental health professional.
