Sometimes an out-of-body experience (OOBE) accompanies a near-death experience (NDE); OOBEs also happen sometimes during the transition between sleeping and wakefulness. This press release describes a recent study that shows that the two types of OOBEs—those associated with the sleep transition and those associated with an NDE—are similar.
The study, which looked at the experiences of 55 people who had had NDEs, also found that the ones who had an OOBE during the NDE were more likely to have had times when elements of the sleeping state intruded upon their waking mind—or maybe it’s the other way around; in any event, there’s a mingling of the features of the two types of mental state, or what’s called REM intrusion. The arousal mechanism in the brain, which manages the shift from one level of consciousness to another, appears to be involved in both OOBEs and in REM intrusion, so maybe there’s something unusual about the arousal system in the brains of those who experience these phenomena.
This press release caught my eye because one form of REM intrusion is sleep paralysis, with which I’ve had numerous unpleasant experiences. Typically sleep paralysis happens when you shift either into or out of sleep; as I understand it, you’re asleep enough that your muscles are still paralyzed (as they are during REM sleep) but your brain is awake enough that whatever you’re seeing in your dreams is very vivid, more like a hallucination than a dream. It’s sort of a waking dream, or a waking nightmare. I’ve never had an OOBE though, which is probably just as well. I have to admit, though, that while I have no wish to go anywhere near death, I am curious about what an NDE feels like. If they ever figure out a way to induce the experience without any physical danger, I think it would be cool to see what it’s like. But maybe that’s just morbid.
