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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
 Posted - 09/11/2003 : 16:23:31
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3098230.stm or http://snurl.com/2bhp
excerpts:
"Scientists have devised an experiment to test whether out-of-body experiences close to death are a real phenomenon or just a trick being played by the brain.
Many patients whose hearts have stopped beating claim to have hovered above their bodies and looked down on themselves as others worked to resuscitate them.
Mainstream scientists believe these visions are a fabrication of the mind.
Dr Peter Fenwick, from the Institute of Psychiatry in London, plans to test this view at 25 hospitals across the UK.
He wants to place suspended pictures from the ceilings of accident and emergency units that only someone high up in the room will be able to see.
Patients that survive cardiac arrest will be interviewed to see if they have had an out-of-body experience and whether they saw the pictures.
"We reckon a year will give us 100 people who leave their bodies," Dr Fenwick told the British Association's annual science festival, held this year at the University of Salford, Greater Manchester.
If none of the patients could recall the pictures, Dr Fenwick said, it would suggest the experiences were not real.
"It will show that there is some mechanism in the brain that is creating these scenarios.""
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It must be a slow news day -- leave it to the media to re-write an older story. I recall this very OBE experiment being reported on the 1995 TV program 'Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Universe'. In the segment, it was a U.S. surgeon setting up his hospital surgical rooms with unusual items on top of cabinets, ready for supposed OBE patients to 'float' around and witness. After a few dozens OBE's reported, mum's the word -- none of the objects were seen or reported on.
The segment ended with the current scientific explanation of what occurs during this mental anomaly. Dream on, OBE'ers.
Personally, my best out-of-body experiences come when I'm slogging through a huge stack of dirty dishes at the kitchen sink (I can then get a bit of vacuuming done at the same time).
Randy
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"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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