Out of the Body Experiences and Nonduality: Susan Blackmore

In this fascinating talk from SAND Italy 2016 psychologist Susan Blackmore describes some recent experiments, which seem to mimic and point to the location in the brain of out of the body experiences. As she says, it is hard to have experienced an OBE and not be a dualist - there is my body and here I am looking at it - but exploring the place in the brain where the sense of self is constructed can take us effortlessly to a nondual understanding of these phenomena.

[violapowell]

During my frequent night-time OOBEs at the age of about 14, in which I drifted peacefully around my bedroom and out to the landing, where I enjoyed hovering high up above the stairwell, I would repeatedly try to switch my bedroom light on, only to experience my finger going straight through the switch. This happened consistently in each OOBE. Once, I glanced in the long mirror adjacent to my bedroom door, and saw no reflection. I would like to see her explain these experiences away.

[sngscratcher]

We will never be able to find consciousness because the consciousness that is looking for it IS it.

[noelblackwell]

I’ve experienced the other side in many many ways. Some enjoyable some so scary I couldn’t sleep for days. Just because it hasn’t been in your experience doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

[marionow]

I hardly ever see my body during an OBE, but I definitely have the feeling of floating out of my body. Does that count as an OBE?

[nadrndanitravojed]

I'm sorry, I'm obviously not following properly - how does everything that was mentioned relate to OBE experience? In each of these experiments, there was a corresponding equipment that would allow us to achieve the impression similar to that of OBE. Ok, I get that part.
But what happens when we have real life OBE? We don't have any instruments attached, so what is the thing that allows us to watch ourselves from an out of the body perspective? Am I the only one who doesn't quite get the correlation?

[CathyS_Bx]

I've been listening to her online all day. What about art? Michelangelo's David? Beethoven's Ninth? Poetry? What about her own
obvious ambitions and vivacity? How do such things fit into her philosophy, if it is a philosophy? And what would she say about the experience of animals? They have no such convoluted thoughts about their minds and bodies. They are wholly here, wholly alive, wholly alert, with no illusions whatsoever. I grant them agency and maybe even souls. And if I grant those things to my cat, I certainly grant them to myself.

[dblair]

My two young teenage experiences were quite brief and short range. No more than 100 meters away from my sleeping bodily location. Was never was able to replicate these by dream-controlled conscious effort when I was older. Very enjoyable talk! Grazie. :)

[geffreybolster]

I am but a dream within a dream. Awakening to asleep within a dream. Reality is dream, dream is reality. Seeking reality is a dream never to be.

[aracknidd]

So is she saying 38:45 we have a fake sense of self and body is made by the brain machine that creates another fake body as part of the same process? If this is the case should we trust that we are a machine?

Susan seems to be a materialist/neuroscientist that thinks a machine can be the source of consciousness. I would say that a mobile phone is like the brain insofar when prodded on the circuit board auditory info we would hear from the speaker can get distorted, it is true the phone is a messenger of a sound from a true source which is in this case the person speaking. Therefore the human brain is a machine that makes signals so that we can appreciate information but is not necessarily the source of the information. It seems to me that to make consciousness with a machine is logically impossible.

[Dion_Mustard]

I have had two OBEs and various lucid dream states which were 1000 times more real than my current waking "reality", and I've even met deceased uncles during these experiences. I know they were real and definitely not illusions.

[tbuyus]

I still can't decide whether; to think I do exist, or think I don't exist is the sane option.

[stefanprols]

I think it's all part of her journey. She used to be open minded up to the point that she believed in everything. So she had to become critical and a profound experience which initiated the thrill and striving to scientifically prove it was a very effective way to make her become critical and question what she believed to be true. Up to the point that she became so frustrated that she abandoned everything and now is even wearing blinkers so she doesn't have to expose herself to facts scientifically proven to exist (though not necessarily understood) anymore. I wish for her that someday something profound enough will happen in her life again to make her take off the blinkers again and see again, that there is more to the spiritual world than neuro-science can explain, even if she may not be able to scientifically explain it at all at this time.

[frenchtoast]

This was a very interesting talk. It was also one of the most depressing talks I have ever listened to in my lifetime. Perhaps "it isn't and it won't, " but that does not mean the knowledge of such a fact helps us to better live our lives and faces our deaths.

[Dorykeepswimming]

Interesting talk! And what an opening!
'I just asked how many of you had an out of body experience and it seems like 13 and a half.'
I guess the 'half' is having his experience ongoing while his body is enjoying Susan's talk.
Surprisingly she is totally okay with it as she continue like this - '... and that's about what we would expect.'
Brilliant! 😄

[owl]

what she is refering to as the 'self' is what the non-dualists call 'the mind', consisting of feeling, perception and thought.

[einblicke-ins-jenseits]

For people with a real NDE it does not just >seem<, it IS. Only for people in experiences it SEEMS.

[Machielovic]

Nicely chaotic interesting talk, I am always curious in these kids of stories and wonder "so who are you that sees your body over there?

[kalokization]

This is the first time I hear of such an explanation of synchronicity: mistaken as something more than natural probability because most people are not very good at maths.

[aphysique]

Tom Campbell & Dean Radin explain thing's of such matter, & prove Non locality of Consciousness is very real & have done experimental project's along these line's to prove LCS! LARGEST Consciousness SYSTEM!

[marionow]

Wonder what she thinks of Nanci Trivellato...