From: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu (Robert McGrath)
Subject: Re: OOBE or just vivid imagination
Reply-To: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept of Computer Science
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 20:20:57 GMT

In article <1992Nov5.052722.13683@gnosys.svle.ma.us>, gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us (Gary S. Trujillo) writes:
|> In <1992Nov4.184924.23982@m.cs.uiuc.edu> mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
|> 	(Robert McGrath) writes:
|> 
|> > In article <40491@sdcc12.ucsd.edu>, jhussain@cs.ucsd.edu
|> 	(Jabir Hussain) writes:
|> 
|> >> subject says it all.  how do you distinguish one from the other?
|> >> ...
|> 
|> > ...
|> > The evidence is that the reports from OBEs are a mixture of accurate,
|> > inaccurate, and totally fantastic elements.  This is consistent with
|> > the hypothesis that OBEs are mental events.
|> 
|> Perhaps we're asking the wrong questions, or creating false dichotomies.
|> There are certain assumptions made in drawing a implicit distinctions
|> between "mental events" and some alternative like "a literal leaving of
|> the body" (whatever such a thing might mean).
I prefer the question, "Does anything leave the body during an OBE?"

|> 
|> > No good evidence exists that people can perceive distant or unknown
|> > things during an OBE, or that anything leaves the body during an OBE.
|> > If this is true, then one may ask "why do OBEs SEEM so real?"
|> 
|> Well, just a moment ago, it was admitted that sometimes reports are
|> accurate.  
Yes, but I have dreams and can simply imagine things that are VERY
accurate.

|> I believe it was reported here or in something I was reading
|> on the subject in a book recently that Dr. Charles Tart's studies did
|> yield some good indications that an OBE subject *was* able to accurately
|> report five-digit numbers selected randomly placed on a shelf in the room
|> with the subject in a location where they would not be visible by anyone
|> standing or laying in the room - and the numbers were unknown at the time
|> to even the experimenters, to eliminate the possibility of telepathy
|> being involved.  (Tart, BTW, is professor of psychology at the University
|> of California at Davis, and wrote the preface to Robert Monroe's _Journeys
|> Out of the Body_.)

I am aware of this study.  This is frequently cited and is one of the
very, very few studies that offers potential evidence of actually
seeing during an OBE.  The facts of the case are that Miss Z. claimed
to be able to percieve things during an OBE and volunteered to try
in the lab.  She slept unobserved but with EEG electrodes attached
to her.  She failed to have an OBE or see anything the first 4 tries.
On the 5th try, she reported an OBE and hit the number exactly.  Then
she left the lab never to return.  The EEG for the time of the
successful trial showed anomalous readings that some interpret as
the trace of an EEG, and others interpret as indicating that she
stood up in bed to read the number (which would be easily visible
if she had done this.)  When viewed in this light, this episode
is not totally statisfactory evidence.

And, as I pointed out in my comments (that you omittted) there have
been hundreds or even thousands of such experiemnts, with no convincing
positive results and lots of definite cases where the person tried and
failed to read the number.  Thus, my summary was "no good evidence",
and I think that is a fair statement.

|> We have to quantify things a bit better, and to apply statistical judge-
|> ments in order to even attempt conclusions, I think.  Before claiming that
|> "no good evidence exists," we really need to do a thorough examination of
|> the available literature and to apply generally accepted criteria of cause
|> and effect in evaluating whatever useful reports there are.
I agree.  Read Susan Blackmore, "Beyond the Body" for a review of the
evidence up to about 1980.

|> My real point, however, is that I feel that the either/or of "mental events"
|> versus something else which is presumably more real or substantial is a red
|> herring when it comes to evaluating the phenomenon or phenomena under study
|> in these cases.  We can choose to define our terms in such a way that all
|> events are forced to be "mental," since nothing can be observed to be leaving
|> the body when an OBE takes place.  
Well, OBEs are CERTAINLY mental events.  That is, there is definitely
a subjective experience.  This is not really in dispute.  What is
open to investigation is:
  1.  What are the characteristics, causes, explanations, and so on for
  the mental events?
  2.  Does anything actually leave the body during an OBE?

This is NOT a dichotomy, as the mental events require understanding
whether or not anything leaves the body.  When I said,
   "This is consistent with the hypothesis that OBEs are mental events."
I really should have said "purely mental events", to indicate that
the accuraccy of OBEs is similar to dreams and mental imagery and
appears to not support any claim of ESP or actual travel beyond the
body.  Notice that I said "consitent with the hypothesis", which
is an accurate statement and does not imply that it "proves" something.

|> However, that lack of evidence is not the
|> same as evidence for impossibility for a separation of two or more parts of
|> the subject taking place.  
There are STRONG theoretical reasons for questioning the multiple body
hypothesis.  In the absence of either theoretical or empirical support,
we must say that there is good reason to question whether anything
leaves the body during an OBE.

|> I would like to suggest that we put aside or at
|> least defer the question of whether something "real" leaves the body and just
|> start by trying to validate the reality of the experience by some objective
|> means, such as the reporting of accurate information that could not be known
|> by any other means.

1.  The experience is REAL.  That doesn't need to be proved.
2.  The question of "reporting of accurate information that could not 
    be known by any other means" is the question of ESP during an OBE.
    Strictly speaking, ESP could occur without astral travel, but
    in practice a test of one hypothesis is a test of the other.
    Thus, the evidence for ESP during an OBE is just as weak as
    for astral travel.

|>  It doesn't seem to matter if there are lots of items of
|> information which are wrong or cannot be verified if there are any accurate
|> and detailed reports of events or situations which we can assure ourselves
|> cannot be known by the person reporting them in any normal way.

Agreed.  And the evidence from many studies is that no such case has 
been shown.

|> First, we
|> would need to distinguish the phenomenon from some other kind of event, such
|> as one that involves some other paranormal sense, like telepathy - or else,
|> we might discover that OBEs and telepathy are actually closely related, so
|> that and OBE might just be a special form of telepathy in which there is
|> more visual, auditory, or other kind of sensation involved in the exper-
|> ience.

Here we differ sharply.  OBEs are a well established psychological fact--
the experience happens spontaneously and deliberately.  Telepathy and
so on are NOT well established.

IMHO, it is a mistake to start speculating on the relation of OBEs to
hypothetical psi-phenomena.  This will serve to obscure the study of
OBEs in the smoke and confusion of ESP research.

|> The fact that the OBE subject reports the sensation of leaving the physical
|> body or of perceiving another "body" - and/or observing some connection
|> between the two bodies are elements of subjective experience, and are, IMHO,
|> not the best place to begin our analysis, since these things are so subjec-
|> tive and difficult to validate externally.  I think we just have to use logic
|> carefully - and to avoid saying that because we can't verify some element of
|> the experience reported by the subject that nothing interesting is occuring.
|> We might decide to disagree with the subject on the nature of the experience,
|> but that doesn't automatically make the experience uninteresting, I think.

Agreed.  But we can ask the question whether the subjective events reported
had any known external (i.e., outside the person's mind) existence.  The
OBE is REAL, but that doesn't mean that anything happened outside the
person's head.  

And who said subjective events aren't interesting?  Sleep and dreams are 
subjective events that people have studied for centuries.  OBEs are
"interesting" regardless of whether they involve astral travel or ESP
or not.

|> To say that OBE subjects sometimes report incorrect or inaccurate information
|> does not establish that there is not something out of the ordinary happening.
|> And saying something is "mental" as opposed to being of some other character
|> is not terribly useful, since the matter of what "mental" means is really not
|> well-defined, and doesn't necessarily exclude phenomena of the sort that we're
|> discussing.

Well, "mental" is pretty clearly defined in my book.  However, it is quite
true that the workings of the human mind are not well understood.  That
doesn't mean that nothing is gained by determining that a phenomenon is
"mental".  And like I said about, the OBE certainly has a "mental"
component, even if nothing other than that component can be established.

|> I hope we can make this discussion a bit more rigorous, while at the same time
|> encouraging the reporting of anecdotal evidence on all sides of the question.
|> 
|> (I personally hope that this experience is something that is available to some
|> who are interested in investigating the subject and reporting on it in a more
|> objective fashion.  Perhaps the actual having of the experience might suggest
|> some means of helping establish its nature in a way that others can understand
|> more easily.)

Fire away.  What do you want to mean by rigorous?  How would you like to
proceed?

By the way, none of this theoretical/philosophical rambling in any way
detracts from reports of OBEs.  Whatever hypotheses, theories, and
explanations one may propose, they must "cover" the data of experience.
Thus, the anecdotal reports contain data of relevance to all the
explanations offered.  Thus, regardless of how you view the question
of "rigorous" investigation, or what explanations you might favor,
your reports of your own experiences are a useful contribution
to all of us.

-- 
  Robert E. McGrath
  Urbana Illinois
  mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body