Autoscopy

Autoscopy is a term used for a sensation where a person perceives the environment from a different perspective, from a position "outside" of their own body. The term is derived from Ancient Greek:   (, "self") and  (, "watcher").

Autoscopy has interested people for almost as long as there are records: There are many stories in folklore and which involve autoscopy. This applies both to  ancient and modern societies.  Psychiatrists commonly come in contact with cases of autoscopy. According to neurological research, autoscopic experiences .

Factors 
Usually, the following is true:

 disembodiment: The person feels that their location is "outside the body"
 People see the world from a distanced perspective, from "above". Nevertheless, the focus is still on the person. 
 People also see their body from that perspective (which is called "autoscopy")

Theis made of  the Greek words  ("self") and  ("looking at"). The autoscopic phenomenon is classified in the following six typologies: autoscopic hallucination, he-autoscopy or heautoscopic proper, feeling of a presence, out of body experience, negative and inner forms of autoscopy.

The Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, and the Department of Neurology, University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland, have reviewed some of the classical factors of autoscopy. These are sleep, drug abuse, and general anesthesia as well as neurobiology. They have compared them with recent findings on neurological and neurocognitive mechanisms of autoscopy; the reviewed data suggest that autoscopic experiences are due problems with processing information at the temporoparietal junction.

Related disorders 
Heautoscopy is a term used in psychiatry and neurology for the hallucination of "seeing one's own body at a distance". It can occur as a symptom in schizophrenia and epilepsy. Heautoscopy is considered a possible explanation for doppelgänger phenomena.

The term polyopic heautoscopy refers to cases where more than one double is perceived. In 2006, Peter Brugger and his colleagues described the case of a man who experienced five doubles resulting from a tumor in his left temporal lobe.

Another related autoscopy disorder is known as negative autoscopy (or negative heautoscopy). This is a  psychological phenomenonwere  the sufferer does not see their reflection when looking in a mirror. Although the sufferer's image may be seen by others, they claim not to see it.

References

Further reading 

 Bhaskaran, R; Kumar, A; Nayar, K. K. (1990). Autoscopy in hemianopic field. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry: 53 1016–1017.
 Blanke, O; Landis, T; Seeck, M. (2004). Out-of-body experience and autoscopy of neurological origin. Brain 127: 243–258.
 Brugger, P. (2002). Reflective mirrors: Perspective-taking in autoscopic phenomena. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 7: 179–194.
 Brugger, P; Regard, M; Landis, T. (1996). Unilaterally felt "presences": the neuropsychiatry of one's invisible doppelgänger. Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology, and Behavioral Neurology 9: 114–122.
 Devinsky, O., Feldmann, E., Burrowes, K; Bromfield, E. (1989). Autoscopic phenomena with seizures. Archives of Neurology 46: 1080–1088.
 Lukianowicz, N. (1958). Autoscopic phenomena. Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry 80: 199–220.

Other websites 
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