OBE accompanies near-death experience 76 percent of the time.12 Do OBE experiences always embody the qualities of spiritual experience? No! I have many subjects who regard their out-of-body experiences as a curiosity. One night drifting off to sleep, my psychiatric colleague floated a few feet above her bed and turned to see herself and husband beneath the quilt she crafted as a newlywed. She considered the intoxicating illusion “odd” but not profound. Many who have experienced OBE agree with the philosopher Descartes, not in his division of mind and brain, but when he said: “Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.”13 The OBE illusion is one of these sensory deceptions, and arises in the brain’s temporoparietal region. Directly stimulating the temporoparietal cortex with a small electrical current evokes OBE,14, 15 arguably by disturbing the integration of visual, proprioceptive and motion senses into the coherent self. In the laboratory or operating room, the neurophysiologist can bring a patient in and out-of-body, back and forth with the flip of a switch.
Near-Death Experiences: Neuroscience Perspectives on Near-Death Experiences
So if you really want to experience an OBE for yourself, hookup with your nearest Neurophysiologist.
Mystical feelings of Oneness are expressed through a special quality of serotonin neurochemistry, specifically the serotonin-2a receptors. Much like a molecular scalpel, if serotonin-2a is pharmacologically blocked or parts of the limbic system containing serotonin-2a surgically removed, then the mystical expression is blocked too.
