Developing a dissociational account of the out-of-body experiences

Murray, Craig (2010) Developing a dissociational account of the out-of-body experiences. In: Anomalous experiences : essays from parapsychological and psychological perspectives. McFarland & Co Inc, Jefferson, N.C.. ISBN 9780786443987

Abstract

A key topic in the parapsychological literature has been the phenomenon of the Out-of-Body Experience (OBE), in which the person who has an OBE has an experience in which their self or consciousness and their body are spatially separated. Alvarado (1992) notes that the key features of an OBE often include a sensation of floating, seeing one’s own physical body from outside, and an experience of travel to a place remote from one’s actual physical-body location. Despite the OBE being reported by a large proportion of the population (12% in a random British sample studied by Blackmore, 1984a), mainstream psychology has largely overlooked OBEs. Nevertheless, parapsychologists have developed psychological explanations of the OBE, and at present there are three main psychological theories of OBEs which emerge from this work. In the remainder of this chapter I will begin by briefly over viewing these psychological theories of the OBE before presenting my own recent work in which a dissociational account of the OBE has been elaborated.