The Out-of-Body Experience: Disturbed Self-Processing at the Temporo-Parietal Junction
The Neuroscientist January 4, 2005 Olaf Blanke, Shahar Arzy 468 citations
Out-of-body experiences (OBEs), where one's perspective and sense of self seem to leave the body, challenge the everyday assumption that the self resides inside the body. Evidence from neurology, cognitive neuroscience, and neuroimaging indicates that OBEs arise from a failure to integrate multisensory information about one's own body at the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ). This multisensory disintegration disrupts self-processing, producing illusory reduplication, self-location, perspective, and agency that together constitute the OBE.