A new virtual reality technique substitutes a person's real body for a virtual body where someone can potentially have an out of body experience (OBE). The technique is similar to the rubber hand illusion where people can "feel" that some other hand, or a fake hand, is their own, through clever sensory manipulation.
32 female participants were divided into two groups to test how the fear of death (FOD) can be influenced by experiencing an OBE. They each wore a black suit with oculus HMD.
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The virtual body can be programmed to move synchronously with the real body using real-time motion capture technology. This is called visuomotor synchrony.
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Virtual objects are used to touch the virtual body that sends vibrotactile stimulation (vibrations) to the real body through sensors attached to the wrist and ankles. This is referred to as visuotactile synchrony.
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Both groups had the same initial visuomotor synchrony where they had strong feeling of ownership of the virtual body. After that familiarity with the virtual body takes place, the virtual viewpoint is lifted up behind their virtual body.
One group with half of participants could still move their virtual body below while it was continuously struck by the virtual balls.
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The other group loses control of the virtual body, while the virtual balls follow their floating body. They no longer sense the virtual balls through the stimulation of vibrations on the real body and report feeling disconnect from their actual body.
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After a few minutes, the participants removed their headset, and filled out a questionnaire that had a question about fear of death.
Volunteers who experienced this illusion of disconnection and detachment reported a lower fear of death afterwards.
The researchers also categorized the fear of death score through a condition of being an atheist or not. The lowest anyone can score was seven, and the highest they could score was a 35. As you can see from the chart below, it didn't matter what someone accepted as a belief. The experience itself was what determined a reduction in the fear of death.
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Here is a video with the explanation as well:
Personally, I have played a game where I fell from a great height, which produced a feeling of "free-fall" within me, in my stomach, even though I wasn't in reality going through that experience. I have posted about the power of consciousness before, both from others to manipulate us, and for us to fool ourselves all on our own.
The VR OBE study is a great experiment to demonstrate how the senses and perception can be tricked into a false experience of reality. Those who induce inner-experiences and altered states of consciousness by altering their internal perception, intent and affect their neuro-electro-chemical processing can learn from this, whether it's meditation or psychedelics use.
I have not written about this yet, but the point is about how inner-existence and subjective experience can be induced by our consciousness, and doesn't reflect an actual reality anywhere outside of the phantasmal imagination factory we have.
This, and other things like the placebo effect, demonstrate the power of consciousness to affect our psychical bodies, where we can induce emotional and physiological states through th electro-chemical changes that our consciousness can cause our brain to produce. Consciousness is an emergent property dependent on a neuronal communication, but this emergent phenomenon of consciousness has executive power to induce electro-chemical changes.
Whether someone takes substances or does intentional internal manipulations that alter the normalized functionality and ability to experience reality as it is towards an altered false reality of their own internal making, the result is of creating an alternate subjective reality that misrepresents objective reality.
Experience does not determine what is in objective reality. Consciousness can be induced with imagery, emotions, altered states of consciousness and experiences.
As I have previously explained in The Power of Consciousness - Magic, Abracadabra and the Word (Pt.2):
Experience is not de facto existence/reality. Experiences rise and fall without any substantial changes in reality itself, without any existing real being coming into existence/reality or going out of existence/reality. It's all internally subjective, induced by internal consciousness emotional states and bio-electro-chemical states. The inner "world" and "multiverse" "reality" of subjective experience does not determine what does exist or does not exist in the objective world, universe and reality. The internal "existence" of experience is not the same, nor more real, than external reality/existence.
References:
- Virtual out-of-body experience reduces your fear of death
- Virtual reality 'out-of-body experience' reduces fear of death in volunteers
- A Virtual Out-of-Body Experience Reduces Fear of Death
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2017-01-27, 5:10pm