Mind, consciousness, and OBEs
http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2007/01/mind_consciousn.html

Mind, consciousness, and OBEs
Two different lines of discussion just came together for me in an
interesting, albeit entirely speculative, way.

First, I got an email from a reader whose screen name is Eteponge. He
discussed the fact that many out-of-body experiences and near-death
experiences contain a mixture of valid and invalid perceptions. He gave
the example of someone in an out-of-body experience who perceived a
barbecue set in the neighbor's yard, when in fact there was no such
barbecue, and the example of someone who hovered over his own body and
perceived himself wearing long johns, when in fact he was not wearing
them.
Second, I had a conversation with the medium Marcel Cairo, in which he
said that mediumship seems to involve the spirits searching the memory
banks of the medium and the sitter in order to find the nearest match
for a particular idea they wish to get across. He compared it to combing
through an index of images and words and experiences, in search of the
closest "fit" to what the communicating entities want to express.

Okay. Now let's see if we can put these two things together and come up
with some explanation for the strange mix of accurate and inaccurate
perceptions in out-of-body experiences and related phenomena.
We'll begin at the beginning â€" with the nature of reality. Let's
imagine that the reality we see around us is only a construction put
together out of the raw materials of a deeper reality, much in the way
that a hologram is constructed out of the information encoded in the
wave-interference patterns preserved on a holographic plate. This is
physicist David Bohm's theory, which he developed at length. Like any
analogy it is imperfect, but it does have its interesting features.

A hologram is created when a focused beam of light passes through (or
reflects off) the holographic plate. In Bohm's theory, consciousness
plays the role analogous to the light beam. Consciousness decodes the
encoded data and constructs a multidimensional space-time reality out of
it.
One interesting thing about holographic plates is that a very large
number of wave-interference patterns can be superposed on the same
plate. Which pattern is decoded depends on the angle of the light beam.
A shift in the light beam can construct a new image. (This theory and
its implications for psi phenomena are discussed at length in Michael
Talbot's The Holographic Universe.)
Now let's say that the amount of information that our consciousness
decodes is normally limited by the built-in restrictions of the central
nervous system. Since the central nervous system has limited capacity,
and the information must be "piped through" it in order to allow us to
function in the physical world, there is a sharp limit to how much we
can perceive of the world around us.

But in an out-of-body experience, consciousness is set free of the body
and is no longer restricted by the constraints of the nervous system.
Thus, vastly more information can be decoded and passed along to the
mind. (For our purposes, consciousness is what perceives, while the mind
is what labels and conceptualizes.)
Not only does extracerebral perception entail much more information than
consciousness normally processes, but it is possible that consciousness,
liberated from the body, may roam more freely "across the dial," so to
speak. Varying our analogy for a moment, body-restricted consciousness
is locked in, for the most part, to a particular channel on the radio
spectrum, while bodiless consciousness can pick up other frequencies.

These other frequencies correspond to the superposed wave inference
patterns in the holographic plate. That is, consciousness ordinarily is
directed at a specific angle that constructs a certain specific
hologram. But out-of-body consciousness is free to explore other angles
of view and to construct other holograms that are normally outside our
range of perception.
Now, if this is anything like the true situation, then we would expect
to encounter some problems in out-of-body experiences and related
phenomena. During these experiences, consciousness will be decoding
enormously more data than usual - data gathered not only from its
regular plane of perception, but from adjacent planes, as well. Many of
these new data will be unfamiliar, difficult to label and categorize.
This will inevitably lead to errors as the mind struggles to integrate
unfamiliar data/impressions into the overall picture.

Thus, consciousness may pick up something of a particular shape which
the mind cannot identify. The mind finds the nearest match or fit for
this impression, and the nearest match is a barbecue. The mind then
chooses to identify the perception as a barbecue in the neighbor's yard,
and to really "see it" that way, even though there is no barbecue.
Or for instance, consciousness may detect an aura around the body, but
the mind, unaccustomed to seeing auras, chooses to see it as long johns
covering the body.
Where consciousness detects what is familiar and expected, there is no
error. Where it detects something unfamiliar and difficult to integrate,
it seeks a match. This match may be wrong.

In near-death experiences people may see Jesus or Hindu deities;
conceivably a dying child could see Santa Claus; in his book The Golden
Ass, the Roman writer Apuleius relates the story of his entranced vision
of the goddess Isis. We need not believe that consciousness is literally
perceiving these things â€" that Santa or Isis is actually real.
Consciousness is perceiving something unfamiliar, and the mind matches
it to the nearest item in the mental catalog. Different people have
different catalogs, different image sets to choose from. It's almost
like doing a Google image search under different search parameters. The
parameters you set will determine the matches you get.

For this reason, Buddhists warn us that what is perceived -- whether in
ordinary life, in trance, in out-of-body experiences, in near-death
experiences, or in death -- is to some extent a product of our own
preconceptions. The mind matches unfamiliar data to their nearest
familiar analogs from the mental memory banks.
We do this even in regular life when we encounter something
"unprocessable." Someone seeing a UFO in the Middle Ages might have seen
it as a floating castle or a flying dragon. Today we would probably see
it as a spaceship. Something is being perceived, but if it is outside
normal categories of thought and perception, we reduce it to a familiar,
easily labeled idea/image. And we really do "see it" that way. We can
even photograph what we see. The photograph itself is just another thing
that we see and is processed by the mind in precisely the same way.

With vastly more information to process in extracerebral perception, and
with access to entirely unfamiliar realms, the chance of making errors
of this type is greatly increased. Note, too, that perception includes
all modalities, not just sight. Our entire experience is a stream of
perceptions mediated by familiar categories of thought. When bafflingly
unfamiliar elements intrude into the experience, we have a tendency to
reduce them to the familiar. In short, our mind makes errors because it
is unable to properly integrate the new perceptions. The experiences are
real, but they vary according to the interpretation of the individual
mind.
Or maybe not. It's just an idea ...

January 23, 2007 in Paranormal | Permalink

COMMENTS
"At its deeper level reality is a sort of superhologram in which the
past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. - excerpt from
online essay about the holographic universe,
http://www.earthportals.com/hologram.html#zine
If you write about or mention the holographic universe you might expect
that I'll make a comment. In Susan Blackmore's drug induced mystical
experience the roof's of the houses she percieved where different colors
from the roof's of the houses she though she saw, so she wrote the whole
thing off as a hallucination. In Michael Talbot's book The Holographic
Universe he tells the story of two women who, while overlooking a park
(I think in Paris), saw the park as it appeared 150 years ago. I have
read several mystical experiences where people percieved or viewed past
events. One in particular I remember was a man who walked out of his
house and while staring out the front of his house viewed the scene as
it was a couple of hundred years ago. Some ghosts appear to be
holographic images from the past, being replayed over and over again. I
think what happened to Susan Blackmore was that she either viewed the
color of the roofs of the houses as the might once might have been in
the past, or they might one day appear in the future. And in Etponge's
story about the house with the barbecue grill, that house may have once
had a barbecue grill, or it may have one it's future. Every once in a
while the true nature of reality slips through and we view the Universe
as it really is. Past, present, and future all existing simultaneously.
The truth is that the Universe is more weird and bizarre than we could
even begin to imagine. That's enough for now. I'm sure that I'll have
addtional comments later.

Posted by: Art | January 23, 2007 at 11:00 PM
Here is a link to an online article about EVP being holographic
imprints. Good stuff!
Here's a little taste of the article:
EVP: Holographic Imprints
From Stephen Wagner,

"What if EVP are just multidimensional recordings?
SOMETHING HAS always bothered me about electronic voice phenomena (EVP).
If these are the voices of the dead, then the fate of these people is a
highly disturbing one. They are still loitering about the Earth, lost.
And if this sad fate is possible for those people, it�s possible
for you and me as well. Personally, I don�t relish the thought
of wandering around eternity, answering trite questions from legions of
ghost hunters."

http://paranormal.about.com/od/ghostaudiovideo/a/aa111306.htm?nl=1

Posted by: Art | January 23, 2007 at 11:05 PM
Recently I was reading a book about an English pilot who was flying a
plane in the late 1930s and flew over what he knew was an abandon
airfield and noticed it had strange colored planes and even mechanics
working on them. The mechanics even looked up and stared at him. He was
flying low due to weather conditions. He thought this strange and when
he told other pilots about this experience of course they thought he was
under the influence or having hallucinations so he quickly said no more.
Several years later during World War II he flew over this same airfield
and it looked exactly like what he had seen years before even the planes
were the same strange color as he had seen several years before. This
was a very creditable pilot/person as he was head of the English air
force during World War II. A student looking out the window in a
classroom at the university of Nebraska looked into the past and saw
what Lincoln, Nebraska looked like about 150 years ago: horse and buggy,
etc. the pilot saw the future and this student saw the past. Past and
future may not be as set in concrete as it appears to be.

Posted by: william | January 24, 2007 at 12:02 AM
On another note I attended a near death seminar several years ago and
one lady who presented her NDE stated in her presentation that she had
seen Jesus during her NDE. After her presentation I started a
conversation with her and asked her what Jesus looked like. She stated
that she really did not see his face but a figure with a bright light
around it so she knew it was Jesus. This goes along with the idea of a
memory bank filling in the unknown for us. The one thing I remember so
well about her was the peace she radiated. I could see it in her eyes
and somehow feel it. Cannot explain it only know what I felt. Before
anyone jumps to conclusions about my projecting my beliefs on to her
because she was a presenter I saw this woman before the seminar in the
parking garage and had no idea she was even attending this seminar and
she had such serenity on her face and when see saw me and my friend she
had a smile that radiated such love and peace. With all of the research
I have done on near death experiences many of these people if not most
lose their fear of death and come back more loving and compassionate
than before their NDE. Their NDE has a profound impact on their view of
life after death. This is why I doubt that Susan Blackmore had a NDE but
maybe some type of hallucination.

Posted by: william | January 24, 2007 at 12:45 AM
Hi Michael and others,
Perhaps some of you may be interested to learn that Stephen Braude is
highly critical of these holographic theories/speculations:
http://userpages.umbc.edu/~braude/pdfs_pubd/braude--Holographic%20Analysis.pdf
He criticizes other theories such as Rupert Sheldrake's, along similar
lines.
http://userpages.umbc.edu/~braude/pdfs_pubd/braude--Radical%20Provincialism.pdf
He seems to believe that such views are conceptually/philosophically
naïve. In my view anything written by Braude is worthy of
attention. Of course, his views can be controversial.
Posted by: Ryan | January 24, 2007 at 01:18 AM

I love Michael Talbot but to really understand his work you need to read
his Vampire "historical" fiction -- "The Delicate Dependency" and "The
Bog" and "Night Things" are his 3 amazing fiction books. His fiction is
really about the occult forces behind science -- and that's really the
deeper secret of the holographic paradigm.
Magic is based on right-brain asymmetrical sine-wave resonance (the Tai
Chi symbol) driven by certain body postures (the full-lotus) using
harmonic oscillator resonance.
Posted by: drew hempel | January 24, 2007 at 11:10 AM

I checked out Braude's analysis of Sheldrake, since I am very partial to
Sheldrake's descriptions of holism via morphic field theory.
Braude has some great points. I do not think that morphic resonance is
the be-all and end-all of understanding holons. However it is a great
stepping-stone for die-hard materialists to begin to see a different
possibility than their reductionist doctrines.
Posted by: Matthew | January 24, 2007 at 11:47 AM

This is why I doubt that Susan Blackmore had a NDE but maybe some type
of hallucination." - william
Susan Blackmore was on drugs. She did not have a NDE. She had a drug
induced hallucination. Even so, what she saw may have been "real", only
not the reality we normally experience. If past, present, and future all
exist simultaneously, when one's brain is freed normal time we may
experience reality as it really exists, a holographic projection from
someone else.
Posted by: Art | January 24, 2007 at 11:58 AM

Hi Michael,
what do you think about the possibility to induce OBE in the lab in
healthy person like Olaf Blanke et al. did. Do think its alls natural
and just a illusion.

Posted by: | January 24, 2007 at 01:59 PM.___