A study investigating whether people who report out-of-body experiences can obtain information from another room has produced an unexpected result. They were asked to identify a random object displayed on a laptop screen in another room. Researchers from the University of Virginia School of Medicine carried out a trial in Brazil involving 21 participants.
A University of Virginia study testing whether people with reported out-of-body experiences could identify objects in another room found no results better than chance.
The researchers then noticed something unusual during interviews after the experiment. The unexpected observations were not part of the study’s planned outcome measures. Instead, the findings could help researchers develop new ways of studying the phenomenon. The researchers suggest that the type of target used in an experiment may affect the results. Distinctive, memorable or emotionally engaging objects or details could potentially be easier for participants to visualise than ordinary targets. The researchers have published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Explore. The research team included Weiler, Damon Abraham, David J P Acunzo and Niffe Hermansson.
Researchers therefore say they cannot be treated as evidence that out-of-body experiences allow people to perceive distant locations.
Marina Weiler, a researcher at the University of Virginia School of Medicine’s Division of Perceptual Studies, said the results could give researchers a specific idea to test in future experiments.
