Out-of-body or all in the mind?

Last Modified: 23 Aug 2007
By: Julian Rush

How researchers managed to trick people into believing they'd had an out-of-body experience.

For some, they're the stuff of the paranormal or hallucinogenic drugs.

One in 10 people claim they have been through an out-of-body experience.

Brain scientists, though, say there's a rational explanation and it's all to do with the way we process signals from our senses.

Now scientists in London have recreated the effect in the lab for the first time.

Using virtual reality, as they report in the journal 'Science', they tricked volunteers into feeling they had left their bodies - our correspondent included.

Out-of-body experiences raise fundamental questions about consciousness and identity.

And while these experiments fall short of re-creating the full-blown experience that can seem so very real, they do challenge some of the cherished beliefs of advocates of the paranormal and spritualists.

Vulcan XH558 restoration footage supplied by Primetime Video