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.
A life-review experience (LRE) involves vividly seeing a succession of one's own life events. Although common in near-death experiences, its occurrence in the general population is not well understood. In-depth qualitative interviews with 7 people who had a full LRE identified several subtypes of characteristics, including order, continuity, covered period, extension to the future, valence, emotions, and perspective taking. A questionnaire developed from these features was administered to 264 participants of diverse ages and backgrounds, and the resulting LRE-score showed a normal distribution. The findings indicate that LRE has well-defined characteristics and that its subcomponents may also appear in healthy people, suggesting a cognitive continuum of life-event representation that may become more pronounced under extreme stress.
Revelation experiences foundational to the three monotheistic religions share phenomenological features with experiences reported by contemporary non-mystic mountaineers at altitude, including feeling and hearing a presence, seeing a figure or lights, and fear. The authors suggest that exposure to altitude may alter functional and neural mechanisms—particularly in the temporo-parietal junction and prefrontal cortex—that facilitate such experiences. Acute and chronic hypoxia affect these brain areas, which are also linked to altered body perceptions and mystical experiences. Prolonged high-altitude stays, especially with social deprivation, may cause prefrontal lobe dysfunctions like reduced stress resistance and loss of inhibition. These parallels indicate altitude exposure might contribute to inducing revelation experiences and help explain the mountain metaphor in religion.