Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) involve feeling located outside one's own body, often looking down from above. These experiences have been linked to disrupted integration of bodily signals, particularly visual and vestibular information. In two experiments using mixed reality and a motion platform, congruent visual-vestibular stimulation in a self-centered reference frame induced an OBE-like illusion in healthy participants, characterized by elevated self-location and feelings of disembodiment and lightness. The strength of this illusion varied with individuals' visual field dependency, measured by the Rod and Frame Test. The findings suggest that OBEs arise from a mismatch between visual and vestibular cues related to gravity and self-motion.
Vestibular disorders are linked to distortions in own-body representations beyond known deficits in balance and spatial cognition. A study of 60 patients with dizziness found that 12% experienced distorted body size perceptions (hands or feet feeling larger or smaller), 37% reported abnormal sense of agency, 35% reported disownership for the body, and 22% reported disembodiment, all at higher rates than in healthy controls. A second experiment using caloric vestibular stimulation in healthy volunteers showed that left-warm/right-cold stimulation specifically increased the perceived length of the dorsum of both hands. The findings indicate a vestibular contribution to how the body is represented.