Predisposition to out-of-body experience (OBE) is associated with aberrations in multisensory integration: Psychophysiological support from a "rubber hand illusion" study.
Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance June 1, 2017 Jason J Braithwaite, Derrick G Watson, Hayley Dewe
People who have spontaneous out-of-body experiences in everyday life show differences in how their brains integrate sensory information. In a rubber hand illusion experiment with 180 participants, those prone to out-of-body experiences did not show the typical fear response to a threat directed at the rubber hand when the brushing was asynchronous, unlike control participants who reacted more strongly during synchronous stimulation. This suggests that imprecise top-down tuning in multisensory integration, possibly through predictive coding mechanisms, may underlie aberrant self-consciousness even in nonclinical populations.