Blackouts and Out of Body Experiences?

[Haydn]

The thing is, hypoxia after the usuall signals have been ignored, is one thing. I am attempting to explain hypoxia induced without the normal signals of contractions and struggle phase, because the mind has bypassed them.

The body has not been ignored because it didnt tell you anything, you did not ignore the signals because they did not happen, the body doesnt give up telling you because you are ignoring it because you had nothing to ignore in the first place.

These signals have simply not occured, because the mind took itself somewhere where it did not feel , hear or notice the signals (if they happend at all). Much like if you went out of the room you wouldnt feel the fire burning in the hearth. I am suggesting the mind can go places where the body cannot follow, and becomes somewhat seperated, in as much as the body can be ignored a while. This is dangerous if the signals that prepare you to stop the breathold are bypassed.

It is interesting on the premise that the OP wanted to discuss. ie OBE. I would think the options are two fold.

1. Either there is no such thing, and science explains it all.
2. The spirit and body are seperate.

Therefore in the first option there is no thought provoking argument.

In the second option we have to consider an idea that has to involve a religious principle and we then consider the science behind it. Surely if the spirit and body are seperate (and death occurs when the spirit leaves the body), the idea that the spirit can go quite a long way towards leaving (without actually leaving) is as near as we can explain as an OBE.

Difficult thoughts if you have no religious faith and wish to just poo poo the idea of it. But for those with a faith, we are not held back by a scientific argument acting much like a dam. Those with faith can go beyond the concrete barrier and travel further downstream.

I cannot say one way or another, but I hope for the second option and therefore I take that hope and add to it a small element of faith.

 

[MikkoP]

Static training can be about how "far from your physical body" you can be, i.e. trying to dissociate yourself from the urge to breath. However, I have found that it can be more effective to try to dig to the core of that feeling, focusing on it, instead of avoiding it.

This is because from neurology we know that it's not the actual feeling of pain that hurts, it's the larger scale emotion it causes. In the past this has been used on patients with horrible chronic pains. Small parts of their brain were deliberately damaged so that their ability for emotion was reduced. As a results they could still feel the pain, just like before, it just didn't bother them anymore. Before the operation they could be shaking because of the pain, unable to function, but afterwards they were smiling and playing chess, even though the amount of pain they were feeling was the same. However, as an adverse effect the operation caused their whole emotional life to dull, so I think it's not used anymore.

What we can take from that to freediving is that the contractions, the urge to breath and lactic acid do not themselves feel bad. What feels bad is the emotions and attitudes those sensations create in our brains. If you do your dive with the mindset that it will feel uncomfortable, it will. But if you dive with the mindset that the contractions will help your dive and the more lactics you get, the better, it can feel literally pleasant. If you keep focusing on the contractions, the lactic and yourself, you can forget where you are, forget how long or deep you should be diving and you can really enjoy the dive and not want to come up before you have to. And it's not that you will dive blissfully into a BO. Because you are so focused on yourself, you will notice all the hypoxic signs better than before and come up at the right time. Still with a safety diver, of course.

I have managed to do 200m+ dynamics and 7min+ statics that have felt truly enjoyable with no desire to come up. The contractions were there, the lactics were there, but it didn't matter. Or actually it mattered, in a way that it made the dive feel better, not worse. It's a difficult technique and it succeeds only sometimes, but when it does, it's quite amazing. It's not an out-of-body experience, it's inside-the-body experience.

 

[Simos]

I don't know or heard of anyone so far that can go to the point of blacking out without any warning signals, contractions or struggle just purely by the power of mind and can actually do this at will. If there is such a person on DB or elsewhere it'd be fantastic to hear how they do this. The only way I know how to do this is by a lot of hyperventilation.

I know that some top freedivers use hypnosis but even then they snap out of it when contractions hit hard. I have also personally fell asleep many times while breatholding and still amazingly my body always woke me up a few seconds later while still holding my breath or let the air out and breathed.

I was given a book on OBE's when I was 10 - I flipped through it a few years ago again and to put it politely, it was all extremely dubious. I don't even see what it has to do with religion if I'm honest.

Anyway I think this is probably not the forum to discuss/debate religion - like most of us, I've been to endless debates on religion growing up and of course, there is never any conclusion either way and never has anyone ever changed their mind or beliefs as a result of a discussion.

So my view is that we should all keep our religious beliefs to ourselves (in the context of freediving) and if anyone actually claims they had an OBE, examine possible reasons.

If you believe that the reason behind OBE-like experiences is that the spirit leaves the body and you don't want to hear about science, what is there left to discuss. It is what it is in that case, right?

 

[MikkoP]

If you believe that the reason behind OBE-like experiences is that the spirit leaves the body and you don't want to hear about science, what is there left to discuss. It is what it is in that case, right?

If there really is a spirit that leaves the body and can find out information that the body couldn't, then it's hugely interesting. If it were true, it could be find out scientifically and that view would become a part of science.

I have heard somewhere that there have been tests where a random number generator has been placed somewhere above patients (so that they would only see them if their soul would really leave the body and get information the body could not get) during "near-death" and ordinary medical operations, in case they will have an OBE and report having seen the numbers. No confirmed successful readings of number series so far. There has been lots of other kind of studies too, and while the near-death experiences and OBEs are strange and partly unexplained phenomena, it still seems they could be explained on the level of the brain.

Like Haydn, I also believe meditation and other spiritual practice have great value. What I don't believe is that science tries to "extinguish hope". I think many people have a slightly misconceived notion of science. It's a common one and it's nicely wrapped up in this short video (which also indirectly discusses OBEs) by Sam Harris, a Ph.D. in neuroscience.

 

[Simos]

Science is no magic answer - it's our best effort to explain what we observe using rational thinking, experiementation, modelling etc. In most cases it has to over-simplify things and come up with answers that half-work - but over the history of mankind there has been a tremendous progress that allows us today to understand and predict the behaviour of so many physical systems etc.

I don't deny at all the value of meditation - quite the opposite in fact. I was only saying that I think the reason sadly most deaths in freediving occur is either by an unexpected accident or because we push ourselves knowingly beyond the many signs our body gives us. This is a public forum so whenever we discuss these things I think it's important that someone new to freediving doesnt think that if they learn to freedive they will learn to meditate and without warning they'll die - we all I hope agree that this is not the case, at least in the vast majority of cases.

I don't know either way about OBEs - I was just making the point that a lot of the 'evidence' out there is at best anecdotal and with dubious intent. Just like the book I read - whoever wrote it for sure had an agenda other than examining in fair and open-minded way whether OBEs exist, whether the testimonials he had were genuine and whether there might be something else happening to explain what is reported.

I believe anyone genuinely wanting answers should start such investigation and studies with an open-mind and pre-dispositions or beliefs either way, focus on finding valid evidence/facts and analyse them.

Otherwise any discussion or conclusion is over before we even start and as I mentioned, no one will change their minds or even worse some people will be misled. Just my 2p.

Apologies to be a bit negative about this guys, I probably should have not jumped in but I guess if someone had an OBE from freediving, I'd love to hear it too

(for the record, I think if you don't go down the spiritual route there can be other explanations for OBEs)

 

[Haydn]

(for the record, I think if you don't go down the spiritual route there can be other explanations for OBEs)

But if you do go down the spiritual route?

Remember, this thread is concerning OBEs. There must be a scientific answer even if you go down the spiritual route. The thing is, whatever route you go down, science is just as much at a loss in providing a convincing argument. Yet it keeps trying to discover (or pretend) answers that will fill in the gaps and generally it aims to dispel belief based ideas in favour of experiment and results based ideas.

A few years ago, there was a cosmos problem that remained unresolved, until some bright spark came up with dark matter. The problem appears to correct itself, but there is no evidence, just a corrected problem.

If there is a God, science will develop and prove it. This is not religion, it is science. Religion is simply a matter of faith or belief in something that science (generally) trys to dispel. Science is knowledge, religion was never supposed to be knowledge. If we all knew there was a God, there would be no need for faith. Religion is faith, Science is knowledge. Put the two together and we get wisdom.

My entries on this thread are simply trying to explain that if we are created, then OBEs (discovered or pretended) can more easily be used to explain the phenomena. Because spirit and body are seperate things.

If we are not created, then we remain even more baffled because all we have is science and so far, science has not found the evidence.

I would also say though, that I do not suggest that our static training is more dangerous because we might find a way to seperate our mind from our body. But that (in maybe one of a few hundred statics we might do), our mind may go places that make that session unexplainable and we miss the signals. Thats what happened to me, and I stopped the breathold.

I wonder to this day, what would have happened if I had continued. I guess, I would have entered the contraction and struggle phase and added two minutes to my PB. Or, maybe, my body having only the ability for a 4:30 hold would not have managed a 6:30 hold and would have gone straight to BO. I dont know. I suspect I would have made 5 minutes, and decided enough was enough and been really happy with the static.

But, I chose to stop the static because my mind alone told me it was time to breath, so I obeyed.

That was my experience.

And because I have a faith based belief, I am happy to voice my thoughts. Otherwise, this thread will remain a question of science, and that I think, limits the scope of the discussion.

 

[Siku]

Static training can be about how "far from your physical body" you can be, i.e. trying to dissociate yourself from the urge to breath. However, I have found that it can be more effective to try to dig to the core of that feeling, focusing on it, instead of avoiding it.

Interesting point Mikko.

Yoga means 'to bring together' in sanskrit. It has the same root as the english union and yoke (as in to yoke cattle to a plow).

And what is brought together? The mind and the body, that is awareness of the body.

What Mikko has experienced diving is what can happen in asana. A pose that seems painful can be worked through by going deeper into the experience. My yoga teacher describes it as being like a mist. From a distance it looks like a wall of white but as you get closer, it fades away and is seen to be insubstantial.

 

[Tigermoth]

Hmmmm...

A few thoughts: Firstly I don't think OBEs have anything to do with religion. Lots of people who have them aren't religious, before or after the event.

I'm not religious at all and I don't "believe" in OBEs so to speak, I just think they're interesting as they are an unexplained phenomenon. The thing is it isn't a simple case of saying if science can't explain it then it's a spiritual thing. Because the only science we have now is our very limited understanding of things. One thousand year ago if a big metal bird with people in it that could fly at twice the speed of sound had materialized people would have called it magic or whatever. Now we call it Concorde. In another thousand years from now there will be explanations for all kinds of stuff we can't explain now, even answers to questions no ones even thought of asking yet. There will be amazing new technology.

So just because science can't at this minute explain OBEs it doesn't mean they don't occur and it also doesn't mean they prove that consciousness can exist without a physical body. Science doesn't prove anything either way because it doesn't know yet. I have no faith or anything like that but I do have quite an open mind.

Anyway, back to freediving: it seems like OBEs aren't something that really happen in this sport so I guess I have my answer there, but it's been an interesting discussion nonetheless!

 

[Simos]

The inner body experience that Mikko mentioned (which relates to also meditation etc) is a lot more interesting for freediving, as it's something we can actually train and use. Agree with tigermoth about OBEs, for me the very first thing before even trying to explain them would be to determine if they truly happen (as opposed to people making things up or imagining them, the mind works in strange ways especially when you are half-dead I would imagine).

I read a few accounts from freedivers that had bad blackouts (there are a few on DB too) - generally it seems that they don't remember anything from at least a few seconds before blacking out to a few seconds after coming round. I never had a blackout so I can't comment personally.

 

[Haydn]

I think Tigermoth, science cannot yet explain it, but religion explained it 1000s years ago. If spirit and body are seperate things, then religion holds all the cards. Otherwise its wholly science.

The only problem occurs with people who have no religious point of view. Because these people are usually closed to any view that might suggest there is more to life than science. If you have a faith or belief, you can accept a religious view and side with the science as it uncovers the facts. You dont need to be religious ie go to church, believe in God, meditate as a spiritual practice, but you do need to have an acceptance that science might just be the way God did it.

The best bit is, we dont really know. So we have hope, which may lead to faith, which may lead to an individual adopting a chosen religious lifestyle and behavior. Or we may choose to ignore such stuff and rely on the science and look for proof.

I think OBEs have sufficient quality reports that at least explain something is perceived to be going on.

Science says its all to do with the last minute death throws of brain activity. Religion suggests its simply the spirit leaving the body and maybe being forced to return, if science (medicine) interupts what would otherwise have become a death.

How does it affect freediving? Not at all. But freediving has everything to do with the relationship between the physical and mental states. And that is what your OP was seeking to discuss.

 

[efattah]

Either you are the type to believe in 'more than meets the eye,' or you are not. If you are not, I suggest you not try to look for proof, because even if the proof stares you straight in the eye, you will not accept it. I have seen it happen.

My sister is a skeptic. One day in 1993 I offered to show her something impossible right in front of her eyes. She accepted. I showed her (and it was not trickery). Her jaw dropped and she looked amazed, incredulous, and she couldn't find words to say. I was so happy, I thought she was convinced. I can still see her facial expression today, almost 20 years later.

The next day (the day after the demo, in 1993) I asked her what she thought of my little demo, whether it had finally changed her way of thinking. She replied that she did not remember the demo ever taking place. The stuff I used was still sitting in the kitchen right where we used it. Nonetheless she still insisted that she couldn't recall any demo and as I tried to press the issue she kept trying to change the subject. She did not want to talk about it. She did not WANT it to be true. Because if it was, it would totally change everything for her, and she liked her world just the way it was. I performed the same demo for my mother on a different day. For her the demo was no big deal, because it did not change her way of thinking. She remembered the demo clearly.

That was not the first time I have witnessed this phenomenon. The same thing happened again with another friend in 1995. And I have spoken to others who have witnessed it. I call it the 'selective memory' phenomenon.

Since I have observed this phenomenon, I don't even bother trying to get into discussions/arguments about such a topic. If I find someone with the same beliefs as me, we discuss things. If the person has different beliefs, I avoid the subject.

There is one interesting difference between the open-minded person and the skeptic. The open minded person accepts all possibilities, and admits they could be wrong about everything. The skeptic, on the other hand, rejects all other possibilities and is certain that he/she is right.

What I can say is that being 'certain that you are right' generally does not lead to correct knowledge.

I myself have made grave errors in the past. In 2002 I was convinced that one could train 'resistance' to a samba by having many sambas. I thought the body would learn to delay or resist the samba. I argued this point many times. It turns out I was totally wrong, even my own experiments upon myself showed that. I trained to the point of samba for many weeks, STRONGLY BELIEVING that my resistance to sambas would increase. Instead, the opposite happened, the sambas happened earlier and earlier. I later found research which confirmed the phenomenon. The important thing was that as strong as my point of view was, I still accepted the possibility that I could be wrong. And even now, I accept that I could be wrong about most things.

 

[Mullins]

Mikko's point about the emotional nature of pain is a good one. I have virtually no experience of clinical neurology but had long assumed that discomfort (particularly the discomfort associated with breathholding) is largely the result of the emotional associations that physical sensations carry. The more experienced you are and the more in control you feel during a breathhold, the better equipped you are to dissociate this emotional baggage from the physical stimuli, which when isolated are really quite mild.

Disregarding all that, under certain conditions I could black myself out with little discomfort. Warm water, in a suit that keeps my extremities warm, doing DNF with none of the abdominal movement associated with DYN. I haven't BO'd this way (only ever had one BO, in competition) but that is because I'm very careful when in that state.

Anyhoo. I've found that most divers' recollections of BOs are pretty similar. The usual symptoms of hypoxia followed by loss of body awareness but a residual consciousness that is based largely on sound. Often a bit like a dream in that there seemed to be a thread or story happening somewhere close by, but in a very confused and detached way. Some might well interpret this state as an OBE but I haven't heard this from anybody and it doesn't really seem to fit the definition. Hope that's useful.

 

[jome]

I know it's a far stretch, but I will draw a comparsion with eating hot chillies to static.

At first, I would always "panic" when my mouth was on fire, gulping water or what ever I could get my hands on to get rid of the burning sensation. But after a while, I realized this is because I actually imagine my mouth being on fire, I associate the feeling with damage, imagine my tongue blistering and skin peeling of due to the horrible burning.

Now you can turn this around, just push all that out of your mind, and focus on the feeling, imagine it is just a signal, nothing else. It is a signal that is telling you have put capsasine on your tongue and the strength of the signal is telling you how much. You are not being damaged in any way. If anything it's just helping your circulation With surprisingly little practice, you can do this pretty well and even block some of the physical responses I normally get (I usually get hiccups when eating really hot food).

I think it's much the same with static or breathholding in general. The discomfort and "panic" come mostly form the ideas that "I'm dying, I'm being damaged, I must be going braindead", but with little practice you can turn this around "I'm proceeding well into to breath hold, I have enough CO2, my dive response is kicking in - this is going well". The "discomfort" of breath holding is not actually that, it is your main gauge letting you evaluate the state of your performance. It's good to have this information! You are in control, not just blindly rushing headlong into a risky dive. It's like diving on tanks with or without a pressure gauge. It's good to know how much air is in your tanks.

It takes more than just a "mental switch around" to achieve this, it takes a practice and trial, but keeping this in mind and practicing breath holds...At least for me, it does turn around like that when I'm in shape (and similarly, after long periods of inactivity, the panic creeps back in)

 

[Erki]

Its good to be aware that science and spirituality applies different approaches for getting information and also for analysis. Science bases mainly on the third person's observations while spirituality gets it's knowledge from personal/subjective experiences (phenomenology). That's why the results are more or less different even if the practitioners do their best to find out the truth. There are tons of philosophical literature about arguing about this
It's also important to distinguish spiritual experiences and all kind of religious beliefs that often have different origin than their final interpretations.

One aspect connected to OBE-s and other spiritual phenomena is memory. We may have had an OBE during BO but we do not have to remember it. Lucid dreamers are very convinced that everybody has OBE-s almost nightly but without training there are little possibility to remember them. Remembering of something requires access to this information but normally we have access only to a small part of the total saved information in the brain.

 

[rddk]

I had some blackout in past, and never had such experience, just felt like i was under drug, bad sensation when you regain consciusness and nothig else.

 

[kat]

I experienced what you (Tigermoth) described during a black-out, it didn't happen during freediving though. I don't remember lights but it felt like I was falling through air a long way down, combined with the most beautiful feeling of release and peace.
Unfortunately I was literally falling back at the time -- on to a concrete floor -- so the peaceful feeling evaporated pretty quickly and it can have all only lasted a second although it seemed much longer. The memory of it stuck though, to the point of almost wanting to make it happen again. I was in a highly stressful situation at the time, so maybe stress is a factor (as Watts also mentioned it).
I'm not sure it was an 'out of body' experience as described by others...it was like a more intense version of those moments you sometimes get just as you wake up, before you remember who or what you are....reminds me of this by the poet Don Paterson:

'I began to relish - to venerate and luxuriate in - that long -

second amnesia as I came to; that gap where, though conscious,

we have not yet remembered our bereavement or terror or mad

love; where we perceive that our enrolment in the world of

pain is in fact entirely voluntary.'