On Demand
Out of Body, Roger
I was there. But I, like, wasn't there. I was floating. I was looking at myself from outside of myself.
If it hasn't happened to you, it's likely happened to somebody you know. And whether or not you believe it, about one in ten people report having had one. "Out of body" experience, it's a dirty word in many circles. Which is perhaps why pilots call it "G-LOC" (gravity-induced loss of consciousness, pronounced "G-lock" not "glok"). Turns out this kind of experience (call it what you want) occurs quite frequently among fighter pilots. Producers Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler bring us the story. We'll hear from pilots Tim Sestak, and Col. Dan Fulgham on what it's like to lose yourself, unfortunately for us skiddish passenger-types, while flying a plane.
Finally we'll hear from Dr. James Whinnery, who simulates G-LOC by placing pilots in giant centrifuges. His research monitors their brain activity as they accelerate to speeds inducing this loss of consciousness. But Doc Whinnery isn't just a scientist, he's a subject. And his research has taken him to some surprising places.
» See a picture of a centrifuge.
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skiddish -> skittish
I've just listened to this show via podcast, so I know I'm 6 months late. I'm curious if any of the neurologists interviewed have any thoughts about how so called dissociative anesthetics affect the brain/body interaction. A friend of mine has said that it is much most more out of body then numbness type of anesthesia.
I thought that “out of body” was normal to high performance athletes. I trained and alpine (snow) ski raced to a high enough level that I could push my speed to a level that surpassed my minds ability to be in constant command and control, and then I just trusted my body and muscles to do what they were trained to do and my mind watched from out of and behind my body, looking ahead for any chances coming up to go faster or need to slow down and then I would mentally reach inside my body and tell it to get ready to adjust to the upcoming change. That is to say, I trusted my body to do what it was trained to do and then put my “out of body” mind to work looking ahead in the race course for any need or opportunity to change what I wanted my body to do in the future.
And I just assumed that was the norm for athletes like martial arts fighters, ballet dancers, and everyone else who trains their body to a very high level. Train to trust the muscle memory and then the mind can look ahead and pay attention to what is coming in the near future.
Most people don’t have to think about walking, after they learn how, they just do it, and they put their mind to thinking about other things while they are walking, they trust their muscle memory to do the walking process. The mind and body are doing separate things, but now I wonder at what point a person becomes consciously aware of his mind being “out of body”, what makes that happen?!?
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