13. Out of Body...
I was in grade seven when Sir Winston Churchill died one day before my birthday. As the school planned an assembly in his honour, somehow I wound up as narrator. But speaking in front of a gym full of people was a gigantic leap from reading in class and I was honoured and terrified. While other children walked on and off the stage carrying historical pictures and slogans on placards, somehow I'd have to keep an eye on what was happening behind me so we'd be in sync—without turning my back to the audience. How, I wondered, would I maintain my pace and keep from losing my place if I had to keep glancing behind me?
When the day arrived, the butterflies in my stomach were trying to beat their way out through my veins. But as I moved onto the darkened stage to stand under the light, everything seemed to slow down. I was completely aware that I was standing in front of the podium before a darkened audience—but as I began to speak, it was as if “I” was somewhere above my body. I was flabbergasted to hear my own voice as if it was coming from some point beneath me and even more amazed to realize that it didn't reflect the astonishment I was feeling or the delight at finding my voice calm and clear. Though I was fully engaged in the narration, another part of my consciousness had stepped back to watch. Even more curious and mystifying was the feeling of being able to “see” what was going on behind me—without turning to look—and that some part of me was also taking note of the oddness of the experience. But though all those perceptions now seem as if they were separate and distinct, at the time they were connected as one whole observation wrapped up in a feeling of warmth and connectedness. And I wondered what brainwaves these might be!
Years later as I read other accounts of “out-of-body experiences”, it seemed that many were similarly stress-induced. Of course, that observation explains nothing. In fact merely using the word “stress” can imply that the “o.b.e.” is somehow a “bad” thing—a result of a negative situation or emotional state. It's even been described as the result of misfiring neurons (ie. electrical activity that is somehow “wrong,” abnormal or in error). Neurosurgeons have long been able to stimulate the brain to produce feelings of being out of one's body. In the 1950s, Canadian neurologist, Dr. Wilder Penfield was able to provoke a sense of being out-of-body by electrically stimulating the sylvian fissure, a structure that divides the temporal lobes from the rest of the brain. Dr. Michael Persinger (Laurentian University,
But it was a very real experience or at least a real perception, and, I believe, also completely natural. In preparing for the school assembly, I learned a lot about Sir Winston and wanted to do the best I could to pay my own respect. To do that it was necessary to detach my ego and abandon my self-concerns—to focus my attention completely on the job at hand and permit my senses to operate at a fully functional or enhanced level. If I had maintained my trepidation, some of my brain would have been required to share its supply of oxygen and glucose with areas governing such egocentric thoughts (self-consciousness—positive or negative ie. self-congratulations or self-criticism), robbing my visual cortex and the auditory areas of my brain of that necessary energy-producing food. Instead, I dissolved my ego for the time being and directed all my energy to my senses and to what I was doing. Incoming and out-going signals were being limited to the moment—not diffused by any other unnecessary activity. My “sightless” sight—the ability to “see” what was taking place behind me without looking—may have been the result of some kind of “harmonic sensing”, my own voice being the melody and the action behind me, the harmony. As long as the sound waves coming from behind me were in accord with what I was narrating, the scene was represented in my mind as visual information—just as if I was viewing it directly.
Though I have forgotten the mechanical details of that presentation, I have never forgotten the emotional state. It was very pleasurable, a “high” that suffused my whole body with a kind of super-calm energy. And I am comforted to know that it is possible to produce such an effect when it is needed.
posted by Winter Child @ 8:56 p.m.
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