The Out-of-Body Experience and Body Image: Differences Between Experients and Nonexperients

The present study sought to examine various aspects of body image for persons reporting a previous out-of-body experience (OBE). A total of 64 people took part in the study, 34 of whom had had an OBE. Participants reporting a previous OBE were found to score significantly higher on measures of body dissatisfaction, social physique anxiety, and somatoform dissociation, and lower on a measure of physical self-presentation. OBE experiments also reported lower levels of body awareness during use of an immersive virtual reality system than nonexperiments.