Autoscopy

Autoscopy

::"This article excludes paranormal interpretations."

Autoscopy is defined as an experience in which a person while "believing to be awake" sees her/his body and the world from a location outside her/his physical body. More precisely, autoscopy experiences are characterized by the presence of the following three phenomena:
* disembodiment (apparent location of the self outside one's body);
* impression of seeing the world from an elevated and distanced visuo-spatial perspective (extracorporeal, but egocentric visuo-spatial perspective); and
* impression of seeing one's own body (autoscopy) from this perspective.

Autoscopies have puzzled humankind from time immemorial and are abundant in the folklore, mythology, and spiritual narratives of most ancient and modern societies.

Bunning and Blanke (2005) of the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, and Department of Neurology, University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland, have reviewed some of the classical precipitating factors of autoscopies. These are sleep, drug abuse, and general anesthesia as well as their neurobiology. They have compared them with recent findings on neurological and neurocognitive mechanisms of the autoscopies. The reviewed data suggest that autoscopies are due to functional disintegration of lower-level multisensory processing and abnormal higher-level self-processing at the temporo-parietal junction. The researchers argue that the experimental investigation of the interactions between these multisensory and cognitive mechanisms in autoscopies and related illusions in combination with neuroimaging and behavioral techniques might further our understanding of the central mechanisms of corporal awareness and self-consciousness.

A related autoscopic disorder known as Negative Autoscopy (or Negative Heautoscopy) is a psychological phenomenon in which the sufferer does not see his or her reflection when looking in a mirror. cite web|url=http://www.cambridgecourse.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=34|accessdate=2007-10-17 |title=Disorders of Perception|format=pdf] cite web|url=http://lnco.epfl.ch/webdav/site/lnco/users/149176/public/9.Blanke%20O,%20Mohr%20C.%20(2005)%20Autoscopic%20phenomena%20of%20neurological%20origin.%20Implications%20for%20corporal%20awareness%20and%20self%20consciousness.%20Brain%20Research%20Reviews%2050:184-199.pdf|accessdate=2007-10-17|format=pdf|title=Out-of-body experience, heautoscopy, and autoscopic hallucination of neurological origin Implications for neurocognitive mechanisms of corporeal awareness and self consciousness] Although the sufferer's image may be seen by others, he or she claims not to see it. This was briefly (and jokingly) referred to as "Maartechen Syndrome" due to comments resulting from a YouTube video of a prank that illustrated this disorder. cite web|url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lv0-ftyMKE|title=Verstehen Sie Spass? - Unsichtbar / Invisible|accessdate=2007-10-29]

See in the article " Researchers Find an Explanation for Out-of-Body Experiences" how scientists performed experiments in order to search for an explanation for autoscopies [http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2007/0823out_of_body.shtml]

Heautoscopy, or "experience of a double", is a related phenomenon.

See also

*Out-of-body experience: An article which is part of the "WikiProject Paranormal."

References

*Bunning, S., and Blanke, O. (2005). Prog Brain Res. 150:331-50. (PubMed Abstract PMID 16186034) describe the neural correlates of the autoscopic experiences.
*PubMed Abstract PMID 16019077 and related articles describe many heautoscopic and autoscopic experiences with their neural correlates.


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Look at other dictionaries:

  • autoscopy —    The term autoscopy comes from the Greek words autos (self) and skopeô (I am looking at). It translates roughly as seeing oneself and is used to denote the act of perceiving a hallucinated mirror image of oneself, viewed from the position of… …   Dictionary of Hallucinations

  • autoscopy — ȯˈtäskəpē noun ( es) Etymology: International Scientific Vocabulary aut + scopy; probably originally formed as German autoskopie : visual hallucination of one s body image * * * autoscopy /ö toˈskə pi/ (psychology) noun Hallucination of an image …   Useful english dictionary

  • autoscopy — au·tos·co·py ȯ täs kə pē n, pl pies visual hallucination of an image of one s body * * * n. the experience of seeing one s whole body as though from a vantage point some distance away. It can be a symptom in epilepsy. See also out of the body… …   Medical dictionary

  • autoscopy — au·tos·co·py …   English syllables

  • autoscopy — n. the experience of seeing one s whole body as though from a vantage point some distance away. It can be a symptom in epilepsy. See also: out of the body experience …   The new mediacal dictionary

  • negative autoscopy —    Also known as negative heautoscopy and asomatoscopy. The term negative autoscopy is used to denote a variant of *autoscopy (i.e. the perception of a hallucinated image of oneself) characterized by the transient failure to perceive one s own… …   Dictionary of Hallucinations

  • coenesthetic autoscopy —    Also written as cenesthetic autoscopy. Both terms are indebted to the medical Latin noun coenes thesis, which in turn comes from the Greek words koinos (communal) and aisthanesthai (to notice, to perceive). The term coenesthesis was used… …   Dictionary of Hallucinations

  • positive autoscopy —    The term positive autoscopy is indebted to the Greek words autos (self) and skopeo (I am looking at). It was introduced in or shortly before 1903 by the French physician and psychologist Paul Auguste Sollier (1861 1933). Sollier uses the… …   Dictionary of Hallucinations

  • dissimilar autoscopy —    The term dissimilar autoscopy comes from the Latin words dis (not) and similis (alike), and from the Greek words autos (self) and skopeo (I am looking at). The French term autoscopie dissemblable (i.e. dissimilar autoscopy) was introduced in… …   Dictionary of Hallucinations

  • internal autoscopy —    Also known as internal heautoscopy, inner heautoscopy, organic auto representation, and auto representative phenomenon. The term internal autoscopy was introduced in or shortly before 1903 by the French physician and psychologist Paul Auguste… …   Dictionary of Hallucinations

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