Chapter 14: Doppelgangers: Hallucinating Oneself and Chapter 15: Phantoms, Shadows, and Sensory Ghosts Summary and Analysis

In Chapter 14, Sacks discusses out of body experiences, or the feeling that one is watching oneself from the outside. This can happen during seizure, migraine, or with any electrical stimulation of the cortex, such as with drug use or self induced hypnosis. It can also happen with very low blood pressure, or heightened anxiety. In some cases, an out of body experience can lead to a near death hallucination, if its cause leads to a near fatal incident. Near death experiences are often similar in nature, and scientists have sought to show this is due to the experience directly correlating with what is happening in the brain. For example, people tend to feel they are pulled in a dark tunnel, which...