GARY TUCHMAN, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN: This is the view of the world from outside your body as seen in the movie "Ghost." Swedish researchers are creating a similar experience in their lab. Using 3-d goggles and cameras, researchers enable participants to see themselves from above or even feel like they are the dummy in this room.</s>HENRIK EHRSSON, KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET: It's quite amazing. You're in your body for all your life, and you think your brain should know what your body looks like. But in those ten seconds it can completely reevaluate the situation and accept the body of a different individual, a different gender even.</s>TUCHMAN: So how does it work? First, the subject wears a head mounted video unit. Then researchers play video they want the person to see. When she looks down, this is what her eyes see. The researcher then touches her body and the dummy simultaneously. With this view the test subject's brain makes a connection, and presto, she's the dummy. To test the connection, the dummy is cut with a knife, and the test subject reacts.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It feels like you tried to slice me across my stomach.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you experienced being a plastic man.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.</s>TUCHMAN: Harrison said the possibilities are endless. Cameras could show how you appear to others and help improve low self-esteem. Amputees could use the therapy to give their new prosthetic limb a sense of feeling.</s>EHRSSON: If you new body, maybe a different gender or a different group or race, that could change the way you think about yourself, feel about yourself, and think and feel about other individuals.</s>TUCHMAN: Gary Tuchman, CNN.
Virtual Out of Body Experience