OUT-OF-BODY AND ASTRAL JOURNEYS - HEAUTOS COPY, ECSTASIA AND EXPERIMENTAL HALLUCINATIONS OF EPILEPTIC ORIGIN

We report a 38 year-old patient who had temporoparietal epilepsy and u nusual ictal ''out of body'' experiences that remained undiagnosed for more than ten years, until her admission for a motor seizure of the l eft hemibody. Out of body episodes were experienced as intense and ecs tatic astral journeys. EEG showed a bilateral extension of epileptifor m abnormalities to the parietal regions, predominantly on the right si de. We discuss the various forms of heautoscopy and their putative mec hanisms. We suggest that a disturbance in representing space in indepe ndant extrapersonal and personal coordinates might be as crucial as th e elusive hypothesis of a body schema disorder. Combined involvement o f the parietal neocortex and temporolimbic structures might allow thos e experiences to gain a subjective vividness which appears to be indis sociable from normal conscious experiences.