From Peter Brugger, Department of Neurology, University Hospital Zurich
Your letters pages have been replete with claims of priority for the experimental induction of out-of-body experiences (11 April, p 22 and 6 June, p 26).
None of these predates George Malcolm Stratton’s 1899 report of carrying a mirror device on his shoulders for several days which produced an image of his walking body, seemingly a few metres in front of himself (). He reported that constantly seeing this mirror-self moving when he moved induced “the feeling of being mentally outside my body”.
Daniel Müller’s 2003 cinema movie Der Zweite Leib – – featured my replication of Stratton’s method with modern virtual-reality techniques, which was also mentioned in Science in 2001 ().
Zurich, Switzerland
