With explicit reference to the artworks, scientific experiments, and curiosities shown as part of the exhibition MIRROR IMAGES (on view through April 3 at the Berlin Museum of Medical History at the Charité), the Swiss neuroscientist Prof. Dr. Olaf Blanke will talk about the scientific background and multi-sensor brain mechanisms of self-consciousness.

Most people take it for granted that their body is a part of them and that they view the world from the perspective of their body. In the case of so-called out-of-body experiences, people believe themselves to have left their body and to observe themselves from an outside perspective. According to expert estimates, some five percent of the population have undergone such experiences. With the aid of experimental disruptions of bodily awareness (such as out-of-body experience), it is possible to explore the brain mechanisms of bodily self-consciousness. The findings could benefit wearers of prosthetics: the prosthetics would no longer be perceived as foreign to but part of one’s body.