A Paralyzed MS Patient Experienced Daily Out-of-Body Experiences Triggered by Cannabis | Research

The takeaway

A tetraplegic MS patient developed daily out-of-body experiences when started on cannabis treatment for spasticity, with cannabis also altering his mental body imagery in ways consistent with his reported experiences.

Read this if you are interested in how cannabis can alter the sense of being in your body, especially in neurological conditions.

Daily out-of-body experiences triggered by cannabis in a patient with tetraplegia

What the researchers found

A multiple sclerosis patient with tetraplegia (paralysis of all four limbs) and severe sensory loss developed repeated out-of-body experiences (OBEs) after starting cannabis treatment for spasticity with painful cramps.

The OBEs occurred daily and were consistently triggered by cannabis use. Researchers tested the patient on a body imagery task before and after cannabis consumption.

Before cannabis, the patient showed an unusual pattern: he was less accurate for back-facing body stimuli compared to front-facing, the opposite of what healthy people show. The researchers attributed this to his frequent OBEs, which typically involve viewing one's body from behind and above.

After cannabis consumption, performance on back-facing stimuli (matching the OBE perspective) specifically improved while front-facing performance remained unchanged.

The researchers proposed that cannabis interfered with own-body imagery, but only in the context of existing brain damage.

Why it matters

This case report connected cannabis use with altered body representation in a neurologically vulnerable patient, suggesting that cannabis can interact with pre-existing brain damage to produce unusual perceptual phenomena.

The numbers in context

One patient with MS and tetraplegia. OBEs occurred daily. Performance on back-facing body stimuli improved after cannabis. Six control subjects showed the typical pattern (better for back-facing than front-facing).

How the study worked

Single case study of a tetraplegic MS patient. Mental body imagery was assessed using a validated own-body transformation task with front- and back-facing schematic figures, administered before and after cannabis consumption. Six healthy control subjects served as comparison.

What this study cannot tell us

Single case report with no ability to generalize. The patient had multiple factors (MS, tetraplegia, severe sensory loss, spinal cord involvement) that could contribute to OBEs. Cause-and-effect between cannabis and OBEs cannot be established definitively.

How to read the evidence

Single case report. Provides a detailed clinical observation but no ability to establish causation or generalize.

When this study was published

Published in 2009. Research on cannabis effects on body perception and self-representation remains limited but is part of the broader study of bodily awareness in neuroscience.

The bigger picture

Cannabis effects on body perception and self-representation are poorly understood. This case suggests that in patients with severe sensory loss and brain damage, cannabis may profoundly alter the sense of bodily self, producing experiences that would not occur in neurologically intact individuals.

Questions still open

Are patients with severe sensory loss more susceptible to cannabis-induced perceptual disturbances? Could this inform understanding of how the brain constructs body awareness? Do other cannabis users report out-of-body experiences?

Common questions

Can cannabis cause out-of-body experiences?

This patient experienced OBEs specifically in the context of severe neurological damage (tetraplegia with sensory loss). Cannabis may have disrupted already-fragile body representation processes. Healthy individuals do not typically report OBEs from cannabis.

Should MS patients worry about this effect?

OBEs from cannabis appear to be rare and associated with severe sensory loss and spinal cord damage. Most MS patients using cannabis for spasticity do not report this experience. However, the case highlights that neurologically vulnerable patients may experience unusual effects.

Read the original research

Deficient mental own-body imagery in a neurological patient with out-of-body experiences due to cannabis use.

Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 45(2), 228-35

View on PubMed ↗Publisher’s paper ↗

Citation

Overney, Leila S; Arzy, Shahar; Blanke, Olaf. (2009). Deficient mental own-body imagery in a neurological patient with out-of-body experiences due to cannabis use.. Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 45(2), 228-35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2008.02.005