The perception of being located inside one's own body (bodily self-location) can be altered by manipulating external sensory information, such as viewing the body from a third-person perspective and receiving synchronous touches. This study tested whether interoception—the processing of internal bodily signals—affects this malleability. Participants experienced stronger out-of-body sensations when viewing their body from a third-person perspective with synchronous visuotactile stimulation. Higher meta-cognitive interoceptive awareness (how well one monitors internal signals) was specifically linked to less malleability of bodily self-location. The results suggest that stable self-location depends on an interaction between external sensory input and higher-order interoceptive abilities, with implications for understanding disorders involving disturbed body perception.
People with current borderline personality disorder (BPD) are more prone to out-of-body experiences (OBEs) than those with remitted BPD or nonclinical controls. In a study of 22 participants with current BPD, 16 with remitted BPD, and 20 nonclinical controls, experimentally induced OBEs showed higher proneness in the current BPD group. Processing of pain and emotional sounds was not affected by the induced dissociative experiences. Changes in clinical dissociation were linked to the degree of body-self detachment in the current BPD group. The findings suggest that altered processing of external sensory information contributes to dissociative self-experiences in BPD, and this appears to normalize when the disorder remits.