Abstract
In this paper, we explicate the ambiguous role of the body in projection science by focusing on the experiments on bodily illusions. First, we trace back to the original experiment of rubber hand illusion, in which the participants feel illusory touch on the synchronously stroked fake hand as well as the sense of ownership on it. From a phenomenological perspective, we clarify that the rubber hand is incorporated into the inner space of one’s own body, and subjectively experienced as located “here” during the illusion. Based on this clarification, we give a new account to the full-body illusion experiments. In the past research, they have been considered as a sort of out-of-body illusion in which one’s sense of self-location is transferred outside the physical body toward the virtual body. However, this does not describe the actual experience of the illusion. What the participants experience in fact is the sense of self-location that tacitly extends from the physical body to the virtual body. After reconsidering these bodily illusions, it is suggested that the spatiality of one’s own body is not the product of projection but the source to be projected onto the spatiality of objects.
