About
Samantha Lee Treasure is a researcher in the anthropology of out-of-body experiences (OBEs). She is the author of Out-of-Body Experiences: Explorations and Encounters with the Astral Plane (2025), which takes the reader from neuroscience labs to the steppes of Siberia, and from practices in occult and witchcraft traditions to new religious movements and the Gen Z "shifting" phenomenon.
She holds an MA in Medical Anthropology from SOAS University of London (dissertation: Spontaneous and deliberate out-of-body experiences among the South Korean populace), and currently serves as a Volunteer Research Affiliate at the University of Virginia's Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS), where she is collaborating on the first study on OBE entities with Dr Marina Weiler, Dr Julie Exline, Dr Sam Gandy, Dr Alex de Foe (Monash) and Dr David Luke (Greenwich).
Samantha has conducted fieldwork on OBEs in the UK, South Korea, and Siberia, focusing on cultural definitions and triggers, and health and wellness. She has spoken internationally on this subject since 2013, and is committed to destigmatising this phenomenon through grounded, ethical, and accessible research. As part of this mission, she also volunteers with the Spiritual Crisis Network, gives talks to various communities and groups, and consults wellness and health professionals. She is currently based in South Korea.
Publications
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COMING IN JANUARY 2027: Cyborg Phantoms: How Digital Culture is Reshaping Paranormal Experiences
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2025 Out-of-Body Experiences: Explorations and Encounters with the Astral Plane
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2025 "From Chatbots to Astral Intelligences: Virtual Thinking and the Emergence of AI Cosmologies," (open access)
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2020 "Altered states can help us face death with serenity and levity" (Psyche)
Current projects
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Fieldwork on out-of-body experiences within South Korean shamanism with a grant from the Society for Psychical Research
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OBE entity survey with the University of Virginia, Monash University, and the University of Greenwich
Interests
Besides out-of-body experiences, I am also interested in sleep paralysis, dreams, liminal spaces & states, nostalgia, video games and technology, and new religious movements.
Why Zombies In PJs?
I named this website after one of my favourite episodes of my favourite show as a child, Eerie Indiana, after becoming disturbed at some of the ways in which pop culture and technology was influencing our altered states (which I explore in Cyborg Phantoms, Out-of-Body Experiences in the Screen Age) and From Chatbots to Astral Intelligences.
