Also known as internal heautoscopy, inner heautoscopy, organic auto-representation, and auto-representative phenomenon. The term internal autoscopy was introduced in or shortly before 1903 by the French physician and psychologist Paul Auguste Sollier (1861-1933) to denote atypeof "autoscopy (i.e. 'seeing oneself') in which the body's internal organs are perceived in the form of a " visual hallucination. Such hallucinations may manifest themselves in three different ways. They are either seen as a projection into extracorporeal space, as an image that is perceived as emanating 'from within', or as an image as if seen from outside, as in "out-of-body experiences (OBE). During an episode of internal autoscopy the affected individual think he is able to describe the size, structure, position, and functional activity of his bodily organs. The phenomenon was first described in the context of magnetism and hypnotism. At the time, it was associated primarily with hysteria. Sollier uses the term internal autoscopy in opposition to " external autoscopy (characterized by a visual or " compound hallucination depicting the body's exterior features). Sollier classifies both internal and external " autoscopic hallucinations as " coenesthetic hallucinations.
References
Brugger, P., Regard, M., Landis, Th. (1997). Illusory reduplication of one's own body: Phenomenology and classification of auto-scopic phenomena. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 2, 19-38.
Comar, G. (1901). L'auto-représentation de l'organisme chez quelques hystériques. Revue Neurologique, 9, 490-495.
Dening, T.R., Berrios, G.E. (1994). Autoscopic phenomena. British Journal of Psychiatry, 165, 808-817.
Sollier, P. (1903). Les phénomènes d'autoscopie. Paris: Félix Alcan.
Dictionary of Hallucinations. J.D. Blom. 2010.