Trying hard to understand NDEs

I left off in my previous post by mentioning that I would raise some of the physiological aspects occurring simultaneously with the near-death experience (NDE).


To set the stage, a review of the medical literature shows that there are no particular disease states or events predominantly associated with NDEs. Among the many clinical circumstances reported to be associated with NDEs are cardiac arrest in myocardial infarction, shock in postpartum loss of blood or in perioperative complications, anaphylactic and septic shock, electrocution, coma resulting from traumatic brain injury, intracerebral hemorrhage or cerebral infarction, attempted suicide, near-drowning or asphyxia, apnea, and serious depression.

Several retrospective analyses have been conducted which have identified a number of interesting physiological correlates of NDEs. According to a 2001 study, the physiology of an NDE in patients with cardiac arrest usually includes elevated partial O2 pressure relative to other patients with cardiac arrest.

In September 2008 it was announced that an international study conducted in 25 UK and US hospitals would examine near-death events in 1,500 patient-survivors of heart attacks. The 3-year AWARE study — a follow-up to an earlier 18-month pilot study — is being coordinated by Dr.Sam Parnia of Southampton University. The goal of the study is to determine whether individuals can have an OBE with veridical (ie, real-world) visual perceptions in the absence of a heartbeat and brain activity. (As a side note, one of the simple but quite elegant fine points of the study is the inclusion of pictures visible only from the ceiling on shelves in the hospital rooms. Thus, if a patient’s spirit truly leaves the body and ascends toward the ceiling, they may be able to describe these heretofore unseen items.)

Some researchers and commentators tend to emphasize a naturalistic, neurobiological basis for the experience, while not necessarily trying to debunk NDEs. These include Susan Blackmore (1991), Birk Engmann at the Univeristy of Leipzig, and the founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine, Michael Shermer (2010). Among the explanations invoked have been destabilized temporal lobes in the brain creating NDE-prone personalities, psychopathological symptoms secondary to severe brain malfunction resulting from the stoppage of cerebral blood circulation, and other concrete scientific explanations awaiting discovery.

In my next post, we’ll take a look at some of the data that don’t fit so neatly into the purely neurobiological “box” of explanations.

Near-death experiences - the real afterlife or just a hallucination?

Coming back to the theme of consciousness that I touched on a few weeks ago, I’ve been looking into the scientific literature on near-death experiences (NDEs) and out of body experiences (OBEs). I find it absolutely fascinating to consider the possibility that a person’s consciousness could exist separately from the body, even for a finite period of time. There are also some intriguing tie-ins with remote viewing, but that’s a topic that will have to wait for a post of its own. Even NDEs and OBEs as individual topics merit much more than a brief post.


An NDE by definition is an experience or any of a collection of experiences by an individual associated with impending physical death. These experiences consist of a range of phenomena which may include separation from the body, a sense of floating or levitating, feelings of calm/security/warmth, and the presence of an all-encompassing light. The majority of these phenomena are reported when the individual in question is either very close to death or once he or she has actually been pronounced clinically dead. Ironically enough, there have been a significant number of NDEs reported by individuals who have not experienced life-threatening circumstances.

Modern interest in NDEs can be traced to the publication of Life After Life by Raymond Moody, MD, PhD in 1975. For many people, this was their first exposure to a broad review and discussion of over 100 cases of clinical deaths and subsequent resuscitations. The interest sparked by this book led to the foundation of the Association for the Scientific Study of Near-Death Phenomena (now the International Association for Near-Death Studies) in 1978 by Moody, John Audette, MS, Ken Ring, PhD, Bruce Greyson, MD, and Michael Sabom, MD. Since that time, these individuals and others with an interest in NDEs have been involved with the founding of a number of similar research groups and programs, including the Near Death Experience Research Foundation and the Human Consciousness Project.

As with most other paranormal phenomena, the scientific community as a whole is divided on the issue of NDEs and what they represent versus what they actually are. Opinions vary from the entire experience being a hallucination brought on by the stress of the NDE at one extreme all the way to the experience being a definitive demonstration of the existence of an afterlife.

In my next post, I’ll examine the physiological correlates of the NDE and some of the pro- and con- afterlife viewpoints.

In the meantime, as always, I welcome your opinions on the subject!

Does our consciousness survive bodily death?

As I spent some time this past week poring over the abstract book from the recent conference “Toward a Science of Consciousness” sponsored by the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, I realized that it was going to be more than a little challenging to select a topic for this week’s blog post. Ultimately, I decided to select a paper presented by Julie Beischel and Adam Rock of the Windbridge Institute that bridges (no pun intended) 2 of my favorite subjects: specifically, the survival of consciousness and psi (feel free to substitute your favorite term here, eg clairvoyance, telepathy, etc.).


In their paper, entitled “A Phenomenological Pathway to an Empirically Driven Distinction Between Survival Psi and Somatic Psi by Research Mediums,” Drs. Beischel and Rock describe the experiences of the Windbridge Institute with certified research mediums (CRMs) who had been screened and trained over a period of several months and had their abilities documented under controlled laboratory conditions. According to the paper, “these CRMs are able to consistently report accurate and specific information about the deceased loved ones (termed discarnates) of living people (termed sitters) during anomalous information reception (AIR); that is, without any prior knowledge about the discarnates or sitters, in the absence of sensory feedback, and without using deceptive means.”

Up to this point, the scientific/skeptical portion of my brain really liked what I’d read, although I felt strongly compelled to read more of the background on the screening, training, documentation processes as well as the controlled lab conditions. (Note: Many publications on the research conducted at the Windbridge Institute are available through the Publications section of their website) However, in the interest of time (and knowing that a follow-up post is always fair game, as is a query directed to the good researchers at Windbridge), I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt…

Continuing on, the researchers indicated that an identification of the specific parapsychological mechanisms underlying the AIR demonstrated by the CRMs has been historically lacking. They proposed 3 specific psi-based mechanisms by which AIR might be possible, namely super-psi (potent psychic ability), somatic-psi (psi communication with the living – used to obtain information regarding the deceased), and survival-psi (telepathic communication – specifically with the deceased). Two specific studies were described, one quantitative study in which CRMs’ experiences during readings for discarnates were compared to their experiences during control conditions, and a subsequent study in which CRMs’ experiences of purported communication with discarnates was qualitatively compared to their experiences during psychic readings for the living (ostensibly employing somatic psi).

In the final analysis comparing the essential aspects of the 2 experiences, Beischel and Rock suggested that CRMs could differentiate between ostensible discarnate communication and their use of somatic psi during psychic readings. To me this is an absolutely fascinating statement suggesting that individuals with mediumistic abilities are able to not only tap into the conscious and subconscious minds of the living, but that they are also able to establish communication with the deceased and further can discriminate between the two. While this paper may not directly address the question of survival of consciousness after physical death, it does indicate a positive trend in the establishment of objective research methodologies for interrogating these very questions.