Decoding Death: The Science of Near Death Experiences

[Elvis]

Scientific thinking about "near death experiences" is changing, slowly. Here's an excellent 44-minute CBC Radio documentary about NDEs, aired earlier this month; you can listen to it right on page:

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/decoding- ... of+June+22

Decoding Death: The Science and Significance of Near Death Experiences



People have reported "near death experiences", or NDE's, over centuries and across cultures. The nature of them has historically been the territory of religion and philosophy. But now science has staked its claim in the discussion. And the questions are profound: where is consciousness produced, in the brain, or somewhere else? Can consciousness continue to exist even after the heart and brain have stopped working? Contributor Ashley Walters explores the science and the meaning of near death experiences.

"Our evidence suggests that the brain does not function. Yet we do have a group of people that come back with very profound recollections and awareness of exactly what was happening to them when they were technically dead, and when you talk to their physicians and nurses and experts such as myself, they should not have been able to recall. And so of course this opens up a whole Pandora's Box of what do we need for consciousness to occur? Well, we know that in order for us to recall our consciousness of course you have to have a functioning brain, but the question is, is it brain cells that are generating consciousness or is consciousness a separate undiscovered scientific entity that is not necessarily produced by the brain but may be able to modulate the brain itself." -- Dr. Sam Parnia


Tony Cicoria's near death experience. How could such a thing be possible?

Tony Cicoria was 42-years-old, and successful orthopaedic surgeon in upstate New York. It was the summer of 1994, and a storm was approaching. At one point, he wanted to call his mother.

This was before the age of cell phones so Tony walked over to a nearby payphone. He remembers every detail of what happened next. "I dialled her number, I let it ring seven or eight times and then I started to hang up the phone. As I pulled it away from my face, I heard a loud crack and I saw a flash of light. It came out of the phone and hit me in the face and threw me back like a rag doll."

Tony was about to experience something few people live to talk about.

"I saw the phone dangling and had absolutely no idea what had happened other than the fact that I knew I had been hit by lightning. And I should have been going backwards and now I'm standing here. And right at that moment, I heard my mother-in-law screaming at the top of her lungs and she's running right at me and she just went right by me. And I turned to see where she was going and I suddenly realized that she was heading over to see me. I'm over on the ground. I had the sudden realization that, Oh my God, I'm dead!"

Tony had gone into cardiac arrest. Luckily, the woman waiting in line behind him happened to be a nurse, and she started CPR immediately. And then, things got even stranger.

Tony stood beside his body and watched as the nurse started CPR. He could hear everything that people were saying around him, but nobody could hear or see him. "At that moment I realized that oh my God, I was still thinking in the same way that are normally would if I was alive."

Tony was having what's known as an NDE -- a near death experience.

It's a heightened state of consciousness reported by people who were clinically dead, or who believed they were about to die. And Tony's not alone; there have been thousands of cases of people who've been revived after going into cardiac arrest. And in some of these cases people have reported accurate memories of the time after their hearts and brains had flatlined.


Guests in this episode:

Judy Bachrach is a journalist for Vanity Fair and the author of Glimpsing Heaven: The Stories and Science of Life After Death, published by National Geographic, 2014.

Gregory Shushan is a comparative religions scholar at the University of Wales and the author of Conceptions of the Afterlife in Early Civilizations: Universalism, Constructivism and Near-Death Experiences published by Continuum, 2011.

Bruce Greyson is a professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia. He is editor of The Handbook of Near Death Experiences: 30 Years of Investigation, published by Praeger, 2009.

Sam Parnia is a critical care doctor and cardiac arrest researcher in Long Island, New York. He's also a specialist in resuscitation science. His book Erasing Death: The Science That is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life & Death is published by HarperCollins, 2014.

Jan Holden is a near death researcher at the University of North Texas and the editor of The Handbook of Near Death Experiences: 30 Years of Investigation published by Praeger, 2009.

Pim van Lommel is a cardiologist and near death researcher in the Netherlands. His book Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience is published by HarperCollins, 2014.

Patricia Pearson is a writer based in Toronto and the author of Opening Heaven's Door: What the Dying May Be Tryng To Tell Us About Where They're Going, published Penguin Random House Canada, 2014.

Gerald Woerlee is an anaesthesiologist in the Netherlands and the author of Mortal Minds: The Biology of Near Death Experiences published by Prometheus Books, 2005.

Full episode (52 mins.): http://www.cbc.ca/radio/popup/audio/lis ... =1.3884084


Definitely worth a listen if you're at all curious about the nature of consiousness. I think any discussion of this can include related concepts like reincarnation, which has been getting some scientific attention as well.

[km artlu]

Thank you for this Elvis.

I'm forever baffled by the zealous insistence of materialists that consciousness is a delusion...brain activity generates awareness...all is mechanical, chemical, stale, dreary, and hopeless. What exactly is the payoff for rejecting all counter-evidence and fanatically clinging to this bleak worldview? (not a purely rhetorical question; I just don't get it)

Anyway, thanks again for a Christmas Eve nudge toward the sublime.

[Elvis]

[Project Willow]

TRIGGER WARNING













Another fiction series that taps into MC survivor narratives, this one centers on NDE's.

[Searcher08]

:sun:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x167bkr_brian-weiss-past-life-regression-session_lifestyle

I found this a doorway to amazing experiences and learnings....

[DrEvil]

Thank you for this Elvis.

I'm forever baffled by the zealous insistence of materialists that consciousness is a delusion...brain activity generates awareness...all is mechanical, chemical, stale, dreary, and hopeless. What exactly is the payoff for rejecting all counter-evidence and fanatically clinging to this bleak worldview? (not a purely rhetorical question; I just don't get it)

Anyway, thanks again for a Christmas Eve nudge toward the sublime.

I can only speak for myself, but as far as I'm concerned the idea of a worldview having a payoff is nonsensical.
I don't base my worldview on whether it makes me feel good or not but on whether it makes sense or not, and how much evidence there is to back it up.

That said, the one payoff I can think of for the materialist view of consciousness is exactly that it's material. It's something tangible that we can poke at and understand, and maybe one day learn to preserve after biological death, taking the concept of an afterlife out of myth and into the real.

Personally I would much rather have a custom built heaven than the generic biblical one.

[Luther Blissett]

The OA is a very good show, it should be noted. We have discussed Brit Marling's work here before. She is like a young rigorous intuition poster who creates and performs in her own works. I think that few young people working in Hollywood today have her chops. The stories tend to be quite original.

[82_28]

Thanks for the link, Elvis. I laid down on the floor and listened to it and flashed on some ideas I "long ago" had. (I do "think" that consciousness exists separate from the mortal coil -- but I think it's just because I like that idea more). . .

However, I have long thought that instances as to the subject matter are because there literally is an infinite amount of time embedded within every second. You can split a second infinitely. Every second contains within it an eternity, but our brains are much too slow to perceive the infinity. This is a huge perhaps, but perhaps, perhaps "heaven" the "afterlife" are all contained within what we call a single second? It goes on forever because there is nothing left to observe/perceive? I gotz no idea because it is impossible for the human brain to do anything, at the "end of the day" but observe the time it is set to. Here's another analogy -- speeding up the graphics card and processor in a video game system/computer to make it run at a speed that our brains cannot perceive. The system clock. Speed it up to the point where there is nothing.

Again, you have me. But those are a few things I've thought about. If it didn't make me insane I would go back to school and get my cognitive science degree. I might.

[Elvis]

I don't base my worldview on whether it makes me feel good or not but on whether it makes sense or not, and how much evidence there is to back it up.

I wonder if you listened to the CBC program, and if you think any evidence for after-death/"non-local" consciousness was presented? Going by the same criteria of evidence and what makes sense, I think evidence is there.

[chump]

Life was not a valuable gift, but death was. Life was a fever-dream made up of joys embittered by sorrows, pleasure poisoned by pain; a dream that was a nightmare-confusion of spasmodic and fleeting delights, ecstasies, exultations, happinesses, interspersed with long-drawn miseries, griefs, perils, horrors, disappointments, defeats,humiliations, and despairs--the heaviest curse devisable by divine ingenuity; but death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind; death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart, and gave them rest and forgetfulness; death was man's best friend; when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free.

- Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth

https://youtu.be/ZWyHuN1G1vk

3-Year-Old Remembers Past Life & Identifies His Murderer
Published on May 21, 2014

A young boy remembers a past life "reincarnation" he had where he was murdered. The 3-year old correctly identified the spot he was buried, the village he was from, and the murderer. Is this proof that reincarnation is real?

http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2011/12/free-will.html
Saturday, December 17, 2011

FREE WILL?


Michael Gazzaniga studies brains.

He's a neuroscientist at the University of California.

He has written a book entitled Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain

Gazzaniga reports that various physical forces influence our actions and moods.

So, do we have free will?

Gazzaniga refers to a 2011 study which found that, when people were persuaded that they did not have free will, they became less compassionate and less peaceful.

However, Gazzaniga believes that "there is no scientific reason not to hold people accountable and responsible."

Gazzaniga points out that there is a difference between the MIND and the BRAIN...

https://youtu.be/SMuHHiWFCjc

...One in ten people claim to have had an out-of-body experience at some time in their lives.

At Out-of-body - near-death experiences, we read:

In Dr. Raymond Moody's documentary entitled, Life After Life, he interviewed a Russian scientist named Dr. George Rodonaia, who had a near-death out of body experience.

While 'dead' George visited an infant crying in a nearby room.

"George observed that no one could figure out why the infant was crying so persistently.

"But George learned while out of his body that the infant had a broken arm.

"When George returned to life, he told the infant's parents about the broken arm.

"An x-ray revealed that the infant's arm was indeed broken."

There is a question about whether or not consciousness exists outside the body.

Believers in Reincarnation would suggest that consciousness survives death...

con'd

https://youtu.be/jRllgpLLzUQ

[Elvis]

https://youtu.be/ZWyHuN1G1vk

3-Year-Old Remembers Past Life & Identifies His Murderer
Published on May 21, 2014

A young boy remembers a past life "reincarnation" he had where he was murdered. The 3-year old correctly identified the spot he was buried, the village he was from, and the murderer. Is this proof that reincarnation is real?

This is no means an isolated case; researchers at the University of Virginia (mentioned in the OP broadcast) have investigated over 200 such cases, interviewing the children (sometimes now grown) and their families and confirming reported details from the children's 'past lives' (for lack of a better term). This amounts to real evidence, the same kind of account that inspired Carl Sagan (of all people) to travel to India and investigate a similar case of a little girl who described a past life in a nearby village; her details were also confirmed, leading Sagan to insist that the phenomenon deserved serious scientific attention. I'll try to find a link about that later, meanwhile here's the UOV page link & some quotes:

https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/

“I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led.”

–Thomas Jefferson (1814)

Information about the Division of Perceptual Studies

The Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS), formerly the Division of Personality Studies, is a unit of the Department of Psychiatry & Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, VA. The Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) was founded as a research unit of the Department of Psychiatric Medicine at UVA by Dr. Ian Stevenson in 1967. (see History and Description for more information about the founding of DOPS).

Utilizing scientific methods, the researchers within The Division of Perceptual Studies investigate apparent paranormal phenomena especially in the following areas of research:

Children Who Claim to Remember Previous Lives:

Some young children, usually between the ages of 2 and 5, speak about memories of a previous life they claim to have lived. At the same time they often show behaviors, such as phobias or preferences, that are unusual within the context of their particular family and cannot be explained by any current life events. These memories appear to be concordant with the child’s statements about a previous life. In many cases of this type, the child’s statements have been shown to correspond accurately to facts in the life and death of a deceased person. Some of the children have birthmarks and birth defects that correspond to wounds or other marks on the deceased person whose life is being remembered by the child. In numerous cases postmortem reports have confirmed these correspondences. Older children may retain these apparent memories, but generally they seem to fade around the age of 7 .

The research staff at the Division of Perceptual Studies has been investigating these cases since 1961 and have published numerous articles and books about them. There is also a list of books on reincarnation which includes one book about Dr. Stevenson’s work by Tom Shroder, editor at the Washington Post at the time of the publication of the book. This book is called “Old Souls” and was published in 1999 after Mr. Shroder spent a great deal of time observing Dr. Stevenson investigating cases in the field. The young subjects of these cases have been found all over the world including Europe and North America.

...

A video of Dr. Jim Tucker describing a young boy who has memories of a previous life in which he was his own grandfather. In this video, Dr. Tucker discusses his own research as well as the research conducted by the esteemed founder of DOPS, the late Dr. Ian Stevenson. Click here to view the video.

PAST LIVES : A RESEARCHER’S PERSPECTIVE

In this video, Dr. Jim Tucker offers his perspective on the scientific research into children who remember past lives. “I don’t think that we can map these cases on to mainstream materialistic view of the world, I think what they seem to indicate is that consciousness is not limited just to the physical brain but can continue on after the brain dies. I think there are reasons, other reasons, to consider that consciousness should be considered separate from the physical world, that is, a separate entity.” Click here to view the video.

(Disclaimer: the viewer of this video will notice that the title of this series is “Discovering Regression Therapy, A Love Story”. This project was not produced by the The Division of Perceptual Studies. Our division does not in any way use, nor do we endorse regression therapy as a means of gathering information in the cases we study of small children who spontaneously report past lives memories. Please refer to this* page for an explanation as to why we do not endorse past life regression as a means of conducting our research.)

*https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/who-we-are/services-we-do-not-provide/concerns-about-hypnotic-regression/

[DrEvil]

I don't base my worldview on whether it makes me feel good or not but on whether it makes sense or not, and how much evidence there is to back it up.

I wonder if you listened to the CBC program, and if you think any evidence for after-death/"non-local" consciousness was presented? Going by the same criteria of evidence and what makes sense, I think evidence is there.

I didn't listen to it, but I'm open to the idea of non-local consciousness and there's some intriguing stuff out there, but nothing I would call conclusive evidence (assuming the CBC program didn't present any, in which case I would probably have heard of it by now). More research into the subject is needed (just a shame that people have to actually die to gather data, which complicates things).
I'm not hostile to the idea of an after-life/non-local consciousness, just the religious versions of it.

Whatever it turns out to be I still think it's part of the material universe, just bits of it we don't fully understand, but we should still be able to poke and prod at it and figure out the underlying mechanics of it (assuming the human brain is even capable of understanding it).

[Elvis]

I didn't listen to it, but I'm open to the idea of non-local consciousness and there's some intriguing stuff out there, but nothing I would call conclusive evidence (assuming the CBC program didn't present any, in which case I would probably have heard of it by now). More research into the subject is needed (just a shame that people have to actually die to gather data, which complicates things).
I'm not hostile to the idea of an after-life/non-local consciousness, just the religious versions of it.

Consider listening to the program; the 'needed research' is happening and is presented there. (Some 'mundane' explanations are offered as well by a skeptical scientist, though not very convincingly imo.)

And, no one has to die to gather the data—the near death experiencers are all living.

Whatever it turns out to be I still think it's part of the material universe, just bits of it we don't fully understand

Or is the physical universe a manifestation of a 'non-physical' energy? The word "physical" presents some problems that probably interfere with our understanding of the NDE and related phenomena.

[DrEvil]

I didn't listen to it, but I'm open to the idea of non-local consciousness and there's some intriguing stuff out there, but nothing I would call conclusive evidence (assuming the CBC program didn't present any, in which case I would probably have heard of it by now). More research into the subject is needed (just a shame that people have to actually die to gather data, which complicates things).
I'm not hostile to the idea of an after-life/non-local consciousness, just the religious versions of it.

Consider listening to the program; the 'needed research' is happening and is presented there. (Some 'mundane' explanations are offered as well by a skeptical scientist, though not very convincingly imo.)

And, no one has to die to gather the data—the near death experiencers are all living.

Whatever it turns out to be I still think it's part of the material universe, just bits of it we don't fully understand

Or is the physical universe a manifestation of a 'non-physical' energy? The word "physical" presents some problems that probably interfere with our understanding of the NDE and related phenomena.

What I meant was that I don't think there are mutually exclusive frameworks for explaining the world, be they material or non-physical; it's all parts of the same framework, and I currently subscribe to the material framework (and there's countless versions of what exactly that means, but for the sake of this argument: you live, you die, the end) but will happily admit that I could be wrong if presented with compelling evidence.
I'll have a listen to the program.

Also, about people dying, obviously I didn't mean dead dead, just temporarily dead, otherwise they wouldn't be around to talk about their experiences.

[Elvis]

What I meant was that I don't think there are mutually exclusive frameworks for explaining the world, be they material or non-physical; it's all parts of the same framework

Very well put, a helpful perspective on the whole subject.

I'll have a listen to the program.

Also, about people dying, obviously I didn't mean dead dead, just temporarily dead, otherwise they wouldn't be around to talk about their experiences.

Apologies for mistaking your meaning there and being a smarty-pants. Regarding the 'Death' part of NDEs, one notable feature of NDE reports is that a great majority of experiencers describe their NDE as very positive (except for the common reluctance to return to the body), often producing profound new outlooks on life. I look forward to your impressions of the CBC program if you get a chance to listen; I have a rough mental model but by no means do I have this thing figured out.