Why a Near-Death Experience Isn’t Proof of Heaven (Sci Amer)

[goldent]

17. There is another book about near death experience coming out

The book is called "Erasing Death: The Science That Is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death"

There was a very interesting interview with the author on NPR a couple months back. The author is a critical care doctor and director of resuscitation research and thus hears "near death" stories from patients.

Some excepts I liked (from the link above):

What we study is not people who are near death," Parnia tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "We study people who have objectively died. ... And therefore what we've understood is that the experience that these people have of going beyond the threshold of death, entering the period after death for the first few tens of minutes or hours of time, provides us with an indication of what we're all likely to experience when we go through death."

The question that drives his research, he says, is: "Is there a reason why people are having these experiences? For instance, could it signify that somehow these people had had better-quality resuscitation of the brain?"

"The experience that people have is very personal and it's very real to them. So, for most people who've gone through these experiences, as far as they're concerned, what they've experienced is absolutely real. They've described and seen something of the other side. Now, for those of us who haven't had the experience, it's impossible to verify that, but in the same way that, for instance, if a patient comes to me and says, 'I have depression,' it would be completely unacceptable for me as a physician to simply discard that experience and say, 'Well, I don't think [so]. You may feel that you're depressed, but actually it's an illusion of having depression or you're hallucinating. Your depression, it's not really real.' So we have to remember that to the people who've had the experience, it's real to them."

I remember from the interview that he did not claim any religious connection to these experiences, but did speculate about the existence of a soul/spirit/mind/psyche that is distinct from the brain, to explain some of the contradictions of these experiences. He also said his belief is that people should not fear death; on the other hand, he said suicide survivors generally had much more disturbing experiences that were not positive.

Edit to add: One other fascinating thing I remember from the interview is that about 10-20% of people report near death experiences (he thinks it could be more but often it can be a long time after resuscitation before the patient is conscious and the memory may be lost). Anyhow, some small percentage of these people report out-of-body experiences. In his hospital he has placed hidden objects in emergency rooms (only visible from above) to see if anyone reporting an out-of-body experience can identify them. Due to the rarity of this, it will take some time to get any useful results.