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Where is the medical evidence that NDEs happen?

December 8, 2011 By Nan Bush 5 Comments

The blog Skeptico recently featured an interview with PMH Atwater, after which a couple of commenters kept asking about the medical evidence that her three NDEs happened. In fact, they wondered whether any NDE can be said to happen in the absence of corroboration. Where are the records? Or, to quote one comment, “An NDE-like experience without any witnesses or medical documentation to support it can be anything, including hallucinations.”

Those questioners are far from alone. The fact that this question keeps being asked is an indication that a great many people don’t get the idea of “experience.” Any experience is a private, personal happening in consciousness. It is not a public activity. By definition, a near-death or similar experience cannot be witnessed, although in rare instances it may be shared.

The best a medical record can do is track physiological events and record circumstances. Although a monitoring device may register a blip in some function being recorded, it cannot indicate the presence of an NDE during that blip. No one watching the monitor will see, or feel, or think what the patient is seeing and feeling and thinking. In short, the biological event may be witnessed, but the NDE itself is not open to observers.

It seems ironic that under the most tightly monitored circumstances, in cardiac arrest with stringent clinical recording, studies find the fewest reports of NDEs. Does this mean that near-death experiences in other circumstances are fraudulent? No, it means simply that the conditions surrounding cardiac arrest and resuscitation either do not promote having an NDE or affect a patient’s being physically and cognitively able to report it afterward. As for mistaking one type of experience for another, the differences between the sensations and effects of NDEs and hallucinations have been well documented for two decades; that is no longer an issue except for people who are unaware of the research.

I wonder, after so many thousands of NDE reports with no corroborating medical records but with objective evidence of life changes to indicate that something happened, what is it that people are looking for in demanding medical evidence?

Tagged With: consciousness, doubt, evidence, Experience, hallucination, medical records, NDE, near death experience, proof

November disappeared

November 19, 2011 By Nan Bush Leave a Comment

Apologies to you all for Dancing’s disappearance this month. A family member’s hospitalization has had me shuttling back and forth just enough distance to eat up most of a day. We’re about to get back to something like normal–and so, back to posting! Thanks for your patience.

 

Not only distressing NDEs go bump in the night

November 6, 2011 By Nan Bush 3 Comments

Here’s a question to go with the matter of what’s real: What about monsters?

In my household, the past several weeks have been taken up with a knee replacement (not mine) gone not-quite-as-desired. While I try to catch up with posts, here is an article that doesn’t mention NDEs but has a bearing on the way we think about things that go bump in the night and in our darker selves.

http://www.patheos.com//Resources/Additional-Resources/America-Is-Scared-of-Itself-Greg-Garrett-10-21-2011.html

Tagged With: "America is Scared of Itself", American history, fears, Greg Garrett, monsters, ourselves, prejudice, the Other

So…are NDEs real?

October 13, 2011 By Nan Bush 9 Comments

Two sentences practically jumped off the page at me from Robert Perry’s interesting article (see previous post):

“We clearly need to look to hard evidence, and not just trust the subjective impression of the experiencers themselves… They are overwhelmingly convinced that their experience was real. If we can gain some genuine understanding of why, then perhaps that will help us decide how much we can believe them.”

I’ll be interested in hearing your responses.

As I read these sentences, they suggest that the question is whether we are to understand the essence of what experiencers say about their own experiences or to believe that they are returning from those experiences with ‘hard evidence,’ something like lab data. And yet, these are the types of events Joseph Campbell described as being “metaphysically grounded in a…realm beyond space and time, which, since it is physically invisible, can be known only to the mind.” It’s important to science that we work with the right set of inputs.

If a perception is unverifiable, does that mean it is false? Is it possible that the hard evidence about them is that NDEs and similar experiences give people a clear perception that __x__ is happening?  If, as you die, your last flicker of cognition is that you are being greeted by the person you most love in all the world, how much does it matter that a research observer would agree? Within the experience, it is real.

But that is pure speculation. How much can we know about these odd events? Andrew Newberg says of his brain scans of monks and nuns during peak instances of meditation and prayer that the altered states of mind which the meditators “described as the absorption of the self into something larger were not the results of emotional mistakes or simple, wishful thinking, but were associated instead with a series of observable neurological events, which, while unusual, are not outside the range of normal brain function.”

Those “observable neurological events”—the hard evidence—demonstrate that something measurable (i.e., “real”) is happening in our familiar time/space universe; they give satisfyingly concrete data about when and where the activity occurs. However, just as a map is not the territory, the scans are incomplete: they are not the experience, any more than a book of photos is a trip to Niagara Falls.

In that same way, a near-death experience is a real experiential event–but only in the life of the individual who has it. This is the problem with subjective events: that only one person is the “subject”; there can be no witnesses. At the very instant in which an experiencer begins to describe it, the experience vanishes; for everyone else in the world what remains will be a conceptually ordered and interpreted story, a narrative that cannot be “known” in all its dimensionality. Of course the narrative is coherent; that is the business of language and reason; yet to force an experience down through the restrictiveness of language and concept is like trying to draw an accurate picture of sunrise with only primary color crayons; it may be suggested but can’t be captured, and the interpretive result cannot be precise. For instance, “I saw Jesus” from a child may mean that, in truth, he saw Jesus; or it may mean, “I was with a presence that felt the way the stories of Jesus talk about him, and I don’t know what else to call that, so I guess it’s ok to say it was Jesus.” One is as experientially real as the other.

We must learn to live with NDEs as we do with subatomic particles, which disappear when observed, their portraits showing not the particles themselves but only where they have been. There may be no known physical, geographical locality that matches what is described in an NDE. On the other hand, NDEs have demonstrable consequences that are often real enough to disrupt and reshape human lives—the “footprints” of experiential reality. Can we accept those as convincing data?

To make matters worse, Campbell’s “realm beyond space and time, which, since it is physically invisible, can be known only to the mind” is a realm that lives not by denotation but by connotation, not by the sharp lines of photography but by the soft edges of watercolor. This is where the archetypes live, not in the sense of neatly lined up definitions but as limitless cascades of suggestion and possibility. When we say, “It’s only in your mind,” we mean something isn’t real; but here, only the mind can know what is true. It may be experientially true yet factually wrong. (Example: Genesis 1 & 2)

We will continue to drive ourselves crazy if we do not recognize that the reality of the “real world” of material, physical objects does not always accurately describe the “real world” of invisible, interior personal experience that happens somewhere (and somehow) in our mind. The materialist view of the past 300-plus years, which has been ferociously defended during the past century, has been to insist that only the physical reality is “real” reality; the rest is too often derisively dismissed as illusion, when in fact the problem may be with our understanding of how to listen. When our culture says, “It’s all in your mind,” what if that’s where this particular reality is?

A sophisticated young blogger makes some useful observations:

For the Pentecostal Christian communities in the bush in Africa, the spiritualist aboriginal cultures in the Pacific islands, and the Shamanistic nature religions in the remote mountains of South America, humans and spirits walk the same ground and live life side by side in a way a westerner cannot fully grasp. Seemingly miraculous healings/exorcisms/ demon sightings can and do occur—any cultural anthropologist will tell you this. But you will find alongside the “spiritual” explanation a “scientific” one that accounts for the same phenomena through psychology, deceit, or nature. Acknowledging these other explanations should not force us to choose either side. It should simply make us wary when determining what can and cannot exist based solely off of what we can and cannot observe in the material realm. (http://theophiliacs.com/2008/09/14/demons/)

Can we believe what experiencers say about their NDEs? Are they real? Well, do you mean, in a Western sense, are they materially verifiable, or are they true? To mistake the difference is to create a great distortion.

Remember–you’re invited to talk back!

Tagged With: Andrew Nyberg, experiential real world, interpretation, Joseph Campbell, material real world, narrative experience, neurological event, perception, reality of NDE, Robert Perry, true

Distressing NDEs: push the book

October 2, 2011 By Nan Bush 4 Comments

Another book proposal packet has just gone off, this time not to an agent but directly to a publisher who is likely to be interested. Manuscript is finished and can be sent to them if they request.  Working title: Dancing in the Dark: Distressing near-death experiences, what they are, what they mean, and why they should matter to you.

Yeah, all that. Affirmations, prayers, positive incantations, and general good vibes relative to this project will be appreciated.

dNDEs by the numbers

September 21, 2011 By Nan Bush 2 Comments

Preparing for the IANDS conference at Houston’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in 2006, I did a detailed review of the research literature 1975-2005 to see what various studies had said about distressing NDEs. The findings were distributed as handouts but were not included in the published report in The Near-Death Handbook. Some readers here may be interested. In the next post, I’ll comment on them.

Distressing Western NDEs, 1975-2005: Research Summary

Note:  Please keep in mind that figures for “n NDE” and “n dNDE” are the numbers of experiences reported, not necessarily the actual number of experiences. Under-reporting, especially of distressing NDEs, has been recognized as  common. (Hoffman, Greyson-Bush, Bache, Bush, Clark Sharp)

 General  Studies, no dNDEs

Study       Population /type n NDE n dNDE % Findings; author’s words Comment
R. Moody19751978 AnecdotalSelf-selected from
general pop
50 0 0 In the mass of material I have collected no one has ever described … a state like the archetypal hell. Reflections 10 Theclassic on NDE, established the pattern & the fieldMentions ‘no archetypal hell’ but does not exclude other types of dNDE
K. Ring1980 QuantitativeSelf-selected general 46 0 0  … sometimes …feeling scared or confused near … beginning of their experience, none felt that they …either were on their way to hell or …had “fallen into” it.  …affective tone and the visionary aspects of the near-death experience … predominantly and highly positive.  192-93  [Frightening features] appear to have been, in the main, hallucinatory visions 195 First quantified study of NDE, introduced Weighted Core Experience Index (WCEI)Beyond descriptive data, speculative as to mechanics and purpose of NDE (holographic universe)
Sutherland Self-selected general 50 0 0 No mention Modified WCEI, interp ‘grounded theory’
Medical, prospective
Study       Population/type n NDE n dNDE % Findings Comment
Sabom In-patient 78 0 0 “In my sample …I did not encounter a “hellish” NDE . . . Since [then], I have encountered a few distressing NDEs…” ** **Sabom JNDS 14(3) 208
vanLommel Cardiac arrest 62 0 0 “No patients reported distressing or frightening NDE”
Parnia et al2001 Cardiac arrest 7 0 0 No mention Greyson scale
Greyson
2003
Cardiac in-pts 27 0 0 No mention FNDE questions not asked
Schwaninger 2005 Cardiac arrest 11 0 0 “None of the NDErs reported resignation, curiosity, anxiety, fear, anger, dread, despair, or anguish” WCEI & Greyson
               8 n=331 0 0%

General Studies: with dNDEs

   Name       Pop n NDE n fNDE % Findings Comment
Garfield1979 Cancer patients 47 22 <50 4 types: classic radiant; demonic or nightmarish images; dreamlike images –“blissful,” “terrifying,” or alternating; Void, tunnel, or both (contrast between freedom/ constraint). Almost as many of the dying patients interviewed reported negative visions (demons and so forth) as reported blissful experiences, while some reported both Additional survey of 36 cardiac patients over 3 interviews showed consistency of recall (contrary to Rawlings)
Evergreen1981 Self-selectclinical death or believed self died &  back 55 11 20 One (<2%) hellish; fiery pit, devil.  18% “negative”: “…extreme fear, panic, anger…visions of demonic creatures that threaten or taunt”; most transform to positive NDE, but some positive  become negative First academic study following Ring LADInterview, WCEI
Gallup1982 Random sample, national poll Not given 1-
<28
1% sense of  hell or torment; but “picture is more complex than that.  [M]any…had either a neutral or negative experience.”Void; nothingness; uncaring God; being tricked or duped; featureless, forbidding figures; confusion, fear of death Popular broad (& erroneous) reference to the 1% as total of  distressing NDEs; instead, it is a single mention of elements of biblical hell (“gnashing teeth, searing flames”).“Many” others in the sample neutral or  distressing but not hellish by Gallup definition.
Evans Bush1983 Most self-selected,
2 mothers
17 2 12 1 child in darkness, threatened by mysterious presence1 child met “the devil” but rebuffed him First report of NDE/dNDE in children, based on retrospective accounts, 2 mothers of then-4-year-olds
Grey1985 NDErs 41 5 12 “extreme fear or panic…anguish…lost…
desolation…traditional fire/ devil
First attempt to document dNDEs. Gave explicit definitions, descriptions
Serdahely1995 Non-random NDErs 12 4 33 “Frightening, scary, unpleasant” but no hellish images Two other (secondhand) reports include hellish imagery
Knoblauch et al   2001 Random German national poll 82 c 36 43 Structure differs from classic NDE ; accounts are scenic more than narrative, less emotional; later,
improved outlook but not major moral life changesdNDE: More E Ger (60%/) than W Ger (29%)
Culturally anomalous
               7 254 c 80 c 17%

Distressing NDEs Only

Study       Population/type n NDE n dNDE % Findings Comment
Rawlings1978,1993 AnecdotalMost cardiac in-patients “Several hundred”*33*15 *12*32 3948 Interview immediately post-resuscitation or NDE will be repressed, forgotten or recalled as pleasantLiteralist Christian: Accounts taken as evidence of biblical hell, urgent need for salvation * Sabom calculations (JNDS 14(3))Vivid accounts but shaky data: factual errors; accounts inconsistent in retelling; conclusions not replicated by othersIntent is to rescue non-believers  more than to provide research data.
Greyson-Bush1993 Self-selected 50 50 100 No single “dNDE” but three types: classic elements perceived as terrifying; Void; images of traditional hell First analytical study of exclusively dNDE accounts; reports patterns but does not speculate as to causes
Atwater1994 AnecdotalGenl. NDErs 700
277
105 14 Void, limbo, hellish, indifference; seem to have deeply suppressed/repressed guilts, fears, angers/ expect punishment or discomfort at death Strongly attuned to experiencer perspectives. Insightful and wide-ranging, though undocumented, exploration of dNDEs, marked by metaphysical pronouncements of cause, effect, and mechanics of phenomena.
Rommer2000 NDErs 300 53 >18 “feelings of terror, despair, guilt, and/or other overwhelming aloneness”“Every [distressing near-death] experience I have studied has been transforming” Perhaps the best collection of dNDE reports, but projects own beliefs onto experiencers; draws conclusions without substantiation: “He had no life review because it wasn’t necessary.”
               4 1,375 252

Totals

n NDE

n dNDE % dNDE
All categories 1,910 332 17

 

Tagged With: incidence, NDE research data, NDE statistics, near death experience percentages, near death research, prevalence, Research findings

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