Near-death experience: what can you believe?

Heaven is for Real came out just under a year ago. And with a modest budget of $12 million, it grossed over $100 million at the box office. Even greater success fell on the share of the book of the same name, on which the film was made. The story of a boy who survived clinical death sold 10 million copies in total and remained on The New York Times bestseller lists for 4 years. Three-year-old Colton told his father, Todd Burpo (who wrote the book from his words), that he had been to heaven, where he communicated not only with God and angels, but also with his grandfather and sister. Considering that both grandfather and sister died before Colton was born, the details given by the boy are very difficult to explain rationally.

Eyewitness accounts

Of course, this is not the first story of its kind. Reports of near death experiences (NED) have been known since the Middle Ages (and some researchers claim that even from Antiquity). And the reputable medical journal Resuscitation (“Resuscitation”) recently published the first medical description of such a case, dating back to the 1975th century. And of course, with the release of the XNUMX book by psychologist Raymond Moody, Life After Life, interest in this topic rose to a whole new level, and very, very many people began to talk about their “travels”. As a result, today it is not at all necessary to experience clinical death in order to know that the consciousness seems to separate from the body and hover somewhere above for some time, then rushes into a frightening dark tunnel, at the end of which a good and all-forgiving light is found, and some lucky ones are waiting for also meetings with deceased relatives and higher beings.

Academic science treats these stories with a fair amount of skepticism. Recently, however, serious scientists have suddenly begun to show a much greater interest in the phenomenon of near-death experiences. By the beginning of this year, there were 240 articles in peer-reviewed (that is, credible, academic) scientific publications that mentioned these experiences. Moreover, several reputable scientists and physicians spoke about their own experience of this kind. So in 2012, Mary Neal’s book To Heaven and Back (1) was published, in which the author described how she felt when she went to the bottom, turning over while passing the threshold in a kayak. Mary Neal has been underwater for quite some time and has experienced a complete cardiac arrest. Almost simultaneously saw the light of day and book Eben Alexander (Eben Alexander) «Proof of Paradise» (2). Alexander fell into a coma due to meningitis and also had a near-death experience. At the same time, both Neil and Alexander are very, very well-deserved doctors who could not help but understand how the publication of books would affect their reputation in the professional community. Mary Neal, for example, headed the Center for Spine Surgery at the University of Southern California for several years, and the neurosurgeon Iben Alexander taught at the Harvard Medical School as well. However, the lived experience and the awareness of its value were obviously more important than all other considerations.

Average NDE score

In the United States, since 1981, an organization called the International Association for Near-Death Research (IANDS) has been officially registered. It brings together people who dared to take on the study of such a “hands-shaking” topic in academic circles, and those who themselves experienced a similar experience. Journalist Gideon Lichfield, who wrote a long and detailed story about the possibilities and impossibilities of life after death for the April issue of The Atlantic magazine (3), attended the annual IANDS conference. He describes the event rather with well-restrained irony, however, while maintaining objectivity, he reports a lot of interesting things both about the Association itself and about its work.

For example, IANDS adopted the NDE Scale, which is divided into 16 steps: a feeling of mystical delight, leaving the body, moving through a tunnel, feeling the presence of supernatural beings nearby, and so on. Experience in each of the steps can range from 0 to 2 points, so the maximum experience is 32. The «average score» of those who report a near-death experience is about 17.

IANDS researchers report that people who return from the brink of death experience very similar transformations afterwards. For example, they become more susceptible to the effects of light and sound, actively show love for their neighbors and nobility, often going beyond extravagance (which relatives and friends are not averse to taking advantage of). They also start to get worse at managing their time and finances, but they have a strange influence on electrical appliances. (During one of the IANDS conferences in a large hotel where it was held, the computer system completely turned off. The participants of the event took this for granted.)

Shoe on the cornice

However, the IANDS archives contain a lot of truly incredible evidence of mystical experiences. Here, for example, is one of the most prominent cases, known as the “Mary Case,” after the immigrant worker who survived it. In 1977, she was taken to a hospital in Seattle, where doctors soon diagnosed the patient’s cardiac arrest. Maria managed to be saved, and when she came to herself, she said that in a state of clinical death, her soul left her body and hovered under the ceiling of the operating room for some time. Then she fluttered out of the building, climbing higher and higher, and noticed on the eaves of the third floor a tennis shoe was found there. Nurse Kimberly Clarke Sharp, upon hearing this story, went to check and found the shoe exactly where Maria’s departed soul had seen it. Moreover, the nurse was absolutely sure that it was impossible to see this shoe from Maria’s ward, and Maria had no other opportunities to see it, except by leaving the body.

Today, Kimberly Clarke Sharp is one of the IANDS activists. However, much more interesting and important would be the evidence of Mary herself. Alas, soon after she was discharged, she disappeared without a trace, and all attempts to find her did not give any result. In this sense, the story of the author and performer of her own songs, Pam Reynolds, may turn out to be more valuable for an objective researcher. In 1991, she was diagnosed with a large aneurysm in one of her brain arteries. It required a complex and dangerous operation. The surgeon responsible for her decided on a risky (especially in those days) step — hypothermic cardiac arrest. After administering anesthesia, Reynolds’ heart was artificially stopped and her body cooled to about 15 degrees to avoid brain cell death due to lack of oxygen. At the same time, headphones were inserted into the patient’s ears, which reproduced a rhythmic knock at a volume of 100 decibels, which is comparable to the noise of a gasoline lawn mower or a jackhammer. The calculation was very simple: if at least some part of Reynolds’ brain remained active, she would respond to noise, which would be immediately displayed on an electroencephalogram.

But the patient’s encephalogram during the operation was somewhat a straight line. All the more amazing was what happened next. After recovering from a successful surgical intervention, Pam Reynolds reported that she experienced an exit from her own body and described in detail much of what happened in the operating room. Phrases exchanged between doctors, the shape of the surgical saw used to open the skull, and even the fact that some doctors listened to the song “Hotel California” to relieve tension.

• Raymond Moody: «Those who survived clinical death are changed forever»

objective data

It would seem that such evidence should be enough to convince even inveterate skeptics of the reality of the near-death experience. But not everything is so simple. Further analysis showed that all the events that Pam Reynolds described occurred either before or after the complete cessation of brain activity. In other words, at the time when it seemed to her that her consciousness was separated from the body, her brain was more alive than dead. And although it is still extremely difficult to understand how she could hear and see so much, this case does not prove anything for science.

As well as many others. Most NDE research is deliberately retrospective, based on interviews with people who have experienced it. But memory can fail, and some of the participants find it difficult to resist the temptation to report something out of the ordinary. Scientists, of course, would like the evidence to be as close to the event as possible and could be confirmed by objective data. For this purpose, a special study protocol was even developed. In places of potential experience of such an experience, it is proposed to place visual stimuli — images or objects — that can only be seen from a height. That is, from the position where, according to the stories, consciousness soars, leaving the body at moments of clinical death. Moreover, medical personnel should not know anything about the placed stimuli, so as not to voluntarily or involuntarily affect the purity of the experiment.

I must say that most clinics reacted to this idea very cool. However, at least six studies have been carried out to date under this protocol. And none of them gave any reliable evidence of a near-death experience. The latest published study involved several clinics in the US, UK and Austria (4). They were placed about 1000 shelves with special visual stimuli. During the observation period, 2060 cases of cardiac arrest in patients were recorded in clinics. 330 were saved, 140 of them felt well enough to talk to scientists almost immediately after clinical death. Of these 140, only 101 patients were able to complete the interview — the rest were too weak. Of the remaining 101 experiences that, according to the mentioned Grayson scale, could be called a near-death experience, 9 were reported. Two experienced out-of-body experiences, but one of these two also could not finish the interview due to ill health.

Finally, the only one left, a 57-year-old man, described in detail the process of defibrillation, which was performed by doctors. Moreover, it is important that at that moment the devices did not record any of his brain activity. But his separated consciousness did not see any shelves with objects placed on them either.

On the brink of a big leap

But let’s be objective. By itself, this result also does not indicate anything. Moreover, less than a quarter of all cases of cardiac arrest occurred in places equipped with shelves. Of course, science has its own explanations for this phenomenon. It is known that hypoxia (lack of oxygen) and hypercapnia (an excess of carbon dioxide) can cause hallucinations. They are the easiest way to explain the separation from the body, and the dark tunnel with divine light at the end, and meetings with deceased relatives.

However, let’s give science its due. For all her skepticism, she is increasingly exploring near-death experiences. The reason is simple: this experience is the only mystical phenomenon that can be objectively studied. After all, science is based on facts. And it is unlikely that in the near future he will be able to photograph, measure and weigh aliens or angels. But in the case of near-death experiences, its possibilities are much wider. Modern methods of resuscitation make it possible to bring back to life patients who until recently were considered unconditionally dead. And the latest technology helps to judge with a sufficient degree of accuracy what happened in the body of people who stood as close to death as never before. And if these studies bring any significant results, humanity may well make a huge leap forward, learning something important about the secrets of consciousness and death.

1. M. Neal «To Heaven and Back» (Authentic Publishers, 2012).

2. E. Alexander «Proof of Heaven» (Simon & Schuster, 2012).

3. More details on the website theatlantic.com

4. S. Parnia et al., “AWARE—AWAreness during REsuscitation—A prospective study” (Resuscitation, vol. 85, no. 12, online publication October 2014).