Irreducible Mind and the NDE

I've been skipping around in the impressive (and impressively hefty) new volume Irreducible Mind, by Edward F. Kelly, Emily Williams Kelly, et al. The 800-page book, extensively researched and exhaustively referenced, is a major assault on reductionist or physicalist theories of neurology. The authors cite a vast array of borderline phenomena, including psychic phenomena, in order to build their case that the relationship between brain and mind cannot be reduced to simple terms of cause and effect.

One of the most interesting chapters is Chapter 6, "Unusual Experiences Near Death and Related Phenomena," which was contributed by Emily Williams Kelly, Bruce Greyson, and Edward F. Kelly. I'd like to offer a few excerpts from this chapter, partly to give you the flavor of the book, and partly to address some common criticisms of NDEs. In all these quotes, material in bold font has been emphasized by me, while material in italics has been emphasized by the authors. Also, please note that I have omitted nearly all citations.

Anyone who has studied the subject knows that reductionists like to explain near-death experiences in terms of purely physical causes. The authors show the inadequacy of all such explanations. For instance, there is the claim that oxygen deprivation can bring about an NDE.

One of the earliest and most persistent of the physiological theories proposed for NDEs is that lowered levels of oxygen (hypoxia or anoxia), perhaps accompanied by increased levels of carbon dioxide (hypercarbia), have produced hallucinations.... One study frequently cited is that of Whinnery (1997), who compared NDEs to what he called the "dreamlets" occurring in brief periods of unconsciousness induced in fighter pilots by rapid acceleration in a centrifuge... He claimed that some features common to NDEs are also found in these hypoxic episodes, including tunnel vision, bright lights, brief fragmented visual images, a sense of floating, pleasurable sensations, and, rarely, a sense of leaving the body. The primary features of acceleration-induced hypoxia, however, are myoclonic convulsions (rhythmic jerking of the limbs), impaired memory for events just prior to the onset of unconsciousness, tingling in the extremities and around the mouth, confusion and disorientation upon awakening, and paralysis, symptoms that do not occur in association with NDEs. Moreover, contrary to NDEs, the visual images Whinnery reported frequently included living people, but never deceased people; and no life review or accurate out-of-body perceptions have been reported in acceleration-induced loss of consciousness. [Page 379]

Then there is the ketamine model:

... the suggestion that a ketamine-like endogenous neuroprotective agent may be released in conditions of stress... Ketamine, an anesthetic agent that selectively occupies NMDA receptors, can at subanesthetic doses produce feelings of being out of the body. Moreover, ketamine sometimes produces other features common to NDEs, such as travel through a dark tunnel into light, believing that one has died, or communion with God.

This hypothesis, however, also has problems. First, it is not of all clear that ketamine experiences do in fact resemble NDEs. Unlike the vast majority of NDEs, ketamine experiences are often frightening and involve bizarre imagery, and patients usually express the wish not to repeat the experience. Most ketamine users also recognize the illusory character of their experience, in contrast to the many NDE experiencers who are firmly convinced of the reality of what they experienced and its lack of resemblance to illusions or dreams. Even if ketamine experiences do resemble NDEs in some respects, many important features of NDEs, such as seeing deceased people or a revival of memories, have not been reported with ketamine. Furthermore, ketamine typically exerts its effects in an otherwise more or less normal brain, while many NDEs occur under conditions in which brain function is severely compromised. [Pages 380-381]

The authors further note that a "naturally occurring ketamine-like substance ... has not been identified in humans." (Page 384)

And there is the view, propounded most notably by M.A. Persinger, that electrical stimulation of the brain can reproduce NDEs on demand:

Persinger has also claimed that "a vast clinical and surgical literature ... indicates that floating and rising sensations, OBEs, personally profound mystical and religious encounters, visual and auditory experiences, and dream-like sequences are evoked, usually as single events, by electrical stimulation of deep, mesiobasal temporal lobe structures". His sole reference for this strong claim is a paper by Stevens (1982). That paper, however, is confined entirely to descriptions of certain physiological observations made in studies of epileptic patients, and it contains no mention whatever of any subjective experiences or of electrical stimulation studies, much less of "a vast clinical and surgical literature" supporting Persinger's claim. Persinger goes on to claim that, using weak transcranial magnetic stimulation, he and his colleagues have produced "all of the major components of the NDE, including out-of-body experiences, floating, being pulled towards a light, hearing strange music, and profound meaningful experiences." However, we have been unable to find phenomenological descriptions of the experiences of his subjects adequate to support this claim, and the brief descriptions that he does provide in fact again bear little resemblance to NDEs (e.g., Persinger, 1994, pages 284-285)....

Neurologist Ernst Rodin stated bluntly: "In spite of having seen hundreds of patients with temporal lobe seizures during three decades of professional life, I have never come across that symptomatology [of NDEs] as part of the seizure." [Pages 382-383]

As the authors explain, the similarities between hallucinations produced by electrical stimulation of the brain and NDEs have been greatly exaggerated:

As we mentioned earlier, research frequently cited in support of a model in which abnormal temporal lobe electrical activity produces an OBE is that of neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield. Penfield is widely reported as having produced OBEs and other NDE-like phenomena in the course of stimulating various points in the exposed brains of awake epileptic patients being prepared for surgery. Only two out of his 1132 patients, however, reported anything that might be said to resemble an OBE: One patient said: "Oh God! I am leaving my body". Another patient said only: "I have a queer sensation as if I am not here... As though I were half here and half there". In later studies at the Montréal Neurological Institute (where Penfield had conducted the study's), only one of 29 patients with temporal lobe epilepsy reported "a 'floating sensation' which the patient likened at one time to the excitement felt when watching a football game and at another time to a startle" (Gloor et al., 1982, pages 131-132). Such experiences hardly qualify as phenomenologically equivalent to OBEs. [Page 396]

Having disposed of the various physicalistic theories for NDEs, the authors go on to say:

NDEs seem instead to provide direct evidence for a type of mental functioning that varies "inversely, rather than directly, with the observable activity of the nervous system" (Myers, 1891d., p. 638). Such evidence, we believe, fundamentally conflicts with the conventional doctrine that brain processes produce consciousness, and supports the alternative view that brain activity normally serves as a kind of filter, which somehow constrains the material that emerges into waking consciousness. On this latter view, the "relaxation" of the filter under certain still poorly understood circumstances may lead to drastic alterations of the normal mind-brain relation and to an associated enhancement or enlargement of consciousness. [Page 385]

In their discussion of anesthesia, they consider the claim that some aspects of NDEs can be explained by the anesthetized patient being partially awake and hearing or feeling what is being done to him. They point out that such awakenings are exceedingly rare and different in kind from reported NDEs.

The expression "adequately anesthetized" is intended here to exclude cases of literal awakening, or partial awakening, during surgical procedures. Such awakening is known to occur, even using present-day techniques, in something on the order of 0.1-0.3% of all general-surgery procedures. Higher rates occur, as might be expected, when muscle relaxants are used in combination with low levels of anesthetic agents.... The phenomenology of such awakenings, however, is altogether different from that of NDEs, and often extremely unpleasant, frightening, and even painful. The experiences are typically brief and fragmentary, and primarily auditory or tactile, and not visual. [Footnote, page 387]

In their discussion of the celebrated and controversial Pam Reynolds case, they address the objection that the heavily anesthetized patient might still have been able to hear what was going on around her:

The experience also included some verifiable features: First, despite having speakers in her ears that blocked all external sounds with 95 dB clicks, the experience began when she heard the sound of the special saw used to cut into her skull... She also noted the unexpected (to her) way in which her head had been shaved, and she heard a female voice commenting that her veins and arteries were small....

Her description of the unusual saw was verified by the neurosurgeon and by photographs of it obtained by Sabom. Also, as the patient had heard, at the time the cardiopulmonary bypass procedure was being started, the cardiac surgeon (a female) had commented that the right femoral vessels were too small to support the bypass, so that she had to prepare the left leg. Although at the time this comment was made the patient's brainstem auditory evoked potentials had not yet disappeared, the molded speakers in her ears themselves, let alone the 95 dB clicks, would have made it impossible for her to hear the comment in the ordinary way, even had she been fully conscious at the moment....

The case is not perfect. The details were not published for several years after the experience occurred. More importantly, the verifiable events that she reported observing in the operating room occurred when she was anesthetized and sensorially isolated but before and after the period of time in which she was clinically "dead."... Even so, the extremity of her condition and her heavily anesthetized state throughout the entire procedure casts serious doubt on any view of mind or consciousness as unilaterally and totally dependent on intact physiological functioning. [Pages 392-394]

There is also a brief but fascinating discussion of an "even rarer kind of deathbed experience, but one that like NDEs calls into question the absolute dependence of mental functioning on the state of the brain":

There are scattered reports of people apparently recovering from dementia shortly before death. The eminent physician Benjamin Rush, author of the first American treatise on mental illness, observed that "most of mad people discover a greater or less degree of reason in the last days or hours of their lives". Similarly, in his classic study of hallucinations, Brierre de Boismont noted that "at the approach of death we observe that ... the intellect, which may have been obscured or extinguished during many years, is again restored in all its integrity". Flournoy mentioned that French psychiatrists had recently published cases of mentally ill persons who showed sudden improvement in their condition shortly before death....

[Other examples of more recent vintage follow. Then:]

Such cases are few in number and not adequately documented, but the persistence of such reports suggest that they may represent a real phenomenon that could potentially be substantiated by further in traditions. If so, they would seriously undermine the assumption that in such diseases as Alzheimer's the mind itself is destroyed in lockstep with the brain. Like many of the experiences discussed in this chapter, such cases would suggest that in some conditions, consciousness may be enhanced, not destroyed, when constraints normally supplied by the brain are sufficiently loosened. [Pages 410-411]

I might note that Nancy Reagan reported seeing a sudden return of awareness and recognition in her husband's eyes in the last moments before his passing. At the time of President Reagan's death, some commentators observed that this phenomenon was not unusual.

And the authors observe that while awakening during anesthesia is rare and usually traumatic, there are cases in which people remember what transpired while they were anesthetized. These cases involve hypnosis:

The most impressive reports of explicit (or conscious) awareness of events during anesthesia have been elicited by hypnosis. The historically important Levinson study, for example, involved 10 highly hypnotizable subjects undergoing very similar surgical procedures carry out under a deliberately deep and uniform anesthesia regime monitored with EEG. A month later -- but only under hypnosis -- four of these patients recalled nearly verbatim, and four others recalled partially, standardized remarks made by the anesthetist in conjunction with a staged "crisis" in the procedure. These studies have never, to our knowledge, been adequately followed up, but they should be, because such results, if applicable, suggest, like NDEs, that mind is still somehow able to operate when the brain is disabled by anesthesia. Moreover, they suggest, as Myers argued, that hypnosis is a method particularly conducive to loosening the "barrier" [between ordinary consciousness and subliminal consciousness] and thus accessing subliminal levels of consciousness. [Pages 414-415]

The authors are at pains to point out that these phenomena are not merely fringe issues that can be safely ignored. Instead NDEs, OBEs, and similar events pose a paradigm-shattering challenge to reductionist orthodoxy:

How might scientists intent upon defending the conventional view respond to the challenge presented by cases occurring under conditions like [the Pam Reynolds case]? First, it will undoubtedly be objected that even in the presence of a flat-lined EEG there still could be undetected brain activity going on....

[The authors concede as much, but go on to say:]

This first objection, however, completely misses the mark. The issue is not whether there is brain activity of any kind whatsoever, but whether there is brain activity of the specific form a regarded by contemporary neuroscience as the necessary condition of conscious experience. Activity of this form is eminently detectable by current EEG technology, and as we have already shown, it is abolished both by adequate general anesthesia and by cardiac arrest. [Pages 418-419]

In a footnote, the authors add: "Representative of people who have completely missed the mark here is Woerlee (2004)." An interesting debate between Dr. Gerald Woerlee and Kevin Williams is found here.

After considering a few other objections, the authors conclude as follows:

In sum, the central challenge of NDEs lies in asking how these complex states of consciousness, including vivid mentation, sensory perception, and memory, can occur under conditions in which current neurophysiological models of the production of mind by brain deem such states impossible. This conflict between current neuroscientific orthodoxy and the occurrence of NDEs under conditions of general anesthesia and/or cardiac arrest is head-on, profound, and inescapable. [Page 421]

Comments

[william]

I studied near death experiences in the early nineties extensively and was not convinced for some time that they were valid phenomena. Then I started to find stories that some people who had had NDE's were able to leave the room and see their children or relatives in the waiting room and even hear what they were saying and how they were dressed while their physical body was in the operating room. This suggests that consciousness can leave the physical body.

Also some people were able to meet with dead relatives or dead twins that they never knew existed, return, and later talk about these people. One woman saw a tennis shoe out on a window ledge of her room during her NDE that was later confirmed. It appears that our beliefs in this life affect our NDE. To me the most profound outcome of an NDE is the lost of our fear of death and often people come back with a renewed interest in being more spiritual in their lives and service to others. But skeptics will always find an out.

Just today when I was telling my doctor about my wife’s and her sister’s experience at the hospital with their terminally ill brother and just minutes before he died the bed pads that came off the wall (twice) at the moment she asked "is our dad here in the room", my doctor said it was probably the air conditioner that kicked on and knocked them over.

The mysteries continue; what would life be without them? If we were born all knowing how unique would we be?

[DB]

This is the anomaly that should produce a paradigm change, but it hasn't. Instead, it serves as an illustration of how people of science can be just as stubborn about not seeing reality as any mental patient.

[Art]

It's almost like people have to be mentally ready to accept the paradigm change. The information is out there, but if their mind is closed, no amount of arguing will change it. I'm endlessly fascinated by the holographic paradigm and think it has everything to do with life after death.
----------------------------------------
excerpt from Rosemarie W's NDE:
"I was going backwards from what I perceived to be a place of division. One the other side, I was alive and on this side I was not breathing. I was moving slowly at first and started gaining speed away from the place of division. ... ... Did you pass into or through a tunnel or enclosure? Uncertain It wasn't a tunnel. There was a place that I can only describe as a 'surface' that on one side of that place, you were in your body and alive and on this other side, you were leaving your body and not breathing. I was going backward as if I was going away from that place of separation. http://nderf.org/rosemarie_w_nde.htm

[Tim]

I'm slogging my way through this exhaustive book and it's extremely thorough. Another aspect where the conventional NDE explanation falls short is that the gamma-band electromagnetic activity of the brain, which comprises the neural signals that make up high-level cognition (which NDEs clearly are, complete with sensory experience, personal recognition and clear memory) is SHUT DOWN during episodes severe enough to bring on clinical death. That electrochemical activity ceases, experiments have shown. So what is creating these vivid experiences in the dying brain?

[Tom]

very insightful and scientific analysis. it seems that although the book is promoting the concept of non-local consciousness, it nonetheless presents both sides and questions their validity.

while it is true that it is comforting to read see possible proofs for conscious-survival after death, these researchers have shown that they were more concern with finding truth than indulging in make-believe.....which unfortunately most 'skeptics' are guilty of. by ignoring or dismissing these researches, they are just resorting to using fantasy based on their current knowledge to deny the possibility of afterlife.

[william]

It appears to me that if our paradigm is that of a materialist then one phenomenon that is accepted as paranormal completely destroys our existing paradigm and I know from experience as many of my paradigms have come tumbling down creates a lot of mental pain and anxiety. I have heard some call this the slippery slope effect.

If you are an ultra skeptic and debunker and always being asked to make comments to the media it would be nearly impossible to accept anything outside your circle of beliefs. It would be like a priest or a preacher admitting that some of their teachings may be dogma rather than reality. Maybe this whole journey is about searching for truths or the ultimate truth that we are that that is having experiences. This appears to be what the mystics tell us about our reality.

One preacher that was able to make this transition has a website called beyond religion. His is an interesting story check it out. Below is a quote from his website.

“I am a former Presbyterian minister who served the Christian church for over forty years. Yet, I am now convinced that organized religion is not the final truth in our search for God. Rather, it is the grammar school of faith, an important stage in our spiritual education but one from which we must eventually graduate.”

http://www.beyondreligion.com/

[Tim]

That's an excellent point, William. If you're hidebound to a personal paradigm of how you look at reality, you can't afford one chink in your armor or the entire edifice of your worldview might come tumbling down.

That's why we find things like the Skeptic's Dictionary trashing Transcendental Meditation as bunk even though many studies have shown it to have many real health benefits, and the same for energy healing even though studies are beginning to show that qi is real and has real effects.

If you admit one, what other cherished view might you be forced to rethink? Better to maintain a science-backed stubborn ignorance and think we have all the answers. We have many answers, but we are far, far from knowing everything.

I suggest anyone who craves a deeper look into the phenomenon of why some people can't see things outside their paradigm read the wonderful "Extraordinary Knowing" by the late Elizabeth Mayer, Ph.D. It's a brilliant look not only at a skeptic's journey to reluctant acceptance of psi and anomalous cognition, but her look at why people can't see the forest for the trees.

[Eteponge]

Thanks for posting this blog post Michael, it broaders my scope of knowledge regarding the NDE Phenomenon and these supposed "triggers" of the Phenomenon.

Also, thank you everyone else for sharing your insights in the responses, it's helped me to get an even stronger view of this Phenomenon.

I'll need to revise my Article on NDEs in the near future with this updated information.

[Cyrus]

A huge factor that supports near death experiences, which people rarely mention, is how the experiencer always see's dead relatives, opposed to living relatives.

You see, skeptics believe that the NDE is a facet of our brains, and hallucinate artificial, comforting images (loved ones). But for most, nothing would be me more comforting than to be with a loved one who was ALIVE (a living wife, husband, mother, father etc). I think many people would be alarmed at seeing dead Uncle Ned again, so why would the brain produce this?

If the skeptics were right, then SOMEWHERE in NDE literature there would be an example of an individual meeting a living relative at the pearly gates. I have yet to see this. It seems to be absolutely consistent: NDE'ers encounter the dead, and only the dead.

This CAN'T be a coincidence. It sways things even further toward sincerity.

[Michael Prescott]

I think there are a few cases of NDErs who saw living people, but I can't remember the details. Anybody else know?

[Ulysses]

The site of near-death.com has some comments about seeing living people. For example:
http://www.near-death.com/forum/nde/000/78.html
Webmaster note: This NDE is interesting in that the woman sees the soul of a living person (her Rabbi). This is not an unusual aspect to NDEs and there are similar documented cases of NDErs seeing living people in the spirit realm.

[Eteponge]

PMH Atwater in her book, "The Complete Idiots Guide To Near-Death Experiences", states that in those cases where children and people saw living friends and living relatives, it was merely as an introductory calming event to ease the transition of the person to the other side, and that after this initial calming phase ended, the "living person" disappeared, and did not reappear in the rest of the NDE event.

Some NDErs even said that the angels and higher beings that they met during their NDE who looked like human beings turned into a ball of light when asked, "Is that how you really are"? So, it seems that the "Living Persons" can also be hiding their true form as well, and are actually a higher light being trying to ease the person's transition in the introductory phase.

[Eteponge]

I would also like to point out that the example given above, with the Jewish Woman seeing her Living Rabbi during her NDE, makes *perfect sense* in it's full context...

"She was told it was good that she had all of these righteous people on her side, but it wasn't enough and only if she had a righteous person in this world who would beseech on her behalf would she be given merit. She mentioned the name of a righteous Hassidic Rebbe with whom she was associated.

The Rebbe at that moment was surrounded by his followers as is usual on Friday nights. His soul, however, made an appearance in the spiritual world in order to benefit E.L. She was told that there were 3 conditions for her to return. One was to continue in the repentance process she had begun. Two, she was to write a letter of thanks to the Rebbe telling him that his merit is what saved her. The third one, she wouldn't tell us about."

[Darryn]

I wonder if any mentioned is made of John Lorber's work with hydrocephalics, one intriguing case in particular involving a young man who had less than 5% normal brain mass and yet above average IQ, having completed a mathematics degree!
Unsurprisingly, this is a neuroscientific finding hardly known about at all.

I'm also really interested in this phenomenon of regained awareness suddenly prior to death in Alzheimer's cases. Any readers know any examples of this? I too have heard it described as an occasional occurrence, but haven't ever seen any more said of it than that.

[Art]

In a holographic universe all the information is spread throughout the entire universe. The idea that we only exist in this one point in time is an illusion. Everything is connected to everything else. There is no such thing as "souls" only "soul." What's my point? Anything that exists on earth exists in heaven. This reality is a holographic projection from the universal hologram.
http://www.earthportals.com/hologram.html#zine

[Cyrus]

I still feel that reference to the living would be far more common if the NDE were an hallucination or a figment. The context of those cases, like with the Rabbi, really are important because from a neurological standpoint, the brain wouldn't have to "rationalize" the experience of encountering the living in an hallucination.

If the NDE were neurological, the trips would sound more like this: "I saw a bright light, then I was back at home with my wife and kids, and we were playing cards and watching our favorite TV show, then my wife put her arm on my hand and I was back in my body".

This is the sort of pseudo NDE I have never read.

[Jeff cole]

http://www.theosophical.ca/InvisibleHelpers.htm
Anyone else come across this book?I have no beliefs at all, but my parents were interested in spiritualism without having a formal belief in a god. The concept of the book would seem to have some relevance to the subjec under discussion. I have no personal experience but when my grandmother was very old we visited her in the nursing home and she looked very still in her bed. The nurse came in, gave her a shake and said "You can't go yet Milly, there's someone here to see you" She died that night. I was about 10 I think.

[The End]

To me, it makes no sense whatsover to say that "consciousness can leave the body." I mean, I think everything has an *aspect* of consciousness to it (I won't go into that here), but the idea of a consciousness that can leave one's body just strikes me as ego-projection and wishful thinking.

If I can hit you in the head so hard that your thinking becomes permanently impaired, then that shows your consciousness depends on that physical hardware.

Human beings just have a hard time realizing that their egos are not solid, realistic objects that exist durably in the real world. Believing in NDEs is just clinging to a closed-minded, primitive belief that excuses itself by dressing up in the guise of profound spirituality.

Just admit that your consciousness is a temporary process resulting from this organic brain. It's amazing enough that consciousness occurs at all, and you're just muddling matters by dragging in wishful beliefs like some ego that exists above and beyond your physical self.

"All you touch, and all you see / is all your life will ever be."

[Michael Prescott]

>If I can hit you in the head so hard that your thinking becomes permanently impaired, then that shows your consciousness depends on that physical hardware.

If I hit my TV hard enough that the picture and sound become permanently impaired, does that show that the signal has been impaired?

To me, consciousness is the signal, and the nervous system is the receiver. William James advanced this view (not using the TV analogy, of course) more than 100 years ago. Irreducible Mind defends this view.

I suspect that when the receiver quits functioning, the signal goes on. But of course I don't know for sure.

>It's amazing enough that consciousness occurs at all

That's true! Consciousness is a kind of miracle, really. Whatever its ultimate source or nature, it's an astonishing thing to be alive and aware and self-aware.

[Jess]

I am glad that you are reading the Irreducible Mind as well. I was wondering who else, not being a psychologist invested in the book. Thanks for bringing attention to this book. It seems like a very good argument against strict materialism regarding the mind. In terms of ego, many spiritual traditions, even those of a non reductive mode teach to silence the ego (not saying I do not struggle with that daily). Personally I believe that ego is the one thing that does not go on because it is a social construct. I guess I still side with Aldous Huxley's idea of the brain functioning as a reducing valve. And that sort of negates the idea of the ego being anything more than a temporary state of functioning. Thank you for the great blog. It is a mile marker of a time of exciting change and discovery.

[gfrdjgujmhd856843]

One of the common mistakes debunkers and their followers make is to confuse an untested hypothesis as a theory. When presented with a complicated phenomena, instead of dealing with the entire phenomena they offer an explanation that deals with one small part of the phenomena. As with the materialist explanations for NDEs, these hypotheses, if held up against the full extent of the phenomena clearly fall short. Debunkers are not interested in the truth, they are exactly like the cardinals who refused to look through Galilleo's telescope: they are believers in a religion (materialism) and refuse to consider anything that is heretical to that religion.

[Veronica Keen]

I am the wife of Montague Keen, contrary to what I read on your website, Monty materialised many times walked around chatted to several people, shook hands , he talked in his own voice. I would be happy to share this with you should you ever come to London. He gives scientific information etc. look at our website, www.montaguekeen.com I feel you would find it interesting. All the best, Veronica Keen