Michael Prescott's Blog

Two interesting NDEs

From the batch of files that Markus Hesse uploaded to the Web, here are two near-death experiences of interest. Unfortunately the files have now been removed from the upload site, so unless you downloaded them already, you won't be able to read them.

The first NDE is recounted in an article titled "A Near-Death Experience Followed by the Visitation of an 'Angel-Like' Being," by Richard J. Bonenfant. The title kind of gives away the plot.

In 1981 a woman had an NDE during an accident in which she nearly drowned.  She "found herself slowly drifting upwards in a dark environment. Although still disoriented and confused, she no longer felt the fear, distress, and panic of drowning. She was now comfortable and fully alert in her new surroundings. The subject reported that she felt herself gently rising at an oblique angle, as if she were riding an invisible escalator. As she became accustomed to the darkness, she was able to perceive depth within that darkness."

After that, she vividly perceived a couple of scenes from her childhood, though unlike the standard life review, these scenes held no special significance for her.

The subject then became aware of a distant light located slightly above and ahead of her. The light appeared small and distant at first but grew in brightness and size as she progressed toward it. While moving towards the light, the subject felt that she was passing through a dark tunnel, slowly at first, but later with great acceleration. As she moved within the light she was filled with awe, peace, and love.

The subject discerned, framed within the light, the figure of “a beautiful woman” with hands outstretched to receive her. This woman was described as being clothed in a white dress, and having long, dark-blonde hair and blue eyes. The angelic being radiated a sense of “motherly love” to the subject. The subject remarked that her only desire was to reach the safety of those outstretched hands. But when she was nearly within reach, the figure withdrew her hands and told the subject, through her eyes, that is was not yet her time and that she would have to return.

Almost immediately, the subject found herself back in her physical body gasping for breath on the deck of the swimming pool.

Note the small detail of telepathic communication with the spirit, a common feature of NDEs.

Fifteen years later, there was an intriguing sequel to this event. By then the woman had an 11-year-old daughter, who had been severely bitten and disfigured in a dog attack. The girl was undergoing a series of skin grafts to repair the damage. Naturally this was a stressful time for both mother and daughter.

After one such operation, the subject was comforting her daughter while they both rested in the mother’s bed. The subject recalled that her daughter had been having nightmares and was thrashing about. To protect the newly grafted area, she cradled her daughter’s face in her arms as they lay together. It was late at night and the room was dark. Then, suddenly, a subdued light appeared behind the subject’s left shoulder. She immediately turned her head about to determine the source of the illumination. There was no evident explanation for the light, but when she returned her gaze toward her daughter, she saw the identical “beautiful woman” who had appeared to her during her NDE. The angel-like figure was only a couple of feet away. Her head was resting on her arms at the edge of the bed. Gazing at both mother and daughter, the angel communicated telepathically to the mother that she was not to worry because her daughter would be all right. The subject was awestruck by the encounter and briefly closed her eyes to refocus them upon the being, but when she reopened her eyes the figure was gone.

When questioned about the identity of this female entity, the subject was absolutely sure that it was the same angel-like being that she had observed during her earlier NDE. There was only one minor difference. In the visitation, the angel’s hair was “up” about her head rather than falling down below her shoulders. The second appearance was very brief, lasting only several seconds, and the subject observed only the head, shoulders and arms of the angelic figure. As a result of the visitation, the subject was not only comforted that her daughter would recover, but became convinced that “a personal relationship” existed between herself and the lady-in-white. To the subject, this being was her own special “guardian angel.”

Of course both appearances of the angel could be dismissed as hallucinations, but if we accept the woman's testimony at face value, it does give credence to the idea that we are blessed with guardian angels or spirit guides.

The second NDE is from an article titled "Near-death experience in a boy undergoing uneventful elective surgery under general anesthesia," by Ursula Lopez, Alain Forster, et al. Its interest lies in the fact that the subject experienced both an NDE under anesthesia and, on a separate occasion, so-called anesthesia awareness. The two experiences were quite different.

Within the context of a prospective study that was designed to evaluate the incidence of awareness with intraoperative recall in children undergoing general anesthesia, a 15-year-old French-speaking boy was interviewed after general anesthesia for elective orthopedic lower limb surgery. He reported on a state of awareness during that anesthetic. In fact, he remembered hearing music (which was confirmed by the surgeon) and the voice of the doctor, seeing three big lamps above him and having tactile sensations. He felt as if someone was moving him on the operating table and putting him on his left side (his position was changed after induction of anesthesia to a left lateral position). He also felt an injection in his hip (probably the puncture in the L4–L5 intervertebral space).

However, the patient also spontaneously described an experience that occurred 3 years earlier during a similar orthopedic operation. This earlier experience strongly suggested a NDE; however, the boy specified not having experienced awareness during this earlier operation.

What is meant by this last remark is that the boy regarded his NDE as a dream. This is unusual, since most NDErs are adamant that the experience was real, or even "realer than real." The NDE itself was fairly conventional in its other aspects.

The boy reported his experience this way:

I was sleeping and suddenly I felt awake and had the impression that I was leaving my body through my head.... I could see from above my whole body lying on the back on the operating table, and surrounded by many doctors.I felt as being above my physical body... and I was lying face down....I was like a spirit ... without my own arms and legs ...and I was floating under the ceiling of the room. Initially, while feeling detached from my real body, I felt a little bit scared and weird ... but then I had a sensation of lightness ... and I felt relaxed and comfortable.... I had the impression that everything was real.... I distinguished the operating room and the surgeons.... I then saw a dark tunnel in front of me ... and I felt attracted to it.... I passed through the tunnel very fast and at its end I saw ... a bright light ... that did not hurt my eyes.... As I was passing through the tunnel ..., I heard noises ... which sounded like when you are watching TV without a program ..., then these noises became voices.... Suddenly I felt again attracted to my body, in which I went again through my head. At this time point, the experience was over and I was asleep.

The article notes that upon waking up, the boy "felt disappointed as he did not have enough time to see what was going on at the end of the tunnel." He said he hadn't discussed the episode with anyone, "because he thought it was just a strange dream." While many NDErs find their experience life-changing, the boy, according to the researchers, "had never thought about it until this interview took place."

Perhaps the relatively young age of the experience accounts for his indifference to the event. In any case, what I find interesting is that we have the very rare example of someone who has unquestionably experienced anesthesia awareness, and who also appears to have had an NDE while under anesthesia. Note how different the two events were. In the episode of anesthesia awareness, he remained in the body, so to speak. He felt his body being moved and poked, saw lamps above him, heard music playing in the OR. In other words, he was solidly anchored to his physical body and obviously relying on physical sensations.

In the NDE, on the other hand, he had an out-of-body experience and found himself leaving his body through his head and looking down on his physical form. He was "like a spirit" and floated to the ceiling, feeling "relaxed and comfortable." He passed through a tunnel toward a bright light, and heard static that resolved into voices. But before he could reach the end of the tunnel, he was "again attracted" to his body, and went back in via the head. The experience was clearly not unpleasant, and the boy regretted not seeing what was at the end of the tunnel.

Now, perhaps it's possible for anesthesia awareness to take many different forms. Still, this case does suggest that what is ordinarily described as anesthesia awareness bears little if any resemblance to an NDE.

Shroomin'

I originally posted this material as a comment in the thread of the last entry, but decided it might as well be a separate post. 

A reader named Tharpa suggested I look at a Johns Hopkins study of mushrooms containing psilocybin, a psychoactive chemical.  The results were quite positive, and a lot less scary and disturbing than many of the ayahuasca reports I'd read. 

The study was first reported in 2006. Here are excerpts from the university's press release: 

All of the study’s authors caution about substantial risks of taking psilocybin under conditions not appropriately supervised. “Even in this study, where we greatly controlled conditions to minimize adverse effects, about a third of subjects reported significant fear, with some also reporting transient feelings of paranoia,” says [Dr. Roland] Griffiths. “Under unmonitored conditions, it’s not hard to imagine those emotions escalating to panic and dangerous behavior.”

The researchers’ message isn’t just that psilocybin can produce mystical experiences. “I had a healthy skepticism going into this,” says Griffiths, “and that finding alone was a surprise.” But, as important, he says, “is that, under very defined conditions, with careful preparation, you can safely and fairly reliably occasion what’s called a primary mystical experience that may lead to positive changes in a person. It’s an early step in what we hope will be a large body of scientific work that will ultimately help people.”...

In the study, more than 60 percent of subjects described the effects of psilocybin in ways that met criteria for a “full mystical experience” as measured by established psychological scales. One third said the experience was the single most spiritually significant of their lifetimes; and more than two-thirds rated it among their five most meaningful and spiritually significant. Griffiths says subjects liken it to the importance of the birth of their first child or the death of a parent.

Two months later, 79 percent of subjects reported moderately or greatly increased well-being or life satisfaction compared with those given a placebo at the same test session. A majority said their mood, attitudes and behaviors had changed for the better. Structured interviews with family members, friends and co-workers generally confirmed the subjects’ remarks....

Psychological tests and subjects’ own reports showed no harm to study participants, though some admitted extreme anxiety or other unpleasant effects in the hours following the psilocybin capsule. The drug has not been observed to be addictive or physically toxic in animal studies or human populations.  

A follow-up stud showed that the beneficial effects lasted more than a year. Excerpts from a 2008 Hopkins press release: 

Writing in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, the Johns Hopkins researchers note that most of the 36 volunteer subjects given psilocybin, under controlled conditions in a Hopkins study published in 2006, continued to say 14 months later that the experience increased their sense of well-being or life satisfaction.

"Most of the volunteers looked back on their experience up to 14 months later and rated it as the most, or one of the five most, personally meaningful and spiritually significant of their lives," says lead investigator Roland Griffiths, Ph.D. ...

"This is a truly remarkable finding," Griffiths says. "Rarely in psychological research do we see such persistently positive reports from a single event in the laboratory. This gives credence to the claims that the mystical-type experiences some people have during hallucinogen sessions may help patients suffering from cancer-related anxiety or depression and may serve as a potential treatment for drug dependence. We're eager to move ahead with that research."

Griffiths also notes that, "while some of our subjects reported strong fear or anxiety for a portion of their day-long psilocybin sessions, none reported any lingering harmful effects, and we didn't observe any clinical evidence of harm."

The research team cautions that if hallucinogens are used in less well-supervised settings, the possible fear or anxiety responses could lead to harmful behaviors.

Also relevant to this discussion is William James' experiment with nitrous oxide. His first impressions are recounted here. 

In his book The Varieties of Religious Experience, James famously wrote:

I myself made some observations on ... nitrous oxide intoxication, and reported them in print. One conclusion was forced upon my mind at that time, and my impression of its truth has ever since remained unshaken. It is that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.

The snake in the garden

I've just read Supernatural by Graham Hancock, a highly enjoyable and thought-provoking exploration of altered states of consciousness brought about by the ingestion of psychoactive chemicals. Previously, I had read only one other book by Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods. I enjoyed it for his lively writing style and boundless speculation, but I wasn't convinced by his arguments. Supernatural, however, is for the most part more firmly grounded, and I felt it to be a superior effort.

Hancock begins with a discussion of prehistoric cave paintings, which, he argues, can best be understood as a visual record of the shamans' hallucinatory experiences. To drive home this point, he compares the cave imagery with accounts of vision quests by contemporary shamans. He also went to the considerable trouble of ingesting some of these potions himself, usually under the watchful eye of an experienced shaman, and he reports seeing much of the same imagery. He recounts Rick Strassman's controlled experiments in which volunteers were injected with the psychotropic chemical DMT, which had effects similar to those of the concoctions consumed by the shamans. He goes on to relate these hallucinatory experiences to the considerable body of folklore pertaining to "little people" -- sprites, pixies, fairies, gnomes, leprechauns, and so forth -- and to the modern phenomenon of "alien abduction," which has much in common with the older legends.

In short, he makes a plausible case that altered states of consciousness -- often the result of ingesting psychedelic plants, but also occurring in other contexts -- can bring up images and narratives that remain strikingly consistent despite wide differences in culture. Snakes, for instance, show up repeatedly in these experiences, as do smallish nonhuman creatures with oddly shaped heads, whether they are construed as fairy folk or as extraterrestrial "grays."

Now, I've previously speculated that so-called alien abductions may be a subset of out-of-body experiences (an idea that, of course, is not original with me), so I have no problem with the idea that these bizarre adventures are, in some sense, hallucinatory. By "hallucinatory," I don't mean that the experience is necessarily unreal, but that it involves -- or may involve -- perceptions of another plane of reality, one that is ordinarily opaque to us but which can be accessed via a dramatic shift in consciousness. Hancock himself inclines in this direction.

What struck me about many of these experiences, as recounted by Hancock, by so-called alien abductees, by DMT research subjects, and by shamans, is how scary and nightmarish they tend to be. There are frequent encounters with bizarre, nonhuman beings who rarely project love, compassion, or empathy; more commonly, these beings are perceived as either coldly indifferent or actively hostile to human welfare. Cave paintings sometimes feature the motif of the "wounded man," apparently a shaman whose body has been pierced by multiple spears. This imagery is reflected in the hallucinogenic experiences themselves, which not infrequently subject the experiencer to torture, surgery, and vivisection. Both alien abductees and shamans report being cut open so their captors can insert small objects into their bodies. Other nightmarish elements of these experiences involve being beset by numerous inhuman creatures, being subjected to sexual congress with them, being carried off to a cave, laboratory, spaceship, etc., as well as the strange recurring motif of hybrid babies with human and nonhuman characteristics. Often these "changeling" babies are described as grotesque.

There is also repetitive imagery of humanoid figures with animal features, as seen in some prehistoric cave art. People who ingest psychoactive substances are prone to seeing creatures that are part human, part animal -- a man with the head of a bison, for instance. In some cases, the experiencer believes that he himself has been transformed temporarily into an animal or a half-human, half-animal hybrid.

When reading these accounts, I was reminded of similarly bizarre episodes described by Robert A. Monroe, who learned to initiate out-of-body experiences at will and eventually set up an institute to study the phenomenon. As I've written elsewhere, some of Monroe's alleged adventures are so fantastic and disturbing that they seem more like vivid nightmares than any kind of spiritual experience. I would characterize much of the material recounted by Hancock in Supernatural the same way. Though he talks about the important spiritual insights that practitioners of these extradimensional travels can attain, I didn't see much in the way of valuable life lessons in the experiences he describes. The only lesson would seem to be that reality is a deeply strange and deeply terrifying place, largely hostile to human beings and not very conducive to spiritual growth. The shamans themselves insist that their ancestors learned to use psychotropic plants by following recipes given to them by spirits during these vision quests. Even if this is true, it does not necessarily establish that the "spirits" meant well, or that the psychotropic plants are beneficial.

While I was thinking about this today, I happen to read an article by NDE researcher Michael Sabom about the religious implications of near-death experiences. The article, "Response to Gracia Fay Ellwood's 'Religious Experience, Religious Worldviews, and Near-Death Studies'," is included in the NDE papers uploaded by Markus Hesse at this location.  

Sabom, a committed Christian, draws a sharp distinction between spontaneous and deliberately initiated paranormal experiences. He believes that the former can give us insights into deep spiritual truths, while the latter are largely the realm of deceptive and malign entities. Thus he counsels against deliberate involvement with the paranormal. To some extent, this opinion simply reflects the view common among conservative Christians that mediums and psychics are trafficking with the devil, and perhaps it can be dismissed as a mere prejudice. Sabom, however, develops his argument somewhat further by giving specific examples of cases in which harmful effects arose from dabbling with the paranormal. And in fact, many such examples can be supplied. Included in his case histories is the above-mentioned Robert Monroe, whose OBEs were sometimes terrifying. Also included is author Whitley Strieber, who described the disorientation and helplessness he felt in his "abduction" experiences.

One case Sabom doesn't mention is that of Joe Fisher, author of The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts, whose involvement with a medium led him to believe he'd been targeted by malicious supernatural entities. Fisher became convinced that these demonic creatures were ruining his life. Although the circumstances of his death are ambiguous, it is widely believed that he committed suicide.

With such disturbing cases in mind, perhaps we should not be too quick to reject the idea that there is a qualitative distinction to be drawn between spontaneous and intentionally induced paranormal experiences. And yet any such hard-and-fast distinction would surely be too restrictive. There are, after all, many cases of a deliberately induced altered state of consciousness that have yielded powerful evidence for life after death, as well as uplifting spiritual messages. The trance mediumship of Leonora Piper or Gladys Osborne Leonard shows little sign of malign influences.

How, then, do we explain these different varieties of spiritual experiences? On the one hand, we have shamanic vision quests, alien abductions, DMT trips, deliberately induced OBEs, and the like, which frequently include nightmarish and grossly distorted, sometimes animalistic imagery, along with painful and traumatic experiences. On the other hand, we have NDEs, trance mediumship, deep meditation, spontaneous OBEs, and the like, which for the most part (and with some undeniable exceptions) consist of nonthreatening imagery and uplifting experiences or lessons.

I'm not sure there's any easy answer to this question. But possibly -- just possibly -- the way in which we arrive at an altered state of consciousness determines whether our resulting experience will be predominantly positive or negative. Possibly the ingestion of psychotropic drugs, which are used as a kind of shortcut to enlightenment, is counterproductive, and is more likely to lead us astray, by bringing on an experience that is troubling, not comforting; hellish, not heavenly; irrational, not lucid; traumatic, not blissful.

Perhaps there is no shortcut, and our attempt to find one only leads us down a blind alley or, worse, into a dark cellar. And perhaps people who've experienced so-called alien abductions or frightening OBEs have learned (even if unconsciously) the wrong way of altering their state of consciousness. To put it in spiritualistic terms, we might say that instead of "raising their vibrations," maybe they are "lowering their vibrations." Instead of "going toward the light," maybe they are going away from it.

If so, then there may be some merit to the idea that deliberately induced paranormal experiences are dangerous. No, not all of them, but those that are induced in the wrong way.

Reading Supernatural, I couldn't help thinking of the Garden of Eden. In this biblical story, Adam and Eve live unspoiled lives of simplicity and innocence. But then a snake enters the picture. (Remember that snakes figure prominently in the imagery of hallucinogenic experiences.) The snake offers Eve an apple. (Remember that ingestion of new and unknown substances is what brought about the hallucinogenic experiences.) Eve and then Adam eat the apple, and their eyes are opened to a new way of looking at the world. (Remember that shamans and others who experiment with these psychotropic substances believe they have gained important new insights.) But their newfound enlightenment doesn't benefit them. They are cast out from the garden (remember that gardens are among the most prominent "heavenly" locals in NDEs) and sentenced to a lifetime of pain and drudgery terminating in death.

There are many ways of interpreting this famous -- and famously ambiguous -- story. It may simply be an attack on the goddess religions that competed with early Judaism; the snake was a favorite symbol of these faiths. But suppose the origin of the story lies elsewhere. Suppose it reflects an intuition that the shamanic vision quests made possible by chemically altered states of consciousness can be dangerous. Suppose it is a warning against meddling with otherdimensional beings who, like the snake, can be highly seductive but do not have our best interests at heart.

Graham Hancock believes that ingestion of psychotropic substances expanded the consciousness of our prehistoric forebears and allowed them to begin the long march toward culture and civilization. He believes that these otherworldly journeys still have much to teach us, and that we should be opening the doors of perception to learn from the extradimensional beings who inhabit this other plane of reality.

Maybe so. Then again, maybe some doors shouldn't be opened.

Inchworm, inchworm ...

Regular readers know I'm not the most optimistic guy when it comes to current events and likely trends. But here's some news that seems actually ... good. 

Cancer researchers have discovered that cancer cells metastasize by "inching" away from the tumor in a peculiar fashion. Scientists at Cornell University's Weill Cornell Medical College have apparently found a way to arrest this inchworm-like movement, and thus halt metastasis. The treatment appears to have no harmful side effects.

If this research pans out, it could mean that cancer (if caught early enough) would be confined to a localized tumor, rather than spreading like wildfire through the body. 

HT: Ace of Spades.

Going along with the (blood) flow

More on the ever-exciting, ever-controversial topic of blood flow to the brain during cardiac arrest!

We've seen that Dr. Gerald Woerlee believes that, in cases where heart massage is efficiently employed, enough blood can circulate in the brain to account for the near-death experience as a combination of hallucination and conventional sensory perception. He also holds that the patient may be at least semiconscious both in the earliest stage of cardiac arrest and shortly after the heart has been restarted (or restored to a healthy rhythm).

A very different view is offered by NDE researcher Sam Parnia, who, like Woerlee, is a medical doctor.  What follows is a long and rather technical except from Parnia's article "Do reports of consciousness during cardiac arrest hold the key to discovering the nature of consciousness?", which I found among many PDF files uploaded to the Web by Markus at this location. (The folder must be downloaded and then unzipped; I found that my usual extraction tool didn't work, but WinZip did. WinZip can be used on a free trial basis for 45 days.)

The article, by itself, can also be downloaded here.

Markus' copy of the article seems to have been found on Elsevier, a Web site that offers a variety of medical articles for download. It was originally published by the journal Medical Hypotheses (Vol. 69, Issue 4; online publication date April 25, 2007). 

Anyway, here is Sam Parnia's discussion of blood flow and consciousness during cardiac arrest. Citations have been omitted, and long paragraphs have been broken up for easier reading.

================

The consensus of opinion raised by the authors of these [NDE] studies has been that the occurrence of lucid well-structured thought processes together with reasoning and memory formation as well as an ability to recall detailed accounts of events from the period of resuscitation is a scientific paradox. This is due to the fact that the studies of cerebral physiology during cardiac arrest have indicated that cerebral blood flow and cerebral function are severely impaired and therefore consciousness would be expected to be lost.

Immediately following the cardiac arrest, the mean arterial pressure (MAP) becomes immeasurable, however, properly performed chest compressions may raise the systolic values to 60–80 mmHg, but the diastolic values and hence the mean arterial pressure still remains inadequate. The use of vasopressors such as epinephrine has been shown to increase blood pressure, as well as cardiac and cerebral perfusion pressures, but since coronary and cerebral perfusion rely on adequate diastolic pressures the pressures generated during advanced life support, although better than no intervention, are still too low for adequate cerebral perfusion.

In one study carried out in 10 humans with pre-hospital cardiac arrest it was shown that epinephrine led to an increase in systolic arterial blood pressure from 47 (±5) before its administration, to 69 (±7), 74 (±8) and 85 (±8) mmHg with increasing doses of 1, 3 and 5 mg. The diastolic pressure also increased from18 (±2) mmHg to 27 (±3), 25 (±4) and 36 (±6), respectively, but still remained relatively low compared with pre-cardiac arrest levels. It has also been shown that during a prolonged cardiac arrest, the intracranial pressure rises and hence a higher mean arterial pressure is needed to maintain cerebral perfusion. These relatively low mean arterial blood pressures are maintained during advanced life support until the resumption of cardiac output.

In one study of cardiac arrest in cats treated using advanced life support, mean arterial pressure (MAP), intracranial pressure (ICP) and cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP) were measured. It was found that MAP fell from 107 ± 26 to 65 ± 18 after 4 minutes of resuscitation. At the same time, ICP increased from 4 ± 2 to 15 ± 6, while CPP reduced from 101 ± 26 to 31 ± 20 and cerebral blood flow reduced to 39% of baseline. In another study in humans, it was concluded that during the cardiac arrest there was an average of 50% reduction in cerebral blood flow compared to control levels and in some areas of the brain this was reduced further to less than 20% .

The EEG is often used to assess cerebral ischaemia during procedures such as cardiac and neurosurgery. Concurrent EEG monitoring during a cardiac arrest has shown an initial slowing of the EEG waves which then progress to an isoelectric line within approximately 10–20 s and remain flat during the cardiac arrest until the resumption of cardiac output. In cases of prolonged cardiac arrest, however, EEG activity may not return for many tens of minutes after cardiac output has been returned. Therefore, during cardiac arrest impaired cerebral blood flow leads to a lack of electrophysiological activity in the cortex, which is made worse, as the time from the initial period of ischaemia to adequate resuscitation is increased. A reduction in cerebral blood flow in humans is associated with a deterioration in sustained attention.

Immediately after resuscitation there is a period of multifocal no-reflow, a phenomenon observed following recovery from cardiac arrest, in which, despite the restoration of adequate blood  pressure multiple areas of the brain have been shown to develop perfusion defects that range from a pin hole, up to 95% of the brain. This is thought to occur due to insufficient restoration of nutritive blood flow due to a combination of increased blood viscosity and perivascular oedema and is related to the initial period of ischaemia.

This is followed by a period of transient global hyperaemia lasting 15–30 min, thereafter, cerebral blood flow becomes severely reduced while cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen gradually recovers. This is termed the delayed hypoperfusion phase and is thought to occur due to a disturbed coupling between brain function, metabolism and blood flow. Clinically, these observations are supported by the loss of brainstem reflexes such as the gag reflex that indicate a loss of brainstem function, which normally activates the cortical areas via the thalamus.

The occurrence of lucid, well-structured thought processes together with reasoning, attention and memory recall of specific events during a cardiac arrest raise a number of interesting and perplexing questions regarding how such experiences could arise. As seen these experiences appear to be occurring at a time when global cerebral function can at best be described as severely impaired, and at worse non-functional. However, cerebral localisation studies have indicated that the thought processes are mediated through the activation of a number of different cortical areas, rather than single areas of the brain and therefore a globally disordered brain would not be expected to lead to lucid thought processes or the ability to ‘see’ and recall details. This consistent yet paradoxical observation needs to be considered in the search for understanding the relationship between mind, consciousness and the brain.

In addition, from a clinical point of view any acute alteration in cerebral physiology such as occurs with a reduction in cerebral blood flow leads to impaired attention and impairment of higher cerebral function. The experiences reported from cardiac arrest are clearly not confusional and in fact indicate heightened awareness, attention, thought processes and consciousness at a time when consciousness and memory formation are not expected to occur.

An alternative explanation is that the experiences reported from cardiac arrest, may actually be arising at a time when consciousness is either being lost, or regained, rather than from the actual cardiac arrest period itself. Any cerebral insult leads to a period of both anterograde and retrograde amnesia. In fact memory is a very sensitive indicator of brain injury and the length of amnesia before and after unconsciousness is a way of determining the severity of the injury. Therefore, events that occur just prior to or just after the loss of consciousness would not be expected to be recalled.

At any rate recovery following a cerebral insult is confusional and cerebral function as measured by EEG has in many cases been shown not to return until many tens of minutes or even a few hours after successful resuscitation.

Despite these observations it can still be argued that the occurrence of some of the subjective recalled features such as seeing a bright light may potentially be occurring during the recovery phase, following a cardiac arrest, with the patient thinking that the experiences had occurred during the actual period itself. However the many anecdotal reports of patients being able to ‘see’ and recall detailed events that had occurred during the actual cardiac arrest, which have been verified by the hospital staff cannot be simply explained in this way, because in order for this memory to take place a form of consciousness would need to be present during the actual cardiac arrest itself.

[The preceding is an excerpt from "Do reports of consciousness during cardiac arrest hold the key to discovering the nature of consciousness?" by Sam Parnia, originally published by Medical Hypotheses in April 2007.)

All dogs go to heaven

I just finished Jeffrey Long's Evidence of the Afterlife, a new book that looks at a large database of NDEs compiled by the Web site NDERF, which Long founded. It's an interesting read and has proved extremely popular, becoming a New York Times bestseller. I enjoyed it and learned a few things, though Long's treatment of the subject does not contain much information that will be new to long-time NDE aficionados.

He does break some new ground in his analysis of non-Western NDEs, saying that earlier studies used too small a database, and that with the benefit of NDERF's somewhat larger collection of non-Western accounts, the worldwide similarities of NDEs become more apparent. But the number of accounts remains fairly small. Long relies on 26 accounts written in English by people from non-English-speaking countries, and another 79 accounts written in other languages and translated into English by NDERF's translators. This compares with 583 Western accounts. Given the disparity in the sizes of the databases, I would say it remains an open question whether the non-Western, non-English accounts dovetail closely with Western NDEs. More research is needed. 

Anyway, that's not really what I want to talk about.  

Instead, what interests me is a curious omission from nearly all NDEs with which I'm familiar, including the many accounts excerpted in Long's book. Namely: pets.

I'm not saying there are no NDEs in which people encounter deceased pets. I know of at least one, where a person was reunited with "all the dogs of [his] life," who came running to greet him. This NDE has stuck in my mind for two reasons: first, because it is rare, and second, because it's the way I personally would like to be greeted!

While NDEs involving pets are not unknown, they do seem to be extremely uncommon. And when you think about it, this is rather interesting. Many people are very attached to their pets and grieve for them when the pets pass on. There are pet cemeteries, and there are people who keep the ashes of their pets. It's not going too far to say that some people are more fond of their pets than they are of their relatives!

So if the NDE is mere wish fulfillment, a fantasy generated by a dying (or traumatized) brain, where are all the dogs, cats, and horses? One would think reunions with pets would be nearly as common as reunions with deceased (human) loved ones, and far more common than encounters with distant relatives that the person hardly knew in life.

Yet this is not the case. It is much more likely that the NDEr will report meeting his Great Aunt Agatha, whom he hadn't seen since he was a kid and barely remembers, than that he will report a joyous reunion with Sparky, his beloved cocker spaniel who died last year.

From a spiritualist perspective, this anomaly is not hard to explain. The NDEr meets human beings (and other advanced beings) because they can assist him in making the decision to return to the physical body - or, if he is not coming back, they can assist him in making the transition. They act as guides, imparting information and advice. A pet can't play this role.

That doesn't mean there aren't pets in the afterlife. It does mean that they are normally not the first beings one will encounter there.

So if we assume that something like spiritualism is true, the relative absence of pets from NDEs isn't problematic. But if we assume that something like physicalism is true, and NDEs are pure fantasy, then the absence of pets is rather odd.

Like the dog that didn't bark in the night, these missing pets may be a clue to the solution of a mystery - in this case, the mystery of the actual nature of the near-death experience.

Singin' those blood flow blues

I've now had a chance to read the two Skeptiko interviews with Gerald Woerlee and Jeffrey Long regarding near-death experiences. One of Dr. Woerlee's main points is that people undergoing cardiac arrest are often given heart massage, which restores some flow of blood to the brain and thus might allow some degree of consciousness.

As Alex Tsakiris points out in one of his his questions, heart massage is often not applied except as a last resort after defibrillation has failed, so it is not clear that heart massage is a factor in the majority of NDEs. And there are NDEs in which the person reports being out of body long before any CPR is administered.

Another question raised by both Alex Tsakiris and Jeffrey Long is whether the minimal blood flow to the brain -- technically known as hypoperfusion -- would be sufficient to produce the unusually clear awareness and perception reported by most near-death experiencers. Typically, people who report an out-of-body experience during an NDE say that their thinking was sharper and more focused than usual, and that their perception -- especially their visual perception -- was unusually vivid, allowing them to see even the smallest details and sometimes to see in every direction at once.

I don't have much to contribute to this debate, since obviously I am not a medical doctor. But I do have one personal story I can share. It is, of course, anecdotal, and it is only one case, but perhaps it will shed a little bit of light on this question.

About 25 years ago I was in the doctor's office having blood drawn from my arm. The nurse, who did not seem to be very good at her job, had a great deal of difficulty finding the vein. Instead of removing the needle and trying again, she kept the needle lodged in my arm while wrenching it around in an attempt to penetrate a blood vessel. This went on for some time. The pain was excruciating. I began to feel lightheaded and I thought I would pass out. I started to tell her this, but was unable to get the words out before I fainted.

I was unconscious for probably only a few seconds. When I came to, I was slumped in my chair, and the doctor had entered the room and was looking me over. He asked me how I was feeling. The answer I gave was, "Everything's ... white." At that point he said to the nurse, "We'd better get him horizontal." They lifted me off the chair and laid me the flat on the floor, obviously to allow better blood flow to the brain. After I lay that way for a minute or two, I felt okay again.

During the period when I was unconscious, I had no awareness that I can now recall. Upon resuming consciousness, I felt confused and sluggish. When I said, "Everything's ... white," what I was trying to convey was that my vision was bleary, as if I were looking at the world through a fog or through a sheet of frosted glass. I did not mean that I was seeing some sort of radiant supernatural light, or a "being of light," or anything of the kind. I meant that my vision was weak, lacking detail, and everything seemed somehow overexposed.

Moreover, I had trouble coming up with any words to describe my condition. My mind was not working clearly or very fast. My vocabulary was limited and inexact.

When I think back on this episode, I still find it unpleasant. Before this happened, I don't think I had more than the normal aversion to needles and blood tests. Ever since, however, I have been apprehensive about getting blood drawn. Apparently the episode left me at least mildly traumatized.

Now if we compare this to a near-death experience, the differences are obvious. Let's list them:

1. In a near-death experience, the person feels he is outside his own body, observing his physical body from an external vantage point. In my experience, I never felt I was outside my body.

2. In a near-death experience, the person typically feels that his thinking is at least as clear as usual, and often much clearer. He feels he is obtaining knowledge of the nature of the universe and the meaning of life, and that this information is becoming known to him with astonishing rapidity. In my case, my thinking was sluggish, confused, and fragmentary.

3. In a near-death experience, the person typically feels that his perception -- notably his visual perception -- is extraordinarily vivid and sharp. In my experience, my visual perception was dulled and feeble.

4. After a near-death experience, the person typically regards the event as a positive thing and sometimes longs to return to that blissful state of consciousness. After my experience, I regarded the event as negative and traumatic, and it left me with minor negative aftereffects that persist 25 years later.

Clearly my fainting spell was caused by a rush of blood from my head, and the symptoms were resolved only when normal blood flow was fully restored. During the time when I was sort of half conscious, there must have been some blood circulating in my brain, but not enough to provide full awareness. The symptoms that I experienced with a reduced blood flow to the brain were completely different from the symptoms described by the typical near-death experiencer.

Moreover, I would think that the symptoms I experienced are pretty much those that would be expected if there is reduced blood flow to the brain. The doctor certainly didn't seem surprised by my condition, and immediately diagnosed it as insufficient blood supply to the brain, which is why he and the nurse put me flat on my back without delay.

At least in my personal experience, then, a reduced blood flow to the brain does not produce heightened perception, heightened thought processes, or even a subjective, delusional impression of heightened thought processes. In fact, the symptoms are quite the opposite.

Of course, this is just one case, and maybe other people react differently. But from my own experience, I would be skeptical of the claim that someone who suffers an interruption of blood flow to the brain, and then has this blood flow restored to a minimal level by heart massage, would find his consciousness and visual perception enhanced. I think it is more likely that consciousness (if any) and visual perception (if any) would be compromised and unsatisfactory, as they were for me.

Clash of the titans

I just noticed that Skeptiko has put up two new interviews - one with Gerald Woerlee, who thinks natural explanations can be found for NDEs, and another with Jeffrey Long, responding to Woerlee.

I haven't had a chance to do more than skim the transcripts, but both interviews look interesting.

Plus, they give me an excuse to use "clash of the titans" as a headline. 

I'm all about topicality. 

Happy Easter. 

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Look at the widdle itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny cutie-pie ...