False Alarm
Thanks Z for alerting me to Dr. Parnia’s new tweets (he tweets so rarely that I don’t check as often as I should).
Some of my regular contributors in the comments section did caution me about getting excited and it turns out they were dead right. I sent an email to Dr Parnia asking him about numbers recruited, when there would be any announcements about the data and a few other points. It seems I probably wasn’t the only one as he answered these exact questions in a series of tweets:
If you read from the top it starts out promising, but then:
3 years. Oh dear. I get it, they want to be thorough and make sure it is done properly. they do have new sites on board, which is good and should accelerate the recruitment.
My question though is that if they have completed recruitment by the middle of 2018, they will surely only need to do the statistics after that. Another 2 years to go through the data and write it up seems like a very long time to me. However, he’s pretty clear that there won’t be any interim announcements, and that they will wait till the study is complete before saying anything.
AwareofAware 
Oh no 😦 So we have to wait for next news for a long time…
But does it mean that they don’t have any hit in this research or not?
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Not at all. Given the surge in activity since summer 2016, and the drive to recruit new sites (possibly through sharring some results confidentially), and given Parnia’s consistant position in interviews, I believe they have hits, they just want more.
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Not sure if you saw this Ben, from 1 November.
Seems Dr. Parnia was actually interviewed uniquely by Healthline, a medical site, as in the piece it does say … “Dr. Sam Parnia, co-author of a recent study of life after death by a team at the NYU Langone School of Medicine, told Healthline.” Also a mention of Weinstein! – and free will – so obviously very current.
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/we-may-still-be-conscious-after-we-die
Anyway, it does say this … ‘Another model is that the psyche and consciousness that make us who we are is a separate entity of its own. They interact with the brain, but aren’t produced by it.
“Our study supports this idea. You should not have consciousness or activity [during death], but paradoxically we found evidence to the contrary, so we are doing more research,” Parnia said.’
I mentioned in the previous blog below his consistency in saying it like this over quite a while, so I guess no change there – so very, very interesting. And hallucinations ruled out as well.
But now it’s a long wait! 🙂
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Thanks, Ben
In answer to your question, doesn’t it say “recruitment of SITES” by mid 2018 not patients ?
What he’s telling us there (300) is more than I would have guessed (I was thinking about 150-200) so I’m very happy with it. Furthermore, isn’t it in accordance with sound protocol not to release data before the study has been analysed ?
We’ve just got to be patient now and forget about “hits,” but what Parnia has told us in media interviews recently is already very significant IMHO.
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Very good point, it would be odd to jump from 300 to 1000 in 6 months after taking nearly 3 years to get to 300, even with new sites. So the announcement appears to be related to the completion of site recruitment.
With regard to releasing data before study completion, it depends on what you are investigating. In cancer or HIV, the two areas of research with which I am most familiar, it is not uncommon to present interim, albeit usually planned, analyses prior to completion of the study, especially if there are findings that may influence good clinical practice.
Parnia himself presented the results from the AWARE study in a book, then at a cardiology convention, and finally in a journal, but it is possible all the results had been collected at that point. There is an issue potentially with presenting any results until the study is fully enrolled, as one could argue it might influence outcomes. For example if there had been a couple of hits, and he announced them, the it might be argued that subsequent hits could be tainted…not absolutely sure why, but I can just see an argument for this.
Ultimately, we are just going to have to be patient now, but as others have commented, his confidence in his assertions about the nature of consciousness do point to him potentially sitting on some hits already. However, having added two and two and getting seven hundred in my last post, I am not going down that road again!
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Ben said >
“With regard to releasing data before study completion, it depends on what you are investigating. In cancer or HIV, the two areas of research with which I am most familiar, it is not uncommon to present interim, albeit usually planned, analyses prior to completion of the study, ”
Right, fair enough.
Ben said > “There is an issue potentially with presenting any results until the study is fully enrolled, as one could argue it might influence outcomes”
I think any perceived “flaw” will be a target for desperate “sceptics.”
Ben said > “Ultimately, we are just going to have to be patient now, but as others have commented, his confidence in his assertions about the nature of consciousness do point to him potentially sitting on some hits already. ”
I’m not confident he’s scored any hits (yet) but he’s probably got a few impressive out of body experiences. If you remember in his second book, “Erasing death” at the beginning he described the experience of Joe Tiralosi, who told of a meeting with a being of light that was very profound for him. At the time the book was put out, there was no mention from Tiralosi about any other aspects such as an OBE etc. Later however, Tiralosi revealed (to Parnia) more details which included an out of body experience and a life review. He’s mentioned in this article here (the article doesn’t cover the extra details, those were in a radio interview)
https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201409/seeing-the-light
I can’t see any realistic basis for supposing that these experiences are (eventually) going to turn out to be (brain based) post cardiac arrest confabulations. But sceptics will cling to that possibility as long as they can, no doubt.
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No bother at all. (It nice been at the top of a post 😀 ) but as Tim and Alan mentioned above me the recent media by parnia does seem more positive I think.
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So is the hidden target on a pole right next to the patient? There’s no way for the patient to miss it if he/she is floating at the ceiling above the body, although if they are in the corner of room they might not see it, but i dont think so. If there is an OBE they MUST be in a position to see the target. If they don’t see the target it proves NDEs are hallucinations. Seeing he’s confident and out of 300 there most likely was at least 1 OBE, maybe he had a hit?
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I think your last point is spot on. And yes, there is potential to miss the ipad on the pole, but out of 300, one should have seen it. Seriously, can he keep a lid on that for 3 years…
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So do you agree that if nobody don’t see the target it will prove that NDEs are hallucinations?
I think that someone should see it, but maybe he or she won’t remember it later? But I hope that Parnia will have some hits 🙂
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It won’t prove they are hallucinations, but it would make it very hard to argue they weren’t.
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At a rate of 10-20% expected to have an NDE, that’s at best 60 patients (with NDE)
and worst case 30. lets take 45 patients as an average.
The number of OBE’s and more interestingly “veridical” OBE’s is not going to be high. Depending on which prospective study you prefer, Only Sabom and Sartori (Sabom really) collected enough really good cases to be able to hypothesise that someone should have seen a specific “target.”
I’d guess they might have 4-5 out of body experiences with possibly one (or at best two) in a position to have “potentially” seen the tablet. Potentially that is… but it’s more than likely that their attention would be focussed on their own body below, after all, don’t we all have some kind of inbuilt need/desire to look at ourselves (in mirrors for instance even if it’s not a pleasant sight 🙂 ). However, as the numbers increase, the likelihood that someone will eventually see it increases, there’s always one that breaks the taboo.
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I don’t know if it proves that the obe\nde is an hallucination. Maybe one recalls other things one finds more interestingl. Case in point last week I was briefly looking for my keys; they were in my hand.
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Probably not. It looks like he suddenly got a lot more sites. He was akso studying the post death brain. That is very important to establish and he has. There is a lot of clinical significance too. I see nothing to be concerned about.
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Interesting that ME TV ia airing a 1960s Star Trek in which a robot revives a dead Mr Scot and everyone marvels. They sure missed out on that prediction. Scot does not seem to have an ADE not suorusing for that show or era. We have a few years so just trying to add topics for discussion. There is a lot to keep us going.
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I saw a really bad sci fi movie on TV must have been early 70s. It had tge dead elites frozen . Henry Kissinger was one and everyone else was disintegeated with laser beams . But there was a machine that could extract memories from the corpse and play them on video. There was a similar 6 million dollar man where brain celks from a dead guy were injected into a scientist and she got his memories including his murder. Anyone one else have a memory of this stuff in their brains waiting to be sucked out? Any other bad neuroscience and post death in film books? In books I can think of Mechanical Man by TRW founder Woolridge an engineer. It was the forerunner of brain downloading nonsense the singularity. Parnias work can take us in many directions. Just watching old TV jogged some memories.
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Writing novels is my other passion. I have been working on one that is based on NDE “science” for years…it’s very hard coming up with something original, but then you don’t always need to…you just need to do it better, after all there is more than one pizza restaurant im Manhatten.
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There are a lot of related issues. Epistemology, quality of scientific research. Quantum mechanics and biology. Origin of Life. New Scientist features yet another idea involving ribosomes. ……….There is a lot. I am curious what Ben is working on.
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Personally I think that probably dr Parnia wouldn’t want to continue his research for as long as 3 years if he didn’t have any hits. And he wouldn’t say about NDEs in this way as he talks about it now, for example here : http://goop.com/wellness/health/when-is-death-irreversible-a-resuscitation-m-d-explains-why-its-evolving/
So I’m waiting with hope to the results of AWARE II 🙂
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Thanks for posting that link, Patrycja. An excellent article; Parnia precisely details the whole field of resuscitation and it’s implications for the nature/study of consciousness.
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Wow, when is th article from? He usually does not make such bold statements about death but he is talking about a potential discovery in the next couple of decades and not years.
“What the evidence suggests is that the soul, the self, the psyche, whatever you want to call it, does not become annihilated, even though the brain has shut down. This suggests that part of what makes us who we are—a part that is very real—is not produced by the brain. Instead, the brain is acting like a mediator. Like anything that has been undiscovered, because we can’t touch and feel it, we choose to ignore it. The reality, though, is that human thought exists, we communicate through thoughts—so it is a real phenomena. The source of consciousness is undiscovered in the same way that electromagnetic waves have been around for millions of years, but it’s only been recently that we created a device to record them and show them to other people.
So in short, we haven’t got the tools yet, or a machine that’s accurate enough to pick up your thoughts and show them to me. In the next couple of decades, I believe it will be discovered that we continue to exist after death, and that consciousness is in fact an independent entity.”
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Yep, defintely been a shift in his ascertiveness on the subject. I can’t seriously believe that if he had a few hits he would sit on them for 3 years. This would be an extremely important discovery.
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To really confirm the two related points “I believe it will be discovered that we continue to exist after death, and that consciousness is in fact an independent entity” to the level of a scientific fact on a par with the statements “the atom has a nucleus containing protons and neutrons” or “galaxies contain stars” would be revolutionary (as has been said before!). And it would then have to not be doubted by *any* open-minded scientist. So I guess how far are we at present towards showing this? I don’t see that the data diverges away at all.
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Yea, he said “I believe it will be discovered that we continue to exist after death, and that consciousness is in fact an independent entity”. This is a very bold statement, many years back his attitude wasn’t like this at all. It’s his attitude and his comments in https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/researchers-say-theres-evidence-that-consciousness-continues-after-clinical-death/ that makes me think he got a hit.
Tim, 300 subjects who went through cardiac arrest. Parnia said around 20% survive, out of that probably 4% have OBEs, so probably 6 NDEs and 2 OBEs at max.
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It is discouraging that he said we would have proof in the next couple of decades though. Either he does not have a hit or he does not believe a hit is evidence enough?
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Chad said > “Tim, 300 subjects who went through cardiac arrest. Parnia said around 20% survive, out of that probably 4% have OBEs, so probably 6 NDEs and 2 OBEs at max.”
The 300 are the ones that HAVE survived and could be interviewed. At a guess, 45 of those will have had NDE’s and about 25% of those will have had an out of body experience with about 5-10% reporting a veridical one. But it’s only a guess based on previous studies.
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How do u know its 300 survivor? Aware 2 only aims for 900-1500 patients, and aware 1 had 2060 but only 330 survivors. Aware 2 is alot harder to recruit because of invasive tests, there’s no way they’d have ~2000 patients so far.
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Hi Chad, it will be 300 survivors because AWARE II has inclusion criteria that the subject survives long enough to give an interview…a somewhat fundamental limiting omission from AWARE I.
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So as you have mentioned his tweet, he won’t do any statements unless the final results are collected and processed.
It means that any interim claims can be erroneous because of lack of information. Because this tweet was made after all these interviews that you all have published took place.
So now it will take some time for the statement about ‘life after death’ and ‘independent consciousness’ to be confirmed with valid arguments or disproven.
And now I encourage not to seek for some hints or draw any conclusions (which may not be real – because his several claims in the interviews can be interpreted either that he’s got evidence but needs more to be absolutely sure or that he hasn’t got any evidence now but wants to get them and hopes that he will)…just wait.
Three years is not a very long period considering how valuable, interesting and important information can be obtained during this study.
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You make some good points. Food for thought on my part.
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I think he has the proof now in terms of hits from aware1. He is making a much bolder claim …that we will find the consciusness field. Considering how we have manipulated nature I might be content at stopping there and accepting the rest as mystery or quantum mechanics …..
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I dont see any hedging here . He is saying the after death evidence has shown independant consciusness that exists at least for some time after death. What he is speculating on is how much more he will be able to say about its existance. I find him very clear on this. He is saying some idependance of conscioussness is a statement like the milky way has stars. He boldly goes and says its a matter of decades and we will hnderstand this consciusness field. I am really impressed by aware 1 and the hit convinced me . This next part leaves me with my mouth open and eyes popping out its so startling.
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Chad said > “How do u know its 300 survivor? Aware 2 only aims for 900-1500 patients, and aware 1 had 2060 but only 330 survivors. Aware 2 is alot harder to recruit because of invasive tests, there’s no way they’d have ~2000 patients so far.”
In the initial Aware study, only 140 survived and were well enough to have a stage one interview. So they had to have more than two thousand cardiac arrests to get 140 cases that could be interviewed. I remember him saying that they simply did not have enough staff to carry out the interviews because he wasn’t receiving sufficient funding.
Parnia has told us that he has 300 patients recruited into the current study. So they must be alive or at least they must have agreed to be interviewed and I presume they will have been interviewed already. To get 300 recruited into the study they must have had or lost at least 2000-3000 (who simply died or couldn’t be resuscitated or didn’t survive for very long after resuscitation). The survival rate from cardiac arrest is not that good, about 10-20-25 % depending on where it occurs, in or out of hospital.
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Beside making the case for the ADE I thought aware 1 made a good case for a DNR unless you are in otherwise good health to recover. Its amazing we have any hits when you look at the trauma. Parnia otiginaal began the study to find out more about resusitation and confirmed the ADE. He was pushing the limits.
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Another minor update
https://mobile.twitter.com/samparniamdphd
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Another minor update.
https://mobile.twitter.com/samparniamdphd
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Does every recruit have a hidden target next to him/her? In aware 1 this was a seriously problem because less than half had hidden targets in their room. So if afterlife is real, and they have an OBE its guaranteed that they see the target?
Also was he confident just after aware 1? He’s constantly regurgitating results from aware 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6PYAK1mEU4. If he didn’t have results from aware 2 to support OBEs, do u think it strange that he comes on so many years after aware 1 to talk about the same things over and over again? I’m trying really hard to read his mind.
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@Chad
As I understand it, the hidden target (computer tablet with changing pictures) is taken to the cardiac arrest patient and elevated up onto a “pole” with a flat shelf on top (which Parnia has had specially made). So every patient that has had a cardiac arrest should have had the opportunity to have seen the target…. IF… they have an out of body experience and… IF.. of course they survive to tell the tale and remember it.
I don’t think it is at all strange that he refers to his previous study. Was he confident ? Do you mean does he believe that mind is separate from the brain and continues ? Yes…in the first period after death. That’s where they are up to.
Don’t you think that is very significant ? Parnia will have to be very careful with what he says because this is an area of investigation which is sure to ruffle a lot of feathers.
The scientific (perceived as anyway) materialist establishment do not want it. Religious denominations don’t want it either. The former categorically states that such a thing is impossible whereas the latter wants it to remain a matter of faith.
I think we need to let him (Parnia) get on with it now. He’s given as much information as he can and those of us that want him to succeed (he will eventually, of that I’m personally certain) should quietly support him in his efforts for as long as it takes.
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I agree with many of your points, which is why I am going to move future posts on to other topics rather than ramping expectations, of which I am totally guilty up to now. Let’s leave him be, then one day, hopefully, we will have a real result to talk about.
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Ben said > “….which is why I am going to move future posts on to other topics rather than ramping expectations, of which I am totally guilty up to now.”
I don’t think you’ve been ramping up expectations, Ben. It’s entirely understandable. I think when the first hit is achieved, we’ll all wonder why we thought it was so out of the ordinary. Probably 🙂
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He has been analyzing brain activity ….there us none after 30 second. One of the hits innaware one was auditory 5 minutes post death. Confirmed. It was a hit. He points out there have been millions. Parnia has been able to link the event to a time when the brain function namly hearing was indeed working but it could not have been in the brain. He also is trying to find out when to R or DNR….and on top of it seems to have a hypothesis that is close to penrose and hameroff. Before Aware 1 it could be claimed the nde happened after brain function was restored or cpr was enough but Parnia has shut it down. He sure has not been slacking .
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Dr Sam Parnia in 4 minutes
http://www.wradio.com.co/escucha/archivo_de_audio/sam-parnia-explica-las-experiencias-que-hay-despues-de-la-muerte/20171117/oir/3640570.aspx
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Thanks for giving us the link Eduardo!
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You’re welcome, Alan. Look, I do not know English, but from what you can understand of the journalists who translate into Spanish, Parnia speaks with a high degree of security and categoricality. What do you think of you according to what you hear from dr. Parnia ??
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Hi, without knowing any details he knows from the new studies, it’s the same positive message as people speak of above. 🙂 Now we must wait.
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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B978012420190300020X
Compare what Hameroff is saying to what Parnia is saying. They look like teh same thing
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