AWARE II: 15% of people had REDs
This is the first time I think that Dr. Parnia has mentioned any specific numbers from the forthcoming and much anticipated publication of data from AWARE II. A nice teaser quote from the UK Telegraph this weekend:
“Dr Parnia said soon-to-be published research will show that around 15 per cent of people who have been resuscitated from a coma after cardiac arrest have a Recalled Experience of Death.”
Daily Telegraph, 7th May 2022. Sarah Knapton, Science Editor
Link to latest AWARE II teaser
(it is behind a paywall, and given it is mostly a summary of the consensus statement and the state of the field, useful and informative to the wider public, but won’t be news to most here – except for the quote I have given)
Of course it is possible that this could be from his other research which from my understanding is a retrospective database analysis of reports they have collected from NYU and other establishments over the years, but I don’t think he would necessarily be able to state such a well defined number since, unlike AWARE II, that work is not a prospective study that looks at incidence of NDE among all those who survive a CA. Moreover, the fact that he has been trailing the publication of AWARE II for months now, would suggest it is from this study.
I think this is very important as I assume that he will be using the new criteria for REDs to differentiate from other experiences. It also significantly increases the chances of a “HIT”…by about 50% in fact. Given the rigour with which his team at NYU are conducting this research, I think that 15% will become the established number…provided the wider survivor cohort is sufficiently large.
I also think it is really important to consider that OBEs have largely been redefined as EVAs (external visual awareness), which by their very definition require VISUAL recollections. For a long time here we have been discussing the possibility of auditory OBEs , but in the consensus paper these are only mentioned in the context of accompanying an EVA and not a significant phenomenon in its own right.
There are some good NDEs in the comments section of the telegraph article, including one from a chap who had 3 CAs but only produced a single RED. This has been reported before on numerous occasions and points to Dr Parnia’s assertion that most, if not all, people who die and are resuscitated have an NDE (not a RED), but most can’t recall them due to physiological and/or biochemical reasons (which is why they aren’t REDs). This undermines one of the theories I state in my book, which I would be very happy to see undermined as it is not all that pleasant!!
Reminder in the link of my book which I recently updated (available amazon globally). I will be writing another update post AWARE II publication which, in addition to analysis of the new data, will include adjustments and additions to the possible theories as to why 80-90% can’t recall their NDE. This will reflect some of the excellent analysis provided on this topic in the consensus paper.
Link to my book on the AWARE studies
Really good to see the MSM, particularly a respected broadsheet like The Telegraph, take this seriously and report it in a balanced objective manner.
AwareofAware 
Ben will we have aware II results before autumn?
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The Parnia lab has been saying Fall, so September through November.
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Who knows though, maybe it will be earlier, or it could be later if they have problems with the peer review process. Rest assured, as soon as it is published, you will know about it here!
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after aware II do you think there will be aware III?
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there was another post published two hours ago on the blog, why can’t I see it?
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Thanks for update Orson! I read it and it looked interesting and leaning to the transcendental explanation.
If I may, a quick summary for those who can’t get through, the NYAS paper is mentioned and the article seems based on this. The article talks of tunnels, floating, travelling “to a place that feels like home”, life review. Parnia is quoted heavily and it looks like only in this newspaper.
One thing that stood out for me was distinguishing the Recalled Experience of Death (RED) from “dreams and delirium” experiences.
Then there’s being aware of the “self” when leaving the body, 3D vision, a connection by a “chord”. Again, distinguishing from other experiences, personal changes afterwards and lack of fear of dying. Finally, the authors of the paper not being able to prove or disprove these experiences.
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Anthony said >”I would like all human beings to have the opportunity to experience these wonderful experiences”
Nice to hear, Anthony ! Has your scepticism finally abated or is there a little touch of irony or sarcasm in there perhaps… ? 😉 I’d like one and one day a sceptic might give me one
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The thing about hoping everyone gets to experince an NDE is scary given that under most circumstances one has to get close to death to experience one.
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Tim
I’m still skeptical, but if all this ends up being explained from a physiological point of view, most of the experiences that are told is a nice way to leave this world forever 😉
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@Anthony
Anthony said >”I’m still skeptical, but if all this ends up being explained from a physiological point of view, most of the experiences that are told is a nice way to leave this world forever😉
Fair enough, Anthony. That’s a perfectly reasonable position !
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I’m always curious how only about 15% of people have RED. Whether a physiological or transcendental explanation is found for these matters, I would like all human beings to have the opportunity to experience these wonderful experiences
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Interesting, Ben and if that is the case (15%) then it more or less confirms (once and for all) that 10-20% is about correct for the proportion of RED’s.
They are also working on trying to find out if that percentage is actually much higher but the patient’s memories are affected etc.
@Alan, thanks
@Dario, there will definitely be an Aware 3 (100%). They are already preparing to move into the third phase now.
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Will only the results of aware II tell us if there is life after death or not? How long will we have to wait for Tim?
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@Dario
The question you ask there is quite likely to induce rage in many people, particularly sceptics, if the answer is yes.
There is a largely accepted popular notion that the possibility of life after death was eliminated forever with the advance of science in the past four hundred years. We all know the reasoning for that based on so called scientific ‘facts’ about the properties of the brain (which are not facts at all, they are merely assumptions)
My answer is that we must make up our own minds based on the evidence. I think the evidence is overwhelming. Many sceptics seem to think it’s non existent. What do you think ?
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You’re welcome Tim. I think I’ve said before that some skeptics “rage” you mention is kind of bizarre behaviour for a purely biological object to exhibit. Why would it behave like that? Could it be that this “object” thinks science would be “broken”? But that wouldn’t invalidate science. Something new added and a new POV, yes.
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@Alan
Indeed as you say, Alan, only something new added to science rather than science overturned (completely).
It’s a new substance that we cannot measure or account for but it’s there. As Donald Hoffman stated in the video, space time continuum and materialist reductionism is doomed without an alteration or expansion.
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Tim, I find Hoffman fascinating. I don’t think he’s ruled out NDEs as we talk about them here, or at least consciousness continuing in some form.
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Responding to Dario’s question, I don’t know if visual hits during AWAREII would ever conclusively prove life after death. I would almost guarantee the skeptics that have said NDE target experiments never produced results would change their tune to how the target hits were acquired through sensory leakage or other mundane means.
A true slam dunk would be a way to measure the afterlife or consciousness existing outside of the body. Remember, Parnia has implied that through the OBE portions of NDEs (the one verdicial NDE during AWAREI for instance), all that is shown is that consciousness survives some time out of the body after death, as we have no way of tracking it past that point. While Parnia says consciousness could fade eventually, he has also said if the consciousness doesn’t need the brain, maybe it could go on indefinitely (as he said during the Closer to the Truth interview a few years back).
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You are right on all counts FDT. No matter what evidence the skeptics are presented with, it will not be enough. Also, the most that could ever be concluded scientifically from AWARE II about the “persistence” of the consciousness, is that it is able, at least, to persist for a period after brain activity stops. People could still argue, without any scientific evidence, that this roaming consciousness is a quantum mechanical artefact that will fizzle out.
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@Tim. It does look like 10-20% is becoming the confirmed amount now. Their explicit vs implicit memory experiments are looking to understand the question of whether the percentage is higher. If people can recall various things that were said over the headphones, but not remember hearing them this may point to levels being higher than 20%. However, I think the reports from people who have had multiple CAs but only recall one NDE is stronger supporting evidence for the understanding that the incidence is higher than 20%.
If there is one or more scientifically confirmed EVA from AWARE II then I think research in this field will explode and we will get a better understanding of why it is that the current level of recall is 10-20% by having larger pools of patients and data to compare various potential contributing factors such as age, meds used, length of time of CA etc.
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Here is the article in full :
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/near-death-experiences-will-be-studied-more-seriously-after-number-of-people-being-saved-rises/CC5YVNBKBTSVMOF7PNTXMRQSTM/?c_id=6&objectid=12522820&ref=rss
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Base on what Tim mentioned here, I feel it’s worthwhile to share a video of an interview with a German neurologist on the subject of life after death I recently stumble across.
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=K12eOkYxb_U
He mentioned in the video that there are roughly 100 verifiable NDE cases to date (I assume these are the ones which had been collaborated by medical professionals and does not include anecdotal evidence), and it sounds like a small number without looking at the wider context.
But it is actually a rather large number if you consider the willingness of medical professionals to collaborate these accounts (I remember Parnia mentioned in the 2018/19 talk that some surgeons got so spooked out by the some of the NDE cases till a point where they wanted to pretend they never happened) and the difficulty in collecting them.
Another thing he highlighted was that the scientific community tend to attribute consciousness to beta wave, but we have researches to show that conciseness can still be present during the absence of beta wave and vice versa. And we really don’t know whether it is a causation or correlation effect.
The video then went on to talk about the fallacy of the current scientific approach to afterlife and why we shouldn’t dismiss this possibility.
In my opinion, our current assumptions of consciousness is pretty much drawn on the global workspace theory or the integrated information theory. But “Emperor’s New Mind” from Roger Penrose has explained why there is a problem with the current material framework and that consciousness is actually a fundamental element of the universe.
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Ben Williams, why would they think that this “quantum mechanical artifact” will “fizzle out” soon after cardiac arrest? It seems to me that that sort of argument is merely silly at best and desperate/bias/nasty at worst.
After all, if we someday fully accept OBEs, why not trust the entire NDE, too (e.g., one seeing their loved ones on the other side). Lest said “loved ones” are merely phantoms, you’d think that that alone would make the case for one’s soul lasting a lot longer than a handful of minutes!
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I am with you Yitz, but there are none so blind as those who will not see. As I discuss in both my books, a study by psychologists of cults in the 60s showed that people who have become convinced of something false, will double down on their beliefs even when shown evidence proving their beliefs are false. This phenomenon is related to how much is at stake to change your belief. If you have built your entire worldview around a belief, to accept it is false causes such a psychological and emotional earthquake, you prefer to bury your head in the sand.
No one is immune to this and leads to the issue of confirmation bias, which we on this forum are all guilty of…we are often too ready to accept data that supports our dualist beliefs, and pooh pooh data that challenges it. Now, that may well be that the so called data challenging our worldview is garbage…like the straw man, but we are not objective…very few people can be on an issue like this.
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@Ben
Ben said >” No one is immune to this and leads to the issue of confirmation bias, which we on this forum are all guilty of…we are often too ready to accept data that supports our dualist beliefs, and pooh pooh data that challenges it.”
I do agree that everyone is guilty of confirmation bias to some degree. It’s just a natural human tendency. But if we are talking about the NDE data and it’s interpretation, I find it difficult to share the same naughty stool as many ‘pooh poohing’ sceptics (who are not sceptics).
Just as an example, I’ve never stated that NDE’s prove life after death for instance. Sceptics, however state with absolute certainty that they don’t. Sceptics make claims that there is no evidence for telepathy. Well of course there’s evidence (some) for telepathy and many other areas of PSI research.
As to the ramifications of this work (NDE research), who knows. I do suspect Parnia will inevitably incur some heavy criticism, it goes with the territory. But he also has a lot of well wishers, too so we’ll see.
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Agreed.
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Tim, Parnia has received criticism over the years, though arguably because of his fence sitting he doesn’t appear to take the amount of flak that some other NDE researchers do.
Maybe not directly aimed at Parnia, but I remember Caroline Watts discussing the verdical NDE that occured during the first AWARE study and found parts of it unconvincing. For instance, she felt the recognition of the defibrillator’s vocal instructions was the result of the patient recalling a memory from a medical television show. I don’t think she tried to explain away how the patient recognized the details of people in the room, though.
The AWAREII audio hit that Parnia has been keeping under wraps for a few years now is where I feel heavy criticism will finally hit him. Parnia has to explain how the patient wouldn’t have been able to hear the sounds while under cardiac arrest. I do hope the hit is enough to spur interest from non-skeptics to continue the research.
Someone on the NDE subreddit said what needs to happen are multiple AWARE type studies going on throughout the world since the occurrences of NDEs aren’t too common to begin with, let alone ones with OBE components. I previously commented on the last blog post I am not sure if the materialist paradigm has softened enough to make it easier to allow more research to take place.
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@FDT
FDT said >” Hi, FDT Caroline Watts’s suggestions that Mr A must have picked up the automated voice of the defibrillator from another source and then later incorporated it into his NDE is absolutely ludicrous.
He could have had no idea of the details of what measures the doctors took to revive him. When a patient wakes up, the doctors don’t give them a description of the sounds the machine makes etc and how many needles they’ve stuck in them, (for heaven’s sake).
The nurse told him, “Oh you nodded off Mr A, you are back with us now!”
There would be no reason for him to confabulate anything. He was just out and then he was back. If it was the case that patients confabulate NDE’s, why don’t more patients confabulate one. In fact everyone should be filling in the blanks and confabulating them, shouldn’t they?
Mr A distinctly heard the automated instruction to “shock the patient”. And he heard it twice (he said so, I asked Parnia just to be sure) so he somehow knew he was shocked twice. He couldn’t have known that. Patients don’t look at their records routinely unless there’s a good reason.
He also correctly described everything that occurred around him, particularly the attending cardiologist who he hadn’t seen before his heart stopped (he was blind sighted by a raised curtain at his upper chest level)
This type of sceptical shenanigans has been going on since 1975. It’s just scepticism for scepticism’s sake. Caroline Watt is also married to Richard Weisman who is another dyed in the wool sceptic.
I’m going to be as unreasonable as she is and suggest that he’s affected her with bias. Fair do’s isn’t it? (BTW I contacted her to point all this out and she ignored me).
As to the “hit” in Aware 2 is not the way you are assuming, unless I’ve got it wrong and I might have of course. We discussed it previously in depth.
As to the research expanding, it will, for sure, FDT.
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@tim I agree with you and I find some resonance in how Chris French tried to explain the Pam Reynolds’s case by saying how the recall of her experience could have been attributed to anesthetic awareness but failed to mention that her eyes were taped shut and her ears were covered. I also read some articles from Susan Blackmore and Keith Augustine and I somehow feel they are purposely trying to debunk NDE by misrepresenting facts and the original source of their references had written something completely different. As I have mentioned in another post previously, most of the well-known skeptics authors don’t conduct their own scientific researches and they basically profit from humiliating or “exposing” others.
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Sorry Tim, what was your take on the audio hit in AWAREII?
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@ FDT
FDT said >”what was your take on the audio hit ?”
Doesn’t mean I’m right, though. Only they can tell us, I’m only surmising.
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@Tim After reading the consensus paper, I am a somewhat circumspect about the idea of an auditory hit being presented without visual data. They are moving away from the term OBE…which include auditory hits…to EVAs, external VISUAL awareness with or without auditory awareness. That doesn’t mean they won’t mention auditory awareness in the AWARE II study, but the fact they don’t make much of it it in the consensus paper makes me think that Parnia puts less stock in this than we once thought (i.e in 2019). I know you got me very excited about this Tim, and I think if time-matched EEG data is supplied with an auditory confirming complete inability to physically hear, then it is compelling for me. However, maybe he recognises that this will be less compelling than an EVA for the wider community.
It gives me cause to hope a little bit at least that they have an EVA.
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@Ben
Ben said >” After reading the consensus paper, I am a somewhat circumspect about the idea of an auditory hit being presented without visual data. They are moving away from the term OBE…which include auditory hits…to EVAs, external VISUAL awareness with or without auditory awareness. ”
Interesting, could you elaborate a bit on this, possibly, Ben? Didn’t they say they had a patient or patients who heard conversations, drugs given etc ? I don’t remember them indicating they had any OBE’s where patients had seen various things. If they don’t use that data, then they must have something better (by logical deduction?) I agree, but have they?
The OBE’s in the literature during cardiac arrest vary as to how they are experienced, don’t they. Everyone can see very clearly what is going on (in the vast majority of cases) but not everyone can ‘hear’.
Of course we don’t actually know how this disembodied consciousness ‘sees’ and ‘hears’. Many of them can read the minds of the doctors and staff etc but what is going on here is a mystery. They all might be experiencing the same thing but interpreting it differently?
I don’t know what to think about what Parnia might have (I cannot envisage that he has a hit on the laptop with only 5-6 RED’s ) but maybe he has more. He must have some promising data, otherwise why the guidelines ?
I mean there’s ‘stuff’ in there (other dimensions –beings of light ) that’s going to infuriate some. I can just imagine Parnia being questioned by an inquisition of Dawkins, Novella and Krauss (or any of them for that matter).
“What do you mean, Parnia…’beings of light’…what on earth is a ‘being of light’?
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@Tim. There are a couple of things said in the paper that make it feel as though there is little to no credit given to auditory OBEs compared to the 2019 poster and AWARE I. The first comes in the new set of core features, at least one of which must be present for the experience to be a RED. the relevant one states:
“Paradoxical perception of separating from and observing the body (and/or others) from outside the body (external visual awareness EVA)”
There is no mention of auditory awareness in this core list – just external visual awareness. This is very important because if the AWARE II publication presents REDs, then by definition the only type of authentic OBE that will fit the new criteria…created by a team led by Parnia, is an authentic visual OBE or EVA. Just hearing things that are said isn’t going to cut it by his own new standard.
Auditory awareness is mentioned twice later in the paper, but only in the context of being with visual awareness. EVA are specifically defined as:
“a specific and lucid state of visual (with and without auditory) awareness of one’s own body and its surroundings, which is paradoxically perceived through an external view of oneself.”
If they don’t have any scientifically verified EVAs (only veridical isn’t going to cut it), then they are setting themselves up for failure with the consensus statement…at least in terms of validating NDEs.
I therefore suspect they have at least one scientifically verified EVA, which we would expect after this period of time. I would expect he has recruited and, most importantly, interviewed more than 50 by now, which should give 8 REDs, with maybe 1-2 EVAs. If he has 100 interviewed, which is very realistic given the time, then he should have 15 REDs with 3-4 EVAs, and you’d hope one of those is scientifically verified, and the others are veridical.
Dawkins is past it now…but I do think that Parnia will be very good at facing at an inquisition. He will not make any claims other than those that can be made from the data generated in the study. If he just sticks to the facts as presented from his research and allows others to argue about the possible implications, he will do his lab, his work and the field a huge favour. ultimately he will be able to claim that the evidence suggests that the consciousness is able to survive without the body for at least a short period of time.
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Hi Ben,
In the telegraph comments you say:
//It seems that under certain circumstances, most commonly around the time of death, but not exclusively, the consciousness is able to detach from the brain and observe things. How this consciousness see without eyes is a very pertinent question//
I’m afraid I don’t regard it as being pertinent at all. Seeing will be an intrinsic capacity of souls.
If a man is in a house, he’ll need windows in order to see the sky. But, once outside, he clearly won’t need windows any more to see the sky.
It’s the same for our vision. The area of the brain devoted to vision and our eyes don’t create our vision.
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Come to think of it, I actually wrote a blog post on this.
http://ian-wardell.blogspot.com/2017/06/how-could-we-see-hear-taste-touch-and.html
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Very good. Yes, I discuss this in my book…it really challenges our understanding of what reality is.
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One should be aware that it is not light which creates our visual awareness. It is just information, encoded in nerve signals. Any type of information could create visual awareness. Some people can see sounds, for instance, and of course most of us have visual awareness in our dreams, while our eyes are closed.
Basically, the information feeding our senses is all similar: electrical signals carried by nerve strings. Any of these information feeds could in principle lead to awareness via any of the five senses.
This raises the question: on what ‘information feed’ is visual awareness (and the other senses as well) based during an OBE or EVA? And would that information include the appearance of the AWARE targets?
The mental image of a kind of ‘astral body’ with ‘astral eyes and ears’ seems inadequate to me. RED experiencers often report 360 vision, for instance. It seems they somehow connect to information about their physical surroundings but not via sensory organs.
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What excites me most is the idea of realms that these senses can experience that are more amazing than the material realm we currently experience. Given this understanding of senses and experience, there is potentially an infinite array of experiences to be had on the other side. This is obviously hinted at by our experiences in dreams and drug induced hallucinations.
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Orson, all, have you come across the ongoing Archives Of The Impossible based at Rice University?
https://impossiblearchives.rice.edu/
Not sure if NDEs are in there but they should be. You know, I’ve been following the
UFO subject very closely over the last 4.5 years since the NY Times broke those articles. Seems to me other so-called dimensions of reality could fit in here too as there is definitely a psychic component to sightings and experiences as if people are being prodded and nudged, I say this tentatively (and yes, I too once had a powerful experience at night in the house we now live in). Jacques Vallee has also suggested this. But by who or what? And doesn’t this sound similar to what happens during NDEs? The guided life review?
There’s some massive overarching picture here (I guess this isn’t news to those who post here, with materialism just a “slice” in this expanded reality) being sidelined by normal science and I cannot say it’s not surprising it is sidelined. Some have said there’s a spiritual issue here as well. It’s odd, but when I look esp. at the UFO issue I think of looking down a well and thinking, oh yeah, there’s the bottom. Then I realize it just keeps going down!
Now there will be public US Congress hearings for the first time in 50 years next Tuesday 17 May. I’ll certainly be plugged in. Thought some might like to know.
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It’s funny you should say this Allan. I am just finishing off the first part of the first novel in a series of books that will blend the NDE and UFO thing. My job has recently been made redundant so before I start my next one, I am going to polish up the final draft and self-publish it. may ask some on here to review it first.
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Ah, one of those coincidences? 🙂 Surprised you were also interested. I don’t mind reviewing if you’d like.
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The UFO thing was a recent addition…I was trying to figure out explaining the origin of one of the characters, then had a brain wave. I was just looking up the rules on Amazon, and I have to be very careful about requesting reviews etc, especially if I provide the book for free for a period. Suffice to say, if I do, please get it, read it and provide a review. Something of notes though, anything under 4 is considered a negative review.
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Ok, got that. I guess if you let us know here when you put it out, I’ll read and review. Looking forward!
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Okay, but that doesn’t explain why people see outside the body and not inside it.fran
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That is an interesting thought, and I have no answer!
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@Ben
Ben said >”Let’s start a sweepstake…I will have the number of 85 interviews, you are 40🙂
Yes, first prize a copy of Woerlee’s book, Mortal minds. I’ll use it as a wedge to prop up one of the legs of my kitchen table.
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@Ben
Ben said >”I therefore suspect they have at least one scientifically verified EVA, which we would expect after this period of time. I would expect he has recruited and, most importantly, interviewed more than 50 by now, which should give 8 REDs, with maybe 1-2 EVAs. If he has 100 interviewed, which is very realistic given the time, then he should have 15 REDs with 3-4 EVAs, and you’d hope one of those is scientifically verified, and the others are veridical.
Thanks, Ben ! I’m assuming by scientifically verified you are meaning a hit on the laptop, of course. My feeling is that because they didn’t have one in 2019 (when they had only 21 interviewed) they won’t have one.
I’m not as optimistic as you are about the numbers they might have been able to add to that total of 21 (in 2019), I’m really not. Remember Covid will have shut the whole study down in 2020.
I’d be really surprised if they have a scientifically verified hit on the lap top with such miniscule numbers. I’d be surprised if they have any impressive OBE’s or EVA’s.
I do think they will have >some< scientifically intriguing evidence, though, by their pioneering use of EEG on the cardiac arrest patients which is "a first" for NDE research. The correlation with hearing conversations/drugs being administered etc (if they actually have that)…that's impossible with a flat EEG.
Their Instagram posts would indicate that they do indeed have that, if I am not reading it wrongly. if they do, that will do for me for the time being. Aware 3 IMHO should then go on to finish off the job.
But for me, I just can't see anything more, with such low numbers. If you want to find gold you have to smash an awful lot of rocks.
The problem is, he's had a lot of rocks smashed (sadly) but he hasn't had anywhere near enough people to go and investigate. (Maybe not a very good analogy —apologies to the poor souls/patients)
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I do get your pessimism Tim, I really do, and it is possible I am being too optimistic (a trait I am suffering due to at the moment as my optimism I had about some drug data means I am now having to look for a new job!).
The caveats I have about the possibility that the interviews are still low are as follows:
1.The AHA 2019 data was probably from data cut 6-9 months prior to that…knowing the way that submissions for conferences work. 3 months to synthesise the data, a month or two to write the abstract, and then submit 4-5 months before the congress, which means that there was possibly about 1 more year of data collected after the AHA poster before COVID struck. From my understanding, by this time they had recruited a number of new sites and researchers, so they may have accelerated their rate of study enrolment.
2. I found it interesting that from memory about 45 people survived but only 21 had been interviewed at that point, or that only 21 interviews were included in this analysis. It is possible there were more data even from that first cut not included or still to be collected.
3. COVID was probably not as disruptive as you think. ICUs were slammed from mid March 2020 through May, then again December 2020 through February 2021. In the intervening periods I know for a fact in the UK that they were often much quieter than normal, and certainly since spring 2021 it has been business as usual due to vaccinations. The key would be whether there would have been issues with staff being available and able to bring the adapted crash carts to the ER rooms, and the extent to which this was disrupted by COVID staffing shortages and WFH policies for researchers. This is the key, because I am pretty sure the research staff would have heaps of time to analyse any data produced.
I therefore think that they are likely to have closer to 100 completed interviews for the paper. I would expect at least 2 EVAs from this, and with luck, one that is scientifically verified, and yes, by that I mean one that has been verified using pre-specified methods for measuring EVAs (iPad image) and ideally correlating them with EEG, ECG and RO2.
If there is a hit, I think AWARE III will be massive. Every tertiary hospital with research capacity should be included in my view.
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@Ben
Thanks, Ben. From memory, I think I remember Parnia saying that THAT data (2019) was more or less up to date, though.
As to the rest of the 44 (the 23 un-interviewed) would it not be the case that they were either not willing or not able to be interviewed and then lost ?
And during the covid pandemic, I can’t imagine that they would allow staff to potentially (anyway) infect or contaminate other staff and patients. But you may be right, maybe they carried on regardless.
I like your optimism, Ben. I suppose I’m a pessimist by nature. My guess is a low forty (at best) patients interviewed.
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Let’s start a sweepstake…I will have the number of 85 interviews, you are 40 🙂
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@AW
Hi, AW ! I investigated the Pam Reynolds myself and assisted researchers with it. I also contacted Dr Spetzler and I can categorically tell you that there was no anaesthesia awareness. It’s literally impossible for anaesthesia awareness to occur in that particular operation.
The source of the anaesthesia awareness fable is Gerald Woerlee, who is a fanatic and a hard line materialist/atheist debunker (failed).
It never happened, period. I don’t know what else to say other than sceptics make things up and then people believe them, as in this case.
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Just to add I don’t mean you believe him, AW. (Typo above– Pam Reynolds >case)
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Just an assumption Tim, are you someone that works in the medical field? Aside from your knowledge there, I get an impression that is why you have researched Pam Renoyld’s case.
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@Tim. As I have pointed out many times, in a rational world, everyone would believe that NDEs, or REDs, and OBEs or EVAs are actually genuine reports of the consciousness leaving the body. However, we do not live in a “rational” world. We live in a world that is fundamentally ruled by materialism and ruling orders that are aligned with maintaining the current dogma that there is no specific soul with an individual identity or a greater being that exists outside this dimension. They are opposed to truth to enforce their worldview and maintain control. Even if AWARE II has a dozen scientifically verified EVAs I don’t believe it will be enough for these people.
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A lot of skeptics have directly or indirectly pointed to AWAREI’s lack of visual hits as evidence against NDEs or OBEs being a transcendental experience. The subtle implication they make here I think is that if hits had occured, they would change their mind, but would they? I just can’t see them changing their tune if any future AWARE style studies scored hits. Even if Parnia painstakingly explained the circumstances, all I can see them doing is saying there was some sort of sensory leakage (staff revealing the target content, even if there was no evidence of this) to brush them off.
This is why I say take note of all the skeptics that have said “There were never any target hits during NDE and OBE studies”, because if there hits in the future, see if they change their mind.
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@Ben
Ben said >” We live in a world that is fundamentally ruled by materialism and ruling orders that are aligned with maintaining the current dogma ”
I agree. Just to play devil’s advocate, though, they would say that they do allow for phenomena outside of ‘science’, as long as it’s bracketed under Religion.
But I would like them to admit that their religion (materialism) cannot account for the mind and therefore it’s flawed. But they don’t want to, as you rightly suggest.
@FDT
Aware one was just a start and they had to start somewhere. The funding was inadequate, the vast majority of the cardiac arrests were lost (to recruitment) because they didn’t have enough staff. Most of the arrests occur in the early hours )apparently) of the morning and at weekend (short staffed again).
The targets were pre-placed on best guesses of where the arrests would occur (they guessed wrong). They only had 2 OBE’s (as far as I know) or they only included two, both of which occurred in an area without a board fitted (target)
As to sceptics, I welcome those as long as they are genuine (willing to change their mind depending on the evidence)
But many so called sceptics are not sceptics at all, they are ideologically driven debunkers, vehemently opposed to what NDE’s may imply. And whatever that is, they really don’t want it, I can assure you.
Just a point about target hits. I don’t think Parnia’s got any. Why? Because he hasn’t got the numbers. There’s very little chance that a few NDE’s (RED’s) would produce a really curious OBEer that happened to be in the right place.
However, with Aware 2, they’ve got EEG on them, so if they can (?) correlate a RED with a flat EEG, then that’s consciousness without a brain and that’s a big punch in the face for physicalism! Will it really ‘hurt them’, though ? I doubt it, as Ben and you say. We’ll see.
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/11/eyes-organ-donors-brought-back-life-giving-glimpse-future-brain/
Sort of similar to pig study but this time retina eye cells pist death. Sam parnia just gives a quote on the study, saying it interesting and gives another insight insight into.what happens to the mind brain and consciousness at death. More a neutral comment really
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Hi Z,
Thanks for posting the link. I saw this article the other day, but only read he headline and didn’t see the quote from Parnia. It is interesting, and makes complete sense. It seems that the field is moving away from the idea that most of the damage is caused by cells dying during the those hours due to cells breaking down, but due to reperfusion injury when large amount of oxygen suddenly flood back in. This presents a dilemma for how you prevent this in cases of patients who have not been having a consistent supply of oxygen to their cells for a period of hours. I am sure they will devise a solution.
The quote from Parnia also feels like he is laying the ground for his paper in the Fall. The reference to studying the mind and consciousness during this “limbo” period in a neutral and unbiased manner is key. Cuts both ways, but in general I find the materialists most aggressive in their bias.
“Dr Sam Parnia, director of critical care and resuscitation research at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, in the US, an expert in near-death experiences, said: “This fascinating study clearly demonstrates that by contrast to social and historical convention, whereby death is considered permanent and irreversible, from a biological perspective, death remains reversible well into the post-mortem period.
“This opens up tremendous opportunities for medical treatments for brain and eye disorders, including blindness. In addition, studies such as this at the intersection of life and death, will enable science to explore what happens to the human mind, brain and consciousness after death in a neutral and unbiased manner.”
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Just saw a second paper too in relation to CPR induced consciousness with s parnia one of the authors. Indicates that the CPR consciousness and RED are serperate but I suppose excist on a spectrum of sorts and is difficult to serperate them in some regards. I suppose if your doing CPR your more in action mode as opposed to trying to get into ligustic definitions but I wandering off point here. Anyhow here a link to the paper.
https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S2666520422000418?token=088D950C49495A19147A8D94F8AE1FC31DB735DBA06F60A26C642CF2D08AE9B9838669238746B0A08C665C9B56F64C42&originRegion=eu-west-1&originCreation=20220514054258
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@Z Very interesting paper indeed, and will create a fresh post on this. Thanks Z, surprised I missed it as I do pub med searches for Parnia relatively frequently.
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I generally use Google scholar myself
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i have a doubt with this, if 15% of CA are nde, why in the study of eeg monitoring only 2 of 38 (5%) have brain Activity? This would not be proof that NDEs at least do not occur in cardiac arrest??, this would refute the theories of drugs that are released in cardiac arrest such as ketamine, it would also obviously explain why the study of parnia is so different from that of chawla or borjigin, what we will not be able to prove is if the NDEs occur ON or AFTER the cardiac arrest
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