The Good, the Bad and the Ugly study
Thanks to Z who has once again done my job and kept a close eye on the literature, and alerted us to this study which was published at the end of last week:
The Good:
This study is possibly the best designed NDE study I have come across. The site in Vienna started out as a site in the AWARE study, they then extended the protocol beyond AWARE creating their own method for validating…or otherwise, OBEs. It is like they read what we suggested as a well designed experiment, ensuring full blinding until the close of the study, and implemented it:
“Hidden Images
At an elevated position above one emergency bed (2 m above ground), a notebook PC was fixed facing the ceiling and displaying images selected at random from a pool of 29, switching from the actual to any in the pool every few hours (the number of hours was unpredictable). These images were not disclosed to the public and were not even known to all of us (in particular not to the main interviewer M.L.B.). The presentation history was stored on the PC, and any readout of this history, be it authorized or not, left its trace.“
Well done to this team for getting this right.
They also extended the inclusion criteria for possible experiences, allowing for patients who had Greyson scales <7 to be included in the results if they had recollections around the time of CA. This was smart, and I will come back to this in a moment.
So that’s the good.
The Bad:
The results are disappointing. Yet again a low percentage of NDEs, especially using the Greyson scale:
“Only 5 of 126 (4%) scored at least 7 points, the criterion to pass as NDE in the strict sense. Under the impression that this instrument may not be sensitive enough to detect experiences associated with a transient shortage of brain oxygen during CA, we included 15 more with detailed recollections from a period near to their CA.“
I would say that another 6 (cases E,G,I,K,M and P) had elements of NDEs that we are familiar with, so if you included these 6, you have 11 NDEs from 126 CA survivors, which is very similar to other NDE studies.
There is one OBE, but the subject reported standing next to their body, rather than being above it, and were unable to report the memory of what they saw with any accuracy. There were a couple of other OBE like reports, but were more likely visual distortions etc due to erratic brain activity.
Subject K is highlighted as someone who got them excited:
“She had seen a field with beautiful pink flowers resembling water lilies, all of similar size. In her words, this was the first impression “during waking up” and she added: “It was great that the medical staff was capable to display it for me”. When she saw these flowers, she was sure that she would “return”. For the first (and only) time, we had the suspicion that a patient made reference to one of our hidden images.”
In 2021 when they reviewed the data from the laptop which reported exactly what images were presented at what time, the images that were displayed when she was in CA were nothing like what she described. Some key points here:
- She had a Greyson score of 1, and most importantly
- she did not report an OBE.
I will come back to this, since it central to what makes some of their conclusions and discussions downright:
The Ugly:
The paper was authored by Michael L. Berger and Roland Beisteiner. Both are involved in neuroscience research and neurology. While attempting to create a veneer of impartiality they quickly betray their underlying, subjective, predetermined view of OBEs in the introduction:
It may be objected that an experimental approach testing for visual awareness from a point outside the body was futile and misplaced in a serious scientific study, neglecting the generally accepted view that ‘even the most complex psychological processes derive from operations in the brain’ [11]. On the other hand, our certainty about the biological basis of awareness (as about any scientific ‘fact’) is the result of well-controlled experiments and observation, but can never be final and absolute. It has always been the noble privilege of experimental research to put to the test even the most solid dogma, provided the chosen approach was sufficiently well controlled against error and fraud.
In other words they are saying “we know that NDEs and OBEs are caused by neuronal activity, but we are going to do this experiment anyway because this position has not been absolutely and finally proven…although we actually think it has.”
They cite some of the studies we are familiar with, and have debunked here, as evidence for their position. Anyway, given this, you know from the outset they are not going to be objective. It feels very much like they have taken part in this study, are a bit embarrassed about it so put lots of caveats up front, and then completely abandon all objectivity when it comes to their conclusions so their colleagues won’t laugh at them. Shame on them, it is truly fugly.
This is the offensive line referring to subject K:
The image shown during the acute period (CA and post CA, Figure 2) had not the slightest resemblance to the scenery described by the patient. This may be seen as a negative result, but in fact it vindicated the generally accepted view that consciousness depends solely upon brain function.
The hell it does!
Sorry, I know some people don’t like the H word (esepcially Sam Parnia!), but I cannot think of saying this more politely. It is an obscene conflation. To understand why this is the case, you need to read the interview report of subject K:
Due to difficulties in breathing, case K (№ 83), a female 79 years old when the CA occurred, was originally entered as pulmonology patient at the general hospital. The CA happened during her firstnight there. She was successfully resuscitated and transferred to the emergency unit for further treatment. During the interview 83 d later at home, she surprised her husband (who participated) with the revelation that after losing consciousness she had the agreeable impression of a beautiful meadow with wonderful flowers. The flowers were pink and reminded her of water lilies. Was it a dream? No, she prefers the term ‘impression’; she was “pleased that the clinical staff was able to produce it for her”. She likes this memory: “Now I knew: I will come back.” (See Fig. 2) Greyson point: 1
Key points:
- She did not report an OBE – she did not say she saw herself from above, or beside her body. She did not report seeing a laptop with an image on it.
- She reported a memory of seeing a beautiful meadow. This is such a common theme in NDEs that we see it in the previous case, subject J who also reported a meadow. My father who told me about his NDE said he remembers a beautiful meadow with a figure of white at the end of it. These meadows are not OBEs as we understand them, they are a part of the narrative arc that NDEs or REDs follow…the heavenly realm. These usually occur after any OBE reports from the ER room.
- The wording of her report suggests she is a bit muddled as to what happened to her and this is the only snippet she can remember, and associates it with the doctors. Of note is the fact that many of the subjects knew nothing about NDEs before the report. This is Austria, not the US where the media is very active on this topic.
How on earth did they take this information and come up with the ludicrous statement:
“it vindicated the generally accepted view that consciousness depends solely upon brain function”
CONFLATION – the tool of those who have a weak or non-existent argument. It is something I talk a great deal about in my book on the origin of life DNA:The Elephant in the Lab, (available in all countries) a subject I have academic expertise in. Scientists often conflate different facts to make an argument that isn’t there. I like the Wikipedia description of conflation:
Conflation is the merging of two or more sets of information, texts, ideas or opinions into one, often in error.[1] Conflation is defined as fusing or blending, but is often misunderstood as ‘being equal to’ – treating two similar but disparate concepts as the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflation
So what is the conflation here?
The lady reported seeing a meadow during CA[Fact1] + the laptop did not show a picture of a meadow [Fact 2] = consciousness depends solely upon brain function
It is a conflation because the lady’s report of an image and the fact the laptop didn’t show that image are completely and totally unrelated and not even associated. She didn’t see the laptop…so what? She didn’t report an OBE. The laptop image is irrelevant.
This is monstrous, and their outrageous bias destroys the credibility of what was otherwise a very well designed and conducted study, that if interpreted objectively supports data from other studies. Of course, that won’t stop some materialists leaping on this and saying it is proof that the brain produces NDEs because these neurologists have said it does.
A part of me wonders about the backstory here. Imagine that the team hear that a lady has reported an image (an incorrect assumption from my understanding and explanation from above – she reported a memory), and that this gossip spreads to the wider hospital taking on the form of a report from an OBE. In the time between the interview and revealing of images actually displayed, there may have been a cohort of NDE believers that started to believe, and maybe even claim that they had proven an OBE. The materialists may have momentarily been on the back foot, but when the great reveal comes…BOOM!…no image of flowers. Revenge is a dish best served cold and this paper may be revenge. Any researchers involved in the study who were believers retreated and allowed the materialist neurologists to write it up. Big mistake, as I have shown above. They have embarrassed themselves and their colleagues. Anyway, that is just my author’s imagination running wild…but you can see it happening given the size of egos in academia.
Back to square one. This study proves nothing about OBEs or NDEs, except they are relatively infrequent and all but impossible to scientifically measure.
If you enjoyed this post and haven’t “bought me a coffee” yet, then please feel free to show your appreciation:
AwareofAware 
Thanks to Max B for keep returning to the supplement as well as I had given up on it too on thr link.
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Yes, very helpful, and really helps understand case K. Hopefully the final AWARE II will have detailed supplements including EEG and whether they correlate with REDs.
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I have a lot of respect for the scientists who have implemented this protocol regardless of their belief.
The only thing that matters is that the methodology used was adequate and that is the case or almost the case.
Their interpretations are well measured and consistent with the results. They even allow themselves to conclude that they do not decide in favor of the hallucinatory hypothesis where many scientists would have lost patience.
Regarding the results, one thing has been observed : there is a correlation between the quality of the conscious experience during stress and the speed of the care administered and its quality. What does it mean ? Me who believed that the more one died, the deeper the experience was.
Actually their interpretation of the facts makes perfect sense. The faster and more adequately your brain is fed with blood, the richer the experience of consciousness is. They also try to explain the content of the experience through available biological data they expect and their explanation seems to be much more credible than the one postulated by scientists like Greysson bit also more measured than the one postulated by neuroscientists like Susan Blackemore.
I have much more faith in these scientists than in Parnia and his arbitrary categories and his wish to preserve the dualistic hypothesis by all means.
A consciousness functioning without a brain is a complicated hypothesis. I totally understand reductionist scientists in their approach and unfortunately, research from the last 10 years tends to show that they have the right intuition.
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What research from the last ten years leans towards the reductionist hypothesis?
The last ten years has actually seen a large swath of very prominent scientists in multiple fields swing to non reductionist viewpoints.
Donald Hoffman, Kristoff Koch, Sir Roger Penrose are just three off the top of my head but there are many more.
Speed of care and richness of experience does not explain where the experience comes from. I would say what is more likely is speed of care means a higher probability of remembering the experience.
You can look at other areas for evidence of this. For example, a person is involved in a car accident and doesn’t lose consciousness, interacts with first responders, and recovers. The person has no recollection of the entire event yet interacted consciously with those around them.
A drunk person even is a good example. Someone very drunk is still conscious and interacting. Having detailed experiences yet, if drunk enough, will not form any memories.
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However even though some of these prominent people reject reductionism they don’t necessarily subscribe to any form of postmortem-survival. Christoph Koch being one of those.
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Daniel Hoffman has never proved or showed anything, Roger Penrose has never proved or showed anything, Koch is a materialist reductionnist neuroscientist like most ones. Otherwise you have multiples studies showing brain activity around death and cardiac arrest (including Aware II the best one), + no major OBE story since a decade. Millions of people have NDEs each year but the existence of heaven is still debated.
How do you explain the relationship between memory and ressucitation process? In this paper they try to imagine what kind of experience you may expect with some blood flow to the brain while remaining circumspect.
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@Constiproute your claims regarding Penrose og Koch is 100% false. Are you trolling?
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They haven’t proved anything because we don’t even have the ability to prove their hypothesis at the moment. The point is the reductionist materialist hypothesis is not able to account for all the day at and it is not able to explain the loopholes in consciousness studies so many scientists are seeing the need to expand science beyond a strictly material paradigm.
Kristof Koch is not a materialistic reductionist neuroscientist and he has done entire podcasts explaining what led him away from that viewpoint. He endorses pansychism.
As far as the scientists speculating what one could expect during CA with some blood flow is just that. A speculation. Just the same as speculating that the loopholes in materialistic consciousness explanations may mean that there is more out there than materialism.
Lastly, there have been many OBE’s in the last decade. There are many available to read on various news outlets worldwide. Slews of them came out after the onset of the COVID pandemic.
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Which is why I find it so frustrating that Parnia hit the pause button on AWARE II in March 2020.
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@Steen
While I hope the theory of Penrose and Hameroff to be true like any other survivalist theory, nothing has been proved. It’s more or less a theory consistently criticised by neuroscientist for many reasons that should be consireded. No one care about beautiful stories about nature in science field, scientists care about observations and controlled experiments. And to my knowledge, neuroscientists didn’t switch to any other model since the last decade and they are not really encline to do so.
So yes Hoffman, Penrose and Hameroff brought nothing or almost nothing to this particular field. Maybe in some years they will, but to this day, no.
Regarding Koch, do you know who he is ? Are you sure I’m the troll?
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@Michael DeCarli
I really didn’t know for Koch, I watched some videos of him on youtube and looked at some of his work on the internet and he seemed to be very reductionist.
I checked and you are true I’m wrong. I don’t know if is a survivalist but it seems this view changed some of his predictions (no conscious computer for example).
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@Constiproute did you know Roger Penrose is a nobel prize winner? And yet you claim he has proven nothing?
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Non-Reductionism =/= belief in survival.
Christof Koch is skeptical about survival but rejects the standard reductive physicalist model mainstream neuroscientists support.
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I kind of agree with some of what you say, but I do not believe they have the right intuition. We have no experience reported from a time with EEG, and no OBE from such a time, and until we don either side can claim a scientific advantage. We are in a stalemate due to the difficulty of capturing these somewhat rare experiences. The only OBE was in the wrong position, and has poor memory of what he saw. We need larger studies,but I don’t se that happening.
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You could run an experiment to test of these experiments are ever going to work.
Let’s say, in the next study of this type, 10 people are found to have a near death experience experience and 2 of them have an OBE. Both don’t see the target.
Take those same ten people. All ten of them. And place a laptop with let’s say a picture of an orange in a living room. In the middle of the living room let’s have two people in a fist fight.
Allow each of the ten people to walk in that room and stay there for 25 seconds. Then they leave. Fight is going on the whole time.
Two days later, go back and ask those ten people what they remember from the room where the fist fight was happening.
I’d bet not one of them would remember the picture of the orange.
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Ever seen this? Blew my mind when I first did it (please, no one put a spoiler in the comments): https://youtu.be/vJG698U2Mvo
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Nobody is even measuring for the accuracy of these recalled OBE’s. All the targets are hidden and secret…
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It was a thought I had…what if the computer was wrong, because that never happens right?
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Great reference Ben. I remember that study video from my psychology major in college. I always thought the hidden targets were odd, or at least not practical. People undergoing these amazing experiences of seeing themselves dead on a table, seeing their deceased parents, meeting God, etc. are probably a little distracted and not too interested in whether there’s a picture of a flower in the corner haha
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@Ben “It was a thought I had…what if the computer was wrong, because that never happens right?”
I take your point perfectly. They even mentioned a logical error (showing the same target image twice in succession) within this study.
But I hadn’t mean it quite like that… I meant that in all the OBE papers I’ve read (cardiac arrest, induced, or otherwise), there are no additional visual targets in general view of the researchers etc., that were not secret and hidden (but were real time). (Here, I’m talking about measuring for the anomalous transmission of information from third parties).
Blanke will ask his patients about their perceptions, whilst he’s zapping their brain with electricity. But he won’t consider using a visual target that he and his staff can see, but which his patient can’t.
Doctors dealing with Epileptics, or patients on dialysis, all have patients who apparently experience OBE’s. These doctors say to me their patients out of body experiences are just this, or that, or something else. I say, well have you tested for their visual accuracy? They just blink at me, and say ‘why would we do that?’, or something similar. The research scientists just cut me off, when I point out that their Faraday cages don’t provide any shielding from slowly varying magnetic fields, saying “there is no mechanism, so we’re not going to control for it”.
Even the OBE researchers like Ehrsson, who produce interesting studies with VR technology, don’t like to acknowledge, they can only create their OBE-like results, by feeding their subjects with ‘real’ sensory data.
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@Michael DeCarli “Take those same ten people. All ten of them. And place a laptop with let’s say a picture of an orange in a living room. In the middle of the living room let’s have two people in a fist fight. ”
Imagine how hard things would get if you hid the laptop on a shelf 2 meters in the air, so that no one could see it. lol
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Ahh! Delete my comment! I spoiled the YouTube you posted!!!!
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Done. Yes, don’t want to spoil it for those who have never seen it. Totally bonkers.
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Even though they may biased in their conclusions this doesn’t invalidate that this is yet another prospective study failing to convincingly demonstrate consciousness when there’s no bloodcirculation in the brain. I agree it doesn’t move the debate a whole lot but the extremely low frequency of deep experiences might make it impossible to reach any definite conclusion. You might need thousands of patients for one deep NDE.
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I agree. I think the study was well conducted and analysed, and yes it is another failure in terms of explaining anything for the reasons you say. Just wish they had show a greater level of objectivity, it really let’s their team down.
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I wonder if in Austria the media do not talk as much about NDEs as in the USA, I think it is very likely that many patients have not wanted to tell their experience, or only a part of it…either for fear of not being believed, or for fear of ridicule, or of being taken for mentally ill.
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@Eduardo, according to the authors 66% of the study participants had prior knowledge of NDEs. Another explanation is that in the US NDEs are so hyped that cardiac arrest surviviors feel compelled to report a fictive experience.
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really ugly,yes.
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Hit the nail on the head on the conflating conclusion. They may have well said the individuals who reported meeting deceased relatives didn’t actually do so because there was no picture of deceased relatives in the room with them. Seems to be a good study with poor conclusions that more or less confirms to me that this phenomenon may never be explained.
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“…consciousness depends solely upon brain function…”
It’s their use of the word ‘solely’ in this sentence, which I find most amusing.
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Very good job analysing the article Ben. Thanks for all the work, that makes this blog such a good place for debate.
I agree, really bad science in their conclusion with patient K.
I remember the PhD dissertation of a doctor in Israel who analysed several studies on consciousness in the brain, and concluded that all studies are biased, they are designed based on the expectations of the researchers and they results are always positive for their expected hypothesis (which are linked to the study design). Most important, those studies contradicted one another.
It really looks that the researchers were disappointed with the results and try to avoid being laughed at. In this regard, Parnia seems quite the opposite (but then remember all the fence sitting thing in front of “serious” audience…).
Again, really good job. Thanks a lot Ben (and Z).
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Thanks Mery.
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I don’t find it amusing. That’s one of my biggest issues when it’s people’s jobs to be as objective as possible and they do that. To me I find it just gross. Also, when anyone states things with such concrete finality, I trust them and their judgement much, much less. I’m aware that, that’s the opposite for many others.
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I agree, and unfortunately there is a lot of that in science. There is a lot of arrogance and pride. I have been around it all my life in the medical field, but it goes to a whole new level when it comes to the issue of science and faith.
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I find myself a little confused about the OBE experience next to his own body. Was the experience inaccurate or did he simply have trouble recalling the details?
Many individuals who have had near-death experiences report that their memories are exceptionally vivid, even years later. One explanation for this could be the creation of new pathways in the brain to access the memory. That would
Explain activity and even needing it.
However, it becomes confusing when considering cases of individuals who recall their experiences while under the influence of drugs or general anesthesia, as their memories are often just as clear.
This leads me to wonder if some people remember their NDEs because their brains record and mirror the experience, while others may possess a direct ability to access information beyond the physical body.
Anyone who can help me better understand this?
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No, I think your understanding and possible explanations are about as far as we can go in guessing why his memory of the OBE was foggy.
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When they argue that due to the fact that the experience is very vivid, there must already have been positive results of the image, I imagine a scenario like a World Cup, imagine that your team is in the final and they are ready to score a goal with 2 minutes left on the scoreboard. And do you feel so vivid the experience of how the player has the ball and how the goalkeeper prepares and scores a goal and you celebrate it and then someone comes and says hey and did you see what the midfielder was doing? Or did you see what product was being promoted in the promotional bars? and you answer no and they tell you then you were not in the place because if the experience was very vivid for you you would remember everything and what I want to get at is that no matter how vivid something is, you do not have an omniscience of everything that is around you Generally, you look at what most attracts your attention and see your body while the doctors are trying to revive you. I think I would remain stupid looking at that without trying to see the other side, so I think that the few cases that there are about seeing other objects are those who reacted in a more curious way to the experience and were relaxed at that moment and were not so carried away by the fact of seeing their body and wanted to see a little more of their surroundings
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Good analysis Opi.
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https://ccforum.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13054-023-04348-2
One more NDE study there. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, only the dissociative and spiritual propensity strongly predicted the emergence of NDE.
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Thanks Valentine, an interesting study, with some implications that could be interpreted a number of ways. What do you think?
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Must carefully read it and to thibk a little bit ( its morning there, will check it fully a little bit later 🙂 )
By the way ( dont remember, may be asked You earlier ) – what you think aabout ned of life/deathbed visions? Looks like similar dynamic to NDEs, but much more consistent than NDEs.
Also very universal: studies in India, USA and recently Nordic countries https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/palliative-and-supportive-care/article/endoflife-dreams-and-visions-as-perceived-by-palliative-care-professionals-a-qualitative-study/5B665642AE368A5098FC7F5812FB75A5
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Death bed visions are very intriguing. It’s as though the connections of the consciousness to the brain is starting to wobble a bit, and they are catching glimpse of their future.
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It’s not really possible to use the Greyson scale in this way, as patients are self scoring, and can give weighting to their experiences. The scale also has other major problems, as does not even measure distressing experiences.
These studies just end up splitting people into two groups those who think their experience is significant, and those who don’t. Yet the actual NDE experience may be identical for both the person who scores 7 or more on the Greyson scale, and another person who scores less than 7.
These studies show only the significance that people give to their experiences based on the Greyson scale, and not the likelihood that people actually have an NDE.
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I’ve only read the study fast, but I agree with Max. A score of 7 on the Greyson scale is qualified as an affective type of NDE. It’s therefore kind of obvious it will correlate with dissociation and spirituality if you don’t further control variables. It’s like asking people if they saw a ghost and cut the group in half based on their answer (yes/no) without further inquiring about the actual experience. The “yes” group will almost certainly score higher on spirituality and fantasy proneness questionnaires than the “no” group. It does not mean anything. The fact that the experience was not life altering, even a year later, is a big red flag…
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I think it’s an interesting study, mostly because they tried to control more subtle variables, including the title of the project itself. However, it does not add much to the knowledge base. Also, I can’t help but wonder who would actually try to figure out what is on a computer screen when having such an intense and profound experience. I hope the targets are super salient or else it’s kind of the same thing as a lawyer trying to disprove a rape victim’s testimony based on the fact she can’t tell if the curtains in the room where she got raped were red or blue…
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Thinking of the whole tablet or laptop setup in those studies, I was always curious as to what kind of perception I would have, watching that LCD screen while being dead, living my own OBE. I read somewhere that some people who had an OBE reported not being able to put in words how they visually perceived the objects surrounding them; like having the ability to look through the upper side to the bottom of an object simultaneously. If that is so then we really have a false understanding of what a “dead” eye can see. Maybe an LCD screen that consists of numerous patents and tricks, with polarizing filters, panels with dots that are not even self-illuminated, designed to trick the human eye, is just a meaningless flickering light when being dead. That same eye that we as humans regard as weak, an instrument that can’t detect UV/IR or other frequencies, nor can it see in darkness or detect high speeds. So maybe a computer with its screen and keyboard is just a box with little legos in the end, meaning that the whole design of those studies should be reevaluated. And till then, there are not going to be scientific measurable outcomes
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Good comment Alexander, the one thing I would say is that in the data published to date from studies using these screens, there were only 2 visual OBEs, 1 in AWARE II and 1 in this study. The OBE in AWARE II seemed possibly to be CIPRIC as he could feel the doctors rubbing his chest, although he said he had visual awareness as well, but we are not told from which vantage point. In this study, the subject was standing next to his body, so could not have seen the laptop. Neither were of the lucid kind of OBE that we have heard of so many times in the literature before, so at this stage I would say the jury is out on the suitability of this method, but it is hard to think of another. Let’s face it, there have now been documented and verified OBEs where events were confirmed by HCPs in the context of a research study, and which could not possibly have been seen by the patients. In a balanced world this would be sufficient evidence to prove OBEs are real, but we do not live in such a world and until we have a “scientifically verified” OBE, the materialists will continue to come out with the kind of disingenuous and dishonest nonsense espoused in this paper.
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Yes I hope you are right. On the one hand we hope all this is true, and it might be, and on the other hand we fight with our own insecurities hoping that all is confirmed by scientists credible enough to make us enforce our beliefs that make us feel secure.
As a big fan of Peter Fenwick, I believe it is still both a philosophical and existential matter
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I don’t hope it is true, I know it is true. I didn’t have an NDE, but as a teenager I had an experience that 100% matches one of the aspects that people report from NDEs. It was the most real and powerful experience of my life, and to deny its validity would be to deny reality. Moreover, as someone who as much knowledge of the biochemistry of the central processes of life, the DNA code and its translation, as is possible to have, I know that science shows beyond reasonable doubt that life could not have come into existence without intelligent existence.
I don’t hope, I know.
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There’s very recent by Bruce Greyson here. Talks about the NDE vision issue being discussed by Orson and Alexander, which on looking at the video seems to come under “preternaturally vivid senses” (1 minute 25 seconds in) he speaks of. Also mentions Jan Holden’s around 100 cases of veridical accounts that have very high accuracy. Nice to see Bruce overviewing here and basically still “on message”.
Re the kind of super vision people have, it’s totally up to die-hard skeptics to explain this, not the other way around.
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It would be interesting to know if one of the changing pictures on the laptop is indeed the flower field. If I read correctly, they checked pretty late which pic was shown. Maybe there was an error? I found it fascinating that patient K was thinking the picture she saw was provided by the medical staff for her. An unusual thought in such a moment, but interestingly not far from the truth.
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I want to notify that tomorrow a documentary from Sam Parnia goes out:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26530109/
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Hi Claudio, thank you. Hopefully we will get some answers to all these questions we have had about AWARE II.
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It may already be available on line, but I don’t have time to jump through all the hoops to access today – follow the link – subscribe bla bla- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCHIffOFn_U
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I’m really looking forward to watching Rethinking Death documentary. I remember when Dr. Parnia Dr. Fenwick, Dr. Nelson whos a skeptic and Mary Neal who had a near death experence were on tge nour foundation 10 years ago
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Yes, if nothing else it will be a great account of the field, but I suspect there will be no big reveals given the recent preprint for AWARE II.
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How can I watch the documentary Rethinking death? Do I need a subscription.
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I don’t think its up yet. If it was I am sure that the lab insta Twitter and YouTube channels would have something on them as that is where they have posted before.
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I thought they were releasing it today. Maybe later today they will. I’ll keep checking. Thanks
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Was anyone able to find the documentry Rethinking death. So far nothing
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There’s a few problems here in this study and how the researchers posit their conclusion on the brain and consciousness connection.
1. They simply reintroduce the Hard-Problem of consciousness.
2. In terms of blood flow, there is over a decade of Psychedelic studies showing a reduction in brain activity and blood flow, yet an increase in experience.
3. There is a problem with the experience of conscious perception and the recollection of said experiences. What is meant here is that remembering the experiences that you had, much like the dreams you had last night, is wholly different that experiencing itself. Perhaps we need more blood flow for meta-conscious recollections of those consciousness experiences but not for the conscious experiences themselves. The Authors are guilty of conflation here.
4. Most problematic is that you can see they have a major bias to physicalism. There is a subtle conflation of all forms of monism to be physicalism and all positions that do not posit consciousness being dependent on brain as metaphysical dualisms. Panpsychism, Idealism, Neutral Monism are all monistic views that can fit the conclusions of the study, and are non-physicalist. Instead of incorporating these positions they jump right to physicalism. Not to mention that dualism can still fit in with current data as well.
Although the experiments were well conducted, there is a lot of circular reasoning and question begging hidden in their conclusion that is not examined.
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Does anyone if the documentry Rethinking death has been released. I can’t seem to find it. Thanks
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I have to agree with an earlier commenter, unfortunately the multiple studies over the past decade that have found previously undetectable brain activity during near-death experiences supports the hypothesis that they’re created by the brain. If a documented OBE ever occurs when there was zero EEG activity I‘d be happy to reconsider, but to my knowledge that hasn’t happened yet, and it’s seeming less and less likely it ever will.
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Hi Joe, and welcome. Unfortunately you are mistaken in your understanding. No study has ever fund brain activity during a near death experience. Not one. Nada. Nix. Nil. There is no direct evidence supporting the hypothesis that NDEs are created by the brain.
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Love the way you “like” him then tell him he’s wrong (which he is). Classic. 🙂
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I like comments when people engage, especially for the first time, even if they are completely wrong. However, trolls and people who just come here to say “it’s not real because I say it’s not” won’t last long. So far the scientific evidence is completely inconclusive either way, but the overall weight of evidence from human testimony supports NDEs being real. Where he may be right is that we may never get a scientifically verified OBE. It is proving too hard due to low numbers of survivors, and the chances of a survivor who has an OBE recalling the image. I reckon there is a 25-30% chance of someone recalling the image if they had a fully coherent OBE, so you need at least 4 in a study, which means you would need at least 16 classic NDEs, and about a 150 odd survivors who were interviewed.
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Sure, I’ve thought about the stats. issue re the consistent low numbers they’re getting, then there’s whether anybody would notice the images anyway, being otherwise preoccupied shall we say. The new way of seeing as mentioned Alexander could be a distraction I guess.
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My mistake; what I meant to address was how Aware II found spikes in brain activity up until an hour into CPR, not to mention the epilepsy patient last year, the rats from the 2013 study, and Chawla’s 2009 study. If brain activity occurs under those circumstances, I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t occur during NDEs as well—hasn’t Parnia himself stated that the surge of EEG activity consistently found at the time of death could explain them?
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There’s a big difference between “could” and “does” explain them. This topic has been discussed over and over here. Until brain activity is directly correlated with an NDE, then there is not even any association there…none. Then even if they are correlated, as Parnia has pointed out, there are two possible interpretations of the data:
1. The brain is causing the NDE.
2. The NDE is not caused by the brain, but the consciousness is still interacting with the brain causing the EEG activity.
Of course, the latter, while plausible, is far more speculative than the former, which would be much more widely accepted.
However, unless there is an OBE, pinning down the time of an NDE with EEG activity is going to be very difficult, so correlating the exact moment that a patient has the NDE is virtually impossible. However, if you end up in a situation where you have 100 cases of patients surviving a CA and being interviewed, and only 10 of those had EEG consistent with conscious activity during CPR, and all 10 of those, and none of the 90 had NDEs, then despite being unable to pin down the exact timings, this would all but prove that NDEs are correlated with brain activity, with the caveat that explanation 2 is still plausible, albeit would be widely dismissed.
A scientifically verified OBE kills materialism dead though. No way back from that one. Nothing has changed, and unless Parnia’s paper contains EEG data for patients who reported NDEs, and those that didn’t (but were interviewed), then we are not one step closer to resolving this question.
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@Joe The primary issue is not timing, rather it is whether patients are anomalously recalling accurate visual information during the NDE OBE? Unfortunately there are zero researchers measuring OBE accuracy using visual targets.
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That makes sense. I’m very curious, then, for the full results of AWARE II and future studies that track EEG activity during NDEs.
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So are we all.
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@Joe
Regarding Borjigin et. al. (2013) “Surge of neurophysiological coherence and connectivity in the dying brain” – it’s a trivial issue that the authors measured Electromagnetic activity using iEEG for 10-15 seconds longer than medical EEG.
The significant issue is what the authors measured…
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*iEEG for 10-15 minutes (not seconds)
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I have a question, I don’t know if you already discussed it previously. I remember that some articles told that some patients had a very weak heartbeat and they were erroneously included in NDE studies. This weak heartbeat could cause NDE or in that situation the brain cannot work so well to produce a NDE?
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Which articles?
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Sorry, it was a comment in the article “AWARE II preprint analysis”. I refer to Eduardo comment:
“Parnia in recent years (either through his twitter account-when it existed-or on the Parnia Lab website), presented the fact that some patients may have a beating heart but are so sick that their pulse is weak and impalpable by hand, and doctors then initiate CPR and these would also be included in his Aware study. That is, sometimes a person’s heart HAS NOT actually STOPPED, but is beating very weakly, so the person still has such a low blood pressure that you can’t feel a pulse…Those people are also treated with CPR…But since the heart is still beating, the addition of CPR allows the “diastolic” blood pressure to rise enough to get more blood to the brain and sometimes even “wake” the person up.
In the paper we do not have the elements to make this distinction, nor can we know whether or not these cases, in part, explain some of the electrical activity found during some CPR in the Aware Study.”
So, could this be a cause of NDE or it’s impossible? I’m not a reductionist, but this causes me a lot of doubts
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Hi Claudio,
These are cases that are either CIPRIC or very much like. The characteristics of the reports from these cases are very different from NDEs, and Parnia goes into that in a lot detail. Materialists will argue they are the same, but they are not.
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Thank you!
Do you know where could I read where Parnia explains about differences?
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The consensus statement.
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Has anyone seen the documentary Rethinking death yet. I cantvseem to find it
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No, looks like it is not out yet.
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Any idea when it will be out?
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Supposed to be last week.
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I know ow I wonder what the hold up is. I’ve been waiting to see it. If anyone has a link to it, please share it. Thanks
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A certain former visitor to this forum who I am contact with from time to time via email has provided this link. Apparently it will now be out on May 9th. Can dial in via Zoom https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rethinking-death-exploring-what-happens-when-we-die-tickets-586049900027
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Reading the description I think it will focus on the resuscitation, transplant, and patient outcomes component, with a dabble in the philosophical. Essentially preserving brain function for longer during resuscitation efforts, and prolonging those efforts due to the preservation of organs/tissue for transplants, etc for longer than was previously thought. Of course this is a valuable and important discussion highlighted by critical care specialists but I wouldn’t expect anything too groundbreaking in terms of NDEs. But maybe I’m a little jaded with disappointment haha
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You and the rest of us Charlie. Some of the participants are NDErs who are well known and whose stories have been pored over before. I will watch it, but Parnia will only release big ticket data from his studies at a medical congress or through a publication otherwise it will lack the credibility it will need to withstand materialistic scrutiny.
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Could be interesting viewing I suppose but I may have to rely on your summaries here. I would point out that one of the panel physicians, Dr. Aufderheide, was a co-author on the RED consensus statement, so he may have some thoughts. I suspect, however, that it will be more an acknowledgement of yes, these experiences happen and are real, and as clinicians they need to be aware of them in order to best treat the patient. What exactly causes them is debatable, or frankly to most doctors not important, but it is necessary to know REDs happen and are not just a dream or hallucination. That alone is a big deal.
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This looks super interesting, and great panel of experts lead by Raymond Moddy himself. If you are on NYC and can spare the cash, well worth attending:
https://events.nyas.org/event/7d309c25-5b4d-4ae7-af68-59ace2817707/summary?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=consciousness2023&mc_cid=dc6a8cbd45&mc_eid=4f5f06ee31
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That looks super interesting with a good mix of survival- yae and nay speakers.
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They are really driving this use of Psychedelic’s… Goldman Sachs seem to have their fingers in every pie.
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Yep, the official bank of Satan!
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Looking forward!
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Guardian last Monday on large DMT study, 20 subjects.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/mar/20/psychedelic-brew-ayahuasca-profound-impact-brain-scans-dmt
Robin Carhart-Harris, “People describe leaving this world and breaking through into another that is incredibly immersive and richly complex, sometimes being populated by other beings that they feel might hold special power over them, like gods.”
He added: “What we have seen is that DMT breaks down the basic networks of the brain, causing them to become less distinct from each other. We also see the major rhythms of the brain – that serve a largely inhibitory, constraining function – break down, and in concert, brain activity becomes more entropic or information-rich.”
Thought to post this because DMT effects with rich quotes to what people experience, inc. meeting other beings, are in the Parnia et. al. 2022 paper in the Supplementary File S2 (which can be opened below in the link and it’s under Table S3.A. for DMT to be precise), “Guidelines and standards for the study of death and recalled experiences of death – a multidisciplinary consensus statement and proposed future directions”
https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nyas.14740
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Ah well, I tried. I must stay on topic, I must stay on topic … 🙂
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No, it’s fine. Comments with links need to be approved, and I have been in a meeting all day. Interesting article.
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Ok, hope it was a successful meeting.
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A boring meeting.
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