When does misleading become lying?
Follow up from the Guardian article.
This is a quick follow up to my post on the Guardian article yesterday in which various claims about activity of the brain after cardiac arrest were made by the journalist, probably based on what was said by the researcher, Jimo Borjigin.
Reminder of the egregious line in the Guardian, which is fundamental to understanding whether or not NDEs could be a result of brain activity or not:
After cardiac arrest, blood and oxygen stop circulating through the body, cells begin to break down, and normal electrical activity in the brain gets disrupted. But the organs don’t fail irreversibly right away, and the brain doesn’t necessarily cease functioning altogether.
I stated in my post that that it does cease functioning in the coma patients (in rats it goes on for about 30 seconds). This was from my memory of the original paper, which I have been reading again this morning. In this paper Borjigin says this in the conclusion:
These data demonstrate that the human brain can be active during cardiac arrest.
Although this is subtly different from what the journalist says, who states activity is after, it is in itself still misleading, and where I start to wonder if another word associated with mendaciousness would be more appropriate. First the Johns Hopkins definition of Cardiac arrest:
Cardiac arrest, also known as sudden cardiac arrest, is when the heart stops beating suddenly. The lack of blood flow to the brain and other organs can cause a person to lose consciousness, become disabled or die if not treated immediately.
Cardiac arrest is when the heart has stopped beating. Here is the ECG data from the Borjigin study:
Patient 1 is the subject from whom they have most of the data and indeed draw many of the conclusions they make from. Patient 1 had a longer period of EEG activity. Note the Average HR in each time period (S1-11) never drops to zero, although during 8-9 the HR falls to below levels that would sustain consciousness, and arguably is in Cardiac arrest, up to S7 the HR is normal, then in S7 it starts dropping as the lack of oxygen and life support causes the beginning of CA. Now look at the EEG vs ECG data for patient 1:
In the paper Borjigin makes much of the coupling of gamma waves across different frequencies. If I’m honest I don’t have the expertise to understand exactly what she is saying, but to the untrained eye, most of the relevant activity seems to stop after S2 when the heart is still beating fairly normally. However, at the beginning of S2 there is a huge change in the conditions the body is experiencing – life support in the form of oxygen has been withdrawn. Is this uptick in EEG activity just the brain trying to induce consciousness so that the consciousness can react to whatever is causing the catastrophic change? Why make the assumption that this is what is causing NDEs when there could multiple explanations.
I have a little analogy here, and I don’t know how relevant it is. Some nights I have sleep apnea later in the night and I have noticed something about my dreams just before I wake up…they suddenly turn into nightmares. This morning I had just such an episode. The dream was going all very well, then suddenly I was about to go over a cliff. I awoke and realised that I was gulping air and so had an episode of sleep apnea. My dreaming conscious state basically gave my brain a kick up the backside due to lack of oxygen. Is that is what is happening with these patients (well patient 1 and 3 who show this)? The lack of oxygen is causing the brain to induce a conscious state of alertness, only with these patients, for whatever underlying pathological reason, the ability to physically wake up is impossible.
So, during S2 it is entirely plausible that the person is experiencing conscious activity. It is not unreasonable to speculate that this could be an experience like an NDE, but given that neither rats or comatose humans have any reports of NDEs we will not know. Given my experience, these nightmares are all random in nature…definitely no peace! Patients with sleep apnea have been studied widely, and I am sure there are plenty with EEG data (in fact I know there are as I once worked in sleep medicine), it would be interesting to know what happened to their EEG when there was an apnea as it is a good analogue of what might be happening here.
Here is patient 3:
In this instance the author does not claim there is much gamma coupling outside of phase 2.
All this is interesting, and thought provoking, and points to the potential of conscious activity immediately prior to death in coma patients, but absolutely does not support the sentence used in the Guardian and let’s just lay the facts out that we have from all research on this subject:
- EEG associated with conscious activity has been reported just prior to CA and death in coma patients
- EEG activity that could be associated with conscious activity has been reported up to 30 seconds after death in rats
- EEG activity that could be associated with conscious activity has been reported in patients receiving CPR (and therefore a supply of oxygenated blood to the brain) up to 60 minutes after CA
- In none of these instances has there been any reports of actual conscious activity by humans (or rats), let alone an NDE
Researchers and journalists that try to use this data to suggest that conscious activity extends into post CA for more than 20-30 seconds without artificial assistance are misleading at best. It is shameful when this is such an important subject.
AwareofAware 
I agree
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I really hope Dr Parnia and Dr Greyson chime in on this article. They really did them dirty. Also, it’s so weird the guardian would publish Sam Parnia’s highly non materialistic interview last October then turn around and publish this.
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Ben, good evening! I would like to discuss a crucial point about the relationship between EEG (electroencephalogram) data and the phenomenon of near-death experience (NDE):In the AWARE II study, 2 patients were identified with EEG patterns compatible with consciousness, despite not reporting any experiences during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) or mentioning the NDE phenomenon. In numerous prospective reports from doctors and nurses during CPR, it is common to check patients’ responses to light to observe any visual stimuli. In all the reports analyzed, the patients’ pupils remained static, rendering visual perception during CPR impossible.This suggests, in probabilistic terms, that no patient undergoing CPR can have physical vision through this diagnostic method. The only materialistic explanation suggested would be the possibility that patients are aware of sounds around them during CPR, in which the brain creates representations of the circumstances. Personally, I find this theory quite questionable, but it is a position held by some materialists.My question is as follows: in the EEGs of these 2 patients who exhibited brain patterns indicative of consciousness, were there identifiable patterns related to hearing? I acknowledge my limitation in understanding how to interpret EEGs. If it is proven that there were no indications of hearing, this would demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the phenomenon of NDE transcends the physical. How can a brain deprived of vision and hearing describe what is happening during CPR in real time?Thank you in advance, Ben!
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Hi Lucas,
I have to admit that I am not an expert on interpreting EEG, despite having worked in neurology for a number of years. However, my understanding of EEG is that there is not the ability to precisely determine what the brain waves relate to, just the overall kind of activity – i.e. the general state, waking, deep sleep etc and that these are determined by the frequency of the waves.
Where advances are being made in terms determining precise loci in the brain that are responsible for receiving, interpreting and processing sensory data is real time imaging of the brain. I doubt this will ever done on patients who are undergoing CPR. Possibly, if the DHCA studies have lots of “hits” then there may be a way of shoving someone’s head in a scanner and maintaining supply of vital fluids and body temp, but it would be unlikely. So I think that for the foreseeable future we will only be able to determine whether or not brain activity was present or not during an NDE and what type of waves they were, therefore interpretation will still be open to subjective bias.
On the AWARE data, you are absolutely right. Neither of the patients who had EEG data reported conscious recollections, so the data is meaningless and can only be used to generate hypothesis.
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By stating that there is no rigorous empirical evidence that near-death experiences occur in people whose hearts have completely stopped, the article undermines the significance of findings such as the 3 minutes of conscious awareness documented in the AWARE study. While it’s true that these results need to be reproduced, it suggests that the article is not taking the results seriously.
What bothers me the most is the claim made about Bruce Greyson in the Netflix series “Surviving Death.” It is alleged that Bruce Greyson said that neurological activity falls precipitously when oxygen stops. However, this is not what Bruce Greyson said. He stated that people become more frightened, belligerent, and terrified. This statement is made in episode 1 at 25:25.
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I absolutely agree with you, on both counts. Bruce Greyson was probably referring to activity falling precipitously once the supply of oxygenated blood is stopped…i.e. the heart has stopped. Depriving people of oxygen does not stop the heart immediately, and as long as there is oxygen in the blood being pumped around, stuff will continue to work for a while, as the coma patient study shows.
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In relation to these gamma (or beta) electrical peaks, fundamentally, immediately PRIOR to death, it is not unreasonable to suppose that they are generated by the patient’s desperation when he/she feels that the end is near? It is simpler and more common sense to attribute it to this than to a spiritual/transcendental experience…
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Absolutely Eduardo, or as I have suggested, possibly a “subconscious” explosion of activity to awake the conscious so that the person can fight whatever is causing the stoppage of oxygen. To only choose NDEs as the output displays their compete lack of objectivity and toxic materialist bias. I use the word toxic because it is, as it helps perpetuate a very damaging world view.
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People with severe sleep apnea, as they stop breathing, get a jolt – the bodies effort to get the person to wake up or get out of the deep sleep phase to start breathing again. These people never actually wake up to full consciousness and this can happen 40-50 times or more in severe cases. They are generally surprised that this is happening to them until you role the tape. I wonder if what we are seeing in cardiac arrest is the brain kicking in like it does sleep apnea.
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I bet it is.
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oh shoot just caught up the post. You came to a similar conclusion. My apologies.
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A question;
“However, at the beginning of S2 there is a huge change in the conditions the body is experiencing – life support in the form of oxygen has been withdrawn. Is this uptick in EEG activity just the brain trying to induce consciousness so that the consciousness can react to whatever is causing the catastrophic change? Why make the assumption that this is what is causing NDEs when there could multiple explanations”
So they basically removed the oxygen and the patient wasn’t even clinically dead in that moment? They were still alive? The heart was still doing its thing and starting to spiral down to death? And she claims this is the moment of the NDE experience? Hm…
Then she owes an explanation to us why the key elements are almost always the same. Possible OBE, light, tunnel, seeing in almost all cases only dead relatives and friends… the being of light.
She tries to pinpoint a time stamp to the exact moment but what about people having these experiences not right after the heart quit beating but at some point being driven to the hospital or late into surgery with heart failure. Or is it always close to the moment a person dies?
What bothers me is that despite her “efforts” she always dances around avoiding to explain how it is possible that humans almost always experience the same thing before “going beyond”. If this really is just a process of… hallucination or whatever – we would see all sorts of wild things. Nice or not nice. But it would be chaotic.
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All of your points are excellent.
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How so? Most NDEs aren’t consistent; they vary significantly across different cultures.
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Hi Vlad, you are right in one perspective and this is something I discuss at length in my soon to be published book that focuses on the implications of NDEs for my own faith, Christianity (coming out in August…my novel will be arriving in mid July).
While there are indeed variations in what people perceive the being of light to be, the reports of a being of light are a common core element, and that it is a being of immense love, knowledge and power…although not everyone sees the being of light. Likewise, the “tunnel” is described in various different ways, as is the life review, as is the heavenly realm etc, but they have common themes. Now I regard that this lack of consistency in the details or subjective interpretations as very significant, and it forms a central point of discussion as to the true nature of NDEs. It is something that has been troubling me for a year or two now as I read more and more NDEs, and has forced me to rethink my position on the relevance of the subjective elements to philosophy and religion.
Without spoiling my book, the OBE is objective. The rest, while an authentic experience, I have concluded is highly subjective, and possibly actually different for everyone, although there are core elements. What we can make of this forms a central part of my thesis for my conclusions abut the relevance to faith and religion.
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why does it matter so much that EEG activity occurs during death then if it’s not associated with consciousness
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That’s a good question, and yes, if there are no conscious recollections associated with any activity then any claims as to what the EEG signals are picking up is purely speculative.
However, if there was consistently EEG activity that is of a type that is normally associated with conscious activity for many minutes after CA, and without CPR or life support, then the materialist case, although still speculative, would be much stronger. In fact if that were the case, then many NDEs would be associated with these types of EEG.
BUT THEY AREN’T.
NDEs (or REDs as Parnia refers to them…and I can see here why he has a point using that term) have repeatedly occurred when there is no EEG. The brain is silent as it has no supply of oxygenated blood and is incapable of doing anything. This is one of the core pieces of evidence for dualism (or any type of ism that has the understanding that the soul is a separate entity). If you are proven incapable of consciousness because you are clinically dead (no ECG or EEG) then the mind/soul is independent of the brain.
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how do we know NDEs have occurred when there is no EEG? Is it because it hasn’t been set up at the time to pick up on them? Or have experiments actually confirmed that? And if it’s the latter, you’d think the materialists would take note and listen
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“Then she owes an explanation to us why the key elements are almost always the same. Possible OBE, light, tunnel, seeing in almost all cases only dead relatives and friends… the being of light.”
Correct. And while no two NDEs are e-x-a-c-t-l-y the same, the narrative is strikingly similar and beyond anecdotal.
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This maintenance of some core consistencies but also constant variance of “post tunnel” accounts is a major theme and discussion topic in my next non-fiction book which will be coming late summer.
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But it isn’t ? It greatly differs from culture to culture
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“Then she owes an explanation to us why the key elements are almost always the same. Possible OBE, light, tunnel, seeing in almost all cases only dead relatives and friends… the being of light.”
Correct. And while no two NDEs are e-x-a-c-t-l-y the same, the narrative is strikingly similar and beyond anecdotal.
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The book The Self Does Not Die is of utmost importance to me.
Applying common sense to NDE research.
Rejecting anecdotal evidence?
It is true that most evidence for veridical perceptions during the OBE portion of an NDE is anecdotal.
But, for skeptics this evidence simply does not exist. Never mind that anecdotes number in the hundreds: “The plural of anecdotes is not data,” they say. As thinkers and scholars have pointed out, not taking anecdotal information into account when trying to construct a picture of reality is a major intellectual and methodological mistake. Anecdotes (the stories people tell) are the basis of our legal system, for example. Imagine what court proceedings would be like if we automatically ignored witness testimony in court. Imagine what a GP’s job would be like if he or she had to automatically classify as “inaccurate, unreliable, faulty” anything a patient says during a consultation. And the fact that I had coffee in the kitchen this morning with my wife and one of our two cats has not appeared in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Nevertheless, it is a fact.
Piero Calvi-Parisetti
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Exactly, I make precisely the same point in my book. The self does not die is indeed an excellent book as it uses more than anecdotes, it uses documented accounts of veridical NDEs which have HCP corroboration. To discount this is utter insanity, but there is a lot of insanity that is promoted as good thinking these days by ideologies that have arisen out of atheism.
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LaMar Dixon (on YouTube) is an experiencer who had an nde from sleep apnea. Of course there’s no way to say how deep his loss of oxygen was.
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Dr. Werner Ch. Nawrocki, teacher of medicine at the University of Frankfurt for ten years, talks about his “pre” death experience: The certainty that everything was real is stronger than eating an apple, when I take a bite of the apple I know I have it savored, I feel it, I perceive it. The out-of-body experience was more real than this, it’s just an absolute certainty. This certainty has become even stronger in recent years, the whole world and all the psychiatrists put together could say something different, at which point I would simply tell them: okay this is your opinion, but I have experienced it, because should we discuss it?
I would probably still be afraid at the moment of death, because this fear is simply embedded in our body, as long as we have a body, we have an animal inside us, an unconscious part that certainly does not want to die. I believe it is important for humanity to realize that there is much more than what we can touch. There is more than “human science”.
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To further illustrate your point, the tabloid media outlet, The Mirror, uses a quote from none other than Jimo Borijin to promote the sensationalistic headline “Humans on the verge of confirming the existence of ghosts after spooky breakthrough”, but in the opposite direction of The Guardian article.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/humans-verge-confirming-existence-ghosts-32517302
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Hi Ben. I’m not sure what to make of this. In this talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7cszZ33Rwo&t=3882s), Borjigin seems to present date that show the brain activity still continues for minutes after cardiac arrest, not just 30 seconds. Also she presented examples of people being brought back 6 or 8 hours after cardiac arrest.
I’ve read Bruce Greyson’s book and others, and was always of the impression that the brain can’t function for more than a very brief period without oxygen. But doesn’t her evidence in this talk show that the brain can continue receiving electrical signals for long periods? She explicitly says that her evidence is counter to Greyson’s claims.
I would appreciate if you could explain.
Thanks,
Dave
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I will have a good luck, but my view of Borjigin is that much that emanates from her is something else beginning with B, but I will qualify that in this case after watching the video.
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yes! I’d love to know your thoughts about this video Ben!
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Probably be Monday as it is h1:15 long. However, there is nothing in her published work that shows that people’s brain activity persists minutes after Cardia arrest without CPR. I suspect that what she is referring to is the coma patients who had activity minutes after life support was withdrawn, but they were not in CA.
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Hi Dave,
I created a new post on this video. Happy to answer further questions in the discussion beneath that.
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Ben thanks so much for taking the time to do that, much appreciated.
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https://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572(24)00098-4/fulltext
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Thanks Peter. A very jargon loaded response to a comment but here is the money line:
“Based on neuroscientific principles/realities, it is erroneous to assume stable brain states model consciousness during hemodynamically complex pathophysiological derangements underlying cardiac arrest/early-death.”
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Towards the end of the articel Sam lets it all sound a bit too materialistic. It almost reads like he’s trying to say all of what’s happening is just a way of the brain to keep the body alive and survive?
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If this article is too long, go to headtruth.blogspot.com to read the article about how it conunters Borgijin research
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I know im a little late to comment, but an excellent article you made Ben. Interestingly DR. Bruce Greyson, Pim Van Lommel and Petter Fenwick did a rebuttal, not the Guardian article, but to jimo Borjigin and the points she raised on the 4 patients called (Recent Report of Electroencephalogram of a Dying Human Brain) aka death surge that came out in 2022. It’s a PDF file/article in which you’ll need thePDF reader app. but nothinless it’s a fantastic read with alot of very useful information on this topic. Hope to see more of your potential article’s and potential video’s soon^^.
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I will do my best. Bit focused on books at the moment though.
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I know im a little late to comment, but an excellent article you made Ben. Interestingly DR. Bruce Greyson, Pim Van Lommel and Petter Fenwick did a rebuttal, not to the Guardian article but to jimo Borjigin herself and the points she raised on the 4 patients called…(Recent Report of Electroencephalogram of a Dying Human Brain) aka death surge that came out recently in 2022. It’s a PDF file/ article in which you’ll need the PDF file reader app. But nothinless it’s a fantastic read with alot of very useful information for this subject. Hope to see more of your articles and potential videos on this subject again^^.
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Hello, I’m a RN first in my career for 28 years plus and a FLT attendant before the nursing. I say FA because of the yearly CPR and health care classes for 16 years. In that 16 years, I performed more CPR on people than in my 28 years as a nurse. I’m also a near death experiencer or NDE of over 30+ minutes. I went without oxygen for long time and when I awakened, my brain was that of a child’s. I was 66 when the NDE occurred. Suffering from anaphylaxis, cvs, and a myocardial infarction, my brain was mush. It took several years for me to recover from that point of time before my experience to now. And, I’ve argued with other NDEs who state they’ve died for as long as I did and return with zero brain tissue traumas. I find it shameful for doctors to be telling NDE readers that normal biology isn’t important for all NDEs. Please know, I don’t believe all of them are lying, but some of the stories are fabricated. Especially the religious ones. I’m extremely disappointed, confused and leary of any that I hear that is dogmatic in one’s beliefs. My suggestion to them is perhaps they had oxygen, but was unaware. “Oh no! I was pronounced dead!” So I hear all the time. The NDE stories are often “stories” of their stories created by their own personal wants and desires. The NDE experiences that are real are not controlled by our social customs.
Anyway, thank you for sharing your thoughts on this maddening topic. Bonnie J
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Thank you for sharing Bonnie, and I am sorry that you had such serious health issues after your lengthy period without oxygen. I agree that most people who do not have excellent CPR with high levels of oxygen etc would not escape lengthy periods of CA without brain damage. Having read a number of NDEs that go on for a long time, my impression is that in some cases the consciousness becomes dissociated on CA, but remains outside of the body after ROSC and during periods of coma. I also agree that a lot of NDEs are probably made up, but I am curious as to what evidence you have that is mostly people who report religious NDEs who are guilty of this. Please elaborate.
I discuss my views on why I think that NDEs are markedly different for different people in my latest book “Did Jesus Die for Nothing?”. When it comes to the position you take on this, it is impossible to avoid bias since the evidence does not allow for a conclusive conclusion to be drawn. I am increasingly of the opinion that this is intentional, but again this is purely speculative and based on the bias I have due to my faith. I cannot prove it, but neither can it be disproven. My next post which will be coming in a few days looks at bias and choice on this subject.
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It is because of my medical history that documented my NDE, at my home (30 minutes)by Ems, the ER, the ICU, the hospital and rehab both in patient and out, that I had over an hour of CPR. It is my belief that we experience our consciousness and that is what takes us into our afterlife and experiences. Yes, some are religious to some, but I believe they are only at the beginning of an NDE. We become aware of our truest self. It is a narcissistic experience because it shows us who we are and what we love and it’s about us. If someone is only interested in the world (truly interested) then they will experience the world.
There is no one sitting on a throne unless one imagines it and creates the illusion or illusion. I created ETs and that’s what I truly believe in and is mankind’s creator. That is exactly what I saw. We are our imaginations and we create our space in that life and this one though this one is dense with biological realities. The other is a place where time doesn’t exist.
So, bottom line, you will create exactly what you believe is truth.
During that time and around that time, my experience was only what my core beliefs were and not about any manmade religious beliefs. I am an avid believer now that traditional religious beliefs are wrong. There was nothing in mine that was religious.
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So because you saw what you believed in already, that confirmed your belief to be true and made you believe that what others saw was due to their beliefs but was wrong. Interesting. As I said, I talk about this variation and what I believe is the reason behind this in my book, and it relates to free choice. Everything you are saying makes me believe what I believe even more strongly, namely that there is a God and that it is our purpose to seek him and find him in this swirling mass of contradictory information.
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Morning Mimsi. I agree with much if what you write. I would go too, as I am most alert in the mornings ~ it’s the time when I am most sharp. However, I’m having a Lazy Easter but the next time you post an interesting read I’ll jump on it and comment. Rgds Paul “>
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