Gamma garbage
Firstly, I apologise (not for the first time!) about the long wait between posts. I have been working on my novel and a new non-fiction project. Both are now at copy-editing phase, so hopefully mid Fall will see me put them on Amazon.
Secondly, I apologise for not making this post about psychedelics. It is something that is coming, but requires reviewing a whole number of papers, and so is quite a bit of work. Probably be late August when I get round to it. But for now, this paper really piqued my interest.
I was sent a link to it by Ian – thank you. It is a comprehensive and detailed review of the evidence relating to the proposition that gamma band activity (GBA) either before CA (peri-CA) in patients or animals in a coma, or up to 30 seconds post CA in rats, and up to an hour post CA in patients receiving CPR, could account for Near Death experiences.
This proposal, that GBA provides evidence that elements of the NDE are generated in the brain, have been most vocally promoted by Borjigin and other materialists. Parnia has repeatedly claimed that the GBA observed in patients undergoing CPR could be associated with an NDE (even if they haven’t been), but unlikely to be the cause. He suggests it is a sign of the consciousness accessing different dimensions. I have already produced countless words here explaining why neither of these claims is with serious foundation. Firstly, there were no reports of conscious recollection in any of the cases where GBA was observed, secondly, even if there were, association is not causation, but since we don’t even have association, the claims are just researchers trying to get attention…it’s what they do.
Anyway, that’s the back story. Something that has never been entirely clear to me in all of this is the “so what” of observing GBA. When you do a bit of research, it is clear that there is a consensus that Gamma activity on an EEG is associated with consciousness. Questions around strength of signal and precisely which wavelengths etc are most closely associated with conscious activity remain unanswered. This paper goes a long way towards answering some of these questions and discounting the idea that these transient episodes of GBA around the time of death could be evidence that the brain is producing the complex narratives that come out of NDEs.
It is a highly detailed paper, and not the easiest to read, however these are the key take-aways I got from it:
1. The link between gamma waves and consciousness, or states of awareness, has not been proven. It is strongly suspected to be the case, but due to the fact that gamma waves are somewhat ubiquitous, it cannot be stated with certainty that they are definitely linked, and less so in what way. For example:
The authors formally analyzed the absolute and relative power of GBA for both wakefulness and ketamine-xylazine anesthesia. For absolute power, little difference could be detected between the conscious and unconscious states for any of the four GBA subbands. Regarding relative power, there was a tendency for activity to increase during the waking period, but only in the medium and higher gamma bands. Such findings do not resolve the relationship between GBA and the level of arousal.
2. Not only has the link between gamma and conscious awareness not been proven, but there is evidence from research into psychedelics and “NDE-like” experiences, that gamma is less prominent:
What was discovered was the dominance of slow delta and theta oscillations was accompanied by a striking loss of spectral power in the faster rhythms. Such findings are, of course, quite contrary to the expectations of the GBA model. Assuming that the high-frequency burst of activity is actually associated with the induction of an NDE, it would be predicted that fast oscillations underlie the action of an agent such as DMT. This is strong implicit evidence that the surge in GBA at the moment of death is unlikely to be responsible for NDE.
3. The anatomical source of GBA around the time of death is not clear, especially post CA. For example, muscles produce gamma waves. Many of these studies claim to account for that, but there are inherent problems with capturing these signals, especially when using electrodes attached to the surface of the scalp. The GBA signals being picked up could be coming from almost anywhere, especially in the absence of other strong signals.
The more the GBA has been contaminated by artifacts, the less likely it is to fulfill its purported role as a kind of neural blueprint for NDE. It is a concern that those who propose a link between GBA and NDE choose to turn a proverbial blind eye to such a potential flaw or weakness in their argument.
This argument applies much less so in the coma patient’s peri-CA. In those patients (who are still alive incidentally – see my last post) the GBA is almost certainly from the brain, but exactly what it relates to is a subject of pure speculation. Moreover, while it is assumed that EEG activity is coming from the cortex, it is possible it is coming from the amygdala, as various experiments have previously shown.
These intermittent oscillatory emissions or signals arise in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and consist of spindle-like bursts of high-frequency high-amplitude activity, typically lasting from seconds to minutes. They are endogenous but not strictly spontaneous because they can be evoked by a variety of stimuli. These included states of arousal, threat, learning, emotion, fear, stress, anticipation, pain, and noise. It might be predicted therefore, conditions such as hypoxia, ischemia, or cardiac arrest would provide an optimal milieu for the enhancement and/or appearance of the BLA rhythm. Nonetheless, it is in no way implied that these amygdaloid oscillations recorded from the cortex possess any mystical or psychedelic properties and, therefore, could be responsible for the NDE.
This very much echoes what I said in the video I made in the previous post, namely that instinctive and involuntary reactions to a state of hypoxia would probably cause parts of the brain responsible for fright and flight to light up and send signals out to get the body to move and start breathing again. This seems like the most likely explanation for any brain activity. It is desperately trying to resolve the threat. This is classic Ockham’s razor territory, something that the author states in his conclusions:
The present re-interpretation of the significance of the surges in GBA is obviously somewhat routine and quotidian, especially when compared with the more exotic, intriguing, and tantalizing alternative. It is unlikely to attract the same amount of attention from media. Nonetheless, it has the virtue of being parsimonious. As Ockham’s principle reminds us, simplicity is often a useful guide for scientific truth.
I also believe this is the most likely explanation of what we are seeing in Parnia’s CPR patients. Just enough blood is reaching the brain to cause primitive emergency responses to the state it is in.
In summary, the relationship between GBA and conscious awareness has not been fully established, and most definitely not characterised…in other words we cannot be certain that GBA and conscious awareness are linked, and even if we were, we don’t know how. Moreover, there is evidence from psychedelics that GBA is not associated with transcendental experiences with similar characteristics to NDEs. Finally, the anatomical source of the GBA in these studies may not be the cortex, but somewhere else, and more likely physiological in nature rather than of the kind of brain activity that would produce complex memories like NDEs.
So, whenever you hear about GBA being related to NDEs you will now know that the observation is meaningless regarding connection to or explanation of the phenomenon even if there was an associated NDE…which there never has been!
Aiming for an August post about psychedelics 😊
AwareofAware 
I haven’t commented in awhile for various reasons, but recently read an article that I thought some people here might find of interest. The work of Parnia and other NDE investigators is complicated by the fact that we are still far from understanding “the hard problem of consciousness.” Regardless of that, materialists are certain that the brain gives rise to consciousness somehow and that we’ll figure it out someday. (David Chalmers won the bet, and Christof Koch doubled down and bet on understanding it in another 25 years. Good luck with THAT!) The assumption is that since brain states correlate with various states of consciousness, the brain “causes” consciousness. But as any slightly educated person knows, when A and B are correlated, there are 3 possibilies: A causes B; B causes A; C causes both A and B. There is a resurgence of a philosophy known as idealism, led by Bernardo Kastrup (he calls his version “analytic idealism”). Donald Hoffman is a cognitive scientist with similar views, and they are both monists who believe that consciousness is fundamental, and gives rise to all that is physical, including the brain. As Kastrup often says, “Science tells us how nature BEHAVES, not what it IS.” (He is both a Ph.D. scientist and a Ph.D. philosopher). He has an interesting hypothesis about why Parnia’s NDE experiments are doomed to failure. If idealists are correct, I wonder what the additional implications are for research into NDE’s and the brain.
https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2024/02/the-phantom-world-hypothesis-of-ndesobes.html
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I discuss idealism in my upcoming book…in fact it forms quite a significant backdrop to some of the discussions. No answers of course, because it is absolutely impossible to prove or disprove such a proposal for the observations of existence, more from a perspective that it is one possible explanation that cannot be easily discounted, and is just as viable as many other explanations, and an explanation that I chose not to believe is the answer…but believe is the appropriate word…I could never prove it, which makes it a comfortable place for some to hide.
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I’m not sure how to respond, because I’m confused. Who is hiding in a comfortable place and why? Your words suggest it has something to do with your inability to “prove it.” Do you think the scientific method can ever “prove” any particular metaphysical theory or position? Even Dr. Donald Hoffman, who is working on a mathematical model of consciousness, has said the truth is like an onion, and we will keep peeling away layers and uncovering more of the truth, but the layers will never end because truth/world/nature/consciousness is infinite. So my bet is on Chalmers.
https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/25/1/129
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Mine isn’t.
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“We are told we live in an environment, or construct, created by God…We can choose to believe that is truth, or we can question it and create our own understanding of what the observed ‘reality’ around us might actually be without ever being able to prove it and thus hide from the truth provided for us.” So the truth “has been provided” and “we are told” is the basis for your believing it to be true? It’s not in my nature to accept things based on faith, which is what you’re describing. I’m not making any assertions about what is “true.” I’m simply pointing out that nobody has ever proven anything when it comes to consciousness nor any metaphysical “beliefs,” “faith,” “theories” or whatever term you want to use. I doubt they ever will, but keep the faith, man. When it comes to the truth being binary, is that before or after you observe it? The notion of truth being binary is a fundamental tenant of Einstein’s realism, which has been disproven by a team of scientists who were awarded the 2022 Nobel prize in physics for their work. Kastrup makes a similar point but don’t panic, he is not a moral relativist. He believes in the same moral principles that you do.
https://www.thearchitect.global/nobel-physics-prize-winners-prove-the-universe-is-not-real/
https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2015/07/transcending-logic-book-price-promotion.html
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It is not my nature to just accept things I am told likewise, unless I trust the source 100%. After the experiences of my life and walk of faith, I have 100% trust in that source and accept what the source tells me.
I agree that none of this can be proven, but there is evidence enough if you look.
I am quite comfortable being wrong alongside Einstein 🙂
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I personally believe that truth is finite and every question can be reduced to binary answers…yes or no. However, our understanding of what the truth is may indeed be infinite because we are living within a closed system and the full truth resides outside of that.
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And with regard to comfortable place to hide, what I mean is that always having questions means never confronting answers that have been provided for us. We are told we live in an environment, or construct, created by God. The purposes of this environment are laid out very clearly. We can chose to believe that is truth, or we can question it and create our own understanding of what the observed “reality” around us might actually be without ever being able to prove it and thus hide from the truth provided for us.
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Idealism is a much better explanation to account for the life after death evidence than Materialism is. Materialism is no real explanation – only desperation for atheists.
However, Idealism is not the explanation either as it fails to account for much of the life after death evidence – such as interacting with other beings and deceased loved ones during some NDEs, it does not account for the Shared Death Experience where see the other person in soul form as both leave the physical body (and sometimes interact with them too), Death Bed Visitations where the person dying has visitations from deceased loved ones, After Death Communications (all types of things occur here), etc.
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I agree to a point. Where I think idealism is hard, if not impossible to refute (or prove) is that we are living in, or a function of someone else’s consciousness. I don’t believe for it one second. As I said, I trust in the being that I have encountered in my experience, and while I was able to connect with this being in a way that is beyond anything on this earth, I was still not independent entity, unique, myself, and so was this being.
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“Where I think idealism is hard, if not impossible to refute (or prove) is that we are living in, or a function of someone else’s consciousness.” While there are different interpretations of idealism, just as there is with Christianity (or any major metaphysical explanation), that is not exactly how Kastrup explains it in his “analytical idealism” philosophy. (He has also said that all explanations are limited by the fact they must be expressed in language, and nature/consciousness is beyond language). But Kastrup basically says that there is only one cosmic consciousness (which some refer to as God), and that we are “disassociated alters” of that consciousness/God. The first link is to a Christian minister’s take on this, and the second is an interview with Kastrup who explains his opinion on death and the purpose of life. (FYI: I’m making no “truth” claims here; just clarifying what Kastrup’s form of idealism says).
https://melwild.wordpress.com/2018/01/11/christ-the-cosmic-mind-and-consciousness/
https://besharamagazine.org/science-technology/mind-over-matter/
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He’s entitled to propose that, but it is impossible to prove on this side of the veil…as I have been saying. My experience provides individualised evidence that he is wrong, but I accept that I cannot prove that experience was just another extension of the illusion. I chose not to believe that, despite the temptation to do so. I trust in my experience and in the words attributed to Jesus in the Bible. That is faith.
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I agree that nobody has ever proven anything, and that’s always been my point. (I believe nobody ever will prove anything, at least on this plane, but I guess that’s where we differ, although your comment about not backing Chalmers in his bet with Koch was confusing, since Koch is a materialist and Chalmers is not). If an important goal is to disprove materialism (since science can only disprove, not prove), I think The Essentia Foundation (founded by Kastrup) has a far better chance of doing that than Sam Parnia. It’s interesting that something you and Kastrup seem to have in common, at least in my perception, is stating things as if they are proven facts (ie, “the truth”) but then admitting it’s not provable. (I take that as a sign you are both passionate about your beliefs). You said your faith is based on personal experience, and we all have beliefs based on personal experience, because as Kastrup says, personal experience (i.e., subjectivity) is all we have. But we don’t all have identical experiences, nor do we interpret similar experiences in the same manner. (In his view, that’s the whole point of this thing called life; to give God/consciousness access to every type of experience and associated insights; it’s all about God, not about us as individuals with our egoic selves). As I said before, I’m making no truth claims. I enjoy reading Kastrup primarily because of how he uses scientific findings and logic to illuminate the inconsistencies in materialism, although he has also pointed out the limits of logic and the existence of paradox in both logic/language and the natural world. In addition to the findings of physics and logic, I believe some of his philosophical ideas are also based on personal experiences he had during psychedelic trips. I guess you two were on different “trips!” 🙂 I also thought it was interesting that a devoted Christian minister finds Kastrup’s ideas consistent with Christian teachings and quoted Paul as support. Again, same book, different interpretations. What I find most striking is the emphasis both place on love. That is the overarching principle in which I have total faith! 🙂
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I deleted your duplicate post. Not sure why you can’t see the original.
I think you are misunderstanding me on the subject of truth. Truth on a matter exists, even if we can’t prove it. I believe my position to be true, others believe a different position, but they are not both right just because they been exposed to different data or experiences. One is true, the other isn’t.
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But has the article already been peer-reviewed and approved?
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It’s in the process.
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Mark Mahin’s article, which was uploaded to the blog recently, is also forceful against Borjgin.
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It is a magnificent article that invalidates the.work of Borjgin presenting very plausibly the theory of the.origin.in the amygdala….Although it has also been invalidated by the.article already uploaded by Mark Twain.I think it was the.surname of the author of an article and even more with the explanations given here in the blog by the.participant Peter Ko…..
participant Peter Ko….Of all of them I’m sticking with this last one for the moment.
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Mark Mahin, excusme
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hey what article are you talking about, is the one by Mahin still good
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Thank you Ben for this article.
I have a questione for all of you that are best informed on NDE features.
When some accounts report encounters with deceased friends or relatives, do we know what is the age this people look like?
I mean, for instance, if someone told he had met his grandfather, what’s the appearance age? Is he old, as when he died, or is he younger?
Thank you in advance for replay and have a good day!
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I recall someone saying they looked youthful. I don’t know if this was one account or several and I don’t even recall a source. Maybe it was from “the self does not die” but I don’t recall.
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And what about weight-loss? Hopefully I won’t be so porky up there!
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cant recall reading anything about the weight and I feel a bit uneasy mentioning the age even since I don’t recall the source.
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Thanks for the article and your thoughts, but shouldn’t there be *no* EEG activity at al in any of the patients after cardiac arrest – including those without an NDE?
Maybe the EEG activties in the AWARE 2 study appeared only after the heart function had already been partially restored – but the paper of the study isn’t clear about that as far as I understand it.
I am asking to set my understanding of the relationship between cardiac arrest and EEG straight, which I think is in general important to understand NDEs, even though in case of the AWARE 2 study EEG activities and NDEs couldn’t be linked to each other. Thanks
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When will the materialists grow up and just accept eternal life. It’s predetermined. There is scientific evidence this is what’s going to happen if people die. Yet materialists keep making excuses. There’s a next stage of life. They are bound to it. There are even afterlife reports of people who died who WERE ATHEISTS. What’s that tell you? Why is it people are so obsessed with being erased? I’m pretty sure anyone would want to live. That’s what we’ve been trying to prove. Been trying to tell them. That life continues and what is death is an illusion but they don’t listen. They keep making excuses like “Uh it’s gamma stuff” I for one embrace life. I would pour billions of dollars to Lifespan.io and it’s hero fund as well as the SENS Foundation to embrace healthy life. And everyone else should too.
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While being atheist, I don’t reject the possibility that consciousness is a separate entity and not created by the brain. I am just a bit confused by the usual line of argumentation regarding the origin of NDEs seemingly conflicting with the findings of the study. The argument supposed to rule out the brain as source for NDEs was that after approximately 20 seconds into cardiac arrest there is no brain activity left. Doesn’t the finding of gamma waves contradict this alleged absence of brain activity (even if they couldn’t be linked to NDEs in the study)?
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This very recent study found evidence of EEG activity during near-death experiences, what do you think? “EEG signature of near-death-like experiences during syncope-induced periods of unresponsiveness”
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I a going to do a quick write up of this, but Paul’s comment really does some up my response.
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It has to explain veridical perception
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link to new study. What are thoughts?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39067553/
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Hi Michael, thanks for and the others pointing this out.
My thoughts – it is an interesting study and shows that is you deliberately induce a state which disrupts normal conscious activity and brain function then you may have experiences that are similar to some of the drug induced experiences reported by people who have taken psychedelics. There is also some overlap with certain aspects of NDE reports. What I like about this paper is the fact they while they speculate at possible explanations for authentic NDEs, they do not present their evidence as proof (unlike some others).
Ultimately, I have never had a problem with drugs or other methods, being able to cause the consciousness to temporarily dissociate from the here and now. Last night I had a dream that I was pushing a motorbike with a front wheel up a hill…I was not in my body as I was in bed, but I felt like I was in a body. All experiences in which we have recall of memories that occurred which were not part of the here cause us to ask questions about the nature of our consciousness and these experiences. They also point to the possibility that either our brains are producing these experiences, or that our consciousness is experiencing a period where it is dissociated from the physical brain and the EEG activity is just the brain writing memories.
None of this explains veridical OBEs while a patient is flatlining. Never has, never will. There may be connections and that we can “loosen” the connections with our physical brains while having normal heart beat using these methods, causing these “NDE-like” experiences, but only by stopping the heart and brain do people have the full enchilada.
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What do you think about situations such as the one described in this paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC535951/#:~:text=In%20addition%2C%20vestibular%20illusions%20(of,induced%20out%20of%20body%20experiences.
Do you think these are similar to OBE’s caused during NDE, and if so do they provide an possible explanation for them?
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Hi George,
This is a very old paper, and the line of argument has been dealt with by the likes of Parnia, Van Lommel and Greyson very effectively. In summary the claim that these illusions have a lot in common with NDEs is somewhat misleading, as they really don’t. Ultimately, though not one of these has produced a veridical OBE, and if they had, it would just support NDEs. We have thousands of veridical OBEs, over 130 excellent ones documented in the self does not die.
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Saw this recent Guardian article on psilocybin The end-of-life patients finding solace in magic mushrooms: ‘What life after life could be like’ | Drugs | The Guardian
Relevant (?) as the Parnia et. al. 2022 paper “Guidelines and standards for the study of death and recalled experiences of death – a multidisciplinary consensus statement and proposed future directions” had a supplementary section Supplementary File S2: Part Two where drugs and experiences are put down in detail
Parnia et al. Shirazi, 2022 SUPPLEMENTARY S2 (sonjalyubomirsky.com) The Guardian article leaves things open as to what’s happening. 🙂
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Hi Alan,
Thanks for that. I was going to use the supplement in my psychedelic piece as it is has some interesting work in it. Coming soon!
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Looking forward!
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Sam Parnia’s new book Lucid Dying went on sale today!
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I had an alert for that. To be honest, I doubt very much there will be anything in it that is new from a data perspective. I suspect he will talk about his disinhibition theory a bit. Ultimately, we now have enough veridical OBEs verified by HCPs to prove that the consciousness separates from the body at death. Will have to buy it though!
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