AwareofAware

Evolving news on the science, writing and thinking about Near Death Experiences (NDEs)

Archive for the tag “consciousness”

08 Mar 2023
100 Comments

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:

Lapses of the Heart: Frequency and Subjective Salience of Impressions Reported by Patients after Cardiac Arrest

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:

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/orsonw23W

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28 Jan 2023
225 Comments

UNCOOL (updated on 29th January)

This post is a doozy, you will need to get your noodle into high gear as we will be delving into 4 publications on or related to the subject of NDEs during HCA (hypothermic circulatory arrest). Before we start, can I ask you a small favour. This blog costs money to create, and time to write. If you have been coming here for a while and enjoy reading what I write, then I would be grateful if you “bought me a coffee” (if you are rich, you can buy more than 1!). This site is trustworthy and used by media creators around the world to get appreciation for creators like me. You will need a credit card, provide the number, expiry, CVV number AND your zip code – the details are not passed on to me or held on the Buymeacoffee site (BTW it’s easy to forget the ZIP code which tripped me up when I tried it out for the first time today, you need to scroll across the details box). If I get lots of support it may motivate me to write more!

My Buy Me a Coffee page (yes, my real name is Orson…Ben Williams is a character in one of my novels)

Now to the blog. So this is not a great news blog for those longing for that illusive scientifically verified OBE, and may be bad news for Parnia’s HCA study, but there is a caveat with that.

So to the first paper (big shout out to Constiproute for alerting me to this one – how did I miss it!!):

Does Hypothermic Circulatory Arrest for Aortic Surgery Trigger Near-Death Experience? Incidence of Near-Death Experiences after Aortic Surgeries Performed under Hypothermic Circulatory Arrest

Ref: Manduit et al; Aorta (Stamford). 2021 Apr; 9(2):76-82. doi: 10.1055/s-0041-1725091

Brief summary of design, methods and results:

Design: It was a prospective study looking at consecutive patients who underwent thoracic aortic surgery between July 2018 and September 2019. Procedures without HCA were included to constitute a control group. The primary outcome was the incidence of NDE assessed with the Greyson NDE scale during the immediate postoperative course, via a standardized interview.

Results: None of the patients reported any recollection from their period of unconsciousness. There was no NDE experiencer in the study cohort.

This makes AWARE II look like a resounding success! The authors sound slightly bitter in their summary of the results, as far is it possible to sound bitter in a clinical study publication.

Firstly let’s get into the weeds. This is a well designed prospective controlled study which makes it a very credible study.

The procedure basically requires cooling the body to 21-28oC by using a bypass technique that cools the blood, and once this temperature is achieved circulation is halted. At this temp many of the metabolic processes that occur within cells are slowed to the extent that damage will not occur, particular to brain tissue. However, after 30 minutes things may get more dangerous and another technique is initiated that restores flow of fluid to the brain. Here are the numbers recruited.:

Overall ( n  = 101)HCA group ( n  = 67)Control group ( n  = 34)

All patients survived, and while it is not stated (something the editors or reviewers should have picked up) I assume that all were interviewed. Given data from previous NDE studies looking at CA survivors, you would expect about 6 reports of NDEs from the HCA group given that they were in circulatory arrest. However there were none.

In the lengthy discussion section a number of factors were listed as potential confounders which might have caused this lack of NDEs. Here they are verbatim:

  • The hypnotic agents and analgesics used during general anesthesia may induce retrograde amnesia, or merely prevent NDE, although some NDE during anesthesia have previously been described. 
  • The potential influence of modified neurotransmitter release and systemic inflammatory response induced by the CPB, along with the varying degrees of ischemia/reperfusion during aortic surgery, should also be taken into consideration. 
  • The duration of unconsciousness in our study (14.4 hours on average), inherent to the prolonged general anesthesia, might prevent the patient from remembering NDE events. Furthermore, the time between awakening from anesthesia and the patient’s interviews might have been too long.
  • The number of patients included in our study might also be too limited to evidence NDE, although the incidence rates reported among cardiac arrest survivors suggest that such cohort size should be adequate.
  • The level of hypothermia and the optional use of adjunctive cerebral perfusion during circulatory arrest might also play a crucial part. 

The first 4 are self explanatory. The issue of being under sedation prior to CA is something that I think is potentially relevant. Does the consiousness need to be consious when CA occurs for an NDE to occur? Not convinced personally since I can recall of NDEs that have been reported when patients were under anesthesia, had a CA during a procedure and consiousness started at that point with the NDE ensuing. Moreover we have the cases from the HCA study in Montreal (the original COOL study) led by Mario Beauregard. I will return to that in a moment.

It is the fifth point that interests me and two papers that are cited in the section of the discussion that delves into this.

Electroencephalography During Hemiarch Replacement With Moderate Hypothermic Circulatory Arrest by Keenan et al in 2016

and

Deep hypothermic circulatory arrest: I. Effects of cooling on electroencephalogram and evoked potentials by Stecker et al in 2001

To summarize the key points, with the application of cerebral perfusion (used in both studies), the EEG does not in general become silent until the body has reached a temperature of 16oC. Below about 24oC it goes into burst suppression, during which consiousness is not possible. This is the status usually encountered during anesthesia.

In summary there are 3 states and outcomes to consider:

  1. Temp >16oC no circulation (artificial or natural) = isoelectric EEG or clinical brain death in under a minute.
  2. Temp >16oC with some kind of circulation, either natural or artificial = EEG activity of some kind.
  3. Temp <16oC with or without circulation = no EEG activity and clinical brain death.

Now I will discuss the Beauregard study from Montreal. The details were published in a journal as a letter which does not require peer review. It was more hypothesis generating than anything, and was supposed to be the launch pad for a larger scale prospective study, but it never happened. Anyway, here is a link to the letter:

Conscious mental activity during a deep hypothermic cardiocirculatory arrest? Beauregard et al 2011

In summary, it was a retrospective study looking at cases between 2005-2010 in which 33 patients underwent DHCA ( deep hypothermnic circulatory arrest), and were interviewed afterwards. 3 reported consious recollections, and one had an OBE, the details of which were later confirmed to be accurate. Given it was retrospective and in such a small cohort, the evidence is a little sketchy (unless you add it to the mountain of other evidence), however this is what has inspired further study. So there is one huge question to ask, why did Beauregard’s study have NDEs and Manduit’s not?

It is noteworthy that when looking at Keenan’s paper, the methods for HCA appeared to change around 2010-2013, with cooling often going to 21-28oC, whereas during DHCA conducted prior to 2010, it appears the body may have been cooled to 16oC or lower.

This may be the key difference between Beauregard’s (recruited 2005-2010) study and Manduit’s (recruited 2018-2019). However, given that in Manduit’s study only 31% of patients had ancilliary cerebral perfusion, therefore 69% would have had isolectric EEG (although they did not measure this), I am not sure this would make any difference in terms of potential for NDEs.

However, this is potentially hypothesis generating regarding the interation between consiousness and the brain in a dualist understanding of our existence, and which I will delve into during the discussion or in another post because I think this is enough for now.

Finally, this has implications for Parnia’s HCA study. Is he using DHCA cooling to 16oC, or MHCA (moderate HCA) and only going to 21-28oC. Is there cerebral perfusion? The answers could effect the outcome.

Wow, my brain is overheating – definitely not 16 or even 21-28oC…it is smoking!

Please review the papers yourselves and see if I am adding 2 and 2 and getting 762, but I think I may be right on this.

Finally, surely after that, you want to buy me a coffee

My Buy Me a Coffee page (yes, my real name is Orson…Ben Williams is a character in one of my novels)

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29 Oct 2022
47 Comments

What are the chances?

This article was posted by Maria in the comments of my last post. Thank you.

Link to article on how to capture visual OBEs

The original article is over 30 years old, and this fact alone highlights just how long we have been waiting for a scientifically verified visual OBE in a research setting. When I say scientifically verified, I mean that a hypothesis is generated, an experiment devised to test that hypothesis, and a positive result recorded within that context. I have taken great pains over the years to point out that adherence to the scientific method is central to insuring the credibility of any results that emerge from a study seeking to verify OBEs or NDEs.

The hypothesis would go something like this:

The consciousness is able to persist and separate from the physical body once the heart has stopped beating and brain stopped working, and observe events externally from the body.

The experiment would then test this hypothesis by creating a method by which the ability to observe events during this state is assessed. This paper describes the type of visual stimuli and location that would be best, based on interviews of people who reported OBEs during their NDEs. Presumably Sam Parnia read this article as a reference for designing this aspect of the AWARE study. He placed cards on shelves near the ceiling in various ICU wards in different hospitals. Despite there being a total of thousands of these cards dotted around hospitals all over the world, none of the reported NDEs from AWARE 1 occurred in a room with a card. The reasons for this have been discussed multiple times before. While reports of NDEs are very common, deliberately setting out to prospectively observe patients who have a CA with an NDE and an OBE and who then survive long enough to be interviewed is extremely difficult. Reports of murders are common, but if you set up an experiment to try to witness a murder, it would be very hard. Maybe a clumsy analogy, but my point is that while a random event may occur commonly, being able to deliberately observe that event may not be straight forward.

This problem has also plagued AWARE II despite its updated methodology and slightly tighter inclusion criteria, and based on the preliminary data presented at AHA in December 2019, it seems unlikely that when the final results are published that there will be a verified visual hit. This quote from the article’s conclusion predicts our torture all the way back in 1988:

the process of accumulating sufficient data in hospital veridicality research may be protracted

No kidding!

There is another problem with the AWARE studies. The above hypothesis that I state is not specifically included in the study, and the studies are not designed with the specific intent of testing this hypothesis. Testing this kind of hypothesis may have been Parnia’s original intent when he started out, but possibly for credibility reasons, he has not been able to explicitly state this in the study designs. The studies have therefore been hampered in their ability to achieve the outcome of proving this hypothesis as a result. If there is a scientifically verified OBE it will be a byproduct of the research in that the stated aim of the visual and auditory experiments is to better understand the nature of reports of conscious awareness rather than prove the above hypothesis.

Finally, any publication that Parnia submits will need to be peer reviewed. Peer review is far from a flawless process and is subject to the personal biases of the reviewers. Given the hostility in the materialistic scientific community to research that might challenge the prevailing materialistic orthodoxy, any evidence that Parnia presents to support this hypothesis will scrutinised very closely and potentially arbitrarily dismissed by reviewers. We only need to look at the COVID lab leak vs natural emergence fiasco to know without doubt that the scientific community is capable of subverting the truth if the truth challenges their preferred narrative.

Given all of this, I am becoming quite gloomy about the prospect of the paper that presents results from AWARE II including any scientifically verified OBE. It is due in the next few months, so we should know one way or the other.

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30 Aug 2022
172 Comments

NDE, RED, REX – is it all just a case of Timantics?

Apologies for the pun, but couldn’t help myself. As some of you may be aware one of the more valued members of this site, Tim, and I had a somewhat acrimonious discussion yesterday that became personal and resulted in Tim saying his goodbyes. Goodbyes, unlike death, can be reversible, so hopefully we will see him again and continue to learn from his outstanding knowledge of this subject.

So what was all the fuss about? For me it was a case of semantics – in this instance the meaning of the word death and its use in the term RED. The reason for us discussing what the word death means was due to this article:

Studying death and near-death experiences requires neuroscientific expertise

First of all, the title is ludicrous and based on a huge assumption. The study of NDEs only requires neuroscientific expertise if NDEs are the result of neurological processes. I have spent the past 4 years of my life working in neuroscience, and I can assure you that there is nothing in human understanding of neuroscience that could explain a genuine OBE. That has and always will be the issue, therefore the study of NDEs does not need an expertise in neuroscience. It might benefit from it to interpret various neurological measurements that are acquired during a CA, but it is not necessary, especially when it comes to any experiments that attempt to validate OBEs. If you have a scientifically validated OBE, then that cannot be explained by science. Moreover, neurologists and neuroscientists were a part of developing the consensus statement.

Obviously starting off with the assumption that an NDE is a natural neurological phenomenon means that the rest of the article is constrained by this materialist assumption and therefore many other things that are said are just incorrect. However, there are a couple of points they make that are very pertinent and worth highlighting, and one in particular that caused the spat between Tim and me. It was my suggestion that I agreed in part with their statement about the use of term RED that set things off. This is what they said:

Second, contrary to what Parnia et al. write, people who recall NDEs are therefore inherently people who have not been dead and have not met brain death criteria. Since the introduction of brain death criteria in 50 the 1960s, not a single patient properly diagnosed as brain dead has come back to life….Because of these scientific inaccuracies, the proposed term “recalled experience of death” is wrong and we firmly reject it. The authors confuse “death” with the process of dying

My initial response of agreeing in part was more a gut reaction given that I was not aware of there being specific definitions for death and therefore given this state of affairs, and given the potentially reversible nature of the condition people are in when their hearts and brains have stopped functioning, stating these people had experienced death seemed a bit of an over reach. This gut reaction is reinforced by having watched all these TV shows in which the ER physician announces “time of death” when they give up CPR…i.e. the person is beyond medical help and the process of dying has become irreversible.

As the discussion continued I started looking into definitions of the word death. Dictionaries and on line resources tend to use the word irreversible, but what really nailed it for me was the UDDA definition which is used in the US:

The Commission ultimately recommended a Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) which aimed to make the total brain standard into law in the states. This recommendation has been adopted by the American Bar Association and American Medical Association, and made into law in some form in all 50 states. The UDDA simply states: ’An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead. Sarbey B. Definitions of death: brain death and what matters in a person. J Law Biosci. 2016 Nov 20;3(3):743-752. doi: 10.1093/jlb/lsw054. PMID: 28852554; PMCID: PMC5570697

In Canada: Death occurs when there is permanent loss of capacity for consciousness and loss of all brainstem functions .  This may result from permanent cessation of circulation and/or after catastrophic brain injury. In the context of death determination, permanent refers to loss of function that cannot resume spontaneously and will not be restored through intervention.

Now while this is adopted in the US and Canada, it is by no means globally adopted, and there is still uncertainty about the exact moment that the word death is appropriate, as evidenced in this NHS presentation on the subject: http://odt.nhs.uk/pdf/Diagnosis_of_death.pdf

For me the key quote in that discussion is the following:

Dying is a process; Death is a defined point in that process

This is the point that the article by Martial is making, and while it is a semantic point, it is central to the consensus paper and Martial is right to call them out for coming up with the term RED – recalled experiences of DEATH. Basically, using the dictionary, US legal, Canadian and wider medical community’s definition of death, someone who has achieved ROSC has not experienced death. Oops.

Now I understand why Parnia et al came up with the term, and I somewhat agreed with it in principal at the time, but my view has now changed, and I think theirs should too…although that is harder as they might need to retract their paper which is a pretty hideous thing to do from a researcher perspective. NDE is actually the most accurate term, and while it has been abused by people broadening its application from the one originally intended, it would be better to apply clarifications such as authentic, or classical, rather than completely discard it. In fact their recent attempt to completely change the meaning of the term NDE to not include REDs was something that I really objected to.

But it is all just semantics. Fundamentally, while the term RED is technically wrong, we know exactly what condition they are describing: it is a condition in which the body is completely incapable of consciousness and in which the brain is incapable of producing or storing conscious recollections, and yet people report experiences occurring and have been able to “prove” these through human verification. This is why I say I partly agree with Martial et al say, because otherwise much of way they say is complete hogwash. For instance:

“There is hence no “recalled experience of death”; if anything, it should be ‘recalled experience of what might have been the start of the dying process just before consciousness was lost’.

Technically they might right in saying that it could be the start of the dying process, but by adding “just before consciousness was lost” they are betraying their materialist bias. That is an assumption, and the whole point of doing these studies. While they have a point in saying that studies have failed to empirically prove [beyond any doubt] that “people are able to report actual (real-life) events and details happening during e.g., cardiopulmonary resuscitation” neither do these studies, or any others disprove it. Moreover studies such as AWARE I and others, while not providing slam dunk proof, provide very strong evidence supporting the thousands of reports by very credible people, including Health Care Professionals, outside of the context of a clinical study.

Their third point is another tricky one and I find myself agreeing with a part of it:

“Third, the authors write that NDEs in post-cardiac arrest patients fundamentally differ from NDEs made in other life-threatening or non-life-threatening situations, and that the latter experiences are “mislabeled”. Again, the reasoning is flawed. There are no empirical data so far to indicate that the phenomenology of NDE differs in situations that are (a) associated with a threat to life and impaired brain physiology such as  a cardiac arrest, (b) associated with a threat to life but unimpaired brain physiology such as a near-miss traffic accident, and (c) associated with non-life-threatening situations such as drug consumption or  meditation. To the contrary, the data that do exist indicate that all these experiences are phenomenologically  similar (e.g.,12-16). In other words, from the phenomenology of the experience one cannot tell if what happened was a cardiac arrest or e.g., use of a psychedelic drug. Contrary to what the authors state, this similarity suggests that the brain mechanisms behind these experiences are probably also similar, if not identical.”

I agree somewhat with their stating that some aspects of NDEs overlap with other experiences reported in different states. However, there are two ways of looking at this. The first, and one they cite, is that these experiences are the result of similar neurological processes, and the second that these experiences are possible in a variety of states and speak to the ability of the human consciousness to momentarily detach from the physical body. Both, in the absence of scientific, or empirical evidence, are possible explanations, but Martial et al only countenance one, and this is neither objective nor scientific. Moreover, the different conditions they cite are unlikely to produce similar neurological states and therefore it is unlikely they would produce similar psychological outcomes or recollections.

They make a few other statements based on their assumption that NDEs are the result of physiological process, which must be viewed in the light of this unscientific bias. However there is one statement they make that I absolutely 100% agree with, and which has troubled me enormously, and which I have commented on myself previously in this blog.

“Although Parnia et al. question the existence of distressing NDEs which they consider “related to [intensive care unit] delirium, delusions, and dreams in response to toxic metabolic states and withdrawal states (e.g., alcohol withdrawal)” (p. 17 of 127 File S2 from1), the latter claim is not empirically supported.”

The paper that Parnia cites to make this assertion actually suggests the complete opposite. I think this comes from a fundamental flaw in Parnia’s character…he is too nice! He doesn’t even want to consider the idea that people suffer after they die. I get that, but I do not believe that his position is the right one, and explain why in my book.

As for the conclusion of the article:

“Although (near-)death research certainly merits a framework directive, the paper by Parnia et al. is subject to a surprising lack of neuroscientific understanding. It reflects the fact that the field of NDE research (at least in parts) is biased by a widely held belief that there is something fundamentally special, if not supernatural, about NDEs, such as the notion that humans can have conscious experiences in the absence of a functioning brain.”

Yep, that’s the whole point isn’t it, and in the absence of scientific proof that consciousness in the absence of a functioning brain is not present, it should not be discounted as a possibility, and to do so is unscientific. The above statement displays a whopping lack of self-awareness when it comes to understanding their own lack of objectivity.

In summary, I think Parnia et al may need to rethink the use of the term RED. They also need to be aware of their own potential bias, such as on the subject of negative NDEs, and be open to outcomes that might be unappealing, but are nonetheless possible.

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04 Mar 2021
83 Comments

Terminal/paradoxical lucidity. Overlap with NDEs?

The change in Brain structure due to Alzheimer’s disease (from John Hopkins)

I was going to write this at some point after Alan put a link to the below Guardian article in the last post discussion, but someone else has asked me to post on it, so here we go.

Guardian article on Terminal Lucidity.

I recently started work in Alzheimer’s for a Biotech that has a program in developing treatments for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). As with all my work over the years in different diseases, I collaborate with leading academics and physicians in the disease area to develop research ideas – our own and theirs; discuss and disseminate latest research information and help facilitate the implementation of improved diagnostics and treatment pathways. I love what I do, whether it is in HIV, which I spent many years working in, or AD, which I have a particular passion for due to watching my father succumb to this hideous disease. The idea that I may be a part of helping deliver the first wave of potentially disease modifying therapies that slow the progress of this monstrous disease is hugely exciting.

Above is a picture of a normal brain and a brain that has been severely damaged due to AD . The brain of someone who dies with AD can weigh as much as 30% less than a normal brain at death. AD destroys the brain through a pathway that is widely understood to involve the deposition of Beta-Amyloid plaques in the neurons of the brain, which then through an immune response causes another protein called Tau, which has structural and metabolic roles in the neuron, to become dissociated with the neuron and eventually form clumps and neuronal death. This is the Amyloid cascade pathway that most scientists believe is the primary mechanism by which AD occurs. The process can start up to 20 years before symptoms appear, and once symptoms appear will usually kill the patient within 6-15 years. It is a terminal disease.

As the disease progresses patients go from experiencing mild cognitive impairment (MCI) which usually involves short term memory issues, to mild dementia which may affect one’s ability to do complex tasks, through to severe or advanced dementia where the patient is normally incapable of the most basic of tasks, becomes completely incontinent, and has lost all memory function or ability to speak. They are barely conscious as we understand consciousness. The final stage is death when the part of the brain that controls vital functions such as metabolism or heart rate etc becomes affected. Often dementia patients will die of chest infections as they lose their cough reflex and they literally drown in the fluid accumulating in their lungs. Often they will have pneumonia on their death certificates, but ultimately it is AD that killed them. In the UK it is now acknowledged as the biggest killer (over 20% of “with COVID” deaths are dementia patients). Suffice to say, at this stage the brain should not be functionally capable of lucidity.

Terminal, or paradoxical lucidity, is the phenomenon in which patients who have advanced AD and who have been in a state of cognitive non existence for months suddenly appear completely lucid or “their old selves again”. This usually occurs shortly before their deaths. It is not unique to AD patients, but from a scientific and philosophical perspective it is this group of patients that are most interesting and where those who have an interest in NDEs become excited.

Ultimately, terminal or paradoxical lucidity is not understood from a scientific perspective. A brain that has lost so much of its physical structure that the patient long ago lost cognitive function, and can no longer perform basic physiological functions like bladder control, should not be capable of “producing” high level conscious activity. It is a paradox, hence the alternative nomenclature. The overlap with NDEs, and hence the reason that Sam Parnia has become involved in this work, is obvious: people who report NDEs are reporting consciousness when the brain is completely incapable of consciousness from a scientific perspective because it is completely inactive.

The justification for research into this area is that maybe by understanding what activity we observe on an EEG during one of these terminal lucidity episodes, we may be able to develop technology that generates sufficient targeted stimulation to cause patients with AD to recover some of their function. There is a precedent for this. Currently available symptomatic treatments of AD, such as Donepezil, which slow the breakdown of the neurotransmitter acetyl choline, have been shown to improve cognitive function in some patients with AD, especially when used early. However these drugs do not alter the underlying disease process, they just “make better use of” the undamaged part of the brain; the patient will die at the same point with or without treatment. It is just a brain booster (student doctors have used it in medical exams to enhance their performance!). Arguably, if we can understand the physiological processes that are occurring during terminal lucidity, maybe we can devise technology that creates the same effect. That at least is the materialistic justification for this research.

Non-materialists, or “Nutters”, like me have a different explanation. The long established guest of the brain (the consciousness) has returned and somehow is able sequester the remnants of its dying host to experience and communicate with this realm one last time. It is a “paranormal” or “supernatural” phenomenon.

Discuss!

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25 Feb 2020
24 Comments

Just an illusion

My training in Chemistry has long since given me a view on matter that shatters most people’s perception of reality. When you look around, you are fooled into believing you are seeing solid objects, but in reality you are not. “Solidity” is an illusion created by the absorption of light by electrons orbiting atomic nuclei.

The truth is that electrons, and nuclei take up tiny amounts of space, but due to the nature of quantum mechanics and the speed of movement of sub-atomic particles, they create the appearance of solidity. Moreover, due to electrostatic repulsion when objects come into close proximity, they “feel” solid. However, if all movement of electrons were stopped, and you were able to bring all sub atomic particles into immediate juxtaposition, objects like trees, even buildings would be invisible to the naked eye. To exemplify this point it has been estimated that if you were to bring all the sub atomic particles that comprise the entire human race together it would be about the size of a sugar cube. (Link)

Currently, I have a very poor understanding of quantum mechanics, something that I wish to address over the coming years as I feel it is important for gaining deeper insight into this whole subject area, but from what I do understand, and from facts like the sugar cube and that the entire universe originated from an impossibly small pin prick of light, I sometimes feel nervous about the nature of “reality”. In fact, I wonder if it is in fact just a gigantic illusion. I know others believe the same.

So how does that fit into the subject of NDEs? When I read about NDEs, people often describe their experiences of the other side as feeling more real than “real life”. Others refer to this life as a place of learning to prepare us for the next life. When you combine those subjective observations with the understanding of matter I just described, then it does indeed make more than just a bit of sense to understand the physical universe as being just illusory, and that our brains are the quantum processing machines allowing our consciousness to interface with this “illusion”. Now the fact we experience this illusion through our consciousness lends it a reality that it may not otherwise have had. This is not unrelated to the notion in quantum mechanics that a quantum state is not real until it is observed (I am probably saying that incorrectly).

Anyway, before I end up disappearing into a philosophical rabbit hole of ever decreasing circles, I just want to conclude with another concern that I have. Let’s say that this view of things is somewhat correct, namely that this life is illusory in nature and that the life after is “real”. How do we know that life is actually “real” and not just another level of a wider illusion in which we move.

Finally, I invite those who are better informed than I am on this particular area to comment on how this may or may not relate to Penrose and Hameroff’s theory about micro tubules within neurons being sites of quantum processing, and that this forms the basis of consciousness. I apologise in advance for not following up on comments immediately as I am travelling for the next couple of weeks.

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19 Nov 2019
214 Comments

Summary of Sam Parnia’s NYAS “What happens when we die” event:

Both the afternoon presentations and the evening panel discussion were livestreamed. Only one talk was excluded and that was a presentation by the “Pig Brain Team” from Yale, presumably because there may have been some proprietary technology discussed. They are available to view at the NYAS site now.

Recording of Livestream 1:

Recording of livestream 2: 

Recording of livestream 3 (evening panel discussion):

There was a lot of very interesting content in the afternoon session which can be bucketed into the following themes:

  1. History of resuscitation medicine
  2. Advances in resuscitation medicine and preserving the brain
  3. The ability to revive consciousness, and to what extent depending on damage to the brain
  4. The transformative nature of NDEs

I am not going to go over much of it since most of what was relevant to this blog has been discussed many times before. However, it is what was absent that was notable to me. There was no mention of the data from AWARE II that was presented over the weekend at the American Heart Association meeting and the subject of previous posts. I understand that the focus of the day was resuscitation medicine, but NDEs were discussed and I found it a bit odd there was no mention of the 2 abstracts at AHA considering this was the first data to come out of Dr Parnia’s landmark study. There was the opportunity to pose questions in the comments section on the livestream, and I did ask about the abstracts but there was insufficient time to answer the questions in the room, let alone on line.

The only tidbit that came up was regarding the sounds generated in the Bluetooth headsets. He described it as “timed sounds” that were delivered through these headsets. Does that mean that sounds were administered intermittently and for a timed but limited number of periods, or that there was a continuous stream of sound with the different kinds of sounds timed, and the time at which they changed recorded? This is very important with respect to the direction of the discussion initiated by Tim we had regarding abstract 287 at the AHA meeting. If the sounds weren’t continuous then the fact that one or more of the 4 “NDErs” heard voices from the room would potentially be less relevant, given the findings from abstract 387 depending on whether there was corresponding EEG and rSO2 data that showed sufficient levels of oxygen to support consciousness. I suspect we aren’t going to learn more at this stage and will have to wait till the data is published, which may be many years from now!

Dr Parnia did refer to a number of new studies that will be starting in the next months and years:

future studies

The one that is of most interest to me is the study looking into consciousness during deep hypothermic arrest. This is effectively COOL II. At this stage they are just performing a pilot study to help inform them on design for a larger landmark study. It looks unlikely we will hear anything from this for a number of years, but this has the potential to produce data more efficiently than AWARE II due to the controlled conditions. Also the prospective study into children’s NDEs will provide interesting insights into the differences that have been previously discussed. This will take a long long time as thankfully children are much less likely to be near death, or actually dead, than adults.

He also presented some data that had been collected from going back over historical interviews from numerous NDEs. This has been done before in various publications in IANDS, but I suspect that his team will apply greater systematic and academic rigor. I wasn’t quite sure where these NDEs were sourced from, but they included a whole host of parameters beyond the simple core elements previously described.

Finally, Dr Parnia did get a bit agitated when describing the impatience of the likes of us! He did look at the camera, and actually said that he was speaking “to the camera”…i.e. some of us. Busted! He was insistent that this research takes a long time, that there are not always enough staff to attend CA events etc. This does not explain why he didn’t refer to the abstracts from the weekend, but we must give him the benefit of the doubt and accept that there are protocols etc that he must follow. He did say that there was more data now, but not that much.

I doubt he does come to this site, but if he does, I hope very much that our enthusiasm/impatience doesn’t in anyway hinder his work, or damage what he is trying to do. If it does in any way, then he must tell me. I would rather dial back on the number of my posts than risk his work. If not, as I suspect is the case given how he is disposed to going on TV and talking about NDEs, then he must recognize that it is only natural for people like ourselves who have a keen interest in his work to be eager to learn as much as we can, and express our frustration at not having all the answers now. As always we wish him the very best in his quest to shed light on the nature of consciousness before and after death.

The evening session was just a panel discussion on what had been presented and what they thought about the various different issues. This was very much focused on the resuscitation medicine side of things and potential ethical implications.

Overall it was enjoyable, but for regulars of this blog, nothing new unfortunately. Now I’m going to bed!

Edited to add the morning after:

While there may have been nothing “new” from the perspective of insights into the recent findings from AWARE II, there were a couple of things that happened in the meetings that have refreshed my perspective.

Firstly there was the testimony of the woman who had received CPR for an hour and the doctors were ready to give up, except one, who took over and carried on. That was 10 years ago and now she is well and living a full productive life due to that doctor and modern techniques. Really rammed home to me what an amazing job the likes of Parnia and his team do.

Secondly was the NDE account described by the ER physician Dr. Tom Aufderheide in the panel session in the evening. That was mind blowing and it reminded me of why I first became hooked on the subject of NDEs. We really don’t NEED the results of AWARE II, we have hundreds, if not thousands, of reliable human testimonies, many of them from health care professionals themselves, that one hundred percent corroborate the validity of the OBE. But more than that they attest to the spiritual nature of humans and our ultimate destiny.

On here, we, I, have become so obsessed with the hit, the smoking gun, and I realised last night that I may have lost my focus on the true wonder of these incredible accounts…they are mind blowing. I don’t need AWARE II. I know from my own experience that there is another reality beyond this life. I have experienced it myself, and through the accounts of others. I know I have a soul inside of me…my brain just sometimes forgets!

Anyway, we will continue to follow developments, but Dr Parnia said to the camera, to us, that we must follow the NYU website for any updates. As much as I respect and admire him, I think I will continue to rely on the great contributors here like Tim, David, Eduardo, Z, Samwise, Chad and others who keep finding things on the web now that might just make it to the NYU website in a years time!

 

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07 Jul 2018
16 Comments

Brainless materialism

Apologies for the long gap between posts, but I am still working on a new book that I will be publishing later this year. Anyway, this article really caught my attention:

Science and the Soul

“But I was wrong. Katie made me face my misunderstanding. She was a whole person. The child in my office was not mapped in any meaningful way to the scan of her brain or the diagram in my neuroanatomy textbook. The roadmap got it wrong.”

This a quote in which the neuroscientist discusses the relationship between the brain and the soul, or self. He claims that the brain is not the source of the mind or the soul, and cites findings from interesting experiments performed over the years that support this thesis. He concludes the following:

“There is a part of Katie’s mind that is not her brain. She is more than that. She can reason and she can choose. There is a part of her that is immaterial – the part that Sperry couldn’t split, that Penfield couldn’t reach, and that Libet couldn’t find with his electrodes. There is a part of Katie that didn’t show up on those CAT scans when she was born.

Katie, like you and me, has a soul.”

This is of course central to the whole understanding of what is going on with an NDE. Just as it should not be possible for a child to have a full range of mental skills when she has been born with a fraction of a functioning brain, so too should it not be possible to experience consciousness when the brain is technically dead, or at the very least “unalive”. Both of these phenomenon are incompatible with a materialistic understanding of human consciousness, and point to the soul being a separate entity, entirely independent of the brain for its existence.

The issue in this type of case where a significant part of the brain is missing or not working properly, is that if the mind is entirely a product of the physical functioning of the brain, then any significant reduction in brain capacity should correspondingly reduce the mind’s capacity. Classically speaking, various parts of the brain have been shown to be responsible for various cognitive functions through brain imaging experiments, and yet when those parts are damaged or destroyed, or not present in the first place, then it seems that other parts sometimes pick up the slack. This completely negates the idea that the mind is a mechanical product of the brain since the relationship between the brain and the mind must therefore be somewhat abstract. This points to the metaphysical nature of the soul/mind/conscious.

When you look at the brain as just being a host organ for the mind, then the observations from the ER and the neurology journals start to make sense. If the mind, or soul, is a whole independent entity, it would be able to occupy and communicate with the brain, even if the brain is reduced in its capacity. The soul is not reliant on the brain for its existence. This is of course the conclusion from NDEs, where the brain is “unalive”, to be technically correct, and yet the soul/mind/conscious persists. These two findings which have been replicated numerous times are mutually supportive of the understanding that the soul is not a product of brain activity.

 

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