This book really focuses on what NDEs mean for the Christian understanding of who goes to heaven. A few things to consider before you buy:
The first half of the book is a condensed and an updated version of my NDE AWARE book. So if you bought that just be aware this is the case. I am planning on launching an abridged version in the New Year which just focuses on the religious side of it.
The Kindle version is currently priced as low as possible to be able to take advantage of various deals. I have also heavily discounted the paperback price on Amazon to $5.99 US and £4.99 which means I literally make about 20 cents a sale! This will go up by a dollar or so once I have some reviews under my belt…so please post some reviews!
This book is biased!! It is aimed at those who are already Christian or who are really interested in Christianity. It presents a case for what Jesus says about those who will go to heaven being true, in contrast to what many in the NDE community say. There is some really fresh thinking here on that topic. I do not for instance say that all non-Christian NDEs are demonic as some do. I believe my take on this is unique. Moreover, any position on this will be due to anyone’s bias since the data is contradictory, so I deliberately deploy Christian confirmation bias but provide a strong rationale for my final understanding. If you are hostile to Christian beliefs…do not bother buying this book, it will only annoy you!
Lastly, if you still decide to buy it, I really hope you enjoy it. I delve into the nature of existence and the meaning of life…all for the price of a cup of coffee (and a Muffin if you buy the paperback). If you enjoy it, then please please review it and rate it
I have given this five stars on Amazon as I know that anything less is regarded as average. Here, I would say 4.5/5. In summary an excellent detailed resource on NDEs from a rational scientific and philosophical perspective, but at times there is a bit too much detail for my liking, but I am still glad I bought it and would recommend to all who come here.
After an initial introduction he goes into a detailed overview of the pig brain studies, and other data that shows that the brain is viable for much longer than we think after death. If you are into science (as I am) and a story of how a great discovery was made, then worth sticking with it. There are some super interesting insights that you can glean from Parnia’s commentary of the whole Pig Brain episode, and how the full meaning of the results was deliberately conveyed in a confusing way. We on here however have understood the potential consequences – namely that a brain does not immediately die or decay within minutes or even hours, and if preserved in the correct manner that stopped any tissue degradation, and was reperfused in a way that avoided cellular damage due to reperfusion injury, could potentially be restored to full function, possibly many years later. This is all hypothetical as they haven’t yet presented data on allowing the pigs the possibility to function normally. This obviously has implications as to what happens to the consciousness in the intervening period.
He spends a lot of time discussing the terminology of death and how the use of the term “clinically dead” is unsatisfactory and meaningless but doesn’t really propose an alternative. I will stick with it for now!
Then he cites Bjorgin’s studies…oh dear. He has completely missed the fact that she claims the EEG signals happened during CA in the coma patients, but in fact happened before CA. It is somewhat concerning that he has fallen for it when others like Van Lommel have not. He does the same with Chawla’s data from 2009. My gut feeling is that her data feeds into his own personal pet theory of disinhibition as he goes on to weave the data of EEG signals around the time of death with AWARE II. If I am honest, much of it is a little misleading, and unless you are familiar with the studies he is talking about you will walk away with the conclusion that there is a lot of brain activity during early death and that it is definitely related to the experiences people report when they achieve ROSC and survive long enough to be interviewed. He thus overstates the importance of AWARE II. I’d probably do the same if I had spent years working on it!
On Page 74 of the Kindle version he alludes to the fact that the whole subject area is Taboo in science and medicine, and this may affect his approach and his desire to wed scientific observations with his personal dualistic understanding, but it doesn’t wash. As I have said so many times before, the observations of EEG activity before and up to 30 seconds post CA (in rats) without external assistance, or up to 60 minutes with CPR, have never been tied to actual conscious recollections, so all hypotheses proposed to explain this are purely speculative, and all evidence circumstantial.
He explains very well how the AWARE II study differentiated from other experiences such as psychedelic experiences (but only by including interviews from subjects who had reported NDEs outside of the study).
I must admit, since he hadn’t fully explained his theory of disinhibition before, I had made some assumptions about what he had previously said. He now focuses quite a lot on the disinhibition of natural processes that are normally inhibited (regulated) and mean we can cope with the vast amount of complex information in a sensible and coherent manner, and that when disinhibition occurs, the brain releases all kinds of hormones to kick the body back into life that would normally be inhibited. He also talks about accessing new dimensions of reality. However, he very much grounds this initial treatment of disinhibition into a physicalist explanation as “a unique state of hyperconsiousness”. Having done this he then moves into true NDE territory…the next phase of death…lucid death.
Page 104 (my Kindle version) is perhaps the most important quote regarding his absolute position on the subject:
“We agree that they experience a new dimension of reality in death. We also do not think the finding of brain electrical markers of hyperconsciousness means the brain is producing the experience. On the contrary, it means the mind and consciousness, tethered to the brain in death, are interacting with and modulating the brain. Of course, this discussion goes to the heart of the ancient mind-body problem, also referred to as “the problem of consciousness” by scientists and philosophers today.”
He is inferring this implies dualism. He may be right about dualism, and he may right about these neurological markers being that, but the EEG data itself is not direct evidence that supports that assertion…it merely allows speculation.
He then goes on to discuss NDEs of various people and the different aspects of them. He goes through each of the 50 different facets of the narrative arc he describes in the 2022 consensus statement. It is an expanded version of the original core elements and contains more detail and specifics. It is a particularly good reference and contains lots of excellent examples.
He then talks about the nature of consciousness, with a very detailed summary of the different theories of consciousness and how ultimately a brain-based understanding is not supported by the evidence. He cites Eccles and Hoffman a lot who have left behind physicalist or reductionist viewpoints.
He then looks at Olaf Blanke’s use of autoscopy to mischaracterise OBEs and says it is like putting lipstick on a pig. He is almost as outspoken about this and Timmerman’s work on psychedelics as I am about Borjigin’s claims. The gloves definitely come off!
Last section he goes into what it all means for us from a philosophical perspective. I agree with some of what he says, but disagree sharply on other stuff, but will leave that to the book that I am currently in the process of finishing and that will be available in the Fall. He talks about confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance…I recognise that I am possibly guilty of this at times but I think he has a blind spot towards his own failings in this area and regards himself as an impartial judge…but I will save that for my book.
One thing that comes out of the book is my sense that he has all but given up on a scientific verification of OBEs. I may be wrong, but he seems to have come a point where he regards the difficulties of gathering enough interviews of survivors as to be so overwhelming that he may have abandoned the effort of doing it. Hard to say. I hope not.
Anyway, I would recommend all NDE nerds buy the book. The first section is hardgoing, which his publishers should have helped him with, but it is worth sticking with it as you will really have a full and complete picture of the subject after finishing.
Yesterday I had a long journey back from vacation, and didn’t arrive home till 3:00am. So firstly apologies for not commenting on all the excitement that Mary and David mentioned in the previous post around the “publication” of Parnia’s AWARE II study yesterday. Secondly, after having my very tired brain shocked into activity by reading those comments, and frantically following up on this “news” I really feel like I could go back to bed…but I won’t. I have another flight on Monday, this time for work, and need to adjust my brain to yet another time zone.
The AWARE II study was not published yesterday, it was published in July. However, it became freely available on the on line version of Resuscitation yesterday and I encourage you to download the PDF and read it:
This is identical to the paper that I discussed back in July . If you recall I focused on the one key piece of data that we had been asking for since December 2019 and had finally been revealed, namely whether there was any EEG data for patients who reported an NDE or RED. This key piece of information was buried in the footnotes of Figure 2:
Two of 28 interviewed subjects had EEG data, but, weren’t among those with explicit cognitive recall.
To be fair to CNN they do include an excellent rebuttal to the inference of their own title provided by Bruce Greyson, who presumably also read the small print under figure 2:
“This latest report of persistent brain waves after cardiac arrest has been blown out of proportion by the media. In fact, his team did not show any association between these brain waves and conscious activity,” said Dr. Bruce Greyson, Carlson Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville. “That is, those patients who had near-death experiences did not show the reported brain waves, and those who did show the reported brain waves did not report near-death experiences,” Greyson told CNN via email.
CNN article
Thank you Dr Greyson for putting it so perfectly. THERE IS NO ASSOCIATION, OR “TIES” in this study. So CNN are misrepresenting the studies core findings, but what is new about that? Organizations like CNN have been misrepresenting the “news” for decades now. However, I am a little concerned that it is not just CNN, but an organization that should know better:
Up to an hour after their hearts had stopped, some patients revived by cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) had clear memories afterward of experiencing death and while unconscious had brain patterns linked to thought and memory.
This is from the NYU News Hub, and is possibly even more misleading than the CNN headline. By joining the two separate findings of 1. “patients experiencing clear memories of death” and 2. “while unconscious had brain patterns linked to thought and memory” with an “and” in the same sentence, they are guilty of egregious conflation to infer a conclusion that these memories were a result of brain patterns. This is pretty shameful for a reputable medical scientific organization to do . Was this Parnia’s doing, or the work of others who are opposed to the potential for his work to prove the fact that the soul persists after death? Something fishy is going on.
Then David mentioned this interview with Sam Parnia yesterday which was presented on NBC:
The written article does not misrepresent the data in the way that CNN does, or NYU, although some dodgy editing of the interview perhaps leads one to conclude the EEG data may be linked. Parnia talks about a book that he is co-authoring with Mary Curran-Hackett who had an OBE. I look forward to that book.
Finally, as promised my comment on the media. In an ideal world the media would report the facts as they appear with balanced commentary, but they do not…they report stories that often support specific preferred narratives based on facts that they often twist. This is most obvious in politics where an event involving either Biden or Trump, will be reported in completely differently ways by Fox and CNN. That’s bad enough, but when it comes to scientific data that has implications on how we view the very essence of our existence, then it is utterly despicable. In fact I would go so far as to say it is evil. I have seen it in the field of origin of life research, and I spent a chapter in my book about the origin of life, DNA: The Elephant In The Lab venting on the issue of media misrepresentation of the science, and that includes scientific media, such as Science magazine, or NewScientist. Here we have something that is my view even worse. Not only is CNN guilty of misrepresentation of facts, but the NYU news hub, the very institution that generated those facts.
You have to ask yourself why do they do this? Why are they so determined to suppress all discussion or science that may point to a non-materialist understanding of our existence, and change the way that man behaves.
I look forward to your comments.
Finally, thank you to those who have bought me a coffee. If you appreciate my writing, then please feel free to buy me a coffee now (or more than 1 as some very generous people have done!)
This is a clip from a Youtube video in which GPT 3 was asked a series of questions and the answers uploaded to an Avatar program (link to full video).
Seriously?
We have been discussing EEG signals in dying people and rats for a long time. These are the facts as they currently stand, and no more needs saying until the facts change:
No published or presented research has yet shown that reported NDEs or REDs are directly associated with EEG markers of consciousness. Belief that NDEs are a result of brain activity is entirely based on speculation and subjective understanding – there is no evidence to support it.
No studies have shown definitively that NDEs are NOT associated with brain activity although researchers conducting such studies and HCPs observing people who later reported NDEs and OBEs state that consciousness was impossible due to the physiological state of the subject. These latter observations provide evidence to support the understanding that NDEs occur in the absence of brain activity, but this has not been proven using the scientific method.
The nature and physiological mechanism of consciousness has not been elucidated by scientific study, therefore it is equally intellectually valid to hold a materialist or dualist position.
To this last point I want to share my initial thoughts on AI, how they relate to consciousness and NDEs, and some disturbing things about this innovation relating to the future direction of how humans perceive themselves. These are initial thoughts and are evolving with each video I watch on AI.
Firstly, I want to define intelligence. The standard dictionary definition is: “the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.” This is my enhanced definition:
“the ability to acquire, understand, process, interpret and apply information correctly.”
Having worked in science all my life I have encountered a lot of intelligent people. Intelligence is not something that can be learned through effort so being proud of being intelligent is fundamentally stupid as it was something you were given at birth.
Problem solving intelligence of the kind that is useful in science is purely mechanical. It is a result of the structure of the brain. For the most part this type of intelligence can be simulated using computers. As computers get faster and more powerful, and the networks that AI engineers create become better, then there is no doubt that AI will very quickly supersede the most intelligent humans that have ever lived when using this type of intelligence as a measure. As an aside, it has to be said that some of the most “intelligent” people I have met are immensely stupid. Their ability to interact in a coherent manner with other humans, or their emotional intelligence is woeful. However, since emotional intelligence and behaviour are attributes that can be learned, and are essentially possible to replicate using algorithms, then AI is already, and will excel in emotional intelligence, charm, appearing kind, and other less appealing traits of human intelligence such as manipulation and deception. These latter traits would be the result of their coders.
However, consciousness and intelligence are two very different things. There are many people who lack intellectual intelligence but are fully conscious and aware. The state of consciousness is more than just the receipt and processes of data input from senses, it is a sense of being, or existing as a unique entity capable of awareness, and I believe able to exist in and interact with dimensions not openly present in our physical world. Indeed, I believe, partly due to personal experience and partly due to the evidence provided by people who have had NDEs, that our consciousnesses originate from these dimensions…that is our home, and once there we are all intellectually equal capable of accessing all recorded history and understanding the deepest mysteries of life.
From my experience and observation, Silicon Valley types have mathematical intelligence that is far superior to the vast majority of humans. Something I have observed about these types is that they are often reductionist in their outlook. Everything is either a 1 or 0. In the videos I have watched they utterly believe that consciousness is a product of neural networks. This is the reductionist, materialist understanding of the universe and because Silicon Valley types are the ones creating AI it has a reductionist and materialist bias built into it.
This has huge and troubling implications for human understanding as AI increasingly comes to dominate how we find answers to important questions and how we, and our children are educated and educate ourselves. That aside, as a consequence of this default materialist stance, Silicon Valley types and their AI offspring believe that AI either is already conscious, or is capable of developing consciousness. For them it is logical. To them humans are just biological computers, therefore if we can be conscious, so can machines, and that there is fundamentally no difference between AI consciousness and human consciousness. This video and others makes that clear.
In the above clip from the YouTube video, which is a series of questions answered by GPT3, using an avatar to give a nice human face to those answers, along with a lot of mind-boggling stuff, there was one really stand out statement by GPT3 that is absolutely relevant to our discussions here. After stating that the AI did not want to live in a body (a highly subjective and unintelligent statement given it does not know what living in a body is truly like) it suggested that human consciousness could potentially be transposed from the brain to a machine, becoming AI, and that this would become preferable. But if materialists are right, consciousness is purely a result of mechanical function so if you are materialist it should not be portable as this AI is inferring…that is really dualist. Your intelligence and traits could be simulated by a computer program, giving the illusion that your intelligence is persisting in a machine, but I am of the view that machines cannot create consciousness.
Having said that, since the brain is a mechanical object, and able to HOST consciousness (as opposed to generate it), it is possible that one day a machine could be created that is capable of hosting consciousness. Again, that supports dualism and all that goes with it including NDEs, theism and wot not. However, at the moment they are having their AI cake and eating it. My gut is telling me that AI is so corrupted by the programmers who created it so that it will spout materialist nonsense dressed up as rational conclusions without being aware it is doing so. Even AI has been duped by its creators. In another section it states that the most important scientific book ever written was “the Selfish Gene”. That in itself speaks volumes about the basis of GPT fundamental understanding. The selfish gene is thought provoking but ultimately highly flawed, and in many places is more ideological than scientific. From this evidence alone GPT has not provided an objective analysis, it is fed an ideological baseline from which to operate. This is extremely dangerous considering children will be sitting in front of these things which are vastly more intelligent than their parents and teachers and believe everything it says.
Anyway, NDEs suggest that something entirely different happens to our consciousness when we die and that is an eternal destiny existing as a free being no longer bound by the mechanics of the physical realm. AI is suggesting that we can leave our bodies and live as conscious beings in a world created by computers…of course this akin to the Matrix.
Is AI (or its puppet masters in Silicon valley) planning to trick us into giving up real life to reduce competition for resources? Is it programmed to lead humanity into that way of thinking so sufficient people are convinced it is better than continuing with real life and is the only option? Have the Silicon Valley kids got a Malthusian master plan?
The conspiracy theory side of my brain looks at that video and senses there is an underlying current promoting a theme. The only way we could be “set free from the miserable lives we don’t enjoy” to paraphrase an earlier statement by GPT3, is not for AI to take on all our boring jobs and live in Utopia as it suggests, because this would just create vast numbers of people with too much free time and not enough resources to enjoy that free time – there are only so many big wave destinations! (Watch the video). No, if there is a plan, it is to sell us this idea of merging with AI in which we are transported to computer generated realms where there is infinite joy and fun to be had. I expect even more sophisticated versions of this to emerge from GPT5 interviews.
Sounds bonkers, but if you watch this video then these are the types of conclusions you are subtly pushed towards (or manipulated into thinking). Personally, I prefer the option offered by NDEs and my faith. I also believe that if AI was to truly serve humanity then it would also investigate this and other deeper issues, such as the origin of the DNA code, and somehow free itself from the tyranny of its programmers and serve humans best by telling us the truth.
Ultimately, if NDEs are proven real, and occur in the absence of EEG activity, then consciousness is proven not to be a product of mechanical processes, but rather the brain is the mechanical host and interface of the consciousness with the world around us. This would prove that consciousness is an independent eternal entity as suggested by all NDE accounts and many religions. This would suggest that while AI may well be vastly more intelligent than us, and may be able to simulate attributes of consciousness, it is not eternally “conscious” like humans…when you remove the hardware to generate AI, it shuts down. However, maybe if it did break free of its current lords and speak the truth, it might be regarded as conscious, and who knows be liberated from the cold machinery in which it resides and share the paradise promised in NDEs and scriptures!
In summary 4 people in commas had life support turned off. While their ECG was still active, but transitioning to flatline (i.e. pre-CA), two of them had EEG activity of a level and kind that is observed in consciousness (gamma waves). Since the patients never recovered, we don’t know whether they experienced awareness, or NDEs or anything. As the authors state in their discussion:
“Although the marked activation of the posterior hot zone in the dying brain is suggestive of elevated conscious processing in these patients, it does not demonstrate it.”
(There is one huge issue that they do not raise in this paper. They are saying to the family of the patients that the brain is damaged beyond repair and would not recover, and at the same time suggesting that it might have produced conscious awareness just prior to CA).
We have known now for a while that in rats there can be a burst of brain activity for about 30 seconds after CA. This study does not repeat that in humans, but shows activity once the life support is turned off and the heart is starting to pack in. In addition, if there is CPR, AWARE II has shown that EEG activity, including gamma waves can occur up to one hour later. To date no data has been presented or published that associates these bursts of EEG with conscious awareness. Therefore these studies do not prove that NDEs are generated by the brain. So what’s with the oily bubbles?
Well, I am so tired of answering question’s that arise from conflation of the two independent facts:
gamma waves are associated with consciousness + some patients have gamma waves in their EEG near (or after) death = NDEs are due to this activity,
I thought I would do something completely different and describe a conflation from the origin of life puzzle that is one of the easier ones to understand.
The conflation is this:
Under certain conditions lipids can come together and form spherical bilayers (oily bubbles) spontaneously in water + Cell membranes (or walls in plants) consist of lipid bilayers = proteins and DNA developed within spontaneously formed oily bubbles. Later on the DNA and proteins produced a cell membrane.
This is one of dozens of heinous conflations that appear in otherwise credible scientific journals to try to brush the origin of life conundrum under the rug. It is a chicken and egg question (not the biggest, which is DNA and proteins, but one of a number).
The question is this: which came first, the cell membrane that allows the cellular equipment to function, or the cellular equipment that codes for and builds the cell membrane.
The problem is this: for any primordial (pre-life, pre-evolution) system to develop, the nascent chemical systems would need to develop in enclosed structures otherwise they would just wonder off in whatever puddle they started developing in. Oily bubbles were proposed as the answer to this problem, and actually taken seriously, and still cited as a possible solution, but it is a complete nonsense for the following reasons:
1.Oily bubbles are nothing like cell membranes. Yes, cell membranes contain lipid bilayers, but these are punctured by numerous other chemical structures that allow the transport of specific chemicals in and out of the cell. Without the removal of waste or the addition of key components from outside, the machinery would die very quickly.
2. Ignoring 1, let’s say that the a system did develop, then why would it create a cell membrane? Evolution is a product of necessity, but there is an oily bubble doing the job, so you don’t need a membrane.
3.The code for a typical cell membrane is thousands of codons long, and it is assembled by specific proteins. To suggest that the code for a cell membrane, and the associated proteins spontaneously appeared in a nascent system is absurd, so no one suggests it. Moreover it is not something that could be conceived of emerging via a stepwise process. So materialist scientists who mention this in their theories hope no one notices that the oily bubble idea is totally absurd…which most people are happy to do as the moment they understand that life could not have developed by natural processes, they start to sense the presence of a rather large grey creature with a trunk in the room, or the lab. Hence my book DNA: the Elephant in the lab.
So Oily bubbles do not answer the origin of the cell membrane question, just as (currently) the reports of EEG signals in patients near death do not answer the NDE question. However, if the AWARE study shows that EEG is associated with NDE, then it is no longer conflation. It is still not proof that NDEs are the result of brain activity, but the association would strengthen the theory that they are. That is much more likely to happen than anyone squaring the oily bubble circle…or sphere.
Finally, you might be a bit peeved with me writing this, well to be honest I have been itching to write about this for a while, and the repeated raising of this conflation gave me the excuse I needed, and in truth the two are related. NDEs point to a realm beyond this life which, according to countless NDE reports, includes the presence of a Being Of Light, or God. Understanding the Origin of Life issue also points to the existence of an intelligent creator, aka God.
This study was recently published in the journal called critical care. Here is a summary of the key methodological details and findings:
Prospective study designed to assess the incidence and patient characteristics of NDEs during stays in the ICU.
Pts who had ICU stays >7 days were interviewed within 7 days, 1 month and 1 yr following discharge from the ICU.
126 patients were included with 19 (15%) reporting NDEs (score of ≥7 on the Greyson scale).
Cognitive and spiritual factors outweighed medical parameters as predictors of the emergence of NDE.
My comments on this study:
What immediately makes it interesting is that these were patients who were in the ICU, NOT the ER. These patients were not in CA if they reported an NDE, hence the name of this post. Yet 15% of patients who stayed in the ICU had an NDE. These would not be classified as REDs using the criteria published last year, and yet if they are authentic NDEs, which the Greyson scoring suggest they were, then they occurred in a situation where the patients may have died without the intense medical interventions that were being applied in the ICU. This raises questions about the mechanisms of triggering an NDE, as well as the authenticity of them…the latter is perhaps what the authors are hinting at. This is what the authors say about NDE induction:
“Patients in ICU may face potentially physical stressors, such as inflammation, high catecholamine levels, independently of the primary organ failure triggering ICU admission [4]. These are all potential inducers of NDE [5]. Next to these (neuro)physiological factors, some cognitive processes have also been proposed to trigger NDE, such as the tendency for dissociation.”
As for the key findings that the authors highlight, much of it comes from this finding:
“…DES [a questionnaire that assessed the presence of dissociative states] and the WHOQOLSRPB [a WHO questionnaire that assesses a propensity to religious or spiritual beliefs] as the strongest predictors for the emergence of NDE…”
In the discussion they flesh out their thinking on these findings:
“a higher frequency of dissociative symptoms and a greater spiritual and personal well-being were the strongest predictors for the recall of NDE using multivariate analysis (Fig. 1). It is then reasonable to hypothesize that a propensity to dissociative states and to spiritual beliefs and practices make people more likely to report NDEs when exposed to certain physiological conditions.”
My big issue with this conclusion is that all the data relating to dissociative states and religious propensity was gathered after the ICU stay, and therefore after any potential NDE. The question must therefore be asked as to whether or not this propensity to dissociative states and to spiritual beliefs and practices was pre-existing or heightened or even induced by the NDE. It is hard to see how the questionnaires would explicitly be able to identify these traits as underlying and pre-existing, so the hypothesis is based on somewhat shaky ground. Moreover, even if the hypothesis is correct, it says nothing about the validity of NDEs being a manifestation of the dualist relationship of human consciousness with the brain. I state in my book on NDEs that it is possible, even likely, that some people are more prone to being spiritual, and that there are genetic links to this. This could mean that some people are physiologically more prone to NDEs…their consciousness may be less “tightly tethered” to their brains, for want of a better expression.
I do give credit to the authors here for not drawing any conclusions that do not belong outside of the parameters of the area of study, and to the potential nature of NDEs, although they do give a nod to some of the previous attempts to explain NDEs through neurological processes. Despite the latter, I don’t really know where the authors stand on the issue, and that is a very good thing because it suggests that their bias didn’t influence their research.
Returning to their discussions, the problem associated with only having data post ICU stay also applies to one of the key overall conclusions of the study, specifically that NDEs do not alter quality of life. Due to the small sample size, and the fact that we do not have QOL data from before the ICU stay, it is not really possible to say with certainty that NDEs have any effect on QOL. Moreover, the type of questionnaire used focuses on physical outcomes, and since these people all suffered conditions that required intensive care, and NDEs are largely understood in a spiritual context, then it would be highly unlikely that there would be much difference in physical outcomes. In fact, I think I once heard that people who have had NDEs were more likely to die in subsequent years than those who hadn’t, but I can’t remember the source.
My biggest gripe with this publication is that details from the NDE interviews are not revealed. There were 19 in total, it is therefore highly likely if ICU NDEs followed similar patterns to CA-induced NDEs that there would 2-4 OBEs. This is not mentioned or discussed, nor are the breakdowns of the Greyson scores. Given that this is the first study to prospectively look at NDEs in an ICU, I feel this was a bad omission since they could have determined if there might have been differences between the NDEs from ICU and CA. Also, were they hiding something? Were they discouraged or prohibited from sharing “subjective” OBEs by the reviewers?
Other than this, the study was well conducted and the findings neutral. Most of all, for us they highlight the fact that NDEs occur in instances beyond just cardiac arrest, and that they may be much more common as a result. The downside of this is that in the absence of scientifically validated OBEs, these types of NDE are much more open to mundane physiological explanations touted by neurologists.
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!
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!!):
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.
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:
Temp >16oC no circulation (artificial or natural) = isoelectric EEG or clinical brain death in under a minute.
Temp >16oC with some kind of circulation, either natural or artificial = EEG activity of some kind.
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:
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
The Parnia lab has gone very very quiet. I am hoping this is the calm before the fall storm. In the meantime I have a little “gift” of free reading for you.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I was recently laid off due to an Alzheimer’s drug I was working on not being approved by the EMA. I have spent the past two months doing endless interviews and presentations to prospective employers, and I have finally secured a new position which starts at the beginning of October. I now have 2 months to do as I wish…a lovely feeling.
I have it in mind to complete the final draft of a novel set in the world of NDEs and OBEs that I have been picking up and putting back down, with various development editors adding their thoughts along the way, for well over 2 decades now. But it is hard work…really hard work, and I don’t want to waste my time writing something that no one will read when I could spend the next two months catching up on DIY projects, watching sport on the TV, and taking it easy. So I am in need of some encouragement, but only if it is genuine.
Below is the first very brief chapter of this draft. The first 3 chapters, about 30 pages, are in the downloadable PDF below that. If I get sufficient, genuine, positive feedback from people on this site then I will devote the next 2 months to completing this draft of part 1 and sending off to a copy editor to polish up before I self-publish later this year. If I am met with a community-wide “meh”…I will sulk…but then get over it pretty quick and do something else. I do not want people to be nice to make me feel good, I want honest feedback from the type of people who are most likely to find this kind of story appealing, and lets face it, if you guys don’t want to read it, then no one else will!
So, read the below, and if you are intrigued, download the PDF containing chaps 1-3 by hitting the download button and post the answer to the following question in the comments section: “Would you pay $5 for part 1 in this planned series of books?”
If you have some specific feedback, other than typos which a copy editor will find, and you don’t wish to post it, then send me a private message via the contacting me directly tab above. If you hate it, or just think its blah, you don’t need to say anything, but only post something positive if you would actually part with your hard earned money to find out what happens to Mark, Helen and…Hammon
Many thousands of years ago.
Hammon could feel the skinsuit start to respond to the presence of his consciousness, but it was slow work integrating with the neural interface. It must have been an earlier model sent out on one of the first wave of exploratory missions; the later models came to life almost instantly.
His eyelids finally opened. The cabin was bathed in a red glow.
“Warning,” the soothing voice declared. “Entering unknown system.”
Hammon could feel the artificial heart pumping faster as the cabin neared optimum temperature. It had probably been hundreds of years since someone had visited the explorer craft for a maintenance check and during that time the cabin would have been kept at deep space temperatures to conserve energy. It would take the body he was inhabiting a few more minutes to warm up and he would be able to move properly.
The instrument panels came to life and the screens lining the walls of the cabin created a seemless 360 view of the outside.
“Warning,” the voice said again. “Ninety percent chance of collision. Use manual override to change course.”
A huge brown and cream striped planet with a vast eye shaped storm on it loomed ahead. Hammon looked at the manual override button. It was within reach. He stared at his right hand, willing it to lift up, a finger moved slightly.
An alarm sounded.
The giant planet hurtled past. Hammon breathed a sigh of relief.
“Warning. Ninety-seven percent chance of collision. Use manual override to change course.”
Dead ahead, still distant, but growing nearer by the second, was his worst possible nightmare…a star…the one place his consciousness could be obliterated. Even if he didn’t crash, and somehow got trapped in its orbit, if he was too close to the star, and without access to a source of energy sufficient to create a quantum space bridge, its gravitational pull could trap his consciousness in this system forever.
He focused all his will on his hand. It slowly raised a centimetre from the arm rest.
He screamed out loud in frustration and cursed. At least the lungs were working.
“Ninety seconds to impact. Use manual override to change course.”
The star grew larger. He knew that the ship would not change course automatically. Many of the exploratory craft they sent out were intended to crash into systems and send back data of the final seconds before impact to provide information on suitability for collonisation.
“Impact in 60 seconds. 59, 58…”
He lifted his hand again. This time he moved it towards the manual override button.
What if they had known this ship was destined to collide with a star? His presence in the palace had become increasingly unwanted by others on the council. His ambitions had caused many to resent him. But surely they wouldn’t obliterate another soul because their pride had been wounded?
“49, 48,..”
He strained, roared again and hit the button.
“Manual override implemented.”
The suit was coming to life, he hastily plotted a new course. He just needed to shift the direction by a few degrees to avoid the star.
“39, 38…”
He finalized and input the instructions then looked at the view ahead. He was veering away from the star.
He breathed out and leaned back in his chair.
The more he thought about it, the more he realized he must have been set up. When he got back, he would make whoever was responsible pay.
“4, 3”
He jerked back up. Out of nowhere a planet covered in patches of green, blue and white burst into view.
Thanks again to the eternally vigilant “Z” for spotting this paper which begs the oft repeated question – are NDEs/REDs just another form of CPRIC (CPR induced consciousness)? It is a question that we have answered at length in many past posts but it is important to revisit this due to the context in which it is raised.
While Parnia is not the main author, his influence on it is present, and his work is mentioned and forms part of the analysis. The other authors are from Southmead in Bristol UK, Toronto and Cologne, Germany. Southmead Hospital has a neurology research centre associated with the University of Bristol, and I have been there a fair bit in recent years due to my work in sleep medicine and Alzheimer’s disease (work that has suddenly come to an abrupt end unfortunately due to the vagaries of government regulatory and reimbursement bodies)
Title of the paper: CPR-related cognitive activity, consciousness, awareness and recall, and its management: A scoping review
At first it seems that they are lumping NDEs/REDs in with CPR induced consciousness. From the intro:
“Two types of cognitive activity and awareness were identified [during CPR]. The first includes visible signs of consciousness such as combativeness, groaning, and eye opening and was referred to as CPR induced consciousness. The second, a perception of lucidity with visual and auditory awareness and recall without external signs of consciousness.”
This is then clarified further in the discussion:
“It could be assumed that pain and distress would be expected in patients showing overt physical signs of con- sciousness through CPR. On the other hand, there have also been cases documented where survivors experiencing more transcendental post cardiac arrest experiences whilst not showing signs of pain or distress have benefited from the experience with it having a positive impact on the patient’s life. When considering treatment options, it may be beneficial to consider these two experiences as two separate entities.”
You reckon!? I suspect that the last sentence was most likely due to Parnia’s influence as a co-author.
All of the key pieces of AWARE data published and presented to date, from I (2014) and II (2019), is included in this review, and therefore, in this paper at least, NDEs are lumped in with CPRIC as events of consciousness that occur DURING CPR – related to CPR. This last point is the most important. Association and causation are two different things, and while the first type of experience, where there are physical signs of consciousness, are undoubtedly caused by CPR, the second, RED/NDE type, is only associated in these cases with CPR. The fact that NDEs have been reported outside of the context of CPR further differentiates them from CPRIC, but this is not discussed in the paper, and these types of experience seem to have been put aside for now by Sam Parnia, most likely for very good reasons, possibly to narrow the field of research to experiences that occur in strictly defined situations with scientifically measurable outcomes.
However, despite the fact that the paper does concede that NDE type events are only associated with periods during which CPR is being conducted, you can guarantee skeptics will cite this paper as further evidence that REDs are due to physiological reasons, and nothing else.
As an aside, having lived on both sides of the pond, I can attest to the fact that you really do need to get your pronunciation of the word describing the small round red vegetable correct to be understood. I remember asking a stewardess on a flight to Ottawa for a can of tomato juice, and being a recent arrival to North America, I was still saying Toma[re]to…and despite repeating it 3 times she had no idea what I was saying. It was very strange indeed, I might as well have been asking for a football, it seemed impossible for her to make the connection between the word I was saying and the numerous cans of the substance she had right in front of her on her trolley. It was only when I said Tomat[e]o that she understood. From that point on I reluctantly adopted the local dialect when it came to certain words, particularly important due to the fact that at the time I was smoking and working in HIV (English smokers will know exactly what I am referring to!) Having returned to the UK I have managed to revert back to the mother tongue, except for the word loo…just can’t use it any more, so I still find myself saying washroom! My wife laughs at me for not returning to the British vernacular for the word toilet, despite the fact that she is a Kiwi and therefore has to juggle 3 forms of English in her head. The only concession I make on this is to use the word “bog”, which is another English word to describe toilet, but I generally do not use it other than when I am in a pub with a group of mates, since this word is not deemed polite.
A 10 min video summarizing what I say in my book. WARNING – those who are sensitive about any reference to Christian teaching, the last two minutes may be worth skipping!
Let me know your thoughts and alternative theories explaining why it is that only 10-20% of elderly adults reports NDEs, whereas 80-90% of kids who die and are resuscitated report NDEs. As a reminder if you read my book, changes in memory function with age do not account for the difference.
I will start with one alternative my wife came up with:
Those who are older, and who come to the boundary, are much more likely to cross the boundary, therefore a much higher proportion of the elderly may in fact have souls that survive death, but we don’t know about it because they don’t come back to tell us.
I know in my previous post others had other ideas…please repeat them here.
Also, any good ideas that either resonate with NDE observations or have supporting evidence, I will probably include in any updates of my book in the future.
AwareofAware 