AwareofAware

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

Archive for the tag “NDE”

15 Apr 2024
40 Comments

My Last Ever Post On Work By Borjigin.

I don’t want to spend too long on this as I have already made the key points in the previous post, but I do want to highlight how utterly fallacious Borjigin’s assertions about NDEs are . This link to a video of her reviewing her work was provided by Dave:

The link was accompanied by a question from Dave, which I am sure many lay people would ask after watching this video:

“Borjigin seems to present data that shows the brain activity still continues for minutes after cardiac arrest, not just 30 seconds…. doesn’t her evidence in this talk show that the brain can continue receiving electrical signals for long periods [after CA]?”

Firstly, I do not want to launch an ad hominin attack on Borjigin (I have had to temper some of my language on second edit), but having watched this video there are only two possible conclusions that you can draw about her as a scientist when she presents a slide like the one below.

She claims that she has disproved the key assumption that Pim Van Lommel and other proponents of NDEs make, namely that the brain stops being active at the point of or very soon after Cardiac arrest [begins] (10-20 seconds maximum) and that therefore consciousness is not possible and so NDEs are evidence that the consciousness, or soul, persists beyond death.

Borjigin claims that her data shows that in both animals and humans that the brain is showing signs of consciousness for long periods during cardiac arrest. She says “We win!”.

Her claim is demonstrably false and they haven’t “won”.

This is what Borjigin has shown:

  1. When cardiac arrest is induced in rats, there is brain activity for up to 20 seconds afterwards.
  2. When rats are killed slowly by denying them oxygen (asphyxia) their brains show increased activity for a period after asphyxia, but it stops before cardiac arrest.
  3. In 2 human coma patients she shows a similar result in that when oxygen is withdrawn, there is an increase in EEG activity (and the heart rate goes up). All EEG and ECG activity stop simultaneously after about 5 minutes i.e. brain activity ceases at the point of cardiac arrest…which is the common observation of most ER doctors, and actually proves what Van Lommel says i.e. the brain ceases activity at or very soon after CA.

Clearly something is not adding up with what she is saying. It is either a deliberate attempt to deceive or a gross misunderstanding of the key term under consideration in this paper and Van Lommel’s assertion. It is quite embarrassing for Borjigin, but I am starting to wonder if it is the latter, although still entertaining the former.

Borjigin is equating the onset of asphyxia with the beginning of Cardiac Arrest. Let’s just once again look at the definition of cardiac arrest, the definition used by physicians, cardiologists etc and most certainly Van Lommel, Greyson, Parnia et al:

“Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops pumping. If this happens, blood stops flowing to the brain and other vital organs.” NIH defintion

Cardiac arrest is when the heart has stopped beating. CARDIAC ARREST IS NOT THE PERIOD OF CARDIAC ACTIVITY PRIOR TO THE HEART STOPPING, THE PERIOD THAT BORJIGIN IS DISCUSSING.

By using the point at which oxygen is withdrawn to define the beginning of cardiac arrest is either extremely mendacious or extremely ignorant, and in doing so Borjigin manufactures her widely reported and, at least by the complicit materialist types, accepted fallacy that brain activity continues for long periods during Cardiac Arrest.

I am now going to do my own analogous experiment. Hold on…

….OK, I’m back. I breathed normally, then, without taking a deep breath, halfway through exhaling, I grabbed my nose, and sealed my lips. After 45 seconds in a “Borjigin defined Cardiac Arrest”, I started to get quite anxious. My brain was running hot (or to quote Borjigin “literally brain on fire.”), so I took a breath. That is the EEG activity she is describing (albeit in comatose patients without oxygen or rats breathing in CO2). I kid you not.

I think the BEARS idea makes obvious sense (the brain goes into meltdown when the blood it is receiving contains less oxygen than needed), but only while the heart is beating and as for the brain stopping the heart to preserve brain function…let’s just say that towards the end of the video some of her arguments descend into farce, replete with glaring contradictions. As a scientist myself, my cringeometer was off the chart. I had to stop, it was excruciating, I would have thrown something at my expensive new Samsung TV.

I am happy to answer any questions you have about this video and Borjigin’s work in this post, but I will not waste another full post on her nonsense.

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02 Apr 2024
40 Comments

Media Manipulation – The Guardian

I am in the process of writing my piece on Psychedelics, but today the Guardian followed up its recent interview with Sam Parnia, with this, and I decided it was worth addressing since your friends and family may bring it up (my mother has already!). The Psychedelics article is coming…promise!

This article starts out with a fairly balanced account of how the field of NDE research evolved. It lulls you into a false sense of security that the balance will continue, but whenever you read the name Borjigin referred to in terms of progress in understanding, then you know that balance is likely to evaporate very quickly.

My previous post relates to the kind of work that Borjigin does, and the data that she has produced. In summary, and for the umpteenth time, Borjigin and others have shown that in rats brains activity can persist for maybe up to a minute after death without CPR. The studies in human coma patients have shown that immediately prior to death, and immediately after life support is withdrawn, coma patients have a number of minutes in which the brain produces EEG data that might be associated with consciousness. Moreover, Parnia’s own data has shown that the brain is capable of producing activity that might be associated with consciousness up to an hour after CA but while CPR is being administered and therefore while there is still oxygenated blood flow to the brain. I have explained ad nauseum here why this data, while interesting, says absolutely nothing at all about NDEs since no NDE has to date been reported that could even be associated with, let alone correlated with EEG activity. Nothing. Using the coma patients is particularly egregious since the patients had no reported EEG activity after death.

However, because of the profile of the Guardian, and the bias that emerges towards the end of this article, it is my duty to provide a reminder to people on here that to draw the conclusion that this EEG activity is the cause of NDEs is a gross conflation. The author also makes false assumptions:

As more and more people were resuscitated, scientists learned that, even in its acute final stages, death is not a point, but a process. After cardiac arrest, blood and oxygen stop circulating through the body, cells begin to break down, and normal electrical activity in the brain gets disrupted. But the organs don’t fail irreversibly right away, and the brain doesn’t necessarily cease functioning altogether.

Yes it does. Without the flow of oxygenated blood, the brain stops functioning after about 30 seconds. The journalist has misunderstood the findings of the studies, or is deliberately misrepresenting the findings of the studies. This is the kind of understanding that is picked up by the reader who goes on to parrot or paraphrase that “the brain can work for hours after death”. As we on here know, it is capable of working hours after death provided that cellular death has not occurred on too large a scale, but without the flow of oxygenated blood, it does not work. Just like a computer without power. I suspect that this misunderstanding was helped by Borjigin who we well know can be misleading in the use of language:

At the very least, Patient One’s brain activity – and the activity in the dying brain of another patient Borjigin studied, a 77-year-old woman known as Patient Three – seems to close the door on the argument that the brain always and nearly immediately ceases to function in a coherent manner in the moments after clinical death. “The brain, contrary to everybody’s belief, is actually super active during cardiac arrest,” Borjigin said. Death may be far more alive than we ever thought possible.

The implication is that the brain is active in CA for long periods without CPR. There is zero evidence to support this and decades of data to contradict it. WITHOUT THE SUPPLY OF OXYGENATED BLOOD THE BRAIN BECOMES COMPLETELY INACTIVE WITHIN A MINUTE OF DEATH AT MOST (and usually within 20-30 seconds).

Unfortunately once such a fundamental false understanding is assumed to be fact, then you know that the article can only go one way…and it does.

“So far, there is no sufficiently rigorous, convincing empirical evidence that people can observe their surroundings during a near-death experience,” Charlotte Martial, the University of Liège neuroscientist, told me. The parapsychologists tend to push back by arguing that even if each of the cases of veridical near-death experiences leaves room for scientific doubt, surely the accumulation of dozens of these reports must count for something. But that argument can be turned on its head: if there are so many genuine instances of consciousness surviving death, then why should it have so far proven impossible to catch one empirically?

Definition of empirical: based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.

Using this definition then the 130 odd cases in the The Self Does Not Die is empirical evidence. What he really means is scientifically verified cases, i.e. cases that have been proven using the scientific method. Create hypothesis to explain a phenomenon – devise experiment to test hypothesis – results from experiment verify or falsify hypothesis. The ‘journalist’ does not explore the possible reasons why there have to date been no scientifically verified OBEs, but I have explained many times on here why the AWARE studies have not provided a scientifically validated OBE. This shows his bias, in that he will only come up with materialist objections.

This is super interesting though:

Borjigin hopes that understanding the neurophysiology of death can help us to reverse it. She already has brain activity data from dozens of deceased patients that she is waiting to analyse. But because of the paranormal stigma associated with near-death studies, she says, few research agencies want to grant her funding. “Consciousness is almost a dirty word amongst funders,” she added. “Hardcore scientists think research into it should belong to maybe theology, philosophy, but not in hardcore science. Other people ask, ‘What’s the use? The patients are gonna die anyway, so why study that process? There’s nothing you can do about it.’”

This is proof, as if we needed it, that the scientific community, or the funding establishment, is overtly suppressing research into this most important of fields – even when the research might support a materialistic finding! Parnia has alluded to this before. It stinks, but there is nothing we can do about it.

Towards the end we see the author’s bias against anyone who entertains belief in the possibility that these experiences might be real and evidence of the understanding that the consciousness persists after physical death. This is overt gaslighting of anyone who might be “NDE curious”:

Meanwhile, in parts of the culture where enthusiasm is reserved not for scientific discovery in this world, but for absolution or benediction in the next, the spiritualists, along with sundry other kooks and grifters, are busily peddling their tales of the afterlife. Forget the proverbial tunnel of light: in America in particular, a pipeline of money has been discovered from death’s door, through Christian media, to the New York Times bestseller list and thence to the fawning, gullible armchairs of the nation’s daytime talk shows. First stop, paradise; next stop, Dr Oz.

Now, while I say it is gaslighting, I have a little sympathy for this position. Having spent a number of months going through YouTube NDE accounts, and reviewing the literature of “post tunnel events”, my position on NDEs has subtly changed. OBEs are objective, but what happens once people venture beyond the observations they make of this world, while having some common core themes, are so utterly different and unique, that I am coming to some conclusions about them that differ from the mainstream NDE community position. This will be presented in my next non-fiction book which I will publish later this year (after Part 1 of my fiction book is complete). However, this section of the article is 100% gaslighting and is deliberately attempting to manipulate those who may be “NDE-curious” into scuttling back into their materialist pens lest they be regarded as kooks or gullible. Nasty.

So if someone brings this article up and says “I read an article that says there is proof the brain is active for long times after CA and that is causing NDEs” hopefully you will now be suitably equipped to put them straight. If not then review the countless posts I have created responding to these claims before.

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05 Feb 2024
90 Comments

Do Rats Have NDEs?

Apologies for the weird image, but this was my first attempt at using AI!

This study looks at what happens to rat brains around the time of death.

The main difference between this and the previous (infamous) rat study published by Borjigin in 2013 is that it analyses what happens through different layers of the brain to see if activity occurs at deeper levels for differing periods of time. The short answer to the question of whether there are differences is that for the most part, and in terms of differences that would be important to our area of interest – conscious activity – there are no major distinguishable differences in the timings and nature of initial activity in the different layers of brain immediately after death.

The diagram shows the rough timings with ECoG vs heart rate and blood oxygen levels (SpO2). ECoG (electrocorticogram) is invasive and uses probes that penetrate the exposed surface of the brain, as opposed to EEG – (electroencephalogram) which uses sensors placed on the scalp. This enables the study to identify electrical activity deeper in the brain.

What we see is that about 30 seconds after the removal of oxygen the heartbeat slows quickly to about 10% of its normal rate, then within about another 30 seconds normal brain activity ceases and the ECoG flatlines or becomes “isoelectric”. During this 30 seconds after CA it is plausible that conscious activity could occur. This is the claim made in the Bojigin study that got the materialist community so excited since it could be argued that NDEs occurred during this period. This paper references that discussion without asserting any new conclusions, or indeed using the findings from this study to confirm those conclusions. They have nothing to say about rats having NDEs. Well done, that is good science.

About a minute after brain activity has stopped, brain cells (neurons) undergo depolarisation (WAD). This basically means the cells move to a a non-functional, but recoverable state. Prior to this they are in a state of readiness and functional, but are not functioning. During this wave of depolarisation there is a slow wave electrical signal. This is not associated with conscious activity and is just a marker of the change in electrical state of the brain. Unlike the initial activity, this wave is not synchronous across all layers, i.e. it occurs like a wave spreading across the layers. Resuming the flow of oxygen allows for the brain to slowly recover activity.

Other than showing that the changes in brain activity that occur immediately after death are uniform through all layers of the brain, they also demonstrated that subsequent depolarisation is triggered in a set of neurons in a specific layer, and the WAD spreads from this locale. This is all very interesting if you are neurobiologist, but what does it mean for NDEs?

Unfortunately there were no able to recall awareness in follow up interviews, hence the lack of statements on Rat NDEs. As a result this study does not provide any new data to inform us about the viability of conscious activity immediately around the time of death. We knew that EEG activity that may be associated with consciousness persisted for about half a minute after CA from the previous rat study and the coma patients who had their life support withdrawn. Without any reports from the rats or dead coma patients of recollections of AWARENESS, it is impossible to correlate this activity with NDEs.

Let’s for a moment consider the wider implications of this in light of Parnia’s disinhibition hypothesis. As I have said before I have no beef with the hypothesis itself – namely that at some point after death the brain enters a different state in which consciousness is able to access previously unknown dimensions of reality. It may even be that dissociation occurs and the consciousness and brain part company and that this may be associated with specific markers observed on EEG – in fact if you adhere to the dualist philosophy, then it makes perfect sense. My beef is…well read previous posts! Presumably the brain would dissociate or become disinhibited while activity is still observed on the EEG or in this case ECoG, in which case it must happen in the first 30 seconds after CA (and in the absence of CPR or alternative life support). It is possible that full dissociation occurs during the WAD phase, but there are no markers of consciousness associated with this.

One of the limitations of the AWARE II study was the fact that on average it took over 4 minutes after CA for the specially designed crash carts to reach the resuscitation suites and another minute to get ready. This means that the first moments of any OBE, which presumably begin 30 seconds, or at the latest, a minute after CA, would be missed. In fact it is highly likely that if the OBE starts immediately after the EEG stops, then the crash cart probably arrives after the consciousness has been sucked up the tunnel!

Another post on a paper reviewing psychedelics and NDE-like experiences will appear before long. In the meantime, if you didn’t buy my book previously, then I have uploaded an updated version that contains an analysis of the AWARE II publication from last year, along with 7 OBEs that were verified by HCPs that are in my view every bit as convincing as iPad verified OBE – I am running a free promotion for 3 days on the Kindle version. It is available in all Amazon markets:

If you can’t be bothered reading my book or have read it already, but just want to “tip” me (Orson – real name) because you enjoy my work, then click below:

Buy Orson a Coffee

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14 Dec 2023
121 Comments

I am in good company!

It appears that I am not the only one who finds Parnia’s disinhibition assertions disconcerting (try saying that fast after a couple of glasses of wine!).

It is fine theorising that this may be what is going on, but the fact is some of his comments regarding the factuality of his hypothesis to the media (the Guardian and BBC in particular) seem to move beyond the word “may” to “is”. I have provided examples of this in previous posts, and it seems that two of the most respected researchers in this field have made some comments, to which Parnia has decided to reply in the journal (click on the pic for full article):

Now I can’t find the original comments, but it seems they stated that the subjects were not conscious. The fact is we do not know what was going on, so it is wrong to assert that there is or is not activity of any kind that is truly conscious. Since the vast majority of examples of EEG activity were in patients who sadly died, we do not know whether they had conscious experiences. Personally I believe the patients with EEG activity may have had some sort of CPRIC episode if anything, but I do not know that, no more than Parnia knows whether they had a disinhibition episode.

The fact is that only 2 of the 28 patients who were interviewed had interpretable EEG data. It is not mentioned whether there was activity or not, but either way these patients were not in the 11 who had recollections from their time during CA. If anything this would provide evidence against Parnia’s hypothesis.

I think that it is OK hypothesising as he does in the paper, but some of his recent media noise has gone beyond this, and I suspect that is why these two great men have given their esteemed colleague an academic poke. A part of me wonders if he is playing a much deeper game here, but I will keep my thoughts on that to myself.

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18 Nov 2023
58 Comments

Top Five NDEs

The most compelling veridical NDEs

In the absence of a scientifically verified OBE, I am going to update my book with the latest results from AWARE II and supplement it with the most compelling HCP (healthcare professional) verified OBEs. This is my starter list, please please add ones you think are more compelling or more recent in the comments then I will create a poll – remember they must be HCP verified:

Pam Reynolds

Dr Chris Yerrington’s case

Dr Rudy’s case

AWARE I NDE

Van Lommel study OBE

I want to include Maria and the Nike shoe (described by Kimberly Sharp in After the Light) but has this ever been verified in a documented manner by one of the attending HCPs? All the others have an MD or a senior nurse prepared to put their name to it.

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11 Jul 2023
113 Comments

AWARE II Final Publication – speculation does not imply association

[and finally the answer to my 3.5 year old vital question!]

Firstly, congratulations to Dr Sam Parnia and the team of researchers who conducted this awesome study which is the first study ever to find biomarkers of consciousness during CPR in the absence of heartbeat. Let me repeat that because it is a huge achievement. This is the first study to ever find markers of consciousness during CPR. I can just see the materialists entering a wild feeding frenzy, their eyes rolling back in ecstasy as they chew on this headline, but what they might think is raw fillet may turn out to be TOFU (no offence to vegans – just a matophor).

This is a pre-proof, rather than a pre-print (which was put out there earlier in the year). That means it is only a proofread away from full publication rather than a serious review and edit. This is for all intents and purposes the final publication that will appear in Resuscitation. The link is below:

AWARE II final paper link

Essentially the results are not much different from those presented at AHA last November, and in the pre-print mentioned above and found in my summary in the following link, WITH ONE VERY BIG EXCEPTION.

AWARE II preprint analysis

Before I draw your attention to the exception which answers the question I sent to the Parnia lab in January 2020, I will just remind you all of the key findings:

  • The study finished recruiting from 25 sites, predominantly located in the UK or US, in March 2020 (at least for this analysis – is it the final analysis? They are still recruiting according to NYU website).
  • The key findings are summarized as follows and all the quotations are from the citation beneath:

Of 567 IHCA, 53(9.3%) survived, 28 of these (52.8%) completed interviews, and 11(39.3%) reported CA memories/perceptions suggestive of consciousness. Four categories of experiences emerged: 1) emergence from coma during CPR (CPR-induced consciousness [CPRIC]) 2/28(7.1%), or 2) in the post-resuscitation period 2/28(7.1%), 3) dream-like experiences 3/28(10.7%), 4) transcendent recalled experience of death (RED 6/28(21.4%)…. Low survival limited the ability to examine for implicit learning. Nobody identified the visual image, 1/28(3.5%) identified the auditory stimulus. Despite marked cerebral ischemia (Mean rSO2=43%) normal EEG activity (delta, theta and alpha) consistent with consciousness emerged as long as 35-60 minutes into CPR.

S. Parnia, T. Keshavarz Shirazi, J. Patel, L. Tran, N. Sinha, C. O’Neill, E. Roellke, A. Mengotto, S. Findlay, M. McBrine, R. Spiegel, T. Tarpey, E. Huppert, I. Jaffe, A.M. Gonzales, J. Xu, E. Koopman, G.D. Perkins, A. Vuylsteke, B.M. Bloom, H. Jarman, H. Nam Tong, L. Chan, M. Lyaker, M. Thomas, V. Velchev, C.B. Cairns, R. Sharm, E. Kulstad, E. Scherer, T. O’Keeffe, M. Foroozesh, O. Abe, C. Ogedegbe, A.Girgis, D. Pradhan, C.D. Deakin, AWAreness during REsuscitation – II: A Multi-Center Study of Consciousnessand Awareness in Cardiac Arrest, Resuscitation (2023), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resuscitation.2023.109903
  • Key points on the target methodology:

The headphones were placed over the ears during CPR. One minute after being switched on, the tablet randomly projected one of 10 stored images onto its screen, and after five minutes (derived from implicit learning protocols during anesthesia) 6-10 audio cues (three fruits: apple-pear banana) were delivered to the headphones every minute for five minutes.

Parnia et al Resuscitation (2023)
  • One person identified the fruit (audio recall). Another had visual recollections of the ER scene, but could also feel things, so possibly CPRIC.

Key comment from discussion:

This is the first report of biomarkers of consciousness during CA/CPR.

Parnia et al Resuscitation (2023)

And:

Recent reports of a surge of gamma and other physiological electrical activity (ordinarily seen with lucid consciousness) during and after cardiac standstill and death, led to speculation that biomarker(s) of lucidity at death may exist [rat study and coma patients], which our findings support. Taken together, these studies and ours provide a novel understanding of how lucid experiences in relation to cardiac standstill/death may arise […] However, the paradoxical finding of lucidity and heightened reality when brain function is severely disordered, or has ceased raises the need to consider alternatives to the epiphenomenon theory [materialist].

Parnia et al Resuscitation (2023)

I don’t include anything from the data collected from subjects who were not part of the AWARE II clinical protocol, and who sent their subjective reports of NDEs to the lab. I don’t believe it belongs in this paper and potentially dilutes its very real scientific merit and is ultimately largely irrelevant to the key findings. [If anyone from the lab is reading this, I know that sounds snotty, it is just my subjective view, not intended as a criticism]

So there we have it, in conclusion:

  • Due to the difficulties in recruiting only 28 patients were interviewed
  • Of these 6 had NDEs (or REDs)
  • The study didn’t have any visual hits (unsurprising given only 6 had NDEs)
  • The audio hit was inconclusive
  • EEG data “consistent with consciousness” was recorded in patients up to 60 minutes after CA began (although the majority of this EEG activity would not in fact be consistent with lucid consciousness)

So now for the big piece of news, probably the most important piece of data (for us here at least) that he presents, which is buried in the text underneath Figure 1 and the answer to the question I have been asking for 3.5 years and is the most relevant to this study – namely, did any of the patients who had NDEs/REDs have EEG data consistent with consciousness?

I had already guessed that there would be no data due to the difficulty in getting in interpretable EEG results, and I was right:

“Two of 28 interviewed subjects had EEG data, but weren’t among those with explicit cognitive recall”

Parnia et al Resuscitation (2023)

This is the money line. This is the one that shoots down any materialist attempts to use this study to say that NDEs are proven to be a result of brain activity (and there will be lots of attempts).

This is also where I dispute some elements of the discussion, particularly the “as an association doesn’t imply causation” statement, which I would normally agree with, but in this instance THERE IS NO ASSOCIATION. NONE. NADA. ZERO.

None of the subjects who reported conscious recollections, including the 6 who had NDEs had any EEG data, let alone EEG data that showed markers of consciousness. Let me repeat, because of this it is entirely false to say there is an association of brain activity with NDEs. This is no different from the findings from the rat studies or the coma patient studies. Speculation does not imply association!

FROM THIS STUDY AND ALL PREVIOUS STUDIES THERE ARE NO REPORTED NDEs THAT HAVE ANY EEG DATA, LET ALONE DATA SHOWING BRAIN ACTIVITY, ASSOCIATED WITH THESE REPORTS.

This means that we are back to square one. Despite the valiant efforts of Parnia and his team, we are no closer to having scientific evidence supporting any understanding of the cause of NDEs or the nature of consciousness. To say otherwise, especially without association, is pure speculation.

Look forward to the discussion, make sure you come back and check the comments.

Finally, I have had to pay for this paper and the upkeep of this blog, so would appreciate a tip if you have benefitted from reading this and not tipped before (or feel free to tip again if you are rich/and or generous 😊 )

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/orsonw23W

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25 Apr 2023
40 Comments

Not Near-Death NDEs

Incidence of near-death experiences in patients surviving a prolonged critical illness and their long-term impact: a prospective observational study

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.

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08 Mar 2023
145 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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22 Nov 2022
258 Comments

Of Mice and Men (or rats and humans)

Thank you Jordan for letting me know that the Parnia lab has added a video of the AHA presentation to their YouTube channel. Here is the link below:

Audio with slides of Dr Parnia’s presentation of the AWARE II study at AHA November 2022

First of all, the slides were ever so slightly different from the ones that I posted a couple of weeks ago, but there was nothing fundamentally different in the message. The presentation was very balanced and factual in nature. He is a very good presenter and extremely credible. Key points:

  1. Around the 5 minute mark he discusses recruitment and details the huge issues they have with getting significant numbers to the interview stage. While this is frustrating for everyone who wishes to get enough data to be able to draw definitive conclusions, we must acknowledge that the Parnia lab are doing their very best to get results.
  2. At 10.20 he discusses the EEG data, and this is where the title of this post has come from. We have data from EEG in rats suggesting that there is some brain activity, and we have human data from previous case studies and now AWARE II suggesting “spikes” in EEG activity, including some gammar, which he specifically states is “usually associated with consious thought processes, recall of memory and so on…”. It is important to note that the amount of gammar is not presented.
  3. At 11.35 he makes a very intriguing comment in the discussion on implicit learning. He acknowledges that the sample size was too small and that we need larger studies to get better information on testing the implicit learning aspect, but he said this: “we had one case that worked“. Nothing more. Mmm.
  4. He spends a considerable amount of time on the fact that most patients when discussing their life review focus on morality and ethics rather than religion. He suggests this is curious and intimates that this is not something easily explained by medical or scientific understanding.

There is very little for the dualist in his presentation, but without exceptionally strong supporting evidence, I would not expect that at a scientific congress like this one. He gives lots of meat to the materialists, more so than we thought. The suggested implication that the EEG spikes are associated with consious processes and memory recall is provocative to us, especially without any specific evidence that links the two seperate observations (they may not even be in the same people). I believe he is giving attendees the opportunity to think what they want of this, and many will go down the rat route and mix dubious association with actual causation. It is unclear from this whether he believes this to be the case, but given his past statements, I suspect not.

As stated previously, in the absence of time stamped EEG data correlating with specific recollections, the EEG data is thought provoking, but does not inform us what is actually happening. I very much hope the paper will have more on this.

But what about the case “that worked”? No further details were provided, and I suspect he is saving that for the final publication. Is he referring to the 1 visual or 2 auditory recollections? Why did it “work”? Watch this space, but suffice to say, once again Parnia is leaving us in a state of expectant limbo!

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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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