AwareofAware

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

15 Sep 2023
81 Comments

“News” about AWARE II publication! (and a comment about “news”)

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:

Link to full AWARE study publication

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.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resuscitation.2023.109903

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.

https://nyulangone.org/news/patients-recall-death-experiences-after-cardiac-arrest

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:

More balanced NBC article with interview with Sam Parnia

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!)

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/orsonw23W

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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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14 Jun 2023
141 Comments

Consciousness: Having your AI cake and eating it

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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!

Discuss!

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11 May 2023
79 Comments

EEG surges near death prove NDEs are generated by the brain, and oily bubbles

I decided to write a very brief post on this study because it keeps popping up in the comments and people haven’t seen previous responses to it.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2216268120

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.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged ,
09 May 2023
40 Comments

Rethinking Death

So I am writing this after just watching the excellent documentary made by Dr Parnia’s group at NYU Langone. Not sure when it will be availble to view on demand, but will post here once we know.

I say it was excellent because it was well produced and gave a good summary of where we are to date in terms of our understanding of death in a highly credible manner using mostly scientists or physicians as sources, other than a couple of the NDEs. The video was very well balanced, but unfortunately provided no new scientific data. The conclusion was that studies have as yet been unable to prove the “reality” of NDEs, but neither have they disproved them. There was no detail at all on the AWARE studies, which I found strange.

Despite this, it was clear that Dr Parnia, and all the other scientists shared the view that these experiences were not explained by what we understand about natural processes in the brain. There was a strong undercurrent that dualism is the likely explanation, without explicitly saying that was the case.

I have a lot of respect for Parnia and everyone else involved in this, but I find it extremely frustrating that there is data from AWARE II that shows EEG activity consistent with consciousness during CA and CPR after up to an hour (something he alluded to in the panel discussion), and yet they have never stated whether or not any of these EEG events were in patients who reported NDEs. They know, they have the data, so why not share that? I suspect that they have no EEG data at all in those patients as only a small percentage of the entire cohort had EEG data, and most of those sadly did not survive. Why not say that?

Like I said, frustrating. Maybe the final peer reviewed paper will provide that data, although he closed the discussion by saying “this is a long process, maybe come back in 5 years and we will have something for you!”

Posted in Uncategorized
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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28 Jan 2023
228 Comments

UNCOOL (updated on 29th January)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brief summary of design, methods and results:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and

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

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

In summary there are 3 states and outcomes to consider:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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16 Jan 2023
112 Comments

AWARE II preprint analysis

So having had time to look through the preprint of the AWARE II paper, I will only add comments on new information that wasn’t present in the talk at AHA, and it basically boils down to two things – the reports of external awareness – in particular the visual report, and the EEG data.

On the report of visual awareness, this is from the paper:

“…one describing “hands being on him” and voices shouting. Another, “heard people talking…” and drugs given but without specifics. The same person (1/28 [3.5%]) perceived visual awareness of doctors. He felt like he was further away but could see what was going on, including hearing/seeing doctors getting organized and a doctor with a “surgical hat and blue scrubs”. He said he “could feel someone rubbing the bony bit” on his chest. During stage 3, no further information for independent corroboration was provided.”

When you look at this case, I would say this is much more likely to be CIPRIC than a genuine OBE. Not what I would like to say, but nonetheless feels true given he reports feeling procedures. It is possible he was “half-in half-out” but no evidence to support this UNLESS they also collected EEG and it was flat during the episode he describes…which brings me on to the EEG data. I refer specifically to this paragraph:

“EEG data were obtained from n=85 subjects, but due to electrical interference, electrode malfunction, motion artifact data, only 53 had interpretable EEG data. Thus, of 851 total EEG images captured, 466(55%) were interpretable (Figure 1.A). Of these 53, n=49 also had rSO 2 with mean SD rSO 2 43.49, consistent with significant ischemia (normal~70%). Those not-interviewed had a similar rSO 2 to those interviewed. Among the 28 interviewed survivors, mean rSO 2 was similar between those with and without memories. Although, absence of cortical brain activity (suppressed EEG) was a dominant finding (47% of data/images), seizure-like (epileptiform) activity also emerged (5%) (Figure 1.B). Importantly, near-normal/physiological EEG consistent with consciousness also emerged: delta, theta activity in 22% and 12% respectively (up to CPR 60 minutes), alpha 6% of data/images (up to CPR 35 minutes) and beta 1% (Figure 1.B). Near-normal EEG patterns were observed throughout CPR, however, their relative frequency declined over time, especially after 50 minutes of CPR. In parallel, there was a relative increase in suppressed (absent) EEG. Seizure-like activity occurred after 10mins of CPR but remained steady (~12-24% of all EEG recordings) throughout (Figure 1.B). Modeling the likelihood of the emergence of the EEG patterns, we identified a significant difference in the predicted probability of the emergence of the three categories of EEG (normal-near normal, seizure like activity, absence) with prolonged CPR duration (p<0.001) (Figure 1.C)2”

Firstly, the Parnia lab are to be congratulated on what is a truly innovative and ground-breaking piece of research. As they state in the discussion, this is the first time that real-time EEG data has been collected in a prospective study during CPR, and given the fact that near normal EEG patterns were observed in some patients throughout CPR, it raises the possibility that NDEs could be explained by brain activity. However, without further detail, and specifically the tables, I am going to guess that it is quite unlikely given that one of the 6 patients who had “transcendental” experiences has EEG data given that less than 10% of all subjects had interpretable EEG (I am assuming the percentages quoted in the above paragraph are for the whole EEG population, not just those who were interviewed…this should be changed by the editor before final publication with numbers as well as percentages). Now if one of the 6 did have interpretable EEG, then it could prove positive for either camp, but would favour the dualists. There are two scenarios if there was interpretable EEG data for any of the 6:

  1. The EEG data was inconsistent with conscious activity. This would be slightly positive for dualists…but only slightly without time stamping of validated external recollections…which we already know don’t exist.
  2. The EEG data was consistent with the potential for conscious activity. This would be slightly supportive or the materialists, but for the same reason as it would not be conclusive in scenario one it would not be conclusive here.

Ultimately, even when we do see the tables, I am pretty certain we will not be able to draw any definitive conclusions about the nature of consciousness, or of the cause of NDEs from AWARE II. Most, if not all of the EEG data, is for people who didn’t report an NDE.

Parnia points to his study in patients undergoing hypothermic circulatory arrest as maybe unlocking the puzzle. My next post will be about this, and why I am concerned that this may be a false hope, and if he did stop collecting data for AWARE II in March 2020, then he may come to regret it.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged ,
14 Jan 2023
25 Comments

AWARE II PAPER

Finally, we have a publication, albeit a preprint. Link below – it is opensource, which the final version may not be.

AWARE II PREPRINT

Thanks again to Z, always first off the mark!

Having had a very quick skim read here are my initial thoughts:

  • Nothing radically different from the presentation Parnia gave at AHA in November
  • The visual “OBE” was not verified, and would be easy for skeptics to dismiss
  • The auditory OBEs don’t sound convincing either
  • It isn’t clear whether there is any correlation (or not) between EEG signals and recalled experiences…need to read this in detail
  • A nod to the potential for better data from the COOL type study they are currently doing

I may have missed something epic, but I don’t think so. Full analysis of the details to follow below on Sunday as I am busy the rest of today. First impressions though are certainly not what we had been hoping for prior to November, but maybe what we have been expecting since then.

(FULL ANALYSIS IN NEXT POST)

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