Consciousness

• seCtIon FIVe: BoRDeRLAnDs
  before they died, but as medical expertise grew in the twentieth century, ‘near-
  death experiences’ (NDEs) were reported by survivors of cardiac arrest.
  The term ‘NDE’ was coined in 1975 by American physician Raymond Moody, who
  interviewed about fifty survivors of close brushes with death and produced a
  composite account (see the website for more detail). Subsequent studies broadly
  confirmed the main components: a tunnel, an OBE, a brilliant white or golden
  light, positive and loving emotions, visions of another world, meetings with other
  beings, a life review, and the decision to return (Ring, 1980; Murray, 2009). NDEs
  cannot be attributed to medication given near death because they tend to be
  less complex, not more so, with medication. Nor can they be explained solely by
  lack of oxygen. In some cases, blood oxygen levels have even been found to be
  higher in NDErs than in other patients (Parnia et al., 2001). Most important is that
  NDEs also occur in people who are far from death, such as those in dangerous
  experiences who think they are going to die, like Hemingway’s soldier surviving
  shell fire, or a mountaineer escaping unhurt from a terrifying fall.

Most NDEs are pleasant and even blissful, but rarer hellish experiences include

black voids and nothingness, chattering demons, black pits, naked zombie-like

creatures, and other symbols of traditional hell. On some estimates up to 15%

of NDEs are hellish, but it is hard to be accurate because people may be keen to

forget them and unwilling to talk about them. Interestingly, suicide attempters

generally report positive NDEs and are less likely to try to kill themselves again.

Highly positive after-effects are common, including greater interest in spirituality

and in caring for others, and reduced interest in material belongings or success.

These effects can be long-lasting, with NDErs in one study still reporting contin-

ued positive changes eight years after their brush with death (van Lommel et al.,

2001). Less often NDErs are left depressed and a few find themselves estranged

from family and friends by the changes that take place.

The early studies collected accounts retrospectively, making it impossible to

know how common NDEs are, but later prospective studies found out. In Britain,

medical researcher Sam Parnia and his colleagues (Parnia et al., 2001) interviewed

all survivors of cardiac arrest in a Southampton hospital during one year. Seven

out of sixty-three (11%) reported memories, of which four counted as NDEs on

the Greyson NDE scale. None had an OBE.

In the USA, a thirty-month study of 1595 consecutive patients admitted to a

cardiac care unit found that among those who suffered a cardiac arrest, 10%

reported NDEs compared with 1% of other patients (Greyson, 2003). Further pro-

spective studies have found the incidence of NDEs in survivors of cardiac arrest to

be between 9% and 23% (for a review see Blackmore, 2017, pp. 241–242).

The most-cited study of this kind was by cardiologist Pim van Lommel and his

colleagues in the Netherlands. They studied 344 consecutive patients resusci-

tated after cardiac arrest. Sixty-two (18%) reported some memories and forty-one

(12%) described a core experience (including out-of-body, tunnel, and light expe-

riences), but NDEs did not depend on the duration of cardiac arrest or medication

received. Thirty-seven of the NDErs were interviewed two years later and nearly all

retold their experiences almost exactly. When compared with those who had no

NDE, they had increased belief in an afterlife, less fear of death, a greater interest

in spirituality, and increased love and acceptance for others. Eight years after the

events, all the patients claimed positive changes (van Lommel et al., 2001).

INTERPRETING NDES

Dismissing NDEs as fabrications or wish fulfilment is unreasonable. The similari-

ties across ages and cultures, and the reliability of the findings, suggest that NDEs

have something interesting to teach us about death and consciousness. The

question is, what?

A common reaction, as to OBEs, is that NDEs are proof of dualism  – of the exis-

tence of a soul or consciousness that operates independently of the brain and

can survive death. For Kenneth Ring (1980), the experiences ‘point to a higher

spiritual world’ and access to a ‘holographic reality’; for Parnia and Fenwick (2002),

understanding NDEs will require ‘a new science of consciousness’; for van Lommel

(2009), they are evidence for non-local consciousness or ‘endless consciousness’.

Two types of evidence are commonly given in support. First, NDErs describe

‘clear’ states of consciousness with lucid reasoning and memory when their brain

is severely impaired. ‘How could a clear consciousness outside one’s body be

experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period

of clinical death with flat EEG?’, ask van Lommel and colleagues (2001, p. 2044).

Indeed, how could it? If ‘clear consciousness’ were really possible with no heart-

beat and a completely flat EEG, this would indeed change our view of the mind–

brain relationship, but this has not been demonstrated. The problem concerns

timing. There is not one case in which we know that the experiences occurred

when the person’s brain was not functioning; the NDEs could just as well have

occurred just before, during, or just after the medical crisis. A  number of phys-

iological differences have been found between NDErs and control groups, but

arguments continue about what this means for our understanding of mind, brain,

and consciousness (Trent-Von Haesler and Beauregard, 2013), and in particular it

is unclear whether the changes are a cause or a consequence of the NDE.

Second, there are many claims of the paranormal, including compelling accounts

of people seeing things at a distance which they could not possibly have known

about. Yet these cases have not stood up well to investigation (for a review see

Blackmore, 2017). For example, van Lommel supports his claims of ‘endless con-

sciousness’ and ‘memory outside the brain’ (2013) with a decades-old anecdote

reported to him second-hand about someone commonly known as ‘dentures

man’ and which even believers in life-after-death have concluded is unconvincing

(Smit, 2008).

One way to find out whether consciousness persists beyond physical death would

be to provide randomly selected, concealed targets that NDErs could see during

their experience. The best study of this kind is AWARE (AWAreness during REsus-

citation), a multi-hospital project launched in 2008 to measure brain function

at the same time as providing hidden images that NDErs might be able to see.

Sadly, none of the patients who had NDEs looked at the hidden targets (Parnia

et al., 2014). One man did have an OBE and this occurred around 20 or 30 sec-

onds into his three-minute cardiac arrest. Interestingly, odd bursts of activity have

‘at the time of physical

death consciousness

will continue to be

experienced in another

dimension, in an

invisible and immaterial

world’

(van Lommel, 2006, p. 148)

‘An individual who

should survive his

physical death is

also beyond my

comprehension [. . .];

such notions are for the

fears or absurd egoism

of feeble souls’

(Einstein, 1949/2006, p. 7)