A fellow at New York City’s Weill Cornell Medical Center, Dr. Sam Parnia is one of the world’s leading experts on the scientific study of death. Last week Parnia and his colleagues at the Human Consciousness Project announced their first major undertaking: a 3-year exploration of the biology behind “out-of-body” experiences. The study, known as AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation), involves the collaboration of 25 major medical centers through Europe, Canada and the U.S. and will examine some 1,500 survivors of cardiac arrest. TIME spoke with Parnia about the project’s origins, its skeptics and the difference between the mind and the brain.
What sort of methods will this project use to try and verify people’s claims of “near-death” experience?
When your heart stops beating, there is no blood getting to your brain. And so what happens is that within about 10 sec., brain activity ceases —as you would imagine. Yet paradoxically, 10% or 20% of people who are then brought back to life from that period, which may be a few minutes or over an hour, will report having consciousness. So the key thing here is, Are these real, or is it some sort of illusion? So the only way to tell is to have pictures only visible from the ceiling and nowhere else, because they claim they can see everything from the ceiling. So if we then get a series of 200 or 300 people who all were clinically dead, and yet they’re able to come back and tell us what we were doing and were able see those pictures, that confirms consciousness really was continuing even though the brain wasn’t functioning.
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Nowadays, we have technology that’s improved so that we can bring people back to life. In fact, there are drugs being developed right now — who knows if they’ll ever make it to the market — that may actually slow down the process of brain-cell injury and death. Imagine you fast-forward to 10 years down the line; and you’ve given a patient, whose heart has just stopped, this amazing drug; and actually what it does is, it slows everything down so that the things that would’ve happened over an hour, now happen over two days.
Here’s an article by a parapsychologist who, surprisingly, thinks he’s unlikely to find anything. BTW, there’s a link in it to her talk with former Genesis frontman, Peter Gabriel, about his attempt to set up the first “social networking site for the dead.”
We are fragile organisms with a finite operating life. Remember what it was like 10 months before you were born? You don’t because you did not exist and that’s what it will be like after you die. There is no after life. We are not aware of anything. It’s not like sleeping, it’s not like dreaming or not dreaming or being in a coma or anything. It’s just nothing, non-existence for the rest of eternity. Consciousness ceases to exist; ergo, we will cease to exist except in the memories of the people we’ve left behind. That’s not such a bad thing, is it?
Where’s the BS meter? I rank this around a 7.
Speaking of BS. Penn & Teller did a piece on their award winning Showtime program about this subject. Here is a link to the segment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAywxhVvLU4
You guessed it #3 Les, it’s Bulls#$t.
When your heart stops, your brain stops receiving oxygen. After a short time, your brain neurons will begin to fire in a last ditch effort to stay alive. There is your tunnel of light, memories and what ever else thumpers like to believe.
I remember reading about an experiment done by a critical care surgeon who was told about the the out-of-body experiences of his patients during surgery. He wrote a message on the top of the surgery lights, where the only place you could read it was be hovering over the operating room, which is where all these patients claimed to have been. No one could recall seeing the message.
#6 has it right. The experience is your brain dealing with brain damage. It is trying to make sense of what is happening (or more specifically, not happening). It is grasping as straws, so to speak.
It ends up resorting to using deeply help beliefs to interpret what is happening. That is why the experiences reflect a persons deeply held cultural and religious beliefs. It also taps in to fears and worries. So yes, Jesus freaks see Jesus. I’m sure plenty of Muslims see Mohammad.
I’ve also read about the NDE of attempted suicides, and how they claim the vast majority experience a taste of hell. I’m not sure how much stock to put into this claim because I think part might be an attempt to scare people from killing themselves. However, it does make sense and syncs with the NDE’s of others. That is, the NDE reflects your mind’s deepest held fears and beliefs. So if you are despondent enough to kill yourself, then your brain will probably not interpret the dying brain cells is a very positive way.
You will find that your mind works in a very similar fashion with dreams. Write your dreams down as much as you can and you will find that they reflect what is going on in your life. They often reflect fear and stress. During sleep as your mind does what it does during sleep to deal with the stress of life, your conscious gets glimpses of information, and makes up a story to to make sense of it.
That is what brains do. They are wired to try to make sense of signals pouring in from the body and other parts of the brain. An NDE is the brain doing exactly that, trying to make sense of crazy signals coming in.
Now that being said, there have been some NDE experiences in my own family. All have been remarkable stories. I have no reason to doubt the family members who told us what they saw, heard, and experienced. To them, it was as real as real life.
Not that I’m a big fan of Peter Gabriel (got burned out on him and Genesis 20 years ago), but his “social networking site for the dead” (according to the linked article) is just a place for friends and loved ones to post pictures and reminiscences of the dearly departed. Not as nutty as a “social networking site for the dead” sounds.
The only PG song I liked was Shock the Monkey.
What happens when we die?=====We die. End of story.
I can see 10,000 years from now the hot issue will be whether or not instantaneous travel from planet to planet via wormholes actually pass thru heaven.
We are stupid that way.
It’s an interesting subject. There have also been authenticated reports of “brain dead” patients describing ER happenings that they couldn’t have known about. So, the subject is going to be in dispute for a LONG time.
#10 – Mista Bobbolina
>>What happens when we die?=====We die.
>>End of story.
You’re pretty cocksure there, for a guy who has no idea what the f&ck happens when we die.
#12–Mustard. Precisely speaking you are quite correct. The “logic” of any other scenario does not play out.
Simple.
I’ve been through one of these things. Very powerful experience, and I can see why people think it’s something more than it is.
I also think it’s a way for the body to relax during potential trauma.
#13 bobbo
Many believe that worm food is the best we can hope for after death, but there are many more who believe that death is just the beginning.
How fun will it be for the average atheist who will have an eternity to chew on that one with no air conditioning.
Guess the greenies will also be happy with death – global warming at last.
#14–QB==I have had only one similar experience in my life and I agree with what you post but a quibble is important.
You say: “I can see why people think it’s something more than it is.” /// that is so close, but misses by a mile and sets the stage for all things mystical and religious, not to be redundant.
It is what it is. Nothing More. When you die or or nearly die and you experience traveling through a tunnel with a white light at the end and you emerge into a sun filled area of clouds—who thinks that really happened?
What is is that your brain created these sense experiences. There was no tunnel, no light, no clouds, no god. There was a chemical sense experience and thats all there was.
So, if you do “think” about what is, is remains what it is, and not what others may imagine.
When you look at an object first with the left eye and then with the right eye, do you think the object moves–or have you just demonstrated how the brain interprets reality? Same with dying.
Again–simple.
#15–contempt==no soup for you.
#17 bobbo
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Mustard, of course that logic cuts both ways, doesn’t it? Why do religions have a lock on the post death world?
I like the Penn and Teller video. I keep wondering what that poor dog did to be reincarnated with those nut cases over and over again.
I bet their is one hell of a niche market for a social networking site for the dead. Perhaps angels and demons can rate comments.
#18–well, contempt===you have to be careful on these short form written blogs. A quick perusal of this thread reveals how lunacy, humor, sarcasm, and deeply held religious beliefs cannot be separated one from the other. The core similarity causing this is that all these forms of context depart from reality. Once you do that, once you depart from reality, you need 3-4-5 points of measurement to know what tangent you are on.
For my own atheism, “I believe” ((thats a Mustard trap for blog devotees))that a merciful god, one worth the worship, can not have a hell for any of his children. Even Hitler gets a pass–or should I say Dobson?–or Palin?
What you say has a hint of truth, but it would be worse to have smiley faces all over the place to distinguish humor from belief.
But on the other hand I can see why a smiley face would be necessary when you compare Hitler to Dobson or Palin.
#22–contempt==no smiley face. We are all of the same type, just different degrees that don’t matter. We are all sinners requiring gods grace to know his presence. Thats version No 1,259 of the googleplex of different variations on a theme. Goldberg was a piker.
Death = the return of all life-sustaining chemical reactions in a living organism to equilibrium.
Near Death = NOT the above
‘Experiences’ of one do not equal the other. Any attempt to link the two is pure speculation.
If you want to know what happens to you after death, you might try calling Chuck Peck’s cell phone.
#19 – QB
>>Mustard, of course that logic cuts both ways,
>>doesn’t it? Why do religions have a lock on
>>the post death world?
I don’t believe I (or anyone in “my religion”) has said they “have a lock” on the post death world.
I believe what I believe, you believe what you believe, and they’re not the same thing.
Woo-dee-doo.
I think if you check the archives, you will find NO instances of me ridiculing adherents to the Atheist system of religious beliefs for their religious beliefs. They believe what they believe, and that’s fine.
However, you will find innumerable instances of the Atheists lampooning me for my beliefs, calling me “sheeple”, suggesting that I’m trying to force them to believe the absurd ideas that I believe, and so on ad infinitum.
Take it for what you will.
#27 “Take it for what you will.”
Some people are secure, others, less so.
#27 – Paddy-O
>>Some people are secure, others, less so.
Exactly so.
Those who seek to demean, degrade, and control those whose beliefs they disagree with would appear to fall in the latter camp.
#29 “Those who seek to demean, degrade, and control those whose beliefs they disagree with would appear to fall in the latter camp.”
Yep.
Demean? Not “you” as much as what you think or say.
Degrade? Only to the degree you actually believe what you think or say.
Control? Who does that more than your own god?
So, even though your definition doesn’t fit at all, for some demeaning, degrading, controlling and perverse reason, I am happy to be counted among the most of insecure people. Hah, Hah!!
#31 – Mista Bobbolina
>>Demean? Not “you” as much as what you think
>>or say.
What I think (and sometimes say) is what I believe, therefore what I am. By demeaning that, you are demeaning “me”. I don’t demean what you think, say, or believe. Of course, I’m not a holy (or unholy, in your case) roller, seeking to impose my beliefs on others.
>>Degrade? Only to the degree you actually
>>believe what you think or say.
There you go again. Demeaning.
>>Control? Who does that more than your own
>>god?
Bobster, I suggest you stay out of the meth-and-man-ass nutcake churches, and start learning a little about REAL spiritual beliefs. I little horizon-expansion would do you a lot of good.
Your comments on religious beliefs and spirituality make it painfully clear that you have absolutely no idea wtf you’re talking about.
Spend a little less time on the Madalyn Murray O’Hair website or reading “American Atheist”, and spend a little more time getting to know what’s going on in real life.
“The dead stay dead” Londo Molari – B5, Day of the Dead