Near Death Experiences - new study
Here is a write up, in a national newspaper, about a study that was detailed in the Journal of Palliative Medicine. It’s purportedly about Near Death Experiences.
The gist of it is:
1. The Researcher noticed that [quote]: “moments before death the patients experienced a burst in brainwave activity lasting from 30 seconds to three minutes.”
2. People have been known to experience Near Death Experiences*
3. [Quote] “We think the near-death experiences could be caused by a surge of electrical energy released as the brain runs out of oxygen,” said Lakhmir Chawla, an intensive care doctor at George Washington University medical centre in Washington.”
* Although only be people who did not die at the time.
The problem here is that we are trying to shoe-horn these EEG measures arbitrarily into Near Death Experiences which may, or may not, have taken place. All the patients died, they could not report back on what their perceptual experiences involved. Did they experience NDEs? Was it something else? Who knows!
I could change point 2 to any number of things (An Out of Body Experience, the Tunnel of Light phenomenon, Remote Viewing, a feeling of peace, Meeting God, Meeting the Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc) and they could all be equally valid.
In fact the only thing that seems certain is that brain wave activity preceded death. Who wants to make the case that the burst of brain activity was a causal factor in patient mortality? ;)
Other studies (e.g. Parnia & Fenwick, 2002) which have looked at oxygen levels and the experiences people actually reported post-resuscitation, have shown that anoxia (lack of oxygen) may not be a contributing factor in NDEs.
In a nutshell, we don’t really know what is going on. I’m not sure how much this new study adds to the debate.
