Near-death experience

A near-death experience (NDE) is the perception reported by a person who nearly died or who was clinically dead and revived. They are somewhat common, especially since the development of cardiac resuscitatation techniques, and are reported in approximately one-fifth of persons who revive from clinical death. The experience often includes an out-of-body experience.

The phenomenology of a NDE usually includes physiological, psychological and transcendental factors (Parnia, Waller, Yeates & Fenwick, 2001). Typically a near-death experience involves the sensation of floating above one's body and seeing the surrounding area, followed by the sensation of passing through a tunnel, meeting deceased relatives, encountering a being of light (Morse, Conner & Tyler, 1985). There have also been accounts of patients seeing things they apparently could not have seen had they not been out of their bodies.

A Rasch scaling validation of a 'core' near-death experience (Lange, Greyson & Houran, 2004) notes that the NDE - with increasing intensity - reflect peace, joy and harmony, followed by insight and mystical or religious experiences. The same study also notes that the most intense NDEs involve an awareness of things occurring in a different place or time.

NDE as an afterlife experience

Many see near death experiences as an afterlife experience, and some accounts include elements that are most simply explained (see Occam's Razor) by an out-of-body consciousness. For example, in one, a woman accurately described a surgical instrument she had not seen previously, as well as conversation that occurred while she was clinically dead. In another from the proactive Dutch NDE study[1], a nurse removed the dentures of an unconscious heart attack victim, and was asked by him after his recovery to return them. But researchers have been unsuccessful in running proactive experiments to establish out-of-body consciouness. There have been numerous experiments in which a random message was placed in a hospital in a manner that it would be invisible to patients or staff yet visible to a floating being, and thus far, no person experiencing a near death experience has been able to reproduce the message.

Nevertheless, the subjective reality of NDEs is well documented.

It is generally accepted that some people who reported NDEs were shown to be clinically dead, sometimes longer than a day.
Those who report NDEs typically respond by a major change of life perspective and direction, generally away from self-orientation toward outward orientation, or what they call a more loving life. Atheists adopt a spiritual view of life. The NDE is more real than life to those who report it.
Those who report NDEs typically look forward to death, but despise suicide.

NDE as a naturalistic experience

Many see near death experiences as a purely naturalistic phenomenon.

One scientific hypothesis that attempts to explain NDEs was originally suggested by accounts of the side-effects of the drug Ketamine (see link to Dr. Karl Jansen below). Ketamine was used as an anesthetic on U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War; but its use was abandoned and never spread to civilian use because the soldiers complained about sensations of floating above their body and seeing bright lights. Further experiments by numerous researchers verified that intravenous injections of ketamine could reproduce all of the commonly cited features of an NDE; including a sense that the experience is "real" and that one is actually dead, separation from the body, visions of loved ones, and transcendent mystical experiences.

Ketamine acts by blocking the receptor for the neurotransmitter glutamate. Glutamate is released in abundance when brain cells die, and if it weren't blocked, the glutamate overload would cause other brain cells to die as well. In the presence of excess glutamate, the brain releases its own glutamate receptor blocker to defend itself; and it is these blockers Dr. Jansen (amongst others) hypothesize as the cause of many NDEs.

Critics of this hypothesis point out that although some aspects of the experience may be similar, not all NDEs exactly fit the ketamine experience; and that while it might be possible to chemically simulate the experience, this does not refute the possibility that true NDEs have a spiritual component. As even Dr. Jansen notes:

Claims that NDE's must have a single explanation (e.g. Ring, 1980), or that a scientific theory must explain all of the experiences ever given the name of NDE (e.g. Gabbard and Twemlow, 1989) are difficult to justify.

Swiss scientists published in 2002 in Nature (Blanke, O., Ortigue, S., Landis, T., Seeck, M. Stimulating own-body perceptions. Nature, 419, 269 - 270, (2002).) found that electrical stimulation on a specific brain region repeatedly caused out-of-body experiences to the patient.

See also: Out-of-body experience in which experiences like NDE occur in epilepsy, brain stimulation etc.

Near-Death Studies - The research field

Dr. Raymond Moody is recognized as the father of NDE research. He has chronicled and studied many of these experiences in his books The Last Laugh, Life After Life and Reflections on Life After Life. Another early pioneer is Dr. Kenneth Ring, co-founder and Past President of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS). Other well-known researchers in the field - who support a moderate or after-death view - are Kevin Williams, Bruce Greyson, Michael Sabom, Melvin Morse, PMH Atwater, Yvonne Kason, Sam Parnia, Peter Fenwick, Jody A. Long and Jeffrey P. Long. Among the researchers who support a naturalistic and neurological base for the experience we find the British psychologist Susan Blackmore, and founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, Michael Shermer.

Most of the research in the field of Near-Death studies is co-ordinated through the Association for Near-death Studies, also known as IANDS. IANDS was founded in Connecticut USA in 1978 order to meet the needs of early researchers and experiencers within this field of interest. Today the association includes researchers, health care professionals, NDE-experiencers and people close to experiencers, as well as other interested people. One of its main goals is to promote thoughtful study and discussion within this very delicate research field. IANDS is also responsible for the publishing of the Journal of Near-Death studies, the only scholarly journal in the field.

Dr. Rick Strassman has attempted to induce NDE in a clinical setting by injecting subjects with DMT. This research is described in his book DMT - The Spirit Molecule' (2001).

Spiritual and psychological after-effects of NDE

Accounts by NDE subjects sometimes include long-term after-effects such as a heightened sense of intuition; seeing apparently disconnected events being connected as in the phenomenon of synchronicity; and internal feelings of bodily energy and/or altered states of consciousness similar to those associated with kundalini (Greyson 1993; 2000).

Greyson (1983) developed the The Near-Death Experience Scale in order to measure the after-effects of a near-death experience. Research on the after-effects of Near-death experiences note that the aftermath of the experience is associated with both positive and healthy outcomes related to personality and appreciation for life, but also a spectrum of clinical problems in situations where the NDE-experiencer has had difficulties with the experience (Orne, 1995). These difficulties are usually connected to the interpretation of the experience and the integration of it into everyday life. The near-death experience as a focus of clinical attention and the inclusion of a new diagnostic category in the DSM-IV called Religious or spiritual problem (Code V 62.89) is discussed more closely by Greyson (1997).

Simpson (2001) notes that the number of people that have experienced an NDE might be higher than the number of cases that are actually reported. It is not unusual for Near-Death experiencers to feel profound insecurity related to how they are going to explain something that the surrounding culture perceives as a strange paranormal incident.

References and Further reading - Books and Articles

Clinical and Academic

Blackmore S. (1993)Dying to live: Science and Near-Death Experiences.London: Harper Collins.
Greyson, B. (1983). The Near-Death Experience Scale: Construction, reliability, and validity. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 171, 369-375.
Greyson, B. (1993). Near-death experiences and the physio-kundalini syndrome. Journal of Religion and Health, 32, 277-290.
Greyson B. (1997) The near-death experience as a focus of clinical attention. J Nerv Ment Dis. 1997 May;185(5):327-34. PubMed abstract PMID: 9171810
Greyson, B. (2000). Some neuropsychological correlates of the physio-kundalini syndrome. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 32, 123-134.
Lange R, Greyson B, Houran J. (2004) A Rasch scaling validation of a 'core' near-death experience. British Journal of Psychology, Volume: 95 Part: 2 Page: 161 -- 177
Morse M., Conner D. and Tyler D. (1985) Near-Death Experiences in a pediatric population. A preliminary report, American Journal of Disease of Children, n. 139, 1985. PubMed abstract PMID: 4003364
Orne RM. (1995) The meaning of survival: the early aftermath of a near-death experience.: Res Nurs Health. 1995 Jun;18(3):239-47. PubMed abstract PMID: 7754094
Parnia S, Waller DG, Yeates R, Fenwick P (2001) A qualitative and quantitative study of the incidence, features and aetiology of near death experiences in cardiac arrest survivors. Resuscitation. 2001 Feb;48(2):149-56. PubMed abstract PMID: 11426476
Shermer, Michael (1998) Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time. W.H. Freeman & Company
Simpson SM. (2001) Near death experience: a concept analysis as applied to nursing. J Adv Nurs. 2001 Nov;36(4):520-6. PubMed abstract PMID: 11703546
Strassman R. (2001)DMT - The Spirit Molecule. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press
van Lommel P, van Wees R, Meyers V, Elfferich I. (2001) Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A prospective Study in the Netherlands. Lancet. 2001 Dec 15;358(9298):2039-45.

External links

Academic

On-line sites and articles