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The most comprehensive research into near-death experience deals a kill shot to skeptics and aims to change how science views the afterlife.
Science has studied the near-death experience for more than 20 years. Most research has concluded NDEs are real and unexplainable, but scientists have been slow to accept consciousness beyond death. A new scientific study by Jeffrey Long, M. D. may change that. The research compiled in his new book, Evidence of the Afterlife, represents the largest, most comprehensive study of near-death experience and according to the study’s author is, “a real game-changer”.
Dr. Long explains, “we looked at nine lines of evidence that indicate the reality of near-death experiences and their consistent message of an afterlife. With each of these lines of evidence we carefully reviewed all prior scholarly research on the subject and made our contributions with our original research… from my point of view, the scientific term is compelling, but you can put it another way — the nine lines of evidence that I present is proof of the reality of near-death experiences.”
The conclusions of Dr. Long’s research are paradigm smashing for near-death experience skeptics who’ve argued that limited brain functioning may explain NDEs. “What near-death experiencers see correlates to their time of cardiac arrest and it is almost uniformly accurate in every detail. That pretty much refutes the possibility that these could be illusionary fragments, or unreal memories associated with hypoxia, chemicals, REM intrusion, anything that could cause brain dysfunction”, Dr. Long stated.
“I looked at over 280 near-death experiences that had out-of-body observations of Earthly ongoing events… If near-death experiences were just fragments of memory, unrealistic remembrances of a time approaching unconsciousness or returning from unconsciousness, there is no chance that the observations would have a high percent of completely accurate observations. They’d be dream-like or hallucinations. But 98% of them were entirely realistic… In fact, these observations of Earthly ongoing events often include observations of things that would be impossible for them to be aware of with any sensory function from their physical body. For example, they can see the tops of buildings. They can see far away. In my study over 60 of these near-death experiencers later went back and independently attempted to verify what they saw in the out-of-body state. Every single one of these over 60 near-death experiencers that reported checking or verifying their own observations found that they were absolutely correct in every detail.”, Dr. Long said.
While some near-death experience researchers have been reluctant to make the leap from NDEs to proof of the afterlife, Dr. Long is convinced by his research findings, “I’ve gone over every skeptic argument I can get my hands on. At the end of the day, I have no doubt in my mind near-death experience is for real. It’s a profound and reassuring message that we all have an afterlife. Every single one of us. And it’s wonderful. It is probably the greatest thrill of my life to be able to carry forward that important message to the world. I wouldn’t do it if I weren’t absolutely convinced that it’s correct.”
The conclusions of this research will be controversial, but Dr. Long stands ready to take on the critics, “I would be delighted to debate any near-death experience skeptic, any time, any place, on any media, as long as they’re scholarly, well informed, and as long as it can be a very high-level, intellectual debate.”
Jeffrey Long, M.D., is a physician practicing the specialty of radiation oncology (use of radiation to treat cancer) in Houma, Louisiana. Dr. Long has served on the Board of Directors of IANDS (International Association for Near-Death Studies), and is actively involved in NDE research. His book, Evidence of the Afterlife (HarperCollins), was published in 2010.
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Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on today’s show I have an interview with Dr. Jeff Long, author of, Evidence of the Afterlife. As you’ll hear, Dr. Long is probably one of the most qualified near-death experience researchers. He’s just compiled a huge body of that research into this book. This guy delivers the goods. I had a chance to interview him a few months ago for the documentary film that I’ve told some of you about that we’re putting together. He’s on top of his game. A medical doctor, well qualified in the field of medicine; also a very accomplished researcher.
Near-death experience skeptic, Dr. Kevin Nelson says the burden of proof is on experiencers to show their experiences are real.
We all dream, but do we know when we’re dreaming? Recent research from Dr. Kevin Nelson of the University of Kentucky suggests that near-death experience is akin to dreaming, and uses the same rapid eye movement mechanism associated with sleep. In a recent interview on Sketiko.com, Dr. Nelson defends this controversial research that contradicts the accounts of thousands of near-death experiencers:
Dr. Kevin Nelson: Then you ask how can we have experiences with a flat EEG? My question to you is, that’s an extraordinary claim. Where is the data that says the experience that they later remembered actually happened at the time the EEG was flat?
Alex Tsakiris: Penny Sartori’s research, where she went and interviewed people about their resuscitation process and found that people who have a near-death experience are much more accurate in reporting the specific events that go on during resuscitation, is pretty good, solid research that backs up what so many of the near-death experiencers say, which is that this was…
Dr. Kevin Nelson: Where’s the data?
Alex Tsakiris: Well, that’s data. I mean, if you ask people…
Dr. Kevin Nelson: No, what is her data?
Alex Tsakiris: Her data is that they’re statistically significantly more likely to recount the…
Dr. Kevin Nelson: No, that’s her conclusion. What’s her data?
Alex Tsakiris: Her data is the number of events in the resuscitation process that they’re able to recall. That’s the data.
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Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on this episode of Skeptiko, I’m going to dig into the near-death experience research a little bit further. It’s just fascinating to me. Every time I turn over a new stone, it gets more and more interesting.
The stone I was looking to turn over today came about when I was Googling near-death experience research. What pops up over and over again in the most popular mainstream science kind of publications like CNN Health or CBS Science News, Time Magazine, these folks who just touch on this, what pops up over and over again is some research that was done a couple years ago by this guy at the University of Kentucky named Kevin Nelson. You’re going to hear from him today. The way CNN summed up his research is as follows:
“Nelson thinks that near-death experiences are a part of the dream mechanism and that the person having the experience is in a REM (rapid eye movement) state.”
Neurologist and University of Toledo Neuroscience Researcher, Dr. John Greenfield considers the EEG data from patients with near death experience (NDE).
For near death experience skeptics, medical evidence of a flat EEG during an out of body experience has always been a stumbling block. After all, a brain dead patient can’t hallucinate. But, does a flat EEG really mean no brain activity? NDE doubters have claimed activity deep inside the brain, beyond the reach of EEG instruments, must account for the complex “realer than real” experiences reported by those who briefly pass into the afterlife. Now, University of Toledo Neuroscience researcher, and EEG expert, Dr. John Greenfield explains why this claim doesn’t hold up.
“It’s very unlikely that a hypoperfused brain [someone with no blood flow to the brain], with no evidence of electrical activity could generate NDEs. Human studies as well as animal studies have typically shown very little brain perfusion [blood flow] or glucose utilization when the EEG is flat. There are deep brain areas involved in generating memories that might still operate at some very reduced level during cardiac arrest, but of course any subcortically generated activity can’t be brought to consciousness without at least one functioning cerebral hemisphere. So even if there were some way that NDEs were generated during the hypoxic state [while the brain is shut off from oxygen], you would not experience them until reperfusion [blood flow] allowed you to dream them or wake up and talk about them”, Greenfield stated.
NDE Researcher, Dr. Penny Sartori, examines memories of resuscitation by patients suffering cardiac arrest.
With near death experience cases making there way into the, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Psychiatry, and other major medical journals, NDE doubters have looked to the timing of patient memories as a way of explaining this unexplainable phenomena. If memories of out of body travel, and all embracing love occur after ones brush with death, NDEs may still fit within our medical science worldview.
The timing of NDE memories is the research question Dr. Penny Sartori sought to answer, “I worked in the intensive care unit and because of the nature of my job, of course, I’d come across a lot of death. And of course makes you wonder what happens when we die. For five years I gathered data, where I spoke to patients in the intensive care unit and particularly patients who’d had a cardiac arrest. When these patients revived, as soon as they were medically fit, I approached them and asked the simple question, ‘Did you have any memory of the time that you were unconscious?’”
“For the people who had a near-death experience and out of body experience [their recollection of resuscitation] was really quite accurate and I decided then to ask the control group, the people who’d had a cardiac arrest but had no recollection of anything at all. I asked them if they would reenact their resuscitation scenario and tell me what they thought that we had done to resuscitate them. And what I found is that many of the patients couldn’t even guess as to what we’d done. They had no idea at all. And then some of them did make guesses, but these were based on TV hospital dramas that they’d seen. I found that what they reported was widely inaccurate. So there was a stark contrast really in the very accurate out of body experiences reported and then the guesses that the control group had made.”, Dr. Sartori reported.
While research like this may never be enough to convince dogmatic skeptics, the medical evidence for near death experience continues to challenge us to reexamine our beliefs about what lies beyond death.
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Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and I want to start by thanking those of you who’ve contacted me directly since the last episode of Skeptiko and have joined me on Facebook or joined me on Twitter. It’s been great to get to know you, to dialogue a little bit, and I hope we can keep that going.
Guest: Dr. Yvonne Kason, discusses her experience with, and research of, near-death experiences and other transformative experiences like Kundalini, death bed visions, and past life recall.
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Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on this episode of Skeptiko, I have a very interesting interview with Dr. Yvonne Kason. She’s a physician and a teacher with over 25 years of experience at the University of Toronto School of Medicine, but she also has had several near-death experiences.
She’s expanded that personal experience into an extensive amount of research on transformative spiritual experiences. Her book and her interview are not only important for validating the scientific legitimacy of these experiences, but also I think to help anyone who’s had such an experience normalize it and put it into some kind of context that we can understand from an everyday, Western perspective. Here then is my interview with Dr. Yvonne Kason.
Guest: Marilynn Hughes, performs an out-of-body travel experiment for a mother grieving the loss of her daughter.
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THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED
Alex Tsakiris: Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on this episode we’re going to look at the psychic medium experiment that we’ve been doing. I haven’t spoken much about it in the last few episodes, but there’s been a lot going on, really for the last few months.
Let me take everyone back to the beginning, at least the Skeptiko beginning. Let’s start by maybe defining terms a little bit. I think everyone who’s listening to this show is probably familiar with psychic medium communication. If someone’s lost a loved one they go and talk to a psychic or a medium and they try and connect with that loved one through some anomalous means that we don’t fully understand.
Guest: Dr. Peter Fenwick, neuropsychiatrist, world renown expert on end of life phenomena, including near-death experiences and deathbed visions. His most recent book is, The Art of Dying.
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Science has studied the near-death experience for more than 20 years. Most research has concluded NDEs are real and unexplainable, but scientists have been slow to accept consciousness beyond death. A new scientific study by Jeffrey Long, M. D. may change that. The research compiled in his new book, Evidence of the Afterlife, represents the largest, most comprehensive study of near-death experience and according to the study’s author is, “a real game-changer”.
We all dream, but do we know when we’re dreaming? Recent research from Dr. Kevin Nelson of the University of Kentucky suggests that near-death experience is akin to dreaming, and uses the same rapid eye movement mechanism associated with sleep. In a recent interview on Sketiko.com, Dr. Nelson defends this controversial research that contradicts the accounts of thousands of near-death experiencers:
For near death experience skeptics, medical evidence of a flat EEG during an out of body experience has always been a stumbling block. After all, a brain dead patient can’t hallucinate. But, does a flat EEG really mean no brain activity? NDE doubters have claimed activity deep inside the brain, beyond the reach of EEG instruments, must account for the complex “realer than real” experiences reported by those who briefly pass into the afterlife. Now, University of Toledo Neuroscience researcher, and EEG expert, Dr. John Greenfield explains why this claim doesn’t hold up.
