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AWARE's study of near-death experiences

Sunniva

Sunniva

Administrator Emeritus
Hello,

I came across an article in my weekly newspaper about a new study into near-death experiences. Have anyone heard of this?

Researchers from both British and American universities, united in co-operation AWARE, are going to examine 1500 patients, who claim to have had a near death experience through various experiments. Apparantly it's not very common - a Dutch experiment a few years ago examined 344 patients of which 18% claimed to have had a near-death experience and only 4% of those claimed to have actually left the body.

The implications of this research are obviously intriguing. The main researcher Sam Parnia hopes to come to a better understanding of what our consciousness is and how it works since apparantly people are able to give detailed accounts of procedures happening when they're supposed to have no brain activity.

Study into near-death experiences

This is not the actual article that I read, but I haven't been able to find a link to something more detailed. It's very interesting and I, for one, will be following their results with great interest.

:)
Sunniva
 
That's great - many observations where nde survivors have observed things they shouldn't have known has already been collected in an anectodal way, but this type of double blind controlled study promises to be more respected among reasonable scientists, if successful. Pseudosceptics will always find a reason not to believe, though.


Some controlled studies has already been made, without any good evidence for consciouness being out of body - the studies has probably been too small & stopped too early. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html#experiments


(the text comes from a sceptic, but this section on NDE Target Identification Experiments seems mostly correct)


One can imagine priority #1 when your heart suddenly stops & you find yourself looking down at your pale body from above isn't to memorize pictures on top of shelves - it might instead be what people you care about are doing, or what the medical care personel are doing to you. And that's what most of the veridical stories we've heard from NDE survivors is about.


So this study probably needs a lot of NDE:ers until any number of them happens to look at & remember the test pictures.
 
Heja Indian ;)


The great thing about this study is also that in case they do find out that our consciousness is not necessarily connected to brain activity it will surely (I hope anyway :D ) lead the way to more scientific research on reincarnation also.
 
Sunniva,


If you go to http://www.iands.org, there is a link to Time Magazine's article on this study, which is an interview with Dr. Parnia.


This is not the first time a study like this has been tried. Dr. Bruce Greyson of the University of Virginia did a similar study with patients undergoing a cardiac operation. Unfortunately, none of the patients had an NDE, so the study had no results.


And who is Dr. Bruce Greyson? A colleage of Dr. Ian Stevenson's. He in fact replaced Dr. Stevenson as director of the Division of Perceptual Studies following Dr. Stevenson's death.


I'm sure the UVA website has been posted before, but I'll post it again. Along with information about Dr. Stevenson's work, it describes work the division has done on NDEs, OBEs, etc. Go to https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/


my2sonsmom
 
Thanks for the links my2sonsmom :)


I didn't know about the other study, but it doesn't surprise me that it didn't yield any results. As I wrote above only 4% in a Dutch study reported to have left the body. In my opinion it makes it only more interesting, because then why do some people experience OBE's when clinically dead when other don't?


Is it just a trick the mind is playing on the person in particular or does it really happen? This is just a thought, but wouldn't it be fascinating to investigate whether there is a link between people experiencing OBE's and people with past life memories? Perhaps this group of people have a more 'active' consciousness?
 
Hi, Sunniva,


Whether they are a "trick of the mind," Dr. Greyson's research definitely indicates that NDEs are healing, positive, life-changing experiences for most people who have them. (A small percentage of people have negative experiences.) This sounds a lot like the healing effect of past life experiences. It would be interesting to find out whether people who have past life memories are more likely to have NDEs. I wonder too, though, whether people are more likely to have past life memories once they have an NDE. If you look at Dr. Stevenson's biography on the UVA site, NDEs are listed as one of his interests. He must have thought a connection was possible.


my2sonsmom
 
very interesting stuff. Their is convincing anectdotal evidence with surgeons and their stories of patients. Describing impossible things.


I myself, have had about 2 dozen instances where i lay down to sleep, wake up in 10 minutes, having experienced floating outside of my body sensations. very bizarr.


However, their is a slew of people who claim that out of bodies can be self induced with hitting certain receptor sites in the brain, so I have read.
 
Just because you can replicate the response by stimulating areas of the brain with electrodes does not mean it can't happen spontaneously does it Eggwhites? It doesn't answer the question of what is really happening does it?


An analogy: just because you can change the channels on a TV by fiddling with the wires in the back does not mean there is not a TV station out there somewhere transmitting the pictures. It doesn't prove that the TV is making the pictures does it, eh?


It is interesting and all, but proves nothing. :)
 
tanguerra said:
Just because you can replicate the response by stimulating areas of the brain with electrodes does not mean it can't happen spontaneously does it Eggwhites? It doesn't answer the question of what is really happening does it?
An analogy: just because you can change the channels on a TV by fiddling with the wires in the back does not mean there is not a TV station out there somewhere transmitting the pictures. It doesn't prove that the TV is making the pictures does it, eh?


It is interesting and all, but proves nothing. :)
Click to expand...
I am not trying to argue. It is just an interesting note. It proves that our brains have the machinery to allow us to feel out of body. Just because we have a dream, does not necessarily mean we were actually outside our body.


On the other hand, as I have stated, their are stories of surgeons confirming impossible stories of patients. It is pretty hard to argue those stories.


so all in all, I definately believe in the soul out of body concept, I was not arguing that. But, I have had dreams/experiences of my own. With the given information, it is really impossible to say whether or not it is receptor site stimulation or in fact a real out of body. In this instance, I cant tell.


However, patients in hospitals, seem to confirm soul out of body cases providing the stories are accurate
 
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