Near-death experiences and the spiritual realm

 A new book is out in which a psychiatrist relates what he has found from a long investigation into what sometimes happens to those at the point of death. Bruce Greyson, now a professor emeritus in psychiatry at the University of Virginia, tells an interviewer how, a month into his psychiatric training, in the 1960s, he had been “confronted by a patient who claimed to have left her body” while unconscious on a hospital bed, and who later provided an accurate description of events that had taken place “in a different room”.

 This made no sense to him. “I was raised in a scientific household,” he says. “My father was a chemist. Growing up, the physical world was all there was.” 

“It was a common phenomenon.” He became fascinated by the qualities of the episodes and the questions they raised, including perhaps the biggest of all: what actually happens when we die? “I plunged in,” he says. “And here I am, 50 years later, [still] trying to understand.”

Over the years, he has collected hundreds of near-death experiences, he says, either from people who, aware of his research, have volunteered their stories, or from patients who happened to have episodes in hospital. 

Of those patients he interviewed, about one in five had had an experience. His book is titled After, and it contains accounts of many experiences. "Most episodes involve  feelings of wonder, mental clarity and bliss, Greyson says."

His interviewer draws from him information on what makes this kind of experience so fascinating. This is whether there is evidence of a "transphysical" or "transcendent" element beyond the physical brain.

When I ask Greyson why he decided to publish After now, after all these years, he explains that “we had to wait until we had enough knowledge about near-death experiences to be able to understand what was going on,” by which he means not that we know what NDEs are, but that advances in science have allowed us to rule out a heap of things they are not. “There are physiological hypotheses that seem plausible theoretically,” he says, but none have stuck. Are feelgood chemicals, like endorphins, released into the body at the point of peril, creating euphoria? Does the brain become starved of oxygen, prompting real-seeming fantasies? Do various areas of the brain suddenly begin to work in concert to create strange, altered states? Nobody knows for sure. “We keep thinking, ‘Oh it’s got to be this,’” Greyson says. “No, the data doesn’t show that. ‘Oh, this then?’ Well, nope, the data doesn’t show that, either.”

Later in the article:

In After, Greyson writes: “I take seriously the possibility that NDEs may be brought on by physical changes in the brain,” though he also accepts that the mind might be able to function “independent” of it. There have been reports of people experiencing near-death episodes while their brains are inactive, he says, and “yet that’s when they say they have the most vivid experience of their lives.” This doesn’t make sense to him. Partway though our conversation, he asks: “Are these the final moments of consciousness? Or the beginning moments of the afterlife?”

The article provides a sampling of explanations for near-death experiences. Greyson seems to hold that they are more than the product of the brain. The article goes on:

Greyson knows that events in near-death experiences are impossible to corroborate. “We can’t do research on a deity,” he says, drily. But still, he finds it tough to dismiss wackier theories, even if the data isn’t there. When I ask him what his current logical understanding is, he looks resigned. “It seems most likely to me that the mind is somehow separate to the brain,” he says, “and, if that’s true, maybe it can function when the brain dies.” Then he adds, “But if the mind is not there in the brain, where is it? And what is it?”

Further:

To Greyson, the impact near-death experiences have on people’s lives has been his most surprising discovery. “I make a living by trying to help people change their lives,” he says. “It’s not easy to do. But here I’ve found an experience that, sometimes in a matter of seconds, dramatically transforms people’s attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviours.” Often, these changes persist over decades. In most instances, experiencers realise they are no longer afraid to die, which “has a profound impact on how they live their lives”, because “you lose your fear of life as well – you’re not afraid of taking chances.” Greyson sometimes asks people to describe their partners before and after an event, “and they’ll say, ‘Yeah, this isn’t the person I married; this is someone different.’” He adds, “They see a purpose in life they didn’t see before. I don’t know of anything else that powerful.”

The final paragraphs contain telling conclusions about Greyson's insight into the spiritual capacity of the human person:

I ask if Greyson’s research has changed the way he thinks.

“I don’t think it’s changed me in terms of my relationships with other people,” he says, “except it’s made me more accepting, more open to unusual ideas.” As a psychiatrist, he remains “aware of what it means to be psychotic”, but, he says: “I’m more accepting of unusual thoughts that aren’t crazy, and it’s made me much more conscionable with the unknown.

“I grew up without any kind of a spiritual background,” he continues. “And I’m still not sure I understand what spiritual means. I am convinced now, after doing this for 40, 50 years, that there is more to life than just our physical bodies. I recognise that there is a non-physical part of us..."

That recognition can also be derived by the findings of Dr Janice Holden's assessment of 39 near-death experience studies in her Handbook of Near-Death Experiences (2009), where she found that there was a great deal of accuracy (83 per cent of the cases surveyed) in what the patients reported, and this was using strict criteria. In Spitzer's words (2015) commenting on Holden's findings :

It is difficult to believe that this degree of verifiably accurate reporting, which occurred at a time when there was no electrical activity in the cortex, can be attributed to a physical or physiological cause.

In view of this fact, as well as many of the reported incidents reached beyond human capabilities of the patient, it is not unreasonable to conclude that these perceptions (as well as the self-consciousness that accompanied them) existed independently of bodily function and could therefore persist after death.

The publisher provides these endorsements of Greyson, whom it states is "the world's leading expert on near-death experiences":

"Captivating…a major contribution to the study of what happens when we die, and will quickly prove to be a classic in near-death studies." —Raymond Moody, M.D., Ph.D., author of Life After Life.

"Dr. Greyson’s work has the potential to completely change our fractured and confused world, offering insights that may lead to an explanation of the nature of consciousness." —Eben Alexander, M.D., bestselling author of Proof of Heaven.

"A major international book of lasting value." —Alexander Batthyány, Ph.D., professor of Philosophy and Psychology, International Academy of Philosophy, Liechtenstein Director of the Viktor Frankl Institute, author of Mind and Its Place in the World.

After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond. St Martin's Essentials (a Macmillan company) 2021